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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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Euranna
Learned Scribe
USA
219 Posts |
 Posted - 16 Nov 2012 : 01:51:48
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| My husband is the DM (my only gripe is he wants to try other games all the time and I want my character to grow in THIS campaign). But, I assist him as well. I play any PC's that are missing and the occassional NPC as needed. I also help out with character creation, and we do not have any noobs. We have players that can't read the rules (Trip feet in a breastplate/ yeah..no soup for you!), or think they can re-interpret it. So, I help out. :D |
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Yospeck
Acolyte
9 Posts |
Posted - 18 Nov 2012 : 15:03:31
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I'm always the DM, however that isn't my issue, in fact I'm quite surprised by those who do have it listed as their gripe. Being a DM is, in my opinion, the most rewarding experience at the table if you have a good group.
I DID however co-DM a campaign once and the other DM constantly infuriated me. We used a forum to coordinate, and I really was putting in the lions share of the effort trying to pre-plan so we both knew what was happening, but he prefered to wing it a little too much. The thing that always bothered me was that we took turns in Chapters for the main story-arc, and I would have loads of stuff planned out for the direction of the campaign to pre-plan MY chapter, and he would just derail the story all the time. Not the players, the DM derailed the campaign story. Frustrating :) |
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Kyrel
Learned Scribe
151 Posts |
Posted - 18 Nov 2012 : 19:08:12
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In general I'm fairly lucky with regards to the GM's in my circle of friends. If I am to let off the little steam I do have with regards to them, it would be as follows:
A) Fairly good GM in general, but he tends to rely rather heavily on premade modules.
B) Good at providing a living world where you feel like your character and the NPC's have a life. But on the downside he has a tendency to create super NPC's, Mary Sue's, and Deux Ex Machina characters, and the "daily life" stuff has a tendency to overshadow the parts of the game that is normally considdered to be the main focus of the game.
C) Decent GM, but the guy prefers to run everything off the top of his head, and he has a love of "Good" campaigns and classical dungeon crawling. Also, when we're playing in the FR setting, he rarely reads up on the various sites very much, prefering to make up stuff on his own, rather than use an established setting. For an "immersionist" like myself who has on occassion "burried" myself in various Realmslore, this is bloody annoying. Especially when I believe that we could get something at least as cool out of using established sites, as the stuff he's making up. One thing is some of the more esoteric stuff, another thing is messing with stuff that has page after page worth of established lore. I realise why he's doing it, but it just annoys me. If he could paint a vision of the world that was as living and connected as the established Realmslore, then so be it. But he can't. I love playing in the Realms setting, but to be honest, I would rather have this particular GM to run a setting of his own devising. As a final thing, GM C is probably rather a lot more focused on mechanical game balance than me, an issue that admittingly leads to some annoyance for me, as there are a number of rules issues that I find somewhat annoying in 3.5, but which he views differently. Not so much because he disagrees with me, but more because he doesn't enjoy to fiddle with the rules.
D) Pretty good GM once again, but some of his views and mine just clash a bit when it comes to PC's being of different level. In his game, PC's only gain XP when the player is present (not always possible given our age and life's tendency to interfere with our games on occassion). Characters that die and are raised again, loose a level. New characters that are brought into the game are started off at a lower level than the rest of the group. The end result is that at the present we have a group with characters spread out over 4th-7th level, and this in spite, the characters tend to gain XP at the same rate. I'd argue that this was less of an issue back in 2nd. ed., but in 3.5 a difference in levels makes a hell of a difference IMO. Especially when it's this many levels worth of difference. He manages to make it work, but this is something that really bugs me.
E) Good GM who has managed to create a really decent living world, and my only real gripe with him is really that he has elected to mess about with the rules for how our characters gain skillpoints. It works somewhat for now, but eventually I fear that it will lead to problems, as we gain levels. 3.5 is based on the different characters focusing on various areas where they specialize. Adding a random element leads to a more rounded out character, but it also leads to generalists where all have problems with hitting the higher DC's.
All of the above are small gripes, and to some extend a result of a difference in "style" between them and I. And I feel quite fortunate to have all of these GM's and no greater problems with them than the ones listed here. |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
Posted - 21 Nov 2012 : 23:24:53
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| Yospeck, I'd agree with being DM being more rewarding- MOST of the time. However, when it's the ONLY role you get to play at the table, it can sometimes get old. Once in a while, it's nice to just relinquish the DM's chair and just play. Unfortunately, as the only real experienced DM in my groups, I rarely get to do that. And some players can make the job tedious to the point that it is no longer even fun. That's my only real gripe. The players I mentioned earlier are some of the worst examples. The one who has PC ADD(changes PC's on a whim) or the one who was fond of fudging his character's abilities (caught him using spells that were NOT on his class list), players who want to use races with extremely high LA's that don't really even fit the campaign (chain devils??!), and one who would sometimes lie about die-rolls, not to mention trying to make her character into a bizarre "look at me" attention hog. Things like this can make being the DM more of a headache than it's worth. |
The Goddess is alive, and magic is afoot.
"Where Science ends, Magic begins" -Spiral, Uncanny X-Men #491
"You idiots! You've captured their STUNT doubles!" -Spaceballs
Lothir's character background/stats: http://forum.candlekeep.com/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=5469
My stories:
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Lothir, courtesy of Sylinde (Deviant Art)/Luaxena (Chosen of Eilistraee)
http://sylinde.deviantart.com/#/d2z6e4u |
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Caladan Brood
Senior Scribe
Norway
410 Posts |
Posted - 27 Feb 2013 : 20:48:52
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Reading this thread one could wonder if any good DMs exist at all ^^ That said my gripe is that I always am the DM but at the same time I have a feeling it is best that way. From past experience I'd say I don't like DMs who have an aversion to saying «Yes»
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Gripe about your DM
