One of many ways not to DM.

Once upon a time, myself and a friend were invited to play with a new group.  We had no lives outside of gaming at the time, so role playing was never a problem for us.  We met up with the new DM at our local book store and began the process of rolling up a character.  The DM said he allowed anything and everything published to be used, and no real house rules to speak of (according to him).  I opted to play a fighter/thief while my buddy rolled up a cleric/mage (this was second edition btw).  In short, we were ready to play as an entire party by ourselves if necessary.

The DM said any alignment was fine, so we opted to play evil.  I had never gotten a chance to play an evil character, so we figured “what the hell,” and went for it.  The DM checked out our sheets and gave us the go ahead.  He wanted to go ahead and get us with the rest of the party, and called for one of his players to join him.  Well, it was a stereotypical meeting in a tavern.  The character we met had all kinds of attitude (apparently he was role playing his character correctly).

However, as evil characters, we didn’t take to kindly to that, especially my character.  I opted to teach the disrespectful oaf a valuable lesson…his last.  The other PC (my PC’s brother) distracted the oaf while I attempted to poison his drink.  Unfortunately, that’s apparently when we broke the DM.  He declared that my hand wouldn’t move in any way that would let me dispense the poison.  I whispered to my brother what had happened, and he detected magic.

There was none in the tavern.

So, I attempted to backstab, only to have the same thing happen.  Again, I informed my brother in a whisper.  So, my brother knowing we were hearty folk cast fireball.  The spell fizzled.  Cantrips and other non-dangerous spells worked fine, and dangerous spells cast against inanimate objects worked fine as well (apparently).  We were perplexed, but still intent on teaching the jerk a lesson.

Finally, the DM cried out “Please?  I don’t want you guys to kill each other in the first session!” in a whiney voice that sounded more like a child begging for a sucker than a DM speaking with authority.  We played nicely for the next few minutes, then the DM asked us when we’d be available to play next.  We declined to play in his campaign for several reasons.  Those reasons are important, and may help others aviod the pitfalls.

1.  Don’t say “Everything is allowed” unless you’re ready for it.

Be flexible, sure, but don’t just allow stuff wholesale.  I made this mistake early in my DMing life, and it won’t happen again.  Instead, set your guidelines and make players explain to you why they want to play a non-listed class.  Then, study the class and make sure it is something you can run.

Also, keep in mind that alignment within the context of a D&D game is a major force.  Don’t tell people that evil alignments are fine if the party is mostly good characters.  Again, make the players tell you why they want to play an evil character and don’t be afraid to say “no” if it will cause problems for you.

However, and this is important, don’t just nix things because they don’t fit your preconceived notion of what the campaign should be.  The campaign should be fluid, so allow it to be fluid.  If the character wants to play lawful evil, but because he sees the character as cowardly and greedy, then why not allow it.  It’ll cause some conflicts, but they’ll be great.  Besides, he gave you a good reason, right?

2.  Have a reason characters can’t do something

The things that really got to me and my buddy was that the only reason we weren’t allowed any actions was because it didn’t fit with what the DM wanted (he confessed this to us after the session).  If magic won’t work within the tavern, then make sure the tavern is known to someone as an antimagic field.  If the PC can’t backstab for some reason, the make sure there’s a legitimate reason why he can’t.  Don’t pull the all-mighty “because I said so” and not have a plausible reason.

It’s OK to not want to get into the discussion at the table, but if players can’t do what they’re wanting there needs to be a damn good reason why they can’t.  Otherwise it’s just a different type of railroading, and no one likes that.

3.  Don’t whine to your players

Being a good DM requires you to think on your feet.  Players will throw you a curve, especially the good ones.  They’ll see something you didn’t think about and do thinks you didn’t imagine.  If you can’t keep up, you’re not going to be an effective DM.  For example, the DM mentioned above could have let me slip the poison into the drink (allowing me my actions provided I rolled sufficiently), but had an eagle eyed barkeep see what had happened, and make me buy the oaf a new drink (thereby getting the same result within the context of the game).  Whining to your players when they throw you a curve simply shows you’re not up to the challenge.

Another reason not to whine is that as the DM, it’s your word that is law.  We didn’t argue when we couldn’t perform the actions we wanted, we looked for a mechanical reason why we couldn’t.  However, we still wanted to perform the evil acts.  We were both experienced gamers, so arguing with a DM was the last thing on our minds.  When he whined out loud all but begging us to stop the PvP?  Well, we were ready to leave then.

Now, in all fairness to this DM, we were kind of being assholes.  It wasn’t intentional, but instead of getting a feel for the way the DM worked, we went right for the throat.  I was younger, dumber, and more assholier then than I am now.  He felt he was experienced as a DM, and we figured he could handle our type of game play.  We learned differently.  This is why I think players and DMs should be open about the style of gameplay they each enjoy before starting a session…this was a lesson learned the hard way.  This is also why I think players should try and get a feel for how the group functions before really getting into play.

All that said, I still feel these few tips can benefit folks who are thinking of making the leap from player to DM (or GM as these aren’t game specific after all).  It might help you deal with the assholes out there like I was years ago.