Classic DM pitfalls (add your own!)

28 thoughts on “Classic DM pitfalls (add your own!)”

1. Mazes. It’s fun to be lost!

2. They will never decide to do X.

3. They’ll see the secret door, if they ask if it’s there.

4. They’ll never murder that plot-bearing NPC.

5. They’ll obviously murder that NPC, they’d never spend the entire session shopping while the villain gets away.

6. I bet this Tomb of Horrors module would be great to run in my regular campaign!

7. They’ll just naturally follow the plot hook I’m dangling in front of them.

8. Bonus: they’ll love this NPC based on my player character from another campaign !

9. There’s no way they’d gamble away the MacGuffin they need to save the world.

10. Tim Jensen Corollary: the Deck of Many Things will spice up this flagging campaign!

11. Of course they’d choose to save the town, they’re heroes!

12. They’re going to love this rich setting infodump I’ve prepared for them!

13. Of course they’ll understand who’s really behind this, they’ve met the Duke five times!

14. Ha ha! The mad architect designed this maze for efficient use of space!  Hundreds of yards of twisting, trap-filled hallways separated by single walls!  Wait…you’ve got stone to dust as a spell?  That was quick…

15. Well of course they won’t try to fight the dragon/lich/Cthulhu/demon lord/horde of half-demon stone giants. They’ll realize they’re in over their heads and flee/sneak/negotiate.

16. Someone will play a cleric.

17. I’m pretty sure they are going to do things that I can think of and predict.

18. Jeremy Strandberg I’ve been on the player side of that one myself.

19. Michael Llaneza oh yeah, me too. You think I just came up with “horde of half-demon stone giants” on the fly?

20. Why would they kill the contingent of guards who are actually working toward the same goal as the PCs? Surely they’ll ask first before sneaking up and killing them…

21. Of course they will run if the bad guy is powerful enough.

    followed by:

    Ok, time to make the bad guy seem really bad and to increase the tension…Wait why are you running away?  You can easily defeat this thing, it just seems hard.  Think!

22. Scott Heyden (this tangled maze however conforms to the aspect ratio of an A4 page)

23. I’m gonna get personally invested in a theme & tone that I have to be excited about to get my players interested, before they make characters.

24. I’ve planned for every move they could possibly make here!

    (Edit: Apologies to +james day, who seems to have this covered, in a way.)

25. Assuming they’ll try to talk to NPCs to get more information.

26. The PCs won’t interrogate every single multicellular animal in town, after one dog gave them answers, one time.

27. Surely because they kicked in the front door to the tower doesn’t mean they’ll proceed to kick in EVERY SINGLE DOOR THEY ENCOUNTER IN THE TOWER FROM THAT POINT ON…

28. Ari Black Ah, the old Exploding Door trick.  Kick..BOOM!

    Or One of my favorites, put a door over a brick wall.

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