BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Role Playing Games Tell Us Your Worst GM Story

I don't think any of my players are on the forum yet, so I'm probably safe asking for "worst GM" stories. Tell us about the GMs who were so awful that they made you want to see how much damage a sharpened pencil really would do.

I've been lucky to not have any really awful GMs, and the worst of the ones I've had have been at conventions. I can only imagine having a bad GM that I had to play with regularly!

One GM at a convention lured players in with the promise of a particular setting, and then violated just about every expectation players had. It'd be like asking players to create characters for a courtroom drama, and then having the courtroom invaded by aliens at the start of the trial. As long as you knew in advance you were going to be playing an alien invasion scenario, that'd be cool. But bait and switch isn't cool.

The worst thing is, I don't even think the GM understood what he was doing.

So what are your worst GM stories?

OK as of now my players are officially Banned from this topic. Period.-

Oh man, we had one DM who was notorious for having a god complex. Namely, one of his favorite characters who he munchkin'd up to be the most powerful THING in all existence. I thought I had never met this persona in game, but was corrected by another player. "Oh no, you've met Morley. Morley is the trees, the magic, the freakin' WORLD. Your character is actually Morley doing some crazy Morley magic that fools himself into thinking it's your character." Apparently Morley is even more annoying than Elminster in the Forgotten Realms setting. :P This DM also loved tossing us players nice magic items, then getting mad that we USED said items and would arbitrarily have them destroyed. Quite frustrating. Also, since he didn't know how to keep things entertaining at low levels, he'd toss so much stuff at us in one game that I think my character actually skipped two levels. >_< (he wanted us high level faster apparently). There's so many stories I could go on for days and keep remembering new things. :P

Call of Cthulu Modern setting.

We did something the DM didn't expect because my character somehow ended up in charge of the party (I have no idea how other than she, apparently, was the only one who knew how to use a computer). So, we ended up driving around this abandoned asylum and finding nothing because we never went into the building that we were "supposed" to go into. I never figured that one out. I played my character and she saw the building that looked so much creepier than the others and said, "Yeah...not there." Everyone else just listened. The DM was so frustrated, she called the game and complained how I'd ruined it.

Now that is a god complex!



Yeah, Call of Cthulhu can be tricky that way. You can't really expect characters to do something stupid right off that bat (at least not until insanity sets in). I like to isolate characters pretty much from the start to limit their options (on an island without a boat, in a remote house during a storm, etc).

Ok here is one, that really made me realize exactly how sort a lease i should keep on my players. I had been gathering l5r rpg books for about 4-5 months when i found some guys out of town, that were playing and convinced them to join in. Their GM had a strange view of the setting. To be more accurate he knew very little about the game. I ended up dominating the party and the story because my knowledge of the game far outmatched his. The story ended up with me from being a lowly ronin to turning into the story's villain- the GM had thought of no "villains" or "nemesis" for the story we were to play, he just gathered a group of samurai from every clan and me- the ronin- gave us a wedding gift and told us we were to present said gift to implied wedding.. Then while we were making our way through the forest next to the castle that the wedding was taking place he rolled on random encounter and we ended up with a fox spirit -a kitsune- stealing the gift....We spent 3, yes 3 sessions trying to get the gift back because the GM would not allow me to track the fox spirit using hunting...For obvious reasons i end up being accused by the other samurai of stealing the gift for myself, they wanted to save face to the newly weds. After being hunted for some sessions - and having just acquired the "bearers of jade" sourcebook - i call to the powers of FuFu ( yes that would be the nickname for Fu Leng from villains topic ) and end up with power. Not power POWER, because my GM did not know what i was doing and how strong an opposition i would present. I killed the party of 7 player characters and 6 major nps... I had fun the rest.. well the rest don't want to know me but they ditched said GM

It's funny but I've played RPGs since I was very little and never really ran into an awful GM. They all did their best and we had a lot of fun. I usually play with very tolerant players though

Most GMs do want their players to enjoy themselves, and try to do their best. The worst I've ever gotten from a regular GM was a bit of railroading when I tried doing something that didn't fit into the plot.

But it's fun to hear about the ones who are more...interesting than that.