1000 Things to Beware of that Every DM Should Know

[Jack of Spades]

87. Feel free to name your NPC's, but remember that all of them will be only be referred to as "guy with the beard" or "that chick who sells potions" or "that guy who we saw on the road," no matter how many times you refer to the NPC by name.

[Alejandro]

88. Good cooking is your friend. Find someone in your group who can cook, and have everyone else give them a few bucks for the ingredients. This results in delicious and much cheaper food for the gaming session, and prevents 89:

89. A group of gamers will take longer to debate what kind of takeout or carryout to get, than they will planning how best to expose their PCs to lethal danger.

[TempestLOB]

90. If you create a portal to hell, they will go through it. Even if it is clearly labeled and they have no reason to do so.

[Razanir]

62. Build your BBEGs smarter, not tougher. Big nasty dragons are fairly standard and forgettable, but they'll always remember that evil Bard who has the city guard eating out of his hand when the party can't seem to get him arrested for anything.

62a) Bonus points if you manage to build them smarter AND tougher.

(I'm not planning to use homebrew to make a SAD gish built off Cha... That would be absurd)

[Pesimismrocks]

91) If a PC is chaotic neutral, don't let them start doing whatever they want. Casting spells on the party for no reason isn't RP

92) In a town, fire-proof everything

[ArcturusV]

91-a) If your players choose a ______ Neutral alignment, know what they really mean a vast majority of the time is ______ Evil, and that's how they are going to play it. Even down to the theory that all Evil characters are out to screw their party for no reason at all, or even the slightest hint of short term profit. "I'll give you 2 cp if you kill your team." "DONE! HEHEHEHEHEHE!"

91-b) Exceptions exist for games where Awful Stupid alignment has colored all other "Good" alignments, and thus players choose Neutral to avoid being told they have to play by Awful Stupid standards.

[Jay R]

93. No matter what the character sheet say, there are only 3 PC alignments: Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

[Lonely Tylenol]

94. Your players will make you learn every single system, sub-system, spell, feat interaction, perk, trait, obscure skill use, and even alternative rule system in order to make their characters work exactly how they intend. Yes, this includes the grapple rules, no matter how convoluted they are. They will not learn these systems themselves. On more than one occasion, this will lead to the grappler asking which dice to roll, or the Duskblade learning Bard spells, or not knowing what the spells they know do.

[Kaiisaxo]

95) Beware, if there is a slight chance the PCs will kill each other, they will kill each other.

95b) Specially if you somehow encouraged PVP

95c) Never, ever encourage PVP, not even for RP reasons

[ArcturusV]

94-a) There will be at least one point in a session where you have to remind a player who has "Given up" against some impossible challenge that they purposefully asked you to learn a system/ability that their character has which easily bypasses it.

[AttilaTheGeek]

50. If the monster is even vaguely female and humanoid, somebody will try to have sex with it. No exceptions.

This actually happened once. It was a dragon. The 26-CHA bard actually managed to seduce it, even after rolling a 1 on his Knowledge:Nature check...and then found out it was a male.

[Sith_Happens]

This actually happened once. It was a dragon. The 26-CHA bard actually managed to seduce it, even after rolling a 1 on his Knowledge:Nature check...and then found out it was a male.

96) Female dragons in D&D 3.5 have a 100% conception rate. Make sure not to tell your players this in advance.

[Fighter1000]

(97). Whenever your player characters are in a city, always expect them to cause a motherload of trouble for everyone just for the fun of it, usually beginning at the tavern.

(98). Always expect to have at least one player who doesn't rp at all, but at least participates in combat. But don't expect that player to pay any attention to what is actually happening in the combat when it isn't their turn.

(99). It is a good idea to have an NPC accompanying the PCs at all times. This way you can communicate to the players whenever you want, through that NPC. But make sure that NPC is at least somewhat knowledgeable and can hold their own in a fight, otherwise the players won't respect him or her at all. Oh, and make sure that NPC is a male character, otherwise that NPC will get cop and feeled by the most perverted and least-self-controlled member of the group.

[hymer]

100: If you read all that, it's too late already.

[SgtCarnage92]

96) Female dragons in D&D 3.5 have a 100% conception rate. Make sure not to tell your players this in advance.

Assuming you use BoEF...which...I think says that things with a 100% conception rate can pretty much choose whether or not they will be impregnated. Still, the players don't have to know that.

101) The players will spend hours checking for traps and enemies in an empty room, but will forget to do so as soon as a monster is about to ambush them. Use it to your advantage.

102) The players will have no respect for the dead, especially on the holy ground of the goddess of death.

103) There is always one player who complains that the system does not simulate real world combat and will make sure you know about it constantly.

104) If the healer takes minimal damage from an attack, he will heal himself first leaving his ally who is in the red to die horribly.

105) You will forget the attack of opportunity rules and the players will refuse to remind you of them until you accidentally provoke one.

106) If you stat it, they will try to kill it. No exceptions.

edit: Numbers were ninja'd

[hymer]

Hey! That's six numbers too many! It's 100 Things, not 106!

[GnomeFighter]

Hey! That's six numbers too many! It's 100 Things, not 106!

Only goes to prove:

107) no matter how low your expectations of your players they will do there best to disappoint you in new and interesting ways.

[Jane_Smith]

I say we add a 0 to the title and keep going. >_>

[Jack of Spades]

108. If your group uses PDFs, no-one's computer will even be turned on until the moment one of those PDFs is absolutely needed... Right in the middle of your big tense climactic moment you've been building up to all session.


(I tried and failed to make that last sentence sound like less of an innuendo... Oh well.)

[Jane_Smith]

109: If a problem can't be solved with violence then your obviously overestimating your parties abilities and mindset and are giving them a impossible encounter. ALWAYS leave violence as a option, even if its not the best one, it will just save you a headache later.

110: If a race is suppose to be a specific alignment or unplayable due to its culture, the players will try to play it, and will argue till the end of time to play that race or come up with a backstory like "oh my drow wore a helm of opposite alignment" or "my ghoul was a monk in life and never got hunger pains even after death". When you approve, they will then feel odd about playing that type of character for some silly reason or another, and then argue about playing another uncommon race within 24 hours until you approve it as well. Also, its quicker to kick them out of the game and find another player who is fine with playing the base races then say no, this character won't fit, because they will simply rage/fume/plot ways to get there ideas threw by any means necessary and generally tantrum to make you feel guilty.

[Jack of Spades]

110: If a race is suppose to be a specific alignment or unplayable due to its culture, the players will try to play it, and will argue till the end of time to play that race or come up with a backstory like "oh my drow wore a helm of opposite alignment" or "my ghoul was a monk in life and never got hunger pains even after death". When you approve, they will then feel odd about playing that type of character for some silly reason or another, and then argue about playing another uncommon race within 24 hours until you approve it as well. Also, its quicker to kick them out of the game and find another player who is fine with playing the base races then say no, this character won't fit, because they will simply rage/fume/plot ways to get there ideas threw by any means necessary and generally tantrum to make you feel guilty.

110a. If the race isn't common in the game, when the PCs meet that race they will expect them all to act and/or think like their explicitly-an-oddball party member. This will continue to be the expectation-- nay, the assumption-- no matter how many times normal members of the race are encountered.

111. It only takes ONE player who thinks he's a goddamn comedian to break immersion and tone for everybody in a serious game. That player will never get better, will never start playing seriously, and will never stop metagaming. Don't expect him to.I mean, seriously. I know funny in my bones, dude, I'm a lifelong comedy nerd. You're just screwing up my damn game and making it so that I can't run more than a one-off of anything because you won't take anything in the world seriously and won't make a character who's more than a single transparent, sloppily-executed joke trying to pass off as a part of the game.</rant>

[Jane_Smith]

111a: This can be flipped around for great effect in the case of dreamspun sorcerers or characters with the dreamborn template or have a form of insanity suddenly spouting nonsense about d20 rolls and levels in classes and templates in the actual game world leaving all the npc's and players in character scratching there heads. Bonus points if the character is named Gary, and invents one of the most best selling popular board games in all the world's setting.

(My group has a dreamborn human dream-sorcerer/wizard illusionist that often has his character talk to the dm and other players ic/oocly hybrid, and leaves npcs and the other characters extremely confused at his apparently one sided conversations. Its hilarious.)

[ArcturusV]

109-a) Or Fire.

[EccentricCircle]

112) Contrary to popular belief: the grappling rules are actually fairly straight forward.

113) contrary to popular belief: Everybody expects the spanish inquisition.

[huttj509]

112) Contrary to popular belief: the grappling rules are actually fairly straight forward.

113) contrary to popular belief: Everybody expects the spanish inquisition.

112a) Unless you're playing ADnD (and 2e actually simplified it from 1e).

[FreakyCheeseMan]

93. No matter what the character sheet say, there are only 3 PC alignments: Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

93-b: And Maniacally Laughing Evil.

[Slipperychicken]

114. If you roleplay item-purchasing and selling, it will consume half the session. Especially if the PCs go to multiple different merchants to do it. Either the PCs will spend 30 minutes alternating between haggling and threats of violence to save a copper piece, or someone will try to steal something. Seriously, hand-wave it with a single roll. This will save you hours of gameplay.

[Darthteej]

115) If you describe something for flavor purposes, it will immediately be assumed to be a trap or loot.

116) Traps and loot are the universally understood "pay attention" symbols to PCs.

117) Players will ALWAYS bring in physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, and even Magic-ology in order to contradict your point, ESPECIALLY if it will give them a perceived advantage.

118) The party monk, rogue, or sometimes psion is going to want to try some balls-to-the-wall crazy stunt in order to inflict damage. Consult 4th edition's advice on this, no matter what edition you're running.

[Jack of Spades]

117) Players will ALWAYS bring in physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, and even Magic-ology in order to contradict your point, ESPECIALLY if it will give them a perceived advantage.

117a. This isn't a two-way street. If you try to use physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, magicology, or any other -ology, your players will never allow it unless you do it in a way explicitly allowed (and outlined) by the rules.

117b. Thus, it is best to homebrew and write down every nifty real-world idea you want to bring into the game. Written rules always seem more fair than "No, this is my table, and we're doing this."

[Forrestfire]

117) Players will ALWAYS bring in physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, and even Magic-ology in order to contradict your point, ESPECIALLY if it will give them a perceived advantage.

117c) If players do bring in -logies into factor to contradict my point, I will counter with a reason why it works. Or with a suitably mysterious description of how it doesn't work like they expect it to. If this means that the BBEG has an extra wizard on his staff, or possesses a reality-warping artifact, so be it