The Worst Dungeon Master Ever, Part Three

If you're interested in how character generation went, check the previous two articles. There's now a rebuttal, and it's here.

The game itself took less time than it did to make characters, and doesn't require anywhere near as much space to recount. Michael got out of the shower and made a lot of loud phone calls, laughing inanely at high volumes across the telephone lines. Eventually one of his regular players turned up.

Her name, I think, was Angela and she was a sweet, shy, hare-lipped and fragile farm girl trying her very hardest to be a goth. In the hottest days of summer, she was enduring a thick black raincoat and several layers of clothing.

Having little spine of her own, she seemed to enjoy being around Michael and feeding off of the force of his personality, while he in turn took every opportunity to impress on her what a cool guy he was and batten on her admiration. It was a heartrending thing to witness.

Michael, starting the game, continued talking constantly and loudly. But now instead of merely drawing from his store of tedious anecdotes, he threw his pet NPC into the fray. We were tossed into his upside-down traced Australia, with very little knowledge of the background. Still, there was a tavern, and being D&D player characters we knew that it was important that we All Meet In A Tavern.

Michael busily crossed things out on his notes, and informed Angela in what he must have thought was a confidential whisper (it approached a normal speaking tone of voice) that he was using his character "from a few levels ago." His character. I glanced over at his binder and saw a line of 18s and 20s. The goth girl's character was also impressively twinked out, with no stat below 16 and a few above 20. It was one of those homebrew magical flying elves Michael had babbled about earlier.

We entered the tavern, and for the next half hour Michael conveyed the following concepts:

1. His pet NPC, "Bold," was the biggest stud on the continent. See him catch beer barrels in midair! Watch all the barmaids fawn over him!
2. If Spider's character drank from a bottle, everyone would think she was a whore.
3. Good luck doing anything, ever.

I can understand a DM having a couple of well-developed non-player characters that he likes to use as plot hooks or even as travelling companions/mouthpieces for DM suggestions. The occasional deus ex machina is nice, when it doesn't happen every week and it saves the player characters from certain death.

On the other hand, what Michael was doing was running a game of AD&D where his character was omnipotent and the player characters were reduced to following him around and occasionally hitting something. It was akin to dropping trou and making us watch him diddle his (1d6+1/3 CON)" wedding tackle, right there in the kitchenette.

There's more. His character was already blatant self-insertion, but Michael also insisted on roleplaying every interaction Bold had with the player characters. His main acting technique seemed to be shutting up (!), staring dully and breathing through his mouth until we'd stopped talking, then saying something inane in a dumb guy/Bullwinkle voice. It slowly dawned on us that his character was meant to be a loud, annoying dumb guy. Talk about method acting!

We hung around the tavern, Michael rolling dice excitedly to see if we could successfully lift the big pitcher (yes). Barmaids inexplicably flung steins at Bold's head, which he caught without having to make any rolls. It helps when your player is the GM.

Angela's flying elf was sitting with Bold, being subjected to out of character anecdotes from Michael of the "do you remember the time we..." variety. Spider was thoroughly spooked by the ever-present threat of in-game ickiness after her character drank ale from the bottle and men started leering at her. Vincent's thief character skulked around and Hid in Shadows, skillfully evading the other player characters' attempts to meet him.

I decided it was up to me to get the ball rolling. I strode in, covered in furs and wearing the enormous, silver holy symbol/warhammer it had cost twice my starting equipment allowance to buy. In stentorian tones, I announced to all and sundry,

"Hail and well met! I am Gerta Dammerung, humble servant of the mighty thunder god Thor. I come from the frozen North, wherever that may be, to fight evil and eat lutefisk. I'm all out of lutefisk."

I think that was the most anyone who wasn't Michael had said at one go the whole day. I was doing my best to find the plot hook and end the "meet in a tavern" segment of the game, still clinging to the vain hope that Michael might warm up and stop being so creepy/jerky/loud/stupid.

No dice.

Usually, standing in the middle of a fantasy roleplaying tavern and announcing that one wishes to fight Evil will attract the attention of several of the Mysterious Cloaked Figures who so love to give player characters things to find and/or kill.

After what seemed like ages, Bold started asking us if we could swim. Ever-paranoid, I'd taken the Swimming proficiency at creation, so I spoke up. Bold asked me if I'd tell him about the rabbits teach him to swim, so I ignored the little voice that said "wait, your character is going to get nude in this loser's misogynistic fantasy world?" and agreed. I suppose I could have always tried to drown him; people in armor are not known for buoyancy.

Before we knew it, we were out of the tavern and over at some cavalry post.

Michael now had the chance to play another NPC, and talked to himself for our benefit for quite some time. The other NPC was characterized by his annoyance at Bold and desire for him to go far away, a remarkable bit of insight by Michael which might some day be applied to his real life. We ended up with horses and rode off in search of water.

Except for the thief, who had been skulking the whole time and didn't ever meet us. Sensing our aura of PC-ness, he followed, but in a very long segment between the stable guy and Vincent he failed to get a horse. There was no way he could have; he had little money and didn't know anyone there and the stable was too well-guarded for him to steal a horse.

If I had been the DM, I would have let him steal an inattentive merchant's horse or just knocked a few gold pieces off the price, in an effort to get the game on track and the party together. But I guess that's why I'm not the DM.

Riding and camping and riding got old. We didn't have any encounters for days, then suddenly ran into a group of angry apes.

Right after Michael finished saying, "They're like baboons, except bigger. There are a lot of them," the players all started thinking of the different ways we could escape or fight them, and how our characters would act in this exciting fantasy world.

Unfortunately, Michael immediately had Bold give us the plan, leaving us with no choice but to do what the pet NPC wanted us to. I was to smash his keg of ale (of course he brought it along) with my hammer, somehow causing a big fireball that would drive off the apes.

Must have been one of those exploding barrels. I should have kept an eye out for mysterious crates in the middle of the forest, full of ammo and health.

Anyway, Bold hefted the keg and I missed completely. I keep forgetting to put points into Dexterity - it's what your ability to hit stuff is based on, after all. I keep putting points into Strength instead, resulting in big hulking characters who frequently walk into walls and cut off their own legs. Good thing I also remember to put points into Constitution.

Pleased to have an opportunity to show off, Bold grabbed the hammer. Michael must have sensed that we wouldn't let him get off without rolling, so he did. And missed more than I did. I got another try and blew that goddamn barrel up, scattering the monkeys.

Then more nothing, then we found a cave. Of course, we had no light sources along with us. We weren't even looking for a cave, after all. We were looking for a lake to swim in. Luckily the overpowered flying elf could cast Light as many times as she wanted. But then it turned out that the sole drawback to being a flying magical elf was that they hate caves a lot, so there was more in-character discussion, which was painful.

Eventually we got into the cave. There was a big oozy thing on the floor, and some mysterious doors and platforms and other stuff, but by this time I no longer cared. The NPC was going to get all the glory anyway; why even bother? And that's when Spider suddenly and loudly remembered that she had to be back before the cafeteria closed.

Spider was the true hero of that adventure.

We biked home, stopping in our bitching about Michael only long enough to look at a garage sale that the owners had given up on, marking everything free. We got a nice dress for a mutual acquaintance. Then, more bitching.

About five minutes after I got back in the dorm and got online, I got an email from Vincent apologizing for inadvertently subjecting us to that seven-hour festival of stupidity. He seemed worried that we'd decide not to play and he promised to DM a new game, with his wife and a couple of other friends playing, and no Michael.

There's an old roleplaying game saying:

"DM" means he can do what he DM well pleases!

In Michael's case, however, DM means that he is DM'NED to the fiery abyss, in whatever sulfurous, unpleasantly humid circle is reserved for those who were sinfully lame during life.

Epilogue

A month or so later, Spider and I were at Planet of Sand again, looking for a specific GURPS book my sister couldn't find in Medford. Browsing the various "gamers sought" notices while I was engrossed in picking out some more eight-sided dice, Spider found a business card with a familiar name.



______________
Eugene, OR 97405


Phone: (541) ___-____
ravaun@netzero.net
http://www.oddworldz.com/ravaun/


Yikes. He thought enough of his mad dungeon mastering skillz to have cards printed up. Spider was annoyed and tore it down when the counter guy was busy ringing me up. She was going to throw it away, but I took it instead, mostly to remind myself to write this.

I visited the website a few days ago. Good god. It's definitely the same guy, although his picture isn't too recent. All the Star Trek and fantasy links fit his personality, and reading the thing is like talking to him - check out all the conditions he has for companies who want to interview him.

There was one surprise from his website that I never would have guessed: he was gay. From the media and from my limited face-to-face dealings with homosexuals, I've gotten the impression that gay men all share one common trait, other than the whole "sex with men" thing: they are all many times cooler than I am. Apparently Michael is the exception who proves the rule.

The look-at-me-I'm-Wiccan thing, on the other hand, doesn't surprise me in the least.

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Don't miss:

Parts Left Out of "The Worst DM Ever"
The Worst DM Ever: A Rebuttal

And in case you missed them:

The Worst DM Ever, Part One
The Worst DM Ever, Part Two