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Help Me Write A DungeonCraft Video! The topic is... (Patreon)

Published:
2023-11-14 01:32:51
Imported:
2026-06

Content

..."When the GM is THAT Guy." Remember my "That Guy" video about Tiberius Stormwind? Well, a LOT of people have been asking me to do a "That Guy" GM video. So what is the most "That Guy" behavior you've ever experienced from a GM? Let me know and I will make a reaction video. All tiers are invited to participate. Go! 

--PDM

Comments

Alexander Stanton

Gm steamrolling all character agency for their precious story. Having crazy powerful NPCs that always rescue PCs stealing even more agency away.

Bagel-Man

Excited to watch this video when it comes out, I’ll post a list of things once I’m home lol.

Bryan Stephens

GM moved a Sea Encounter to an overland Mountain Lake after the Group cleverly bypassed it.

Ron F.

About 23 years ago I had a GM who was combative and chauvinistic. He didn't last long in the group. Unfortunately he ghosted us after borrowing some of my books to plan for the next session!

Chuck Thorin

Oh I have stories. The Railroad DM: My paladin discovers that the magic sword is evil. I try to throw into a lake of lava but some how "miss" a lake while in a magic boat in the middle of said lake. Read My Mind DM: Why didn't you stop the bad guys? Because we didn't who they were. What their plan was or that they even existed. "I made a custom home brew class for my girlfriend" DM: Title says it all. Note two of the above were the same DM.

Matthew

The GM who doesn't know what the characters have then does something petty once he realizes. I played a wizard with stoneskin 2nd ed rules and was ticked when his attacks had absolutely no effect. Not long after, suddenly rocks fell from the ceiling and hit my Wizard's head, knocking off the remaining stoneskins. I got up and left the table.

MrGunn

PDM, I have several stories. Here is one, I played D&D with a GM who gave NO clues as to what the objective of the campaign was for. I tried everything I could think of to advance the plot line. He said no to literally everything my character investigated or tried to do. I even started giving him adventure hooks to get something moving, to no avail. Finally, I asked straight up what he expected my character to do as I had tried everything I could think of, he simply smirked and said: ‘You need to figure it out.’ I did not go to another session after that. F’ that guy GM for taking several hours of my life and delivering nothing but excruciating frustration and boredom.

Clint Sharp

The GM that isn't interested in telling a story with their players. When your character is basically a spectator in a GM's novel it's not an enjoyable experience.

MrGunn

PDM, a story of where I was ‘that guy’ GM. The hook was the PCs were searching for a sacred lost religious tome, that would give them insight on where to find the greatest treasure. In the name of ‘realism’ I forced the PCs to negotiate and hire henchman to excavate the site, and buy tools and mules. When they dug up the site, was there a dungeon entrance uncovered and cool dungeon to explore, no, were their traps and puzzles to solve, no, did they find the tome, yes, did it provide any advantage or boon or have monetary value or clerical spells, no. Nope, the tome was not even a book, it was a mirror and implied the greatest treasure was to be found within. Seventeen year old me was certain I was being so clever. Unsurprisingly my campaign broke up shortly afterwards. I was that guy GM. The shame…😥

Timothy Till

The DM that purposefully gives bad advice to the players then punishes them for taking it. The DM that builds every encounter to be deadly then refuses to let the party recover. The DM that thinks sets you in a freezing climate, gives you no chance to get gear, then purposefully makes you fatigued and dying in the cold. The DM that thinks his job is to kill the party instead of challenging them. The DM that thinks their story is great and makes no effort to tie the characters to it, then gets pissy when no one cares.

Michael Butcher

The GM who gives npcs unrealistic and stilted dialogue, as if they're characters in a badly written novel. It's okay to have characters speak plainly.

Walter

Along the same theme, antagonistic GMs are the worst. I have the idea of being taunted by the GM when I may not be doing well in a particular encounter. The GM should never be an opponent!

Jay, Dr Fugue

To me it’s the GM that thinks they are a story teller and that the players are supposed to do exactly what they needs them to do for their “perfect story” can be “enjoyed”

Daniel Gray Webb

"Really you think the character you made and are playing would do that? No, they wouldn't. Your character actually does this and I am going to roll and see what happens to them.". GM

Nygfan

Played with a “That Guy” GM, the entire first session (3hours) he TOLD us what was happening and even when I attempted to have my PC do something and asked what do I roll? He said no worries I’ll roll for you 🙄 First and last session for me

Bagel-Man
>>122139912

These are all things either I have done over the many years I’ve been DMing or something I’ve seen other DMs do. Please enjoy😅 - Clearly has a favorite player and/ or a least favorite player and will treat the two vastly different. Could be with loot, who the enemies attack, how many attack, how npcs interact with you, etc. - Refusal to let their homebrew villain be killed early on due to their own poor decisions and clever thinking and lucky rolls from the players - Pages upon pages of homebrew rules and/or “lore” that must be read in order to play the game. - Expects the players to host the session at one of their houses. - Gets really upset when someone else tries to GM and the players appear to have more fun when that person GMs. - Tries to hook up with the only girl at the table, and puts her character in nsfw situations. - Their dice seem to always roll 18-20 when behind the screen, and the monster damage is also surprisingly high. - Has a DMPC, and decides to kill a pc so he can make the DMPC look cool - Bans all homebrew content you show them for their game but bitches and complains when their homebrew is rejecting in your game. - Posts to reddit to try to make players look bad (only succeeds in making themselves look bad, and proceeds to get even angrier) - Tries to turn other players against a specific player. - Conveniently forgets rules when it’s time to control the monsters, but becomes a rules lawyer when it’s the players turn. - Flips the table or throws dice at players when things don’t go their way. - Needlessly confusing and elaborate puzzles for something supposed to be trivial and easy. - Gets mad when players point out obviously flaws in how their world and/or rules work. - Gets mad when players call them out for blatantly stealing stuff from other media and not even changing it slightly. (Also gets mad when players easily solve the issue given that they already knew what would happen and how to solve it) - Has the dumbest twists but swears that it’ll redefine storytelling (it doesn’t) - Plans an epic multi year long campaign, makes a player the most important person in the universe, and gets mad when that player has to drop out after session 2. - Asks players for a multi paged backstory for their level one character, and doesn’t even read it. - Suspects players are cheating when they roll well or navigate through and skip a part of a module during play. - Views the game as something to be won. - Every monster or creature regardless of intelligence or circumstances is a master tactician and acts on information they would have no way of knowing. - Tries to run the epic adventure known as the Great Batsby (fails) I could keep going, but I figure this is more than enough.

Fergus Exile

Honestly watch any episode of the r/rpghorrorstories readings and you'll have everything you need. I suggest Crispy's Tavern or CritCrab. Most especially "The Airship" story.

Frederic Schmitt

The GM telling the players that he/she fudged the die rolls so they wouldn't loose.

Trouqe

The interwebs are saturated enough with "That GM" content. Too often they are without context of the GM's side and other players and only sticks to one side of things. I'm frankly over hearing about it. Sure, there are all kinds of GM styles and selfish GMs out there, and I'm sick of hearing about them. It fuels the rage of people and wanting to simply complain about it. Le Sigh...

Skyhammer

That guy who always has the LONGEST turns whether he's playing a complicted Wizard or a simple Barbarian. Doesnt know what to do until its his turn, changes actions 2 or 3 times during the turn, forgets where he moved from and then changes his movement, asks 5 questions about the NPC, the PC position, the environment, the story arc, despite the DM already covering this before combat had begun. Man... that guy.

Christopher Gauci

that DM that thinks rules, as written, are some kind of dogma or gospel.

Jay
>>122139855

Spot on! Exactly the first thoughts that came to mind. This can also be accomplished by removing too much of the so-called "Shoe Leather" glossing over what players want to do to push the GM narrative.

Norbert

That GM who would love, love, LOVE to play his character in the game, but can't because he's the GM... so he plays it anyway, and OF COURSE, that GM PC is better than any player character at everything.

Jay
>>122140740

I would guess this guy was new to GMing? I can't see how he would keep his players if left clueless about what the objectives were and you seemed to exhaust all options while asking for assistance. Perhaps going full murder hobo and killing all NPC's or anything to disrupt the game while encouraging other players to join in may have given the GM a clue. Why would my character do that? Tell the GM to figure it out. At least the mayhem would have been fun while it lasted.

Jay
>>122141524

To be fair, I don't know of anyone who has always been a perfect GM. There is a learning curve as in most things and looking back at our youth I believe most people can recall some cringe worthy moments.

Jay
>>122139912

A well thought out list. Bravo! Yeah, I remember his video on the Great Batsby too. Nice touch. ha ha. :)

Go Sports

The linear GM who can't adapt.

Mike

The GM that has to look up every rule despite screwing up game flow something fierce. Just wing it sometimes is best.

Tuska

The guy that always leaves the main group/party to go another route. Now I have to run 2 games instead of one.

Masterhit

The GM who makes everything a roll, regardless of if the narrative/situation/RP would indicate a sure thing (etc.). This is like tossing an anchor in the story and breaks the flow for me. Dice have a place, I like some randomness, but let's crack on and not roll to determine all the things please!

Graham Kane

Haven’t had too many experiences of “that guy” DMs but the one that sticks with me is the “back seat DM”. I was a player in a game where it was the DMs first time in the chair. We all knew this and we were there to give as much support as we could. However one guy, who kept telling us he had the most experience DMing out of all of us, was particularly obnoxious. He would constantly stop play by actually putting his hand up and saying “sorry, that’s wrong”. This wasn’t only for rules mistakes, he’s do it if he didn’t agree with the lore, or if he thought the DM didn’t describe a scene in enough detail. He’d also roll his eyes at the rest of us if the DM had to stop to flick through their notes. It was excruciating. The back seat DM left the game soon after, basically jumped before he was pushed. It took a long time for the first time DM to get over the experience. There’s also a DM I like to call “The Screamer.” I don’t play in his game but this guy talks incredibly loud when he’s DMing. I mean “Brennan Lee Mulligan on crack loud”! Gets to the stage where other tables and then the store owner have to tell him to tone it down.

MrGunn
>>122171013

@Christopher Gauci Blasphemy you have made a house rule or fudged it! How dare you go against the holy AD&D Player’s Handbook written by our beloved and infallible prophet: Gygax the Law Bringer! 🙊🙉🙈🤣🤣🤣

Daniel Defazio
>>122167742

Well, my patrons keep asking me for it BUT I think I'll do something new and interesting. I am open to suggestions on the type of content you'd like to see.

MrGunn
>>122169124

@skyhammer Like the guy who spent 10 minutes in line ahead of you at McDonalds and then can’t decide what to order. DUDE! The menu never changes…

MrGunn
>>122140740

@Jay No objectives given, no point to the endless tedious social encounters, no clues, I was not sure why I was even playing. Nope, murder hoboing would have simply resulted in a quick death like attacking city guards in a computer game.

jnlsn family

How about telling the story from the perspective of a well meaning GM that evolves but each evolutionary step has a pitfall where you become "that guy" again and again with each iteration of your GM self. And then you could do a freezeframe and show an alternative to avoiding that pitfall?

Darby Wilson

GMs that will give you zero information if you have bad dice rolls. Like, I’ve tried 3 different approaches. Throw me a bone and give me something so the game can continue!

Jared Davis

I was “that guy” as a DM during a Dragonlance campaign. I made the mistake of railroading my players into outcomes for the story’s sake instead of presenting scenarios of conflict and letting them choose and roll for them. I was too emotionally invested in sticking to the source material of the novels from my teen years. Lesson learned!

Drew Martin

I had a DM I guess he didn’t like me much. Every item I touched was cursed, I was the first target in every attack. If someone was going to get charmed, spring a trap, hit with lightning it was always me. Everyone had original characters a year in. I was on my fifth. For context the table was me, his best friend, a girl he had an obvious crush on and her husband. It was the 90s and my only chance to roll dice so I just gritted my teeth. At one point I made a secret pack with the young lady and she handled all the magic items for two weeks, before saying hey you should have this. I suddenly stopped getting cursed items.

Thorne Tanaka

My "that Guy" DM was the DM vs. Players. I was playing an invisible blade (from 3.5) duel dagger wielding rouge. As you can guess, sneak attack was my friend. Because I was doing "too much" damage, the only enemies we faced were undead (no sneak attack). Yeah, that was fun. This is also the DM that had the entire party scrounging for enough coin to buy food. We didn't mind, it was actually a fun challenge, until the Thieves' Guild had a allergic reaction to the soup we were selling, so no one would buy anything from us after that. Yeah, were' done with that!

Damien Cullen

The DM that gets real excited for 6 weeks then ADD and wants to switch to a new campaign and system. Another. Does gradually less and less prep because they are just “that good” at cooking improv when in fact they’re lazy, and the sessions become crappier and crappier even though they refuse to cancel the campaign or prep more.

MrGunn
>>122395761

@Jared Davis Admitting we have a problem is the first step to recovery. See my shame above. LOL

Todd Sharp

One of the first con games I ran; I was at a stage in my career where I was intending to recreate the early days of gaming when players could have large numbers of hirelings and things ran more like an organized expeditionary force. a) I learned that was WAY too much for a con game intended as a dungeon crawl and not a miniature skirmish game. b) AD&D combat is a grind to get through for that style of game. It taught me a lesson in adjusting your game to the audience and the time that you have.