Is it wrong to criticize your GM? Like for example when they

Critics are fine, but do it before the session picks up speed or after it's done, don't fuck up the pacing if it's not necessary.

Be polite (ie. don't be a dick) when criticising and explain yourself at length. People can't improve if you don't tell them, but just saying it's shit won't be good for anyone.

>>53101325


I think politely asking is usually fine. "Hey, last time you mentioned she had green eyes but you just said they're brown, is that.. deliberate or..." etc. If he fucked up he'll probably just say so.

It's sometimes hard, though. My DM had us go back to my hometown and meet a girl from my backstory, and she acted like an insane whore. She was a sensible, respectable young woman in my backstory who happened to have a child out of wedlock. I want to ask the DM.. is she acting weird because something is going on? But.. that's basically saying "you suck at RPing this character and didn't pay attention to my shit." I don't think he's doing it 'on purpose' and actually just thought that's how she is, and it doesn't matter much so.. I just let it go. Still, super weird.


However, years ago when I ran a game for my friends who had played a lot of D&D I had a 'dmpc' and deliberately used their assumption that an npc like that would be Word of God to lead them off course and deceive them. He was actually one of the bad guys in disguise, and they were meant to notice a lot of things like the way he acted, certain lies, etc. But they never ever caught on or questioned anything. I would have him straight up contradict himself and they wouldn't care because they were looking at their phones. One of them convinced one of the other bad guys to be on their side without fully informing the party what he was up to, then they told 'dmpc' about it and, wanting her dead, he told them she was tricking the PC and that they should kill her. The party agreed. Campaign ended before they got to it because I just didn't want this ooc party conflict or their shittiness anymore.

>>53101325

The golden rule- Wait until after the session.

If you notice something or want to mention it, bring it up Once. If the GM doesn't want to deal with it now, wait until later.

As always, try and make criticism positive. Assuming your GM isn't an arrogant asshole, they'll likely care about what you think and appreciate useful advice or tips for improving the game experience for everyone involved.

However, it's also important to remember that GMing can very much be a style thing. What you think of as wrong might be their preferred way of doing it, and sometimes a degree of compromise is necessary.

>>53101418
>It's sometimes hard, though. My DM had us go back to my hometown and meet a girl from my backstory, and she acted like an insane whore. She was a sensible, respectable young woman in my backstory who happened to have a child out of wedlock. I want to ask the DM.. is she acting weird because something is going on? But.. that's basically saying "you suck at RPing this character and didn't pay attention to my shit." I don't think he's doing it 'on purpose' and actually just thought that's how she is, and it doesn't matter much so.. I just let it go. Still, super weird.
I had a DM have the party encounter my former adventuring buddies who were all supposed to be dead, only realizing his fuck up halfway through when he pointed out my character recognized them

Another DM wrote a full blown amnesia backstory for my character, apparently not realizing I had given him my backstory at the start of the campaign, with a home and living family.

Another DM once assumed I had gone to some wizard academy and had us meet some of my classmates, when I had written a backstory where I was trained by a crazy hermit.

My current DM makes almost constant continuity mistakes because he likes to improvise complicated scenarios and doesn't take notes so he can't keep any of it straight. I point it out form time to time, but it's so constant I just roll with most of it.

I have come to realize most DMs are utterly incompetent and it's best to just let them do whatever because they're too goddamn hopeless to learn anything.

I've had one DM however who could keep things straight. He wrote a wiki for his setting, had us write out bullet point backstories and pretty much wrote a campaign almost entirely out of weaving together our backstories and the npcs in them. I would sacrifice my firstborn to play in one of his games again.

>>53101325
Here is a thing I have any player ask themselves before bringing up a criticism.
Does it affect the groups enjoyment of the game?
and
Does this affect your enjoyment of the game?
If something affects the group I will pay attention more closely to the criticism, my job as a GM is to provide a fun experience for everyone.
If it just affects you, then bring it up after the game and chances are I will hear you out. If its something major like your feeling useless in game or I glossed over a important part of your backstory then chances are I'll address that. I will honestly get miffed if you bring up minor nitpicky things I don't give a shit about. Especially rules lawyering.
GMing is hard and I am putting my time to run a game for 3-5 people I am not going to put in more effort to satisfy some small nitpick or some rule inconsistency, because it annoys you. And if a player tries to argue over me over something inconsequential then I will kick them out. Even if I am in the wrong if you try and argue with me when I am the GM, it shows that you not only do not respect my time, but you do not respect the other players.
I'll accept all forms of criticism, but that doesn't mean I'll fix them.

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I run modern mystery campaigns, so every time my players point out continuity errors I just go "ohh really, are you sure?" combined with barely contained smug grin, and lay back because the players go into paranoid conspiracy mode and start suspecting conspiracies ic and ooc.

mfw it was my error but it is now canon part of the story and setting after they pointed it out

>>53101929
That's pretty genius actually.

>>53101929
>>53102180

It's something I sometimes do intentionally as a GM.

I'll mention something without really knowing what it'll lead to. Some minor plot element or detail. And then I listen to what the players make of it.

The theories they come up with, the way they connect things together are almost always more interesting than what I could come up with myself. Of course, then you twist it a bit so they weren't completely right, but the game is enhanced by you making use of the communal creativity of the group.

>>53101789

I don't know if you mean to, but you come across as a "respect mah authoritah" type while not even caring if you're wrong.

>>53101789
You sound like an awful DM to play with