GM Red Flags Thread

>the game is an open world sandbox where you have to make 'your own fun'

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The game is set in their "homebrew setting"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >playing on a per-purchased railroad is good

      People complain about Stranger Things or Matt Mercer ruining RPGs, but I will always blame DragonLance.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >goes on for hours and hours about his unique cool setting
        >it plays just like every dnd game does

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If it plays exactly like every dnd game does then why do you care?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            probably the aforementioned hours and hours of introductory material that gets in the way of that play.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              So just don't introduce it as a GM then, and wait for it to be relevant to the players?
              >You arrive in the village of Sneedville, the Headsman is John Smith and has asked for your help with stopping caravan robberies
              >"Oh, where is Sneedville?"
              >It's in the Misted Vale, a region of forested hills north of Freiburg, where you normally work
              >"Should we know anything about John Smith?"
              >Not specifically, but you would already know that the Headsmen of the Misted Vale pay taxes to Baron Peter Johnson, and that Sneedville has been paying extra tax since it opted not to contribute their third sons to the regional militia
              >"Huh? why the heck would they have to give up their sons?"
              >Since only the oldest children traditionally inherit property in the Empire, extra sons are usually asked to become members of militias or join the administration. There's usually tension between the peasants over this, because having sons at home makes the harvest easier. Most lords only ask for fourth sons or younger to join the militia, but in times of crisis third sons may be requisitioned as well.
              >"Wait, there's a crisis going on?"
              >The Misted Vale is unstable and tends to be attacked by orcs and ogres, so while there's not an active emergency, the Barons have been asking for third sons for a long time now.
              In a made up setting I've now foreshadowed that the caravan robberies may be bandits but they could also orcs or ogres, that there are tensions between the peasants and nobility over the issue of conscription, and clever players may pick up that because Sneedville is paying extra tax, solving these robberies may be important to keep them from having to contribute their children to the militia. It's enough story to give them a good reason to keep working through the adventure, and I can drip feed in details as it moves along.

              Really, the DM red flag here is "Reads off paragraphs of exposition instead of slowly revealing the game world to the players"

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >A dnd games plays exactly like a dnd game
          Idk about the setting, but any setting using DnD rule system is going to play like DnD.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >blaming Dragonlance
        Why?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Kender

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Kender are an absolutely irredeemable monstrosity of a race, I agree, but the rest of Dragonlance is okay for what it is.

            Granted I never read past the Raistlin era stuff. He seemed to be very clearly the glue binding all of the dumb shit together.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Kender are fine if you play them as intended, like wonderstruck kids. If you play them as malicious thieves who deliberately endanger the party then you're doing it wrong. In fact, kender are the ultimate way to out "It's what my character would do" c**ts.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Kender are an absolutely irredeemable monstrosity of a race, I agree, but the rest of Dragonlance is okay for what it is.

          Granted I never read past the Raistlin era stuff. He seemed to be very clearly the glue binding all of the dumb shit together.

          there's this one old adventure path where you play out the story of dragonlance as the pregenned characters, IE the spell-less cleric princess chick, raistlin, the kender frickhead, etc
          it's one where you can't derail in the slightest and have to go along with it 110% or it breaks
          I assume that's what he means

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          It more or less codified super linear "Adventure Paths" instead of actually being Modular content for your home world.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >blaming Dragonlance
        Why?

        [...]
        there's this one old adventure path where you play out the story of dragonlance as the pregenned characters, IE the spell-less cleric princess chick, raistlin, the kender frickhead, etc
        it's one where you can't derail in the slightest and have to go along with it 110% or it breaks
        I assume that's what he means

        Which is a pity because there was a lot of great potential that got squandered, if it had "allowed" a more free style of play.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/WKCb2oI.jpg

      >the game is an open world sandbox where you have to make 'your own fun'

      >railroad good
      t. No imagination homosexual

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think you get it, any game advertised as homebrew or sandbox turn out to be railroaded as fuuuuck!
        Homebrews are always some dumb, inane tweaks to make the DMs favorite class stronger and all the players weaker, so his DMPC gets to do bullshit, while sandboxes are either set dressing for the DMs anal-bead plotline, where the map is so massive due to the DM overdoing the scope that the players never get time to explore any region, or randomly generated garbage the DM decided needed to be more garbage by shrinking the d100 roll into a d20 roll, and changing all of the non-combat encounters into dragons for some fricking reason.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >always
          You guys really haven't played many games on /tg/ here, have you.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >open world bad
          >you are a no imagination NPC
          >no open world games are actually railroady not the other way around
          Delusional and mind broken

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >their

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The game is set in there "homebrew setting"
        >The game is set in they're "homebrew setting"

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I think he's having a pissbaby fit over singular their because he's a fricking moron.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            wow how do you know who you're referring to is a he?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              it's the internet, GIRL applies

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >>The game is set in there "homebrew setting"
          Man, I joined a D&D game where someone had a massive 100+ page Homebrew Setting bible about their world. If you wanted to do anything that didn't match with their world it was a no, Im fine with that the problem is that he wrote everything about his world so making a character was either read his bible or make a simple fighter. It sucked

          Don't get "My Setting" syndrome. Make the game fun and not actual homework

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >ESL player or GM
        See

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The game is set in there "homebrew setting"
        >The game is set in they're "homebrew setting"

        I think he's having a pissbaby fit over singular their because he's a fricking moron.

        wow how do you know who you're referring to is a he?

        it's the internet, GIRL applies

        The singular "their" originally did not imply a neutral gender, but rather an ambiguous person. Even in a group of males, you would use "he" to refer to a specific person but "they" to refer when it isn't clear who you are referring to or you're trying to make a general statement about a group.

        Examples:
        >as far as GM's go, he was the worst. he never worldbuilt, he just used the basic forgotten realms setting, he just let his players do whatever funny noises they wanted to make.
        vs
        >as far as GM"s go, they are the worst. they never worldbuild, they just use the basic forgotten realms setting, they just let their plays do whatever funny noises they want to make.

        One is talking about a specific GM. The other is making a statement about a certain kind of gm. In this case i just randomly used Forgotten Realms for the latter example. Gender never enters into the latter.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        even though you're wrong semantically over what you're getting mad at, you're also incredibly moronic and don't understand the english language

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >main circuit breaker
        Not sure what you're trying to say there, friend.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      One of the best games I’ve ever been in was a pure homebrew setting

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >create a homebrew setting
      >players never ask any questions about anything other than how much loot they got so all my info goes to waste
      Time well spent fleshing out the story.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >There's a 'game'

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >"I'll be playing a character too"
    Also
    >"My girlfriend is going to be joining the game, she's playing a half drow-dragon-tiefling-ogre"

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    BLACK FLAG ALERT LEAVE IMMEDIATELY OR DON'T GO ANYWHERE NEAR
    >GMPC
    >Tranime Avatar
    >Pathfinder
    >Pronouns
    Red Flags
    >Discord
    >Furry Avatar
    >Reference to any show or movie
    >Any version of D&D past AD&D 2e
    Green Flags
    >Rifts
    >GURPS

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >PF worse than DnD 3/4/5
      I have not played tabletop RPG for many years now, but back in the day my experience was that PF audience was literally the same as DnD 3.5 audience?
      Do you disagree or has that changed?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No, now pathtrannies are full moronic and dndgays are just shallow badgame losers like they've always been

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >now pathtrannies are full moronic
          Why don't you like Pathfinder? Genuine question.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            He's a moronic who doesn't play games and bases all of his opinions on shitposts he reads here

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous.

      >GMPC.
      Excusable if there are only two players.
      If you have a long term npc with a competitive statblock, that's a GMPC. Stop trying to cope with excuses.
      >Tranime avatar.
      Neutral.
      >Pathfinder.
      I'm sure you can find fun games there anon.
      >Pronouns.
      Objectively not true. A good number of trannies are also grognards by nature. Objectively speaking, the best game I've played in (longest running without major red flags, good player involvement balance, serious tone, not filled with CR references, with the least problems in players or play, and the most classic fantasy memorable moments) was run by a transexual.

      >Discord.
      How else do you play online? Discord and Roll20, It's just easier.
      >Furry avatar.
      Objectively true.
      >Reference to any show or movie.
      Also objectively true, if in character or setting.
      >Any version of DnD past ADnD 2e.
      Boring.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        ywnbaw

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Excusable if there are only two players.
        GMPC or DMPCs are never excusable. Just you NPCs, there's no reason for the GM to have a "Player Character"
        The only concievable reason I could see is if you're rotating GMs but keeping the same campaign for some reason. And even then they should probably just hang out guarding the camp and ding background stuff, not participating in the adventure.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Excusable if there are only two players.
        Not going to lie, running a session with only 2 players is not even a problem unless you are playing a combat focused game

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >running a session with only 2 players is not even a problem unless you are playing a combat focused game
          Even if you're running a combat-fo used game, it's not hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's even easier since you can do challenging encounters with reasonable and believable numbers of enemies.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Nice bait, but you might want to tone it down. Nobody has opinions this shit.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >A good number of trannies are also grognards by nature.
        I guess it just makes sense they'd be good at pretending to be things that they are not

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >anime avatar worse than furry avatar

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        troony anime is worse than fur. Fur is worse than anime. Don't pick a pretty anime girl for your nasty voice, pick an ugly anime man.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Stop trying to make "tranime" a thing. It's never going to be a thing.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Honestly I keep reading it as a shorthand for traditional anime like real old shit.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        t. tranime

        troony anime is worse than fur. Fur is worse than anime. Don't pick a pretty anime girl for your nasty voice, pick an ugly anime man.

        No, that guy was right, nothing is worse than dogfrickers.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >seething
        Looks like Its happening

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >It's never going to be a thing.
        not with that attitude

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Is Tranime the new milhouse?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      i agree with all of these except for >rifts

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Tranime
      Do newbies really?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        troony.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >This game will have mature themes
    >Nothing is off the table

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Agreed. I don't wanna play a game with your shitty rape fantasy.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >talks about his "story"
    Usually just a sign that players don't get to make choices and just follow the orders of some authority figure or chuuni-ass edgelord role model.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >not being grateful for the opportunity to be a mustard smuggler

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      a fellow tao fan

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >women NPCs aren't busty and sexy who are at least 7/10

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >won't vividly describe you having sex with female NPCs
      >won't play porn moans while describing it
      >won't jerk you off under the table to immerse you in the roleplay
      >"cuts to black" instead

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Truly the most alarming red flags I have ever encountered. I took my drum of lube and went home at once

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >doesnt bait on /tg/
    how can he even GM?

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >They post on social media about "the social contract" as though it's the same across different groups and doesn't need to be negotiated in any way.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >They post on social media about "the social contract" as though autistic people don't exist

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Sounds to me like turning unspoken social norms into overt text is exactly how you integrate autistic people into your social environment

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Sure. Autistic people are another reason to make it clear. But even between the non-autists I've gamed with, there are still big variations in what sorts of content are considered acceptable: some of them groups actively encouraged PvP for "drama"; some are good with torture scenes others want fade to black others want them not even implied; some groups are good with rules discussions while others the gm has a meltdown if a player points out the gm is getting a rule wrong and it's gimping their character, and those are just some big ones off the top of my head. There is no "THE" social contract. It's different at every table. Are there some commonalities? Yes, the regular houseguest stuff. Take off your shoes. Wear deodorant. Shower. Etc. But the gaming specific expectations vary a lot.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Autistic people shouldn't exist. I hope pro-lifegays are prepared for the wave of millions of autists and downies coming down the pipe in 18 years.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          How dare we disproportionately advance science and technology and philosophy. All you NTs care about is fricking and hoarding shekels and obsessing about social hierarchies.

          I'd much rather have a table with multiple autists. People who want to do something meaningful with their lives rather than waste them on pointless dick waving contests will make much better players, friends, and people.

          Get fricked.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >They post on social media

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Real answer: houseruling in critical fumbles.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Crit fumbles are gay as frick
      I have a 5% chance everytime I attack at any level to crit one of my allies and potentially Lose the encounter because of it?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        NOOOOOO YOU HAVE TO HOLD MY HAND NOT LET MY HECKIN SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE CHARACTERINO SURVIVE

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Fix for crit fumbles. If you roll a 1, roll again - if you succeed, you fail gracefully, if you don't, then you crit fail. If you are poorly skilled, then the followup roll will be difficult, and if well skilled, you are far less likely to crit fail, just normal fail.

        I prefer dice pool systems overall (d6 Star Wars, WoD even if the rules are slop), or something like HeroQuest (the one by Robin Laws). But if you gotta play D20, you gotta do what you gotta do.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Furry
    Pronouns
    Anime pfp (i like anime but anime pfps are the utmost morons)
    GMPC that carries plot
    ERP(gross)

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >X Card
    >Lines and veils
    >any mention of “safety tools” what so ever

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I hate homebrews. Wowie zowie, I bet you think you're gonna be the next Tolkien. Bet it's full of dwarves, elves and orcs.
    I hate modules. Overproduced "Choose Your Own Adventure" for c**ts without an ounce of originality. Might as well play Train Simulator for all that railroading.
    I hate sandboxes. Aimless desolate nothing full of shit. I just met these fricking guys and you expect us to magically build the plot for you, lazy ass GM?
    I hate face-to-face games. Hope you like to reschedule because of the weather, your c**t of a wife or someone's b***h.
    I hate Discord games. Bunch of weirdos that refuse to turn their cameras on while proudly displaying the latest e-girl doujin in their profiles. Fricking creeps.
    I hate roll20 games. Unoptimized, laggy, shit for anything that isn't 5e, Pathfricker and all that mainstream crap.
    I hate Foundry. "Bro just give me a whole month to set up the map! Just wait for the link!" Nice waste of money, dumbo.
    I hate play-by-posts. It's like reading a book written by a man with schizophrenia.
    I hate forum games. It ain't 2000's, man. Newsground isn't relevant anymore, Badger is a dead meme, you gotta let it go.
    I hate mature games. Uh-oh someone saw Game of Thrones and wants to choke on mud and cum! Chill brother.
    I hate edgeless games. "T-there are n-no b-brothels in this town!" Wussie. Bet you faint when you see blood, pissbaby.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Is there anything you don't hate, Francis?

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >overweight
    >too lose/tight clothing
    >bad hygiene
    >unkept hair and facial hair
    >bad posture
    >no/low eye contact
    >bad manners
    >asian nickname in any social media
    >anime profile picture in any social media
    >talks about politics in totally unrelated contexts
    >talks about religion in totally unrelated contexts
    >normally keeps phone in hand or over the table when in company of other
    >no non-nerd hobbies
    >valley accent/vocal fry/uptalk
    >bad relationship with his parents and brothers
    >smokes (any kind)
    >drinks non-socially
    >has a truck, drives it single-passenger 90% of the time
    >can't do multiplications and divisions with fractions or decimals with pen and paper
    >uses linux
    >bald+beard+thick glasses combo
    >likes cats but not dogs (both is ok)
    >pays others to do simple fixes in his home
    this is first round filtering

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >likes cats but not dogs (both is ok)
      frick you too

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Japanese nicknames
      Poor Hiro. Why do you hate Japanese people anon? Are you a 70 year old Chinese man?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No you didn't read carefully. He hates all Asian people. Chinese and Korean and Indian and Sri Lankan and Vietnamese, etc. The whole bit.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I like to imagine the Mormon Book Club this guy belongs to playing D and D, it's a hearty chuckle.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >pays others to do simple fixes in his home
      It's just a matter of efficiency.
      Yes, I could take time out of my day to do these things myself. They are typically not hard, just time consuming.
      But that means I have to take time out of my day in order to do them. Time that could be better spent elsewhere.

      So instead, I have a contract with a company that does maintenance on my home. It's cheap, they're able to do their job while I'm at work, and makes it so I don't have to stress about the little things.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        This poster is poor. They will never understand opportunity cost. Which of these is the chicken and which is the egg is a debate for philosophers. Suffice to say they will not understand why I, someone who is perfectly capable of changing my own oil, pay some kid less than minimum wage to do it.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Weirdly almost all the GMs I've played with were overweight, if not obese.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      profile picture in any social media
      I meet every criteria except this one lol

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >touhou
        >anime

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          its animelite which to normalgays is anime

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      cats but not dogs (both is ok)

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >too lose/tight clothing

      Yeah, I see enough of this at my work(IT guy for call center). Lots of guts bursting out of tiny shirts or dudes who think a 3XL long shirt and 90's phat pants make them look thin.

      >smokes (any kind)

      Yep. Stinks worse than shit and they turn into huge gaymasters if go more than an hour without one. I've seen smokoids let doors slam into disabled people and run through alarmed emergency doors in their blind panic to get outside. I don't need that energy in my life.

      >talks about religion in totally unrelated contexts

      All my best GMs/players are religious. Current group is a Catholic bro, Ortho bro, Shia bro, quirky israeli girl, and a weird Slavic pagan dude. All the problem players who powergamed or had body odor etc were atheists.

      >has a truck, drives it single-passenger 90% of the time

      I generally think pretty poorly of people who get some expensive pavement princess. Yeah yeah, knock yourself out if you need it for camping supplies, contracting tools, a horse trailer etc but DIAF if you just use it to go to the office or pick up the kids from school.

      >can't do multiplications and divisions with fractions or decimals with pen and paper

      What do these people even do for a living?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      What's a "non-nerd" hobby?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Sportsball

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        fixing cars
        driving fast
        lawn maintenance
        house repairs
        woodworking
        also this

        Sportsball

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Woodworking
          Oh. I got one, Nice!

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          How is house repair a hobby?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            the same way fixing cars is

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              So it's not a hobby.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                it is, one of the most useful ones even, it teaches you a lot of valuable skills.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                It's not a hobby, it's a skill of necessity. It's very useful to have these skills, but they're not hobbies.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                As I said, it can be a hobby if you do it because you find it fun and fulfilling. There are hobbies with teach you marketable skills or improve some aspect of your life, on the other hand, there are hobbies that just serve as pastimes.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                it's not a hobby if it teaches you a marketable skill or improves your life, it's just work
                the point of a hobby is that you have something to do with your free time that isn't work or sitting on your ass

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You absolutely can do marketable stuff in non-market enviroment (thought if you're good, it starts to bleed into your life).

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                There are plenty of people who engage in small renovation and construction projects around their homes (especially around their summer houses) that they don't especially need and might barely use afterwards. It's definitely not a necessity thing.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Huntin'
        Fishin'
        Spending your paycheck and 3 nights a week at a bar trying to pick up bawds.

        You know. What non-autists do with their time.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Huntin'
          >Fishin'
          >Spending your paycheck and 3 nights a week at a bar trying to pick up bawds
          I would play this RPG

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Sportsball
        Gym (not powerlifting)
        Hunting & fishing
        Cars/motorcycles

        Things like that

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >uses linux
      i was with you until there

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >likes cats but not dogs (both is ok)
      I was going to call you a homosexual, but I'll give you this one. Cat-only people are always annoying.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Someone who likes both cats and dogs is someone who likes animals, someone who likes only cats probably has toxoplasmosis and will never shut up about them.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          exactly

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The most practical difference is that dogs are big and messy and bad to have in an apartment.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            My dog is a 50lb border collie mutt and no less messy than the cats and we live in an apartment. I mean. He sheds more. But he doesn't puke on the floor or kick litter and shit out of the litter box or claw the furniture. I didn't like walking down the apartment building halls with him because sometimes other tenants would spook him and he would growl or bark when he was younger. But if you have your own entrance at ground level like we do now? The dog is *way* less trouble than the cats. And much more trainable.we've been trying to train the cats not to claw the couch for 6 years. A new couch lasts like 6 month before they've clawed it up and made it ugly and like 3 years before it needs to be replaced. Before my wife moved in with cats my couch with the dog lasted the whole time and all I had to worry about was vacuuming the fur off it.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >No less messy
              Frick. No more messy. The cats are way more hassle. The dog is easy now that I have a ground level apartment entrance.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              It works out for you then; I just know a vet, she talked about how most people in apartments with dogs really shouldn't be having them.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You can like dogs without having one yourself so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            cats are annoying as hell, will play with their own shit, tear things up for the hell of it, etc.
            dogs are noisy as hell, eat their own shit, tear shit up for the hell of it, etc.
            pets in general are problematic, and from my experience, responsible pet owners only make up about 5% or less of pet owners. most pet owners refuse to blame their pet for acting fricking moronic, or making their living area smell like cat piss / cat shit / wet dog / etc. its fricking disgusting, and im saying this so you pet owners know what disgusting shit other people see and smell when you invite them over. it also bothers the hell out of me when some irresponsible pet owner lets their pet shed everywhere (dog hair being a prime example), and they NEVER bother cleaning that shit up.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              my dowg piss wherever he wants boyah

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >they mention they've been working on this campaign for months

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    DM has uttered the word "storytelling" at any point in his life.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Unironically thinks the professor dungeon Master advice is good, and buys into the nonsense that the only difference between levels is numbers getting bigger to fight the same orcs with bigger numbers.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Unironically thinks the professor dungeon Master advice is good
        I've watched a couple of his videos and they were ok, what is some crazy advice he has dropped before?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Some of his stuff is good. His UDT is real good for a lot of OSR titles, or any game that uses zone-based combat. But he's one of these FKR types who thinks that rules are, ultimately, bad; that there is no good crunch, that leveling up is bad innately (instead of bad in D&D, which it is), and that an ideal TTRPG game should leave almost anything that could be included in skills, feats, or other mechanics, up to the discretion of the GM.

          It can work, but it's a highly unconstrained vision of TTRPGs. It's basically saying, "wouldn't it be great if nobody had to learn to play and nobody had to build a game, because you happen to know a guy who is eminently reasonable, fair, good at judging the odds, good at coming up with infinite ways to make d20 rolls fun, and doesn't need to read?" I guess that would be fun, but there aren't that many Tim Kasks out there. There never were.

          People buy rules so that they DON'T HAVE TO CREATE RULES on how to run a fair and fun game. That's why 5e mongs are so fricking livid about Spelljammer. That's why his stuff is barely marketable. The desire for good crunch in an interesting setting, is why anyone is able to make a living in the industry. If people like Professor Dungeonmaster (and to a lesser degree RPG Pundit) had their way, every table would be a game of Calvinball with an anointed one calling the shots. Most of his conclusions are based on the pitfalls of D&D as a system, lacking imagination for a greater RPG that exists or that could exist, and that nerds would want if they would try a game that wasn't WotC's gay superhero shenanigans, and that people would enjoy the good crunch and shared setting regardless of whether the middle-aged female players at Professor Dungeonmaster's table like his simple-math d20 story game.

          The best that you will get from Professor Dungeonmaster, rules-wise, is that you need to keep the game moving, trust your instincts, and don't stop to consult charts and technicalities.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Most of his conclusions are based on the pitfalls of D&D as a system
            I've kind of noticed this with some of his videos I've seen. I looked at his Warhammer review at it was ok

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Is that something he said? I wouldn't know because I never heard of the guy.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's who his attached pic is. A gm advice YouTuber, who gives some good advice, but also a lot of half baked terrible advice. His channel was mostly fun for the arts and crafts he no longer makes because they don't get as many views apparently. And then I stopped watching his channel, because bad advice + no more arts and crafts that I was there for.

          Example: he has more than once gone on about how leveling up changes nothing because all that happen I your numbers go up and the orcs numbers go up to match them and nothing changes. There's only truth in that if the GM is fricking terrible. For instance, if you get stronger, you can go back and face someone you lost to or who you couldn't face in the past (assuming your gm has people in the world who are not CR appropriate for for whatever level you currently are and the game has such depth) - and your noncombat capabilities can change opening up more problem solving options - and you may acquire whole new capabilities (spells or followers or business assets or new contacts or or blackmail material you can use to influence votes on who will be the next Pope or whatever) further opening up new varieties of play as the campaign unfolds.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      is this a thing now that some morons around here think "storytelling" is a meme term that doesn't naturally come up in someone's life? Is this just some ESL gays who actually think it's a made up internet term and not used constantly in elementary school and every English and writing class?

      Is it even possible to graduate high school in America without ever saying the word "storytelling"?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Is it even possible to graduate high school in America without ever saying the word "storytelling"?
        I don't see how this would be relevant to /tg/.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Follow the comment chain. He's responding to a "red flag" that applies to *everyone* who has finished highschool, and probably most people who have finished elementary school. The flag might as well be "gm can read".

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Found the trog whose dad never read them stories at night

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          No that would be the anon I was replying to not me. The weirdo who thinks "storytelling" is a meme word and not a common english word.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    "You only get XP on how well you RP"
    What that means is the GM will play favorites with their favorite PCs

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      "You only get players on how well you GM," I say, as I leave the table.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        [...]

        Funny that the GM dropped that info a day before the first session and I left about a couple of hours after the announcement

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      There are many red flags in this thread, some valid, some weird, some very small, some very big.

      But this is one of the few that would make me leave the table right then and there. Completely full stop.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >But this is one of the few that would make me leave the table right then and there. Completely full stop.

        Its a good concept on paper. You think at first "This will incentivize people to RP their characters more" but anyone with actual GM experience knows that people will RP their characters their own way and that gaining experience like that will only cause the loud mouth people to get more experience then the people that might not talk as much and cause a fracture in the group

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Any indication that the GM is a Forge veteran (or, worse still, believes in their fake-ass and totally discredited “GNS theory”) is a top-tier red flag.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >enemies have spell casting
    >There are traps
    >gets salty about players looking up enemy stat blocks
    >has enemies take non attack action

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Actual genuine GM red flags that would make me reconsider association:
    >pronouns listed anywhere
    >even casual attempts to police language
    >mentions "my story" at any point (not to be confused with "the story")
    >"safety tools" is something seriously considered or mentioned with anything other than derision
    >watches or references nuD&D "culture" like Critical Roll
    >is "into" Disney Wars, Nu-Trek, nu40k, modern Marvel/DC or any other hypercommercialized soulless goyslop co-opted in the last 15 years or so
    >unironic genuine autism or uncontainable spergdom
    >GMPC

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Legit, but you forgot
      >LGBT+ Friendly

      Or the even worse
      >Extremely LGBT+ Friendly

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >LGBT+ Friendly
        >Extremely LGBT+ Friendly
        I think this is already covered by the other points, but yeah, if someone would list something like that as part of a campaign or something like that, then yeah, that would also be a major red flag. The same goes for things like "BIPOC friendly" and whatnot.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah. I don't even really care if they're really lgbt friendly or not, but the fact that they mention it at all is a huge red flag for the kind of personalities you would be dealing with.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Yeah, I agree, it's listing it that's the red flag.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >even casual attempts to police language
      That's bullshit. Some people's language needs to be policed. This can take very many forms, among people I know there's a person who in any situation defaults to excessive, constant, needless profanity, so much so that it disturbs everyone.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Found the soi. You’d crumple into a pathetic heap after 5 mins on a construction site

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Found the Black person. You’d crumple into a pathetic heap after 5 mins in a grade school math class

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'm with >85961611. Our whole group got fed up because one player kept calling orcs "green Black folk," both in and out of character. We were playing in public, at a round table in the corner of a game store. When challenged on it he basically said "haw haw my character is racist and I'm not changing him it's so funny u guys." When he refused to behave himself for the third session in a row the Gm just stopped inviting him. Apparently the store owner was thinking of banning the whole lot of us.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            My example was even just pure profanity.
            Instead of "What's going on?" he would say (translated, but I think some of the crudeness is lost) "What penis's frick goes with this shitting?". Every sentence from the person is pretty much this (OOC. we don't often have PCs say things in first person IC). And this is not to convey anger or any mindset at all, it's literally just his unique approach to language.
            Language policing often gets mixed up with ideological policing (I assume that's what

            >Some people's language needs to be policed.
            >and I'm the one to do it right

            meant?), which muddies the point that people need to be able to communicate within some reasonable range of normality, even if no ideology is involved.
            So everyone here's arrayed against furries, ok, furries never caught on here so I never met one IRL, but imagine that some otherwise normal player relentlessly communicates using furry language. Are you going to put up with it? "Wow don't worry friend, you're safe with us, I'm not of those bad guys who polices language!" and then you have commited everyone to endless suffering. Whether his language stylization is "ironic" or not doesn't really matter, if it's constant and egregious enough it's a mental toll on everyone involved to put up with a constant barrage of shitty communication. It wears people out.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Yeah, honestly I would prefer if my DM dropped 50% fewer f-bombs.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Then everyone stood up and clapped.

      • 2 years ago
        always

        >Some people's language needs to be policed.
        >and I'm the one to do it right

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          the irony that this tumblrina in your pic roleplayed out a robot-themed rape against one of the player characters and had his entire community turn against him LMAO

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Some people's language needs to be policed!!
        No they don't. Play with adults. Get fricked.

        At my table, you do not get to pop off and say whatever you want.
        People like you want the GM to be a doormat so you can cheat and get away with it.

        >At my table, you do not get to pop off and say whatever you want.
        Then you're exactly the type of GM that'd get filtered for being a homosexual.
        >People like you want the GM to be a doormat so you can cheat and get away with it.
        You must be some kind of schizo to come to such a far-fetched, non-sequiter conclusion. I generally favor strong GM agency and rules-calling over RAW, and frequently as my GMs how they want to do things or if we can work aomething out, ther than to follow rulesets blindly. Take your meds.

        I'm with >85961611. Our whole group got fed up because one player kept calling orcs "green Black folk," both in and out of character. We were playing in public, at a round table in the corner of a game store. When challenged on it he basically said "haw haw my character is racist and I'm not changing him it's so funny u guys." When he refused to behave himself for the third session in a row the Gm just stopped inviting him. Apparently the store owner was thinking of banning the whole lot of us.

        >because we were almost victimized, it vindicated our decision to victimize someone else over having said badwrongfun words
        This is your brain on semitic terror-culture and Black person-worship.

        Real world politics and religion are off limits at my table, as is sex/romance and killing kid NPCs. If you don't like it have fun finding a group for your wannabe FATAL teenage dogshit.

        OK, I guess? No clue why you're responding to that particular post, but take your meds I guess?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >>Some people's language needs to be policed!!
          >No they don't. Play with adults. Get fricked.

          >Policing language is very evil!
          >Instead when I dont like someones language then they are clearly not adults so I just ban people for not being 'adults' which doesnt count tee hee
          >I am so clever!!1!
          >(PS. Anyone who calls what Im doing by the wrong name is not an adult either and needs a ban!!)
          You sound like a nu bolshevik operative

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Who are you quoting? Take your pills, schizoanon.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              You said noone should ever 'language police'
              Then you also said that if you have a problem with the language of people you should ban people for not being 'adults'
              Except thats thats exactly what language policing is you mongoloid, you just dont want to apply that term to yourself so you invent a new one because you dont believe words have meanings

              You are pro-'language policing', own up to it

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Except thats thats exactly what language policing is you mongoloid
                please watch your language :^)

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Why are you even on Ganker?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Found the homosexual.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        If I don't like how you talk like, I'll call you a homosexual and if that doesn't stop, then I drop you. That's all the policing I'm willing to do.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's exactly what language policing is
          You are policing him for the language he uses, you just decided for yourself it doesn't 'count' so you can blame others for being (yikes) evil fascist language police, without applying the same standards for yourself

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You're not as smart as you think you are

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              You are a hypocrite who never applies the standards he applies to others to himself
              I point you out for being a hypocrite
              >You're not as smart as you think you are
              Nice lack of retort there

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                ???
                I said I am going to do language policing about things that annoy me. I didn't say that I'm not going to do it. Why are you so fricking stupid?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Nta but how is that not also language policing?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >"safety tools"
      What are safety tools?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        You don't know how lucky you are to live in ignorance, kiddo. Turn back now.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      At my table, you do not get to pop off and say whatever you want.
      People like you want the GM to be a doormat so you can cheat and get away with it.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        At my table we say the n-word every minute, just to show those damn woketards we won't be policed. We also shit on the table because we are all free. Don't like it? Your Paladin will fall. Your CLeric will lose their God. Your thief will be raped in prison.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      All true and good reasons to refuse association. Not even one of these is redeemable.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I had to look up what "safety tools".

      Ah ha, wow, what is wrong with roleplayers nowadays?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >what is wrong with roleplayers nowadays?
        leaned to play by watching twitch thots
        play online with strangers and play The Containment Game
        vidya frame, "i'm the hero and never lose"
        many of the people putting out this dogshit are nogamez doing for the upboats
        "no wrong way to play" meme
        don't read the game book or the stories that inspired its setting
        don't read for fun
        not interested in the world around them, knowing current events at best
        think the encounters should be balanced like a vidya
        so selfish and entitled, hate participation with the group, only talk to the GM
        source: public playtesting

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >vidya frame, "i'm the hero and never lose"
          Ran into that culture clash a little while ago.
          The healer was bleeding out and the two gunners ran off. I tell them "the healer continues to bleed out. Hey, could you look up the rules again for dying?" and it clicked with them that he could actually die and they reversed course to go try first-aid.
          They get there at the last possible moment and try to stabilize and crit glitch. "That's an extra 1d3 points of damage and he'd bleed out next round anyway. Yeah, you dead".

          The players went ballistic and the guy left the game in a huff. They were dinking around with the spirit realm, so I had some plans on working him back in as a ghost and then showcase what the evil bug spirits were trying to pull with permanent physical manifestation. But no. The kids didn't think that losing was even an option.

          Heads up, this is something you have to tell new (young) players. There is risk of failure.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            That's why you tell them that AND kill one of them first session (the one who needs to learn the most, or the one who's death will educate the party the most). You get them to roll up their new character right then and get them back in the game of course, but the point is you make it real for them and everyone at the table will remember that forever.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Only do that with in games with people you actually know outside the game where it's already established that you are teaching them to play in this game and are the one who knows what he's doing.

              Otherwise you get GMs who are dicks for the sake of feeling superior and they'll kill someone off unfairly "as a lesson" and then it backfires and they blame the players for being noobs.

              But you know what's better than your plan? just fricking telling them up front "there are lots of playstyles and some people get the wrong idea about these games because of videogames, so I'm just letting you all know that it is very possible for your characters to die, so you do need to be careful. But even if they do that doesn't mean you're out of the game, you can make a new character or we'll figure something else out."

              There problem solved. You established your playstyle and even if they still frick up bad they know it's not you being a dick and trying to kick them out of the game.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Real world politics and religion are off limits at my table, as is sex/romance and killing kid NPCs. If you don't like it have fun finding a group for your wannabe FATAL teenage dogshit.

      • 2 years ago
        always

        >killing kid NPCs
        OK Bethesda, i wouldn't allow sex stuff with minors, but a dead kid is always funny.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If it's a hostage situation or like that baby thing in the Witcher I kind of understand but if you just murderhobo random kids yeah I'm leaning towards you have another motive

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I would heavily discourage people from bringing real world politics and religion into games, because it's a game and you're supposed to leave real world shit at the door when you play a game.

        With that said it's so fricking cringe when people ban sex and romance. Wars have been waged, Religions have been founded, Empires have risen and fallen, because of romance and sexual relationships. Frick off with your gay, nutless, Disney tier storytelling. This isn't how any part of human history ever worked. The pursuit of b***hes is at the foundation of so much human strife but also human excellence. Removing it just makes you a giga-queer, wannabe young adult fiction writer.

        Causing harm to random innocent NPCs is up to the DM. Randomly drawing the line at kid NPCs in particular is gay and moronic. If it's a kid or not really shouldn't make a difference. You can't clap your hands in applause and giggle like a schoolgirl when the CN rogue shanks a commoner up the ass for a joke, but make a crying soijak face if the same CN rogue sets an orphanage on fire. If someone is doing that in your games you probably gave them a 'go ahead' signal and made them think evil frickery is fine.

        • 2 years ago
          always

          >sex and romance
          this is not something i want to do around the table with a bunch of fat guys because that would be gross. it's that simple.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >not giving your bro a handy under the table while doing your best sultry barmaid impression
            ngmi

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Is okay with violence against women and the disabled
        >Noooooo don't hurt the little kiddies

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Good. Frick all that worthless garbage. We're here to kill shit and have fun.

        You guys DO have fun, right anons?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Good. Frick all that worthless garbage. We're here to kill shit and have fun.

        You guys DO have fun, right anons?

        yeah im ok with that. as long as im allowed to kill shit, and you arent going to do like the last group i played with where they forcefully railroaded multiple campaigns into us taking the lawful good or the joking version of lawful good actions in almost every situation, then tried to call me "fricking stupid" every time i wanted to do something different. a bunch of unemployed and barely employed bums who beg people at the local shop constantly for shit like food (PATHETIC!) calling other people stupid, shocker. i just want to find a group where i dont get the NPC ignore, scream over, or reject while shocked when i suggest we steal something rather than doing the lawful good action 24/7.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I just started a campaign today as a DM.
      Told them I have no story I want to tell so they'll get kitchensink slop.
      Is this a red flag?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >unironic genuine autism or uncontainable spergdom

      guess you'd never play a game with yourself

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The wise man is quickly distinguished among the fools.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >"it's going to be a pirate campaign"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >tfw I was that guy
      >tfw the players want to start the campaign up again after years of hiatus.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Why do pirate campaigns always suck ass?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Because pirate games are almost inherently open world with a good deal of downtime and the overwhelming majority of players have no initiative and expect to have adventures and interactions handed to them on a platter.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >open world
            In my experience, I expect to be railroaded more than average in a pirate game.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I mean, that's the only other way it works, isn't it?
              If the players are on a boat as the primary means of transportation, either they're in charge and have to make all the decisions, or they're not in charge and get to make none of the decisions. You're either the captains or just crewmembers and there's not really an in-between.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Because pirate games are almost inherently open world with a good deal of downtime and the overwhelming majority of players have no initiative and expect to have adventures and interactions handed to them on a platter.
            This is it. Players think they like open world until its time for the game and they actually have to contribute to the story and be the main driving force then just freeze and drop out

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Systems like Burning Wheel make it easier to run player driven games by putting character motivations on the character sheet.
              OSR style hexcrawling/ocean crawling can also work. OSR's character motivation doesn't need to be on the sheet because the motivation is money, especially realistic money (taxes, thieves, general expenses, downtime expenses, food, etc...) and it turns out it's a pretty good motivation to interact with the world.

  24. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >"who the frick has been going through my medicine cabinet? We aren't doing anything until I find out which of you took my grandma's heart medicine"
    Bad host.

  25. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Plays 4th Edition
    >Doesn't laugh at tee-hee macaroni
    >Has never been to a Renaissance Faire
    >Is 19 or under
    >Refuses to trade exp or gold for sexual favors
    >Unironically uses the phrases "SJW" or "woke"
    >Still lives at home
    >Says "This is going to be a combat focused campaign."
    >Doesn't like Planescape or Greyhawk or Ravenloft

    Those are just a few.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Except for the last one pretty based.
      You need to lighten up anon.

  26. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >DnD or another d20 system
    >Precanned setting

  27. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >biggest red flag
    play online and not at a table

  28. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the nogames sure are loud

  29. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >dm studied Middle English and it's an incomprehensible shitshow of every dialect in Chaucer that he expects you to learn

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That sounds fun though.

  30. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >another "nogames judge GMs they would never play with" thread
    Find a game and stop spamming these threads.

  31. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >'medieval fantasy' without gunpowder weaponry

  32. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Wants to run OSR.
    Mentions OSR You tubers favorably.
    Complains about WOKE culture taking over D&D.
    Refuses to use safety tools.
    Refuses to call players by their preferred pronouns.
    Orders pizza with pineapple on it.
    GM's naked while jerking off with a twinkle wand sticking out his ass and yelling Tee-Hee-Hee, Maccaroni Maccaroni!

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      All me except I don't know what safety tools are, don't watch D&D YouTubers and don't do the last thing.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        safety tools is shit like x-cards (ability to just skip over shit that's triggering to you, like if you're a vet with shell shock and you REALLY don't want to hear the GM explain how the bodies are strewn about the battleground, guts ripped out and being torn apart by scavangers), lines and veils (writing down what you don't want in a game before it starts and what you can tolerate if you don't go into too much detail), and roses and thorns (after the game, telling the GM the parts he did great at and the parts that fell a little flat)
        It's good to have in general so the GM can try to run a better game, but it does seem like it's a bit limp-wristed to me, given that you can just TELL your GM this, instead of relying on special little cards like a kindergartener getting the speaking stick

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >like if you're a vet with shell shock and you REALLY don't want to hear the GM explain how the bodies are strewn about the battleground, guts ripped out and being torn apart by scavangers
          Nah mate the only people who want to use x-cards are hypersensitive snowflakes who get triggered by anything they find remotely offensive and can't separate fiction from reality

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I'm aware, I just thought it'd be better to use it as they supposedly originally intended it instead of how it's actually used, maybe it'll help someone, I don't know

            X-cards don't work, as Adam Koebels discovered, because someone who's too shy to speak up is also too shy to use the card.

            this is more likely though
            >reach out to touch the x-card
            >feel everyone staring at you
            >about to cry
            >just muddle through it and start a red flags thread on Ganker later

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          X-cards don't work, as Adam Koebels discovered, because someone who's too shy to speak up is also too shy to use the card.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Implying that veterans aren't all barely contained power kegs ready to murder you and rape your mother at the slightest provocation.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >x-cards (ability to just skip over shit that's triggering to you,
          haha, wut?

          >like if you're a vet with shell shock and you REALLY don't want to hear the GM explain how the bodies are strewn about the battleground
          Why the frick would you be playing a TTRPG with battlefields?

          >writing down what you don't want in a game before it starts
          That's not bad. Session 0. It's just talking with players and figuring out what sort of game everyone wants to play. It a time and place to go root out what crazy-ass red flags people have and then ditch them.

          ...Is this some "woke culture" shit?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            X cards are completely worthless. Three way they're supposed to work if that if something comes up that bothers you, you tap it and the DM is supposed to stop and skip over the bothersome part. But he's not allowed to actually ask what the bothersome part is, so if it's something most people would find innocuous or fine, it will likely come up again.

            In practice, they never actually get used. There was one super liberal game dev that got cancelled because he basically had a PC get cyber-raped and the woke liberals in his group said and did nothing about it until they took to Twitter later to cancel him.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >There was one super liberal game dev that got cancelled because he basically had a PC get cyber-raped
              Pft. Yeah, it will NEVER be enough to satisfy that crowd. There will never be a church with members pious enough, libertarians that are free enough, or woke shit that's woke enough. There's just people who haven't been cancelled yet by the raging masses.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              The real point of x cards is to show everyone what a fragile snowflake you are because these are people who think weakness is a virtue.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >GM's naked while jerking off with a twinkle wand sticking out his ass and yelling Tee-Hee-Hee, Maccaroni Maccaroni!
      None of my players have told me they had a problem with this.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >safety tools
      Just tell me what the FRICK safety tools are already.
      All I'm getting in a web search are rubber gloves and hard hats.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Its where you keep a revolver behind the GM screen in case the players get any ideas.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        it's something bdsm losers imagine you need while playing rpgs, because they think thats what roleplay is.
        this "safety word" for if you are scared of spiders, the gm has to throw away all his books that have spiders in em.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        If you search "safety tools DnD" you'll find out.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You just described Ernie Gygax's DMing style

  33. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Open world sandbox is a yellow flag. It's real easy to screw up. "Make your own fun" is a red flag. But an open world with gentle prompting and tossing out hooks to see what catches their intention is viable.

    Sleeper agents. Asynchronous player information. Betrayal can really rub people the wrong way. But some people really love playing Among Us for a reason.

    Most TTRPGs are cooperative. Games like Paranoia is build on competition. Usually you have to brow-beat your players to play along, but unleashing them upon each other can be fun.

    Homebrews are entirely a function of how bat-shit insane the GM is.

    DMPC is a straight-up red-flag.

    Edge-lords, horny frickers, and psychos that can't keep a lid on it are really fricking annoying. This is a matter how functional they are. Some moronic shitstains just can't operate in society. Sorry, I'm just all out of pity. I used to relate to these people, but then I worked on my problems and overcame them. Mostly. This is all a matter of having acceptable levels of deviant shit according to the table. IF you're all horny bastards you might as well just start wanking each other off.

    Nazis, MAGA-shits, SJWs, Pronoun people, thought police. Anyone who has let politics take over every facet of their life and can't keep a lid on it. Same bullshit as the psychos. I LIKE people with opinons. But if they can't express them properly, they can't function in society nor a game table. Games are actually a fantastic way to teach these morons some social skills. But they have to be on board with learning. This is straight-up indoctrination to society. A whole frickton of people just hide in their holes and don't really participate in anything outside their bubble.

  34. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Every non furry dm I've played with has been a genuine schizo who ends up ruining the campaign by doing something stupid like introducing a dmpc. So for me non furry gms are pretty much an instant pass from me. Now among furry gms I've noticed a unique set of red flags to avoid.

    >bird fursona
    >deer fursona
    >"I used to post on Ganker but I grew out of it"
    >self hating gay
    >emotionally needy
    >works a job that pays by the hour instead of a salary (means he can't commit to a schedule)
    >asexual
    >has never read Steven King or George R.R Martin
    >uses the word "problematic" unironically
    >furry but right wing for some reason
    I've developed a litmus test to cover these and so far it's been great I've gone through 4 really lengthy campaigns so far that each took about a year and I've had a great time. But remember I only reached this point after experiencing many awful games. I think it's important to really learn early on what bad personality traits to identify and weed out

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >furry but right wing for some reason
      Anyone who is right wing but is clearly a person rightoids would put against the wall is a red flag. Go self hate as "one of the good ones" somewhere else.

  35. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't hate on the "I'm making an open world" GMs but I pity them because their problem is a lack of experience. Going through all the effort of making a whole world instead of just improving where shit is and where shit happens that you had planned for, actually coming up with locations and quests and characters the players won't even see?

    They get the idea from video games, not realizing the reason video games do it is because it has replay value among a much wider audience who will then have more unique experiences. But doing it for one party to run one game is a waste of effort. The concept doesn't translate.

    However if the players don't know better and want to play what they think an open world game would be, then I'm all for lying to them about how much was actually planned ahead and how many of my notes I'm looking at for locations are just blank pages.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >locations and quests and characters the players won't even see
      i don't think you understand how sandboxes work. you have to be a little more sophisticated and flexible to make the prepared content match up with the group's choices. it's like when you adapt an adventure into a different system, you don't go down the rabbit hole translating the mechanics, you eyeball the level of challenge and approximate it in the new numbers.
      if i prepare something, they're going to see it. i may have to move it across the galaxy, change the names, tweak the details significantly based on what approach the group takes.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >i don't think you understand how sandboxes work.
        No I understand. But people making sandboxes don't understand how a TTRPG campaign will work. Or maybe you don't understand what I'm talking about here.

        Yeah, everyone moves shit. That's how you run any game. In that sense every game is a sandbox because you don't have to tie anything as canon until it comes up. That's how people run games and that's what you mean.

        But I don't think you realize that most of the people who say "I'm making a sandbox/open world" so as such because they AREN'T moving shit. They aren't being flexible. OP's thing is a red flag because it's a huge warning sign that they don't understand this basic element of TTRPG games and it's going to backfire on them hard, because they will be putting way too much effort planning out potential scenarios instead of just trusting their own creativity or having placeholder shit to drop in when their imagination is coming up empty.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >bad GMs exist
          I agree, in fact, they are the majority.
          this is just a numbers thing, most GMs suck at running themeparks too, spending way too much time on reading pre-written text and churching up npcs.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Did you miss the whole thing that this is a "GM red flag" thread, and the point is that term is a red flag that almost always means "bad GM" in a specific way?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >if i prepare something, they're going to see it.

        To the north lies the evil lich-king. To the west are the idyllic nation with political intrigue. To the east are mountains with caverns.

        >A: To the lich!
        You storm the castle full of undead!
        >B: Political ingrigue please!
        To resolve the political disputes you much go slay the evil lich king to the north!
        >C: We go down into the caves!
        Buried deep within the caves you find a dungeon full of undead and an evil lich king!

        This is the worst sort of false agency.
        You don't make that castle full of undead until AFTER they decide to go storm the castle. For open-world games you have to lay out the hooks at the end of an arc/task/session and then get them to decide what they're doing next before they leave.

        You know how every god-damned show these days ends on a cliff-hanger and essentially has two halves of each story? This is what you have to do if you let the players choose their fate. So they beat the BBEG, get the girl, slaughter the cult or whatever, cheers all around, and then you KEEP PLAYING in the open-world sense and go explore or whatever until they happen upon something potentially interesting. Which is where the game-night ends and you prepare for the next session.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          i know who you're raging aginst, and it aint me. "see it" doesn't mean they must interact with it in a specific way. that post was all about being sophisticated and flexible, and your misunderstanding proves you are neither.

          Did you miss the whole thing that this is a "GM red flag" thread, and the point is that term is a red flag that almost always means "bad GM" in a specific way?

          that's not what it means, it means look out for the sandboxer. i say look out for the themeparker just as much

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >that's not what it means
            except that's what it means. It means "this GM thinks of these games like a video game and doesn't know that they're already open worlds and don't require being made into one", it means "he spent months putting together a whole setting knowing only a third of it would be used because he doesn't actually know how these games work"

            If you think it means something else that's because you're an idiot who has never encountered this before. But just like those noob GMs, you too can learn if you stop arguing with everything and realize you don't actually know what you're talking about.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              good sandbox games exist. i run one, i've played in some.
              so the only argument here is Bad GMs Exist, and OP thinks they are more prevelant in sandbox games
              i say most gms ssuck, and most gms play theme park, so this red flag is neither red nor does it flag

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >good sandbox games exist
                most games are sandbox games. It's the default with any TTRPG that isn't on a hyper linear pre-written adventure path style rail.

                The point is that if they're calling it a sandbox then 9 times out of 10 it's because they don't fricking know what they're doing, and it's a red flag.

              • 2 years ago
                always

                >most games are sandbox games
                I don't think this is true, i thought the biggest group of players paly 5e adventure paths. seems to be the case looks at ads for games anyway.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                5aggots are bandwagon-jumping NPCs, they are not real RPGers or even people.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >i thought the biggest group of players paly 5e adventure paths.
                the biggest groups of players barely know what adventure paths are

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Most games are sandboxes
                Like frick. Most games are run out of an adventure books the gm has only read a few pages ahead of where you are on the railroad.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      typo, meant improvising not improving

  36. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Is a high school drop out
    >Is a college drop out
    >Grease monkey for a living
    >Has been in the army and haves PTSD
    >Does not read anything but fiction
    >Haves a gorillion stream accounts to consume flavor of the week popular franchises
    >Has no real interest in history
    >Has no real interest in philosophy
    >Has no real interest in anthropology
    >Has no real interest in STEM
    >Didn't put a foot in a gym in his whole life
    >Consumes recreative drugs
    >Consumes alcohol alone
    >Consumes fast food because "muh dopamine" instead of learning to cook properly
    >Is over 21 years old and watches fricking vtubers
    >Works for a corporation instead of having his own business
    >Haves a dead end job.
    >Does not read comic books and only flavor of the month manga.
    >Has no real interest in art except for anime and other pop culture media expressions of it.
    >Rise in a dysfunctional family.
    >Haves weird paraphilia like coprophilia or gerentophilia.
    >Thinks that youtubers are legit entertainment.
    >Didn't had an existential crisis that pushed him to act like Major Kong at the end of Dr. Strangelove and fricking turbo murder everyone in the suburbia with a killdozer fill to the prolapse with explosives.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Has a dead end job
      Always a black flag for me
      >noooo bro not all of us can have a successful life like you
      I have an okay job, not my fault you're a moron who got suckered into working 50+ hours a week, that's on you, apply yourself

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >>Has no real interest in history
      >>Has no real interest in philosophy
      >>Has no real interest in anthropology
      >>Has no real interest in STEM

      Normies are so weird this way. It actually makes me doubt their humanity, like they're just NPCs in the Matrix or provided by God to be workerbots so the ensouled people don't have to do the most dull or dangerous jobs.

      I don't understand not knowing/caring where your ancestors came from. Or what the weird flower you found on the trail is called. Or what the abandoned office building down the road looks like inside. How could someone not want to explore the world around us?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I thought this NPC trend was just a vibrant new way to insult people but I’ve been doing some reading and other researches and that shit is real.
        People without internal speech, inability to visualize, and no sense of context outside of self are real.
        I’m glad half my life is over. Doesn’t seem like there’s much good on the horizon until after a severe culling.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          It's one of those things people just bury in the backs of their minds to help us sleep at night.

          EG most the crime prevention advice assumes criminals think like we do. You can fork over your wallet without a fight since you wouldn't shoot a cooperative mark if you were a mugger or put up security cameras because you behave around them but that doesn't take into account severe mental illness, drug addiction, hatred, and/or simply being too stupid to create scenarios and visualize outcomes in their heads.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous.

            >Pic.
            Actually a good read.
            Makes me relieved I can do all of those things even when recovering from concussion and on very little sleep.

          • 2 years ago
            always

            picrel gud, post more tard bashing

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Why are IQ test tasks so easy? I could do all of the tasks in pic no problem, and I recently had an IQ test where it was mostly pattern recognition and explaining the meanings of idioms. But none of these abilities are useful in job settings, and I struggle in real world situations.

            Are IQ tests just meaningless? What's the point if it doesn't reflect how a person will do IRL?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              IQ tests are so abstract beucase they're supposed to be as neutral as possible wrt experience and culture.

              >What's the point if it doesn't reflect how a person will do IRL?
              IQ tests correlate a lot to aptitude in mental tasks, so they are useful. And they're not supposed to account for everything that goes into that aptitude, only the 'raw intelligence' part.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >Why are IQ test tasks so easy?
              Uh, most have a wide range of questions to try and give an accurate score to both the low-end and high-end.

              None of those are IQ tests. They're tests to see how low-IQ people can function. And the surprise is that they really can't.

              >I could do all of the tasks in pic no problem, and I recently had an IQ test where it was mostly pattern recognition and explaining the meanings of idioms.
              Congrats, you're not moronic.

              >But none of these abilities are useful in job settings, and I struggle in real world situations.
              Are you fricking with me? Are you sure you're not moronic?

              "If-Then" rules? Mapping? Keeping track of who said what? These are basic job functions.

              >Are IQ tests just meaningless?
              No. There's a disturbing push from the left to shit on IQ tests and disregard them. That's a reversal of the classic liberal stance where the alternative was the son of the CEO getting promoted. IQ tests are supposed to be impartial to race, gender, family, background, or creed. They're not perfect, but they're better than anything else we have. An ideal utopia would give the jobs to those with the most merit. But as soon as progressives started finding that there was differences along racial lines, they decided to reject the whole thing.

              >What's the point if it doesn't reflect how a person will do IRL?
              IQ tests directly correlate with practically ever measurement of job performance. Take your bullshit elsewhere.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              IQ tests basically tell you 'with your current logic and pattern recognition skills, how hard is it to teach you a skill that uses those things relative to other people your age.' they're not a measure of your limitations or potential. They're not a measure of real life job performance. They basically measure "how good are you at book learning and lateral problem solving"

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I thought this NPC trend was just a vibrant new way to insult people but I’ve been doing some reading and other researches and that shit is real.
        People without internal speech, inability to visualize, and no sense of context outside of self are real.
        I’m glad half my life is over. Doesn’t seem like there’s much good on the horizon until after a severe culling.

        The vast majority of people can visualize objects.
        So if you can visualize objects, you are an npc.
        It's being unable to visualize objects that sets you apart, which leads me to suspect that people like those on are mostly special snowflakes pretending to be more special than they are for online points, same as online people claiming undiagnosed mental illnesses etc

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >So if you can visualize objects, you are an npc.
          So all of the geniuses throughout history that have spoke implicitly about creativity and visualization are NPCs?
          I don’t think you thought this through.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >So all of the geniuses throughout history that have spoke implicitly about creativity and visualization are NPCs?
            Fine, not NPCs, but normies.
            They are the normal people, since a tiny segment of the society with the quirk of not being able to visualize objects cannot be the ones who are the normal people.

            Also I'm not convinced the inability to mentally visualize something decreases creativity. Granted I have not read a book on it but to me it seems like this:
            People can draw stuff on paper.
            Even people who can't visualize, don't struggle with tasks like 'draw a blue elephant on a wooden table', even though they have not seen a precedent for that exact imagery so they can't just copy it 1:1 from memory.
            So it seems to me like the ability to draw comes pretty much entirely from unconscious thought, all the hard work happens there, and mental visualization just means suddenly flooding conscious perception with a particular outcome from that unconscious work, which then in turn narrows down the further progress of this unconscious work.
            So if anything I'd expect people whose minds are not flooded in this way to have their creativity process disperse in more directions.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Nta but thank you kindly for keeping me from schizoposting. Knowing that these brainlets walk amongst is always horrifying until I realize it's 1% of the population, and 99% of them are lying.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Law of large numbers, anon. 1% of 7 Billion is 70 Million, now think how many of them have twitter.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Twitter is mostly bots

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        What is this picture?

        I know a lot of people have absolutely no spatial awareness, but I cannot believe there are that many people who can't visualize.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Based on their surveys, Dr. Zeman and his colleagues estimate that 2.6 percent of people have hyperphantasia and that 0.7 percent have aphantasia.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >2.6 percent of people have hyperphantasia

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I am about 99 percent sure that people who think being able to “see” things in their head is weird think it’s much more literally “seeing” than it is. Everyone with adult brain development can picture objects in their mind, no exceptions.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      What is the cause of Sandy being based here?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Someone did link the recording of Ina's stream playing The Shore in his official Discord server for Petersen Games.
        Sandy was so appalled after watching it that when on and on about weaboos ruining Lovecraft legacy with their bullshit.

  37. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >>the game is an open world sandbox where you have to make 'your own fun'
    You mean hexcrawls?

    You're calling hexcrawls universally bad for everyone?

  38. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >All this gay discussion about sandboxes
    >Control f hexcrawls: 2 result from 1 post
    You guys are so fricking underage

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So what is a hexcrawl? Indulge the newbies or nobody will know what you're fricking talking about

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Nta but a hexcrawl is a wilderness exploration campaign with a hex map of the countryside, and an assumption there will be at least one interesting feature to find in each (usually 6 Mile wide) hex. The whole thing is gradually populate with content as the game progresses. In theory you could run the same hexcrawl again with another group because of how it prepped. It's a style of play that was more commonplace when open tables were the norm rather than GMing for the same small group of players.

        Stuff like Wilderlands of high fantasy or the like. Here's a take on how to run one in 5e, since that's what most people play and probably also what you play.
        https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46020/roleplaying-games/5e-hexcrawl

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That doesn't seem so bad. It's just a type of overworld.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            A type of overworld and prep designed such that where your players choose to explore determines the adventures they have. It's a fair amount of prep for a small group though, and a lot less useful if your players aren't interested in a core campaign game loop centered on exploring and claiming territory.

            It's pretty cool for what it does if that's the kind of game you want to play. It's just mentioned as a practical model of oldschool sandbox gaming.

            IMO the reason so many sandbox games are bad is so many GMs have no idea how to effectively prepare and run such a thing.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              It also makes a lot more sense if you'll use the same overworld map for more than one campaign. But even if you don't, if you do it once, you can always copy paste hexes to reuse in a new map next time.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              It also makes a lot more sense if you'll use the same overworld map for more than one campaign. But even if you don't, if you do it once, you can always copy paste hexes to reuse in a new map next time.

              And people like 6 Mile hexes specifically because the size gives a lot of convenient generic usecases. There are some other arguments for other sizes but they're mostly for tracking movement in a specific game system.
              https://steamtunnel.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-praise-of-6-mile-hex.html?m=1

  39. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >he posts on Ganker

  40. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >never uses encumbrance
    >never gives lasting or permanent injuries
    >lets coins become worthless after a couple of sessions
    >never uses poison or disease
    >doesn't make items to require maintenance
    >doesn't break items
    >he's afraid of reducing PC's XP
    >he's afraid of reducing PC's attributes permanently
    >he uses systems in which PC's are 100% combat capable at 1 HP
    >doesn't make PCs have psychological consequences for going against their alignments
    >tolerates PCs not having any sense of obligation towards any NPC (even those supposedly close to the PCs)
    >completely ignores noise levels
    >PC fatigue doesn't seem to exist in his world
    >no thirst of hunger exist in his world
    >stress and discomfort doesn't seem to exist in his world
    >dungeons always have perfect space for exploration, no need for squeezing, crunching or crawling
    >always gives PCs perfect sleep

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >encumbrance is worth keeping in check as long as players are keeping it in check. If I am the only one around to give a damn about encumbrance or the system makes me get a calculator to count it, then frick it.
      >Items maintenance was well thought out in WFRP4e. You can negate a crit by damaging armor or your weapon/shield you were parrying with is getting damaged by a crit or due to your opponent being bigger, hence damaging it.
      >Imagine passive aggressive bullshit I would go through if I would not only kill a character but make the next character start from scratch.
      The rest is DnDogshit bullshit I am not going to even comment, the alignments comment is a cherry on top. Play some WFRP fren.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >He aggressively dislikes D&D
        That's another GM red flag

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Talk me through how you run Item Maintenance in your games. I'm sure it's not a waste of time.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Have some "tax" to players income, it serves as an abstraction for equipment maintenance and their lifestyle. Pretty sure some systems do it.

        >encumbrance is worth keeping in check as long as players are keeping it in check. If I am the only one around to give a damn about encumbrance or the system makes me get a calculator to count it, then frick it.
        >Items maintenance was well thought out in WFRP4e. You can negate a crit by damaging armor or your weapon/shield you were parrying with is getting damaged by a crit or due to your opponent being bigger, hence damaging it.
        >Imagine passive aggressive bullshit I would go through if I would not only kill a character but make the next character start from scratch.
        The rest is DnDogshit bullshit I am not going to even comment, the alignments comment is a cherry on top. Play some WFRP fren.

        >Imagine passive aggressive bullshit I would go through if I would not only kill a character but make the next character start from scratch.
        what's the point of playing of there is no risk?
        >the alignments comment is a cherry on top
        please elaborate, anon

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I much more prefer to give them 50% xp and then make them catch up to the rest by giving them double xp till they are even.

          Have you tried not to use alignments?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Have you tried not to use alignments?
            Yes, I prefer it; but if we play D&D or some variation of it, I like using alignment as moral values more than a code of conduct

            • 2 years ago
              always

              >moral values more than a code of conduct
              in OG DnD it's more like allegiance in a great cosmic war between order and chaos. this makes sense to me, because i read the same shit as gygax.
              i don't get ADVANCED alignment. just a personality trait i guess?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I really don't care what Gygax wrote, I use alignment as morals; cosmic god vs evil is a trope I don't use often.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Try cutting 50% XP from party members that are ahead and distributing it to those that are falling behind until they catch up to the same level.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Cool take king. Never thought of it that way. Slows down the progress for the rest of them, and it doesn't make the player that sacrificed their char a b***hboy.

            • 2 years ago
              always

              you cut my xp over my dead body you SON OF A b***h

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous
              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >playing online

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          What I do is make it so you lose some or all of your magical items when a character dies, and give out a lot more items and far more powerful items. This is offset by having them fight tremendously powerful enemies in fights that actually matter.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      uses encumbrance

      I always handwave encumberance and tell my players to "be reasonable"(because I'm not some OSR autist).

      And every campaign there's one moment where a player totally abuses it. EG a player's zweihander will get snapped in half by a lucky mace strike and the player confidently announces he's been carrying around a spare one since the beginning of the campaign.

      • 2 years ago
        always

        >doesn't use rule created to solve problem
        >said problem occurs
        >make fancy lad post
        like pottery

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >"No you don't have a spare. You would have to carry it on your back, wouldn't you? We agreed to handwave minor items that fit your character's social standing."

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >I always handwave encumberance and tell my players to "be reasonable"(because I'm not some OSR autist).
        B/X and LotFP have some of the simplest and most elegant encumbrance systems I've ever seen. Torchbearer too, which isn't really OSR but OSR inspired nonetheless.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >never uses encumbrance
      >no thirst or hunger exist in his world
      I want to play a fighting game not a resource management game. Bag of holding.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      autismcore the post

  41. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Doesn't allow players to take their character sheets home with them between sessions

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      this would be an issue 20 years ago, these days you just take picture with your phone and let him keep the paper, so who cares

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous.

      Nah that's fair.
      >Keeps the shit in a big bundle with the DM/GM, that can just be filed away until next week in a big box with all the other character sheets, maps, setting info and books, instead of being left out as a singular paper, getting stained, ripped or crumpled.
      >Lets them quickly check stats and shit instead of having to text and ask, so they can plan balanced and difficult but survivable sessions conveniently, and secretly.
      >Lets them sneakily add items into your inventory for narrative reasons.
      >Prevents shitty players from 'cheating' by rewriting or swapping numbers in their stats due to not liking their performances the last session.
      >Mostly though it's just way more convenient for the GM.

  42. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >bans so many things he has to send all the players a document that is a whitelist of the permitted subclasses, spells, and races

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I've been that DM. Concluded that if I need to change that much too want to run it, I just don't like d&d as a game, and players who do like d&d will be disappointed in my very different game. I'm happier running other systems. Less b***hing that my game isn't some other vaguely similar thing they wish it was that I wouldn't want to run.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I know a guy who has all the criticism in the world for 5e as DM, but if he ever sees an open spot in a 5e campaign someone else is running, he's suddenly the world's biggest 5e fanboy

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's fricking bizarre. Maybe he's just happy to not be GMing for a change? That's my only guess.
          On the GM side my complaints about 5e are about it not having a lot of the content and mechanical subsystems I would want from an rpg. My biggest 5e complaints are on the player side. At this point, if I'm playing 5e, I'm building someone who doesn't fight (or whose combat will be so basic I can run it without paying attention) and I'll be barely paying attention to the game just enough not to drag down the party, and I'm just there because I like hanging out with these specific people.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            But I would prefer to play other games with those people instead. Chess, Stratego, street fighter, dragon ball fighters, Tekken, warcraft 3, crawl, Munchkin, tennis, table tennis, air hockey, pool - whatever. So if it's 5e I'm just there to hang out, and unless we're friends I'm just gonna say no thanks.

  43. 2 years ago
    Anonymous.

    The GM asks you to prepare the content for the session.
    During the session.

  44. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The best campaigns I've been in were sandbox by the standard used now
    Worst games were straight from the modules and were just incredibly rigid
    >i have to now read you this paragraph
    >afraid to improve
    Also for whatever reason every party formed to run a module had the least in common and would for some reason start homesteading
    Even groups I was in 10 years ago well before weekly celeb games

  45. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Signs of a TwitterGM

    >Vtuber DnD "Nerd"
    >Pfp are of tielfings
    >constantly posting dnd memes in the discord
    >Reminds us every fricking Game that the safety tools are there for us to use
    >Tries to give my character "gay outlets" despite being straight
    >Constantly harangs me in DMs about how cute my character would be if he found a boyfriend
    >Everyone in the party is gay or robot sexual and gets doted on
    >My character gets locked out of an entire mission because the baroness was hosting a gay only ball

    Don't let your GM being a fricking woke dyke.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Sounds like your DM is a fujoshi.

  46. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Forgets NPC names in the middle of dialogue
    >Makes up random numbers for really important plot points that make no sense in the context of the situation
    >Runs tons of NPCs with the party and hordes of enemies in order to make combat take longer to prepare less
    >Levels up PCs in mostly arbitrary intervals based on what they prepared and how hard it is

    These are all the ones I can think of that I do personally

  47. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >they're american

  48. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >too much autism and unnecessary crunch
    >Has little clues about how to actually GM, thinks they're playing the game when they're not
    >Is not good at taking criticism

    A lot of these you don't realize until after you're in the game. Tbh, the system basically doesn't matter to the GM. I really can't think of any system I've run that greatly impacts things on the GM side, I design and network scenarios in the same way, I stat very little out and only really ask for rolls when necessary and even then make most roll difficulties up on the spot.

    I don't play NPCs with the same tools as the PCs and I don't roll anything for them unless it's something opposing the PCs. The system basically has no impact on a GM except pointing to tables for the players to roll on and maybe rolling a couple D6 or a D100 or D20 here or there. Maybe it's just me, but I've never had a drastically different experience as a GM that was driven by the game mechanics.

    Maybe I'm just a bad GM, but in my experience good GMs don't get hung up on systems or rules in the moment. They're focused mainly on momentum of the scene or combat and how it networks into the rest of the scenes/combats.

  49. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Rather than list what I think are flags I'll list some of my gripes as GM that I think might be flags and would like your feedback:
    >I'm don't tell people how to RP their characters but I don't find it fun to GM for a bunch of murderers and rapists so don't make those
    >no politics at the table and lets not spend too much time joking around, we are only able to play once a month due to scheduling so lets not spend an hour discussing which vegetable to ambush the two orcs by the campfire with again, we can do that when we meet up for a beer
    >no electronic devices at the table unless you can't print your character sheet, and you better be looking up your spell or something before your turn if you look at it during combat
    >couples should sit separately or limit their private discussions when playing so that they know what's going on and we don't have to constantly stop to catch them up, there's no discussion you couldn't have before or after the game that requires you to constantly whisper and not pay attention
    >when playing talk to each other in first person as character and keep the telepathic war council to minimum during combat
    >if your class draws power from a higher power I will enforce that powers code or whatever you're suppose to do in exchange for that power

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I'm don't tell people how to RP their characters
      >but let me tell you how to RP your characters
      You can just tell your players you don't want evil player characters. You don't need to pretend you're not doing it in the same breath.
      >we are only able to play once a month
      >still playing with this group of people
      I've got bad news for you, anon. If your group can't make time to play every other week at the absolute bare minimum, it's because they're not making the game a priority because they're not that into it. If you want to play, you should find people who also want to play. Don't try to force it on a bunch of people who aren't that into it but are too polite or lack the self awareness to tell you they're not into it.
      >unless you can't print your character sheet
      This is an extremely lame excuse and if you're accepting it, it means you're not serious about your own rule.
      >couples should sit separately
      See also your players don't want to be there since you need to force them not to play on their phones, shoot the shit, talk dirty to each other, or generally do anything but play your game.
      So really you've only got one red flag.
      >Not willing to aggressively curate the players at his table.

  50. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >the game is an open world sandbox where you have to make 'your own fun'
    THAT'S WHAT YOU FRICKING ASKED FOR, GOD FRICKING DAMMIT. IF YOU DIDN'T WANT IT WHY DID YOU MORONS BEG FOR A SANDBOX.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Not that anon. But you know a sandbox is supposed to full of stuff happening to interact with, right? It's just a game thats not a linear adventure, and the player choices drive the plot. But it's not a featureless grey void. You get that, right?

  51. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >GMs with a splat bias.
    He loves clerics? Watch the cleric character breeze though everything. He hates thieves watch every chest have a masterlock on it.

  52. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >make your own fun.
    Yeah, that’s a bust. If players had imagination or creativity, they’d be GMs.

  53. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I think a DM setting a poor tone can really break a game. Of the two I had in mind one ran modules and would just read it off in the most bare-bones monotone way “You get to the village of Barovia and you talk to this guy and he’s insane and you talk to this girl and she’s depressed and you talk to this girl and she’s depressed and insane” (I guess “grimdark” means boring to that guy)

    Second guy was a friend who invited me to a Star Wars game; I was hoping for a table top KOTOR but was met with constant lulsorandum humor that usually only took a break when it was some max-level donut steel OC character who for whatever reason loved to spend their time crapping on our level 2 party and hitting us with “not bad, kid, you’ll get the someday”s came along (there was at least 3 of these that I can remember). I just couldn’t take the game seriously, especially when he’d try to make us take it seriously after doing all that

  54. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Entertain your bros for free. Write adventures. Buy most of the books. Also often expected to host games and feed everyone for some reason.

    People whine about you're a terrible person because some splatbook isn't allowed or you're not doing funny NPC voices or some other bullshit.

    Honestly, stop b***hing and run your own game since you're such an expert on GMing.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Run your own games.
      I do. Largely because other people don't want to do it / are terrible at it.

      >Pay for everything. Host the game. Feed people.
      I don't expect a GM to do this and people who do are c**ts.

      >Write adventures.
      Frick. If I could find a competent GM who was like: hey listen I'll run the sandbox campaign you want just give me the sandbox, faction rosters, and random event tables, a bunch of interesting NPCs who want things, an NPC generator for the game, and the maps - I would fricking jump at that opportunity. I'll dump a month of work into making the best campaign prep so I can finally play in the kind of game I normally run.

  55. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >prepared only for first hour of game
    >runs out of material
    >improvise rest of the session
    >crippling characters with unbalanced enemies
    >randomly giving loot way over, or under their respective levels

    >have month to prepare for session
    >maps, notes and cards still have wet ink as GM sets table

    >does not know abilities of characters
    >misunderstands spells
    >showdown encounter is trivialized by druid first level spell

    >frick up his initiative rolls and other combat notes
    >some enemies skip their turns
    >others go in incorrect order, messing up players plans

    I did it all bros... I am the walking red flag

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