When DMs are actually good.

[Saltarius]

We have had countless threads everywhere there can be about DMs pulling bullshit on the campaign, invincible villains, horrid DMPC, etc. But what about GOOD DMs? Like, he brings out an amazing plot twist, or he adapts unbelievably well when you chuck your halfling teamate at the big bad.

My DM kept sheets with little cliffnotes of our character backstories for us all, a sort of formality and something we can reference back on. Then I noticed something. He whited out certain sections of it, as if it was a spoiler page. I just sort of held the page in my hand and looked at him like, you clever bastard. He did it with all our sheets btw.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

The thing is, no one really remembers a campaign going well. If it did, awesome. No hitches, we all had fun, and that min/maxing asshole we all hate closed his mouth long enough for everyone to take their turns during the fight against the bad guy. You only really remember when shit hits the fan, like that same min/maxing asshole complaining about the DM "unfairly" putting the party in a situation where his Raptoran Rogue/Master Thrower/Swordsage/Invisible Blade/Stormtalon couldn't be used to it's fullest capabilities, all because he thinks being Chaotic Good means he's allowed to start a bar fight without consequences. THAT'S the stuff people remember, not a DM expertly handling the party fucking up what was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting with bandits because SOMEONE just happens to be racist against Orcs.

 

[RJ 17]

I was usually the DM for my friends...
1: Because even back then I was the best writer in my circle of friends and
2: They loved my style of "The DM Giveth, and the DM Taketh Away."

There was a reoccurring character in my campaigns, some unknown deity that was fully capable of shapeshifting, but for whatever reason always prefered to appear in the form of a happy little fluffy white baby seal. Now the first time he appeared, he showed how truly powerful he was by vaporizing the first fool that tried to attack him. The player was reincarnated as a lilliputian and remained that way until the end of the campaign, at which point he returned to his normal size.

Future attempts to attack the seal were met with insta-deaths...but that's because you're not supposed to attack him. You're supposed to let him flop around and make cute noises and enjoy himself as he does random things. Sooner or later he'll cough up some kind of 4th-wall-breakingly named loot that was quite good (Sword of Infinite Buttsecks, for example...I forget the stats I put on it but it was quite game-breakingly ridiculous).

What's the flip-side of such generosity? Well I apply to Tyco's (Penny-Arcade) brand of DM deviousness...inescapable traps and situations that lead to insta-deaths.

For instance, our heroes hear a rumor about some ancient temple deep inside a cave that houses a magical chalice that will grant immortality if you drink from it, but just like the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones, it cannot be removed from the temple. Lured in by the prospect of such an artifact, the party sought out the cave. After fighting their way through hordes of zombies, vampires, and skeletons, the party arrived at the temple and were quite surprised to find that the temple itself was utterly devoid of monsters. This should have been their first hint that this was a baaaaaaad idea. But greed for life unending pushed them to the central chamber where, on a dais bathed in a golden light, rested the legendary chalice. The ancient elven script on the pedestal read simply "Any that drink from this chalice shall have existence unending." Fair enough, they filled the chalice with water from a nearby fountain and they all took a sip. A few moments later, they were all turned to ash.

You see, the immortality that the chalice grants is to turn the drinker into an undead...the temple the chalice was housed in had been sanctified and consecrated by a powerful holy aura...an aura powerful enough to reduce any undead caught within it to a pile of ash. This is why the vampires, zombies, and skeletons in the cave were not also in the temple.

>:3 yeah...that one kinda pissed them off.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

-snip-

While having a backfiring magical artifact seems perfectly in the spirit of D&D and would make for a pretty fun end to a campaign, I think I would get pretty fed up with a DM who went out of their way to be an ass to the players. My friend who DMs for us likes using traps and stuff, but we eventually had to ask him to cool it when we had an entire session that was literally nothing but Save Rolls for 3 hours. Sure, you'd expect traps in a dungeon, but throw some monsters around, goddamn.

When I did a few campaigns, I had twists that would end with something like what was seemingly a simple kidnap negotiation in a fight with a Blue Dragon that had secretly taken over the missing person's businesses and all the workers were none the wiser about it. It was fun to have everyone talking like "sure is weird how everyone is just sort of working when the boss is supposedly missing" and the whole operation is running like it's business as usual. Then BOOM, Blue Dragon.

 

[RJ 17]

-snip-

While having a backfiring magical artifact seems perfectly in the spirit of D&D and would make for a pretty fun end to a campaign, I think I would get pretty fed up with a DM who went out of their way to be an ass to the players. My friend who DMs for us likes using traps and stuff, but we eventually had to ask him to cool it when we had an entire session that was literally nothing but Save Rolls for 3 hours. Sure, you'd expect traps in a dungeon, but throw some monsters around, goddamn.

When I did a few campaigns, I had twists that would end with something like what was seemingly a simple kidnap negotiation in a fight with a Blue Dragon that had secretly taken over the missing person's businesses and all the workers were none the wiser about it. It was fun to have everyone talking like "sure is weird how everyone is just sort of working when the boss is supposedly missing" and the whole operation is running like it's business as usual. Then BOOM, Blue Dragon.

As I said, my motto was "The DM Giveth, and the DM Taketh Away".

Summoners could learn a random summon spell that just, as the name implies, summons a random monster. On very rare occassions, the baby seal would pop out. It was kinda like Odin from Final Fantasy in that if he ever showed up it was an instant win. This worked even against bosses. All exp and loot were gathered. And like I said, the baby seal would give out amazing gifts when he showed up (as long as you didn't try to beat him up). And the temple was a side-quest they didn't have to take. There were various hints that they were walking into a trap, but greed propelled them onwards and thus they met their fate.

But yeah, a 3 hour dungeon-o-traps sounds pretty lame, can't say I ever did something like that.

 

[Fappy]

The thing is, no one really remembers a campaign going well. If it did, awesome. No hitches, we all had fun, and that min/maxing asshole we all hate closed his mouth long enough for everyone to take their turns during the fight against the bad guy. You only really remember when shit hits the fan, like that same min/maxing asshole complaining about the DM "unfairly" putting the party in a situation where his Raptoran Rogue/Master Thrower/Swordsage/Invisible Blade/Stormtalon couldn't be used to it's fullest capabilities, all because he thinks being Chaotic Good means he's allowed to start a bar fight without consequences. THAT'S the stuff people remember, not a DM expertly handling the party fucking up what was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting with bandits because SOMEONE just happens to be racist against Orcs.

I don't know. My main group has had plenty of good games and we usually talk about awesome moments as opposed to shitty ones.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

-snip-

While having a backfiring magical artifact seems perfectly in the spirit of D&D and would make for a pretty fun end to a campaign, I think I would get pretty fed up with a DM who went out of their way to be an ass to the players. My friend who DMs for us likes using traps and stuff, but we eventually had to ask him to cool it when we had an entire session that was literally nothing but Save Rolls for 3 hours. Sure, you'd expect traps in a dungeon, but throw some monsters around, goddamn.

When I did a few campaigns, I had twists that would end with something like what was seemingly a simple kidnap negotiation in a fight with a Blue Dragon that had secretly taken over the missing person's businesses and all the workers were none the wiser about it. It was fun to have everyone talking like "sure is weird how everyone is just sort of working when the boss is supposedly missing" and the whole operation is running like it's business as usual. Then BOOM, Blue Dragon.

As I said, my motto was "The DM Giveth, and the DM Taketh Away".

Summoners could learn a random summon spell that just, as the name implies, summons a random monster. On very rare occassions, the baby seal would pop out. It was kinda like Odin from Final Fantasy in that if he ever showed up it was an instant win. This worked even against bosses. All exp and loot were gathered. And like I said, the baby seal would give out amazing gifts when he showed up (as long as you didn't try to beat him up). And the temple was a side-quest they didn't have to take. There were various hints that they were walking into a trap, but greed propelled them onwards and thus they met their fate.

But yeah, a 3 hour dungeon-o-traps sounds pretty lame, can't say I ever did something like that.

They weren't even good traps. It was literally rolling a Reflex Save to avoid what he called "Rake Traps", which are exactly what you think they are. I would love to be in a campaign where the Chalice of Totally Awesome Immortality turned you undead. It sounds pretty cleaver, and being a Cleric, I would dig a campaign of undead.

Having occasional "fuck yous" would be alright. Would inject some humor into a campaign.

 

[FalloutJack]

A good GM? (These terms are interchangeable, of course.) Yeah, they exist.

I would like to take this time to celebrate the good times of my friend, Phil, who is a Star Wars fan and VERY GOOD at running a roleplay of that world. To compare: Think of treating Star Wars as Firefly and you get the general idea. There is a plot and there is even wartime and very serious moments...but not ALL of them are. And some of them are VERY COOL.

While I'm at it, I'll point out that my GMs for Rogue Trader and Changeling: The Lost were also hella-good and we all had a fun time of it.