TOPIC: What to do about bad DMs?

This was our third year doing TD. Sable Gauntlet was amazing. We all loved it. Then we did hr Underdark and it was great until the last two rooms. In the mushroom puzzle room, the DM literally sat down and told us to figure it out. After we ate two wrong mushrooms, he then told us we were uneligible for treasure tokens now despite solving it shortly after. He did not come help us, but told us to come ask him (still on the floor) if we had a question about the colors or what the mushrooms were saying. Frustrated about the treasure, we go on to the final room. There, the DM does basically nothing. When we finish the fight, he simply says "Well you won. You can stay here or go. I don't really care." It was just such a bummer ending compared to the fantastic DMs we had in all the previous rooms. Is there an etiquette for dealing with DMs who seemed to have checked out? I love TD and want to continue to support it and I know these are the exception and not the rule, but it just stinks to have newer players getting bummed out after spending $52.

The best thing to do is become a volunteer and be a DM. Then you know that customers will be satisfied and get a better experience.

Wow I'm glad it wasn't just my group, I had the same argument with that Dm. He told me that because I tried one without knowing the exact answer first I "brute forced" it and so I couldn't get a stamp.

Ask for a director in a case like that.

darkangel866 wrote: Ask for a director in a case like that.

Who do you ask?

The dm. Just politely ask for a director if you feel the game is being played fairly.

CJ Heintz wrote:

darkangel866 wrote: Ask for a director in a case like that.

Who do you ask?

Ask the DM to radio for an AC (Adventure Coordinator) or Director come to the Room to see you. If the DM refuses or you feel this will not be a good idea at the time, then wait until you are done and report your concerns to an AC or Director.

I did ask to see someone above him. He at that point decided to stand in the corner of the room and ignore the entire party. Allowing no one to heal and just staring at us

I believe that depending on your difficulty, there was a cut off for attempts on room 6. Three tries on Normal, 2 on Hardcore, and 1 on Nightmare. We had a DM blank us on treasure for one bad choice on HC, but we got our card fixed later.

Sorry this happened. It should not have.

To answer your questions, several things going here.
First yes volunteer best way.
Second, I think there was some confusion of number of Try's on the puzzles.
Adventure coordinator could solve that

balthasar wrote: I believe that depending on your difficulty, there was a cut off for attempts on room 6. Three tries on Normal, 2 on Hardcore, and 1 on Nightmare. We had a DM blank us on treasure for one bad choice on HC, but we got our card fixed later.

10 something run Thursday morning. I went in with a group of newbies. Went in naked plus CoA just so I wouldn't overpower the party. Normal marked on the card. The people were absolutely AMAZING. They solved the 'crossing the lava' with only 2 failure yet were denied treasure. Then we were again denied treasure in the mushrooms. I argued a bit about it but left it alone.

Last room DM asks what we thought of TD so far. I pulled him aside, told him it was a group of newbies and that I had NEVER seen such stingy treasure stamping in all my years! I went on to say that I had a charm of avarice and didn't give a damn if I got a stamp or not. then said, did he really want to send a brand new group of future TD players out the door with no treasure? And that is after SOLVING both the mushrooms and the Lava!

He was nice enough to stamp the card twice. The players were very grateful and everyone said they had a good time.

They went from feeling very cheated to at least feeling like they had a good time.

Oh, and aside from all of that, we were getting 12 damage per fail for the mushrooms and lava also. I thought at the time that was a LOT of damage for normal. Now I know that was NM damage.

I'll put it down to the fact that it was an early run.

I also feel that some of the dms were not trained properly/incredibly indifferent to new players. I did 4 runs and had lots of inconsistent occurrences. Dms were applying nm/hc damage in normal, not paying attention to fights, letting spells work in one run and not in others when used on the same situation. Much more training was in order.