13
What are your biggest GM regrets? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 13 hours ago by juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

That things rarely go according to plan is part of running an RPG. The players will surprise you, and often this is entirely fine - in fact, it might result in a more memorable experience and a better game.

But sometimes, things go off the rail in a bad way - and you, as a GM, did not see it coming until it was too late, resulting in disaster and a non-fun experience for all concerned.

And contemplating some of my past mistakes, I am curious about your biggest GMing regrets. What went wrong, and what would you have done differently if you had the opportunity for a do-over?

top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] Metostopholes@midwest.social 4 points 8 hours ago

Very first time playing an RPG. None of my friends had either, but I was the most motivated so got the GM chair.

We were playing Call of Cthulhu, the classic scenario The Haunting, which came in the sourcebook.At one point a character got hit by a poultergeist-ed bed, failed a dex check, and was knocked out a second story window. The dice said he lost well over his hit points on the fall. I panicked and retconned it to make him survive. I regret doing that, because it took out any threat and tension the rest of the scenario had, in what was supposed to be a horror game.

It was partially made up by that character much later activity deciding to look over his shoulder while fleeing a cultist ritual, failing a sanity check when seeing a mask of Nyarlethotep himself, and permanently losing his mind.

Admittedly I have not GMed a lot, been a player more often, but I still regret NOT killing a PC.

[-] red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago

GM is short for Dragon Master, right?

[-] wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 12 hours ago

Is the G silent?

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago

Gragon Master

[-] pteryx@dice.camp 1 points 12 hours ago

On the assumption that this is a serious question... Game Master, which in turn is a more generic version of D&D's term of DM/Dungeon Master.

[-] red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

It's a reference to D20 on a Bus, where Katie Marovitch calls herself Dragon Master to troll famous DMs like Mark Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar and Jasmine Bhullar: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=plGNmsegcJc

[-] tiberius@lemmy.ca 5 points 13 hours ago

My biggest regret is playing 4E or 5E instead of other systems. We should have played OSE, Call of Cthulhu, Numenera, or anything besides those two.

[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 3 points 13 hours ago

PF2 is a good alternative to 5e if your players enjoy that style of world / same level of fantasy but want more control over their characters and the combat flow.

[-] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 2 points 11 hours ago

I have many regrets but this is one that comes to mind:

I had a campaign where there were these impersonators acting like they were the players and doing bad things in their name. When the players finally confronted them, they were understandably annoyed, and so wanted to capture one as a prisoner to humiliate them.

One of the players and I was against it, but the other players wanted this and I 'thought' I could turn it into a neat story set up (as they could get some knowledge on the BBEG's plans).

Well it didn't work out as they didn't ask the NPC anything, they were mostly being weird (not sexually, just weird) with him. So in a later encounter he was unceremoniously targeted and killed by a random archer.

Issue solved right?

Well later on, they managed to see past a shop keeper's trick and realize she was upselling them on junk. Then the same players asked, well if we could capture the other guy, why can't we capture her? So they tried asking what it would take to restrain her.

I had to put my foot down and say no, they couldn't capture NPCs anymore. It took a few minutes of arguing before they relented.

From that point on, I no longer allow players to capture NPCs.

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago

I'm running a Cyberpunk RED campaign, and my players are motivated purely by money, revenge, and lust. I keep forgetting this and throwing scenarios at them with moral ambiguity, or the opportunity to help others.

Bless them for staying true to character. It makes hooks a little repetitive, however.

[-] pteryx@dice.camp 2 points 13 hours ago

I have a whole blog post about one game I ran that entailed a largely (though not *entirely*) disastrous few months...

https://pteryx.dreamwidth.org/3448.html

[-] juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network 1 points 13 hours ago

Ouch! That sounded rough. But I'm glad you learned some valuable lessons from it.

[-] pteryx@dice.camp 3 points 12 hours ago

One particularly wild bit: that's actually the *second* time I've had someone decide that the role they'd chosen in the party was meant to make them Always Smart and Right to the point of having more narrative power than the GM... in a trad game structure. (The first time, instead of an erzatz detective/leader, it was a scholar.)

this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
13 points (100.0% liked)

rpg

4825 readers
35 users here now

This community is for meaningful discussions of tabletop/pen & paper RPGs

Rules (wip):

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Avogadro@ttrpg.network
sirblastalot@ttrpg.network
TripHammer@ttrpg.network
Primarch@ttrpg.network
BrentTaylor@ttrpg.network