Do Your Worst

Jyrdan Fairblade · Post by **Jyrdan Fairblade** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:09 pm

What was the worst campaign you ever participated in...

As a DM:

Either one of the first 3e campaign I ran (no one really liked the characters they were playing - one was a snooty elven bard and the other an obnoxious halfling) or a 2e Underdark campaign (everyone was so bored that they could barely finish a session)

As a player:

Unfortunately, a long-running Palladium campaign - it started off as a very fun TMNT campaign, but then the GM started tacking on the other books (first Heroes Unlimited, then Ninjas & Superspies, then Rifts). One by one our characters were outclassed and slaughtered, often times accompanied by the mocking laughter of the GM.

Coleston the Cavalier · Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:42 pm

Dragonlance.

Nothing personal - it was just way too scripted for my tastes.
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:52 pm

As a DM: everything I ever run. I get bored with it, eventually.

As a player: a time I was playing in a game where natural 20 = automatic success and I rolled 3 of them in a row but was told "sorry, you failed." Apparently, success would have meant the DMs plot ended at the start.

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:05 pm

My worst as a DM: My D&D3.x camapign? Naw. Probably the all time worst was one of my first dungeons. It was a series of floating rooms. Twenty rooms per level. And in each room was .

As a Player: When my buddy, who come to think of it went in that dungeon I DM'd (back in '86), took his revenge on me by having the party go through a forest. And while we were walking along the forest we get ambushed by ... a panther. Then some wild canines. Then a bear. Then a boar. Then a wolverine. Then a cheetah. Then a family of badgers. The badgers killed me. This was the very next week after we played a DCC that the DM didn't ever read. So we had to stop every five minutes and let him read what was going to happen next.

Almost a year later I found one of those grocery store tabloids with a story (and photo) of rabid badgers attacking soldiers in Iraq. I took the mag over to my buddy who worked there (and also died to the badgers in that game) and told him "Hey, Easy's (the DM) badgers got loose and killed some other people's characters in Twilight:2000. I don't feel so bad about them killing mine off now."
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:30 pm

Ugh, I was in a few campaigns that were so awful I could barely contain myself. Because one of them was a friend, I stuck it out for as long asI could.

The other a combo RIFTS and Robotech game, I got so frustrated I simply stood up in the middle of the 3rd or 4th session and said to the GM "You should consider that RPGs might not be your forte" and walked right out of his game. I didn't feel bad because it was some of the worst drek ever. I mean, gawd awful.

-O
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Valerian · Post by **Valerian** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:42 pm

I guess any game in which I have a tpk is not a good DM job . But nay how.

The worst game I played in was on e in which one of my players wanted to run. I let him run an adventure for the group he had been part of. He still wanted to play his character and asked me to Npc an assassin. While the party was traveling in a city after miniatures were used to make party order . The DM said "my character would be over here" then a blue dragon breathed on the rest of the party. Thats when my assassin struck the lone character LOL
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:24 pm

One time I let the players make as many characters as they wanted (BECMI D&D). I suppose the Isle of Dread wasn't really meant for 20 PCs to go rolling through it. Wasn't exactly the Isle of Dread anymore. More like the Isle of Mass NPC Extinction.
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Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:13 pm

Probably the time our party was repeatedly ambushed along a road by increasing difficulties of Chromatic Dragons. Everybody concerned was about twelve or thirteen years old at the time, but it still sucked.
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gideon_thorne · Post by **gideon_thorne** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:43 pm

I dunno. I really cant think of one off hand. I've played with some odd ducks, but no real bad games.

I've been involved with a game or two that had some immature players. But nothing truly bad.
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Buttmonkey · Post by **Buttmonkey** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:13 pm

Tough call. Two candidates:

A. The first time I tried to DM I was probably in 5th or 6th grade. I invited some friends I met at Kollege for Kids. We took a break after ingesting an unhealthy amount of caffeine. I remember one of the players standing outside my house swinging a shovel around wildly and screaming at the top of his lungs. He refused to calm down and I eventually had to ask him to leave. Kind of an ugly incident and I think everyone just went home after that.

B. When I was in high school, I played in a pure hack and slash 1E game with my dad and some of his friends. It was fun at first, but then the DM's budding alcoholism took control. He went from drinking a couple of beers while we played to getting drunk by the end of the game session to being drunk by the time the game started. The last time I went the DM was drunk at the start and insisted on wrestling with me on the couch. My dad and I stopped attending then and I heard the group broke up shortly thereafter. It was anything but fun watching this guy spiral downward.

shane · Post by **shane** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:43 pm

I remember a really messed up version of B2 that involved a panzer tank. In a dungeon. Granted, we were all 11 or 12 at the time.

---

It's always bad when the people are fun, but the game is slow...
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Harry Joy · Post by **Harry Joy** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:25 am

A romp through the modern streets of Memphis, TN in Changeling. Now, I'm still not sure if it was the game itself, or the folks playing. Character creation was awesome fun, and the "Storyteller" was talented. She kept my interest and had me all kinds of involved before the first game session. But after two actual sessions with other people involved, I split. Claimed all sorts of nasty diseases and ailments to remove myself from the group. Even had a hip replaced. Just so I would never have to return.

But two things are for sure - I'm never going to play a Fistful of D10's Game again, or ever again with anyone who can memorize every source book for WoD.

GameOgre · Post by **GameOgre** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:01 pm

Worst DMed- A Top Secret game that I lost all control of at the very start. The entire game consisted of a mass firefight at Mcdonald's. Really! One of the pc's got insulted by a snot nosed punk and blew his brains out while waiting in line. The next 3 hours the party took on people on the street,cops,swat and finally a hit team sent in by the CIA to take them out. I was very young at the time
Worst played- Stormbringer, The DM's wife rolled up a powerful mage Queen with a Balrog familiar. The rest of the party started out as Pig farmers living in a swamp.

It only got worse from there.

Eventually my character had enough and confronted the spoiled little queen about some very poor choices she insisted on everyone following and I was picked up and dangled in the air by the Balrog. The DM then turned on me and said what do you do? I had had enough hours ago so my reply was"I piss on the Balrog".

To this day when any of us players that were there that night get in a no win situation we say" I piss on the Balrog"
Oh the worst part of all that was the DM was my boss in the Navy
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jaybird216 · Post by **jaybird216** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:18 pm

I haven't DM'd in a bajillion years, so it's hard to cite specifics. However, it's a safe bet that it'd be the same as some of the examples above: A Mentzer D&D campaign run by an 11-year-old. Floating dungeon rooms with nonsensical ecology and LOADS of Monty-Haul treasure, etc. Good times.

My worst playing experience was my recent attempt at joining an in-person AD&D game a few months ago. I probably hadn't rolled a d20 n anger in 15 years or so, and had decided to get back into the game. The DM (someone I met on the local D&D meetup boards) would prepare for the game by smoking a bunch of weed and then would spend the entire session getting progressively more messed up on Jaegermeister and Red Bull. Although we were supposedly going to be running through a module, we pretty much just spent the entire time wandering around the wilderness facing random encounters. The DM seemed to take particular joy in killing characters, especially the ones being run by his younger brother. It would regularly devolve into a big argument between them. I gave it four sessions and decided it was more frustration than fun, so decided to step out. It was opportune that I had a handy excuse: A bunch of freelance work that needed my attention. I just never went back after that was completed.

The silver lining is that I found C&C a few weeks later. These are the fun times I remember so fondly if only OpenRPG's dice bot didn't have such a hatred for me.
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Keolander · Post by **Keolander** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:42 pm

Worst DMed - Had to be at a convention (I think it was NecronomiCon in Tampa some 10 yrs ago) where I ran Against the Giants. The PCs spent the first hour (Im not making this up) arguing about how to approach the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. Most of them had this elaborate plan that was so hoaky it would never have worked (something about getting wagons and claiming to be a passing merchant caravan). Was finally saved when I prodded the Thief to sneak up to the door and listen. Once inside, things went from bad to worse when the Psycho Fire Mage (Gleed) opened one of the doors to the Great Hall, chucked a fireball and then turned to his stunned partymates (who had been off sneaking around and met up just in time) and announced 'They're coming!'. Needless to say, the giants that survived made mincemeat out of the party.

Worst played - 1st Ed. AD&D game where the DM used Castle Caldwell and Beyond....sort of. We were all enslaved persons (I was playing a Druid) who had to get our 'master' tons of gold before he would let us go. We ended up, I kid you not, with a measely 60 Copper Pieces and 2 Silver Pieces with which to turn over to our 'Lord' when we were done scouring the dungeon and killing the monsters. The monsters all got wacky saving throws that kept them on their feet far longer than they should have, resulting in us getting the crap kicked out of us repeatedly.

Needless to say, that campaign lasted 4 sessions before we revolted and refused to play anymore.
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:57 pm

There was one game I (as a DM) brought a Veritech fighter into AD&D. The players weren't entirely pleased to get their characters plastered by an autocannon.
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:28 pm

CharlieRock wrote:
The players weren't entirely pleased to get their characters plastered by an autocannon.

Bah. Whiners.

Keolander · Post by **Keolander** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:38 pm

CharlieRock wrote:
There was one game I (as a DM) brought a Veritech fighter into AD&D. The players weren't entirely pleased to get their characters plastered by an autocannon.

::snickers::

Besides, Veritechs are only good in Rifts or Macross II for crossovers.
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:56 pm

Keolander wrote:
::snickers::

Besides, Veritechs are only good in Rifts or Macross II for crossovers.

WHAT?!?! Didn't you read my post? IT STINKS!

-O
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:10 pm

Battletech is better.

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:33 pm

serleran wrote:
Battletech is better.

MechWarrior has my personal record for longest running campaign. I stopped playing about a year after the 4th Succession War. Right after the Clans showed up ( I was not a ClanFan.)
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:30 pm

serleran wrote:
Battletech is better.

Classic Battletech is some kind of awesome, for sure. We usually throw a little bit of Mechwarrior in our CBT campaign games. Great fun.

-O
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Zudrak · Post by **Zudrak** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 8:41 pm

Coleston the Cavalier wrote:
Dragonlance.

Nothing personal - it was just way too scripted for my tastes.

Agreed. Plus the fact that we were all 12-16 meant that I played babysitter trying to get the players into it more than I actually played DM, which soured the experience for me.

I remember reading the "What happens if certain characters die" section where someone falls off a cliff to show up again in DL(higher number than the one you're reading). I was thinking how the series was like a railroad track where everyone (DM & players alike) is simply along for the ride.
Thankfully, the too-large group of players and their refusal to take the game seriously saved me the grief of railroading them.
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"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

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Maliki · Post by **Maliki** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:18 pm

Mine had to be when a friend of a friend DM'd a couple of sessions.

During character creation we had to roll randomly for everything, height, weight, hair color, eye color (each eye). Nobody had two eyes that were the same color.

We each go paid 1,000,000 GP to explore some caves.

Once inside we found that anytime we mentioned our gods name he/she would appear before us, and handed out magic items.

A 10 X 10 room with a lich just hanging about.

A room with 10,000 regenerating pillows.

And to top it all off we were regulated to henchmen like status to the one player the DM knew and an high level NPC that went along.

Sound like a 10 year olds campaign, no this guy has been playing/DMing for 20+ years.
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Zudrak · Post by **Zudrak** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:27 pm

Maliki wrote:
Mine had to be when a friend of a friend DM'd a couple of sessions.

During character creation we had to roll randomly for everything, height, weight, hair color, eye color (each eye). Nobody had two eyes that were the same color.

We each go paid 1,000,000 GP to explore some caves.

Once inside we found that anytime we mentioned our gods name he/she would appear before us, and handed out magic items.

A 10 X 10 room with a lich just hanging about.

A room with 10,000 regenerating pillows.

And to top it all off we were regulated to henchmen like status to the one player the DM knew and an high level NPC that went along.

Sound like a 10 year olds campaign, no this guy has been playing/DMing for 20+ years.

I quote my brother here:

"Take a 5 foot step and fall on your sword."

That was in response to my sister's lament in combat that she (as the party's rogue) did not know what to do.
_________________
AD&D, Amish Dungeons & Dragons.

"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

-----

"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

Keolander · Post by **Keolander** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:50 pm

Omote wrote:
WHAT?!?! Didn't you read my post? IT STINKS!

Yea, but I had fun playing a ATAC VeriTanker in Rifts. Of course, that was back when the latest book to come out was Mutants in Orbit.
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Lurker · Post by **Lurker** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:47 am

My worst (as DM) was my first. It was classic blow them away with power and give them all the cool toys....... I was soooo young and foolish.

My worst as a player was (It is suprising how many have said this I thought I was special) a RIFTS Robotech. It was as ugly as all of yours but the really bad thing was that every main NPC or henchman was a woman with a full "playboy" spread..... Yeah this DM had troubles deviding his vices...
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:42 am

Keolander wrote:
Yea, but I had fun playing a ATAC VeriTanker in Rifts. Of course, that was back when the latest book to come out was Mutants in Orbit.

Um, Keolander... You're not that guy I used to play RIFTStech with... were you?! For some reason I thought I remember you from around the Ohio area... and if you are, that would be too close to a coincidence...

-O
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Keolander · Post by **Keolander** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:17 am

Omote wrote:
Um, Keolander... You're not that guy I used to play RIFTStech with... were you?! For some reason I thought I remember you from around the Ohio area... and if you are, that would be too close to a coincidence...

Nope, lived all my life in the Deep South, first in Georgia and then onto sunny Florida. I've only visited Ohio twice in my life, both times in the last 3 years. I was at the University of West Florida in Pensacola when I played in that Rifts game.
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:22 pm

...Ah. Well, I still don't like cross-ver conversions. BAH!

-O
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