Post/Author/DateTime	Post
immaculateblaze 09-17-05, 06:43 PM	In our home games our DM has been nicknamed a facist[/red] for quite awhile due to the fact that we constantly face insurmountable danger and in any given adventure we go through about 4 or 5 characters each due to the mortality rate. in the newest game we started off as 1st level characters. there's four of us and we got split up in a small hunting town where a hoard of 2,000 goblins came to destroy the town on their way to our home town of Ashabenford. so here I am, the half-elf ranger, running with my new buddy a half-orc barbarian, through the streets away from the ensuing destruction, when all of a sudden there's a woman and her child and baby trying to flee. so we stop and help her where we're now slowed to speed 15ft. two worgs riders (goblins) CR 2 for each of the worgs. come bounding down the street, so we hide the woman and children in an abandoned house and face them off as we know we can't outrun them. i was hiding on the side of the road with my bow. the worgs came up and took two bites out of the barbarian, he is now at 0 hp. full retreats. i take a shot at them, miss. then they shoot a javelin at the barbarian. he's now unconscious and dying, (he dies). and im running around trying to evade them, i end up running into a house to face off against them and manage to take care of the two goblins as they came in. then the worg comes in and destroys me. game over. is this at all fair?! from my standpoint it's not, but that's because we were utterly destroyed. i wanted to get some third party observations. extra notes: yes i know you can't fight every battle and sometimes you just have to run away. but i couldn't run, i had been hustling and running all day to try and get to this town to warn them. the worgs would have been able to catch up to us easily. oh yeah, and i hear the woman and children being savagely eaten. all this and i'm trying to play an exalted good character. thanks for the feedback... Imbryl, the last surviving (half)elf of house Starym (other than my impotent uncle who hates me)(in this game). [color=red](Edited by WizO_Sith. Use of the word "Nazi" to describe anyone *OTHER* than a member of the German National Socialist Worker's Party between 1938 and 1945 is highly inflammatory, thus a violation of the Wizards Online Code of Conduct (http://www.wizards.com/coc), and is not allowed on these forums.)
warlockco 09-17-05, 07:14 PM	Sounds more like you have a bloodthirsty DM. Whose goal is to kill the PCs, for his own enjoyment. Simple Solution, Have Someone Else DM.
Dielzen 09-17-05, 08:15 PM	/agree
Asadeseth 09-17-05, 08:16 PM	I had a simlar situation, though probably not THAT bad in trying to kill PCs but he also was a stickler for Omnipotent NPCs, Metagamed desinged NPCs (Half-Fiend/Pixie Sorcer-assasin?!?!), and a few of the other no nos. Eventaly it came to a head and i showed up early to game one day to talk to him about it, it didnt go over well.. at all. In the end i simply walked out of the game, 2 weeks later so did every one else. The sad part is he could have been a very good GM, but he one: Didn't moderate him self of the NPCs: Two: Didn't know how to keep OOC knowledge out of NPC hands that they had no right to know about; and three didnt take feed back very well (one of the other players warned me ahead of time to be fair, but i did it anywaise as is I wanted to try and work things out befor i walked away). Oh and yes several PCs died in the campain, a rather large number actualy.
WVgamer 09-17-05, 08:51 PM	one of my friends who DM's is. He's out for the systematic elemination of gnomes. :) Bad jokes aside, some DM's are like that. Some are so concerned about story and you guys winning that if PC's are level 10, he'll throw 5 MM orcs at a a group of four. It's kinda hard to balance a challenge for the players and still making a campaign interesting. However, if I were you, I would have reached across the table, knocked over the screen, and slugged them for their idioticy.
Herr Doktor 09-17-05, 09:48 PM	My first bit of advice would be to talk to the DM, talk to your fellow player(s) to see if they're feeling the same way first, so that you can present the DM with the fact that the others are feeling the same way as well. Tell him you ain't having fun with all the death, death, death. See if you can't work something out. If he refuses to hear, gets angry, kills your PC, etcetera, find a new DM... Or hope it is just a phase.
Yokinobu 09-17-05, 10:00 PM	I feel like I should know you people, like we've shared the same DM or something. I truly believe mine meant well, he was just prone to bad judgement calls when it came to what the party could handle and what it couldn't. So me and a buddy walk into an inn, and after dealing with an extremely unreasonable and racist innkeeper, my hafling character decides to steal some food and run out. Since we somehow stupidly managed to convice the DM that my halfing character and the other player's character could fit in the same square so that we could get out at the same time, both our characters took damage from the juvenile green dragon that pounced us, which had been conveniently waiting above the inn door on the outside. Needless to say, our two level 1 characters and some of the rest of the party were slain by the dragon. I'm a more conservative player. I believe in taking time, fighting a few goblins, kobolds, fire beetles, ect. At least until we get a little more experienced.
Aylomeizen 09-17-05, 11:00 PM	I'm a rough Dungeon Master. I like to throw challenges at my players, and I like to keep them on their toes. When they accomplish something, I feel that they earn it. A classic example of this is my standard caravan run, which I mostly use with newer players. It goes like this: the players are being besieged by kobolds who intentionally and systematically attack their horses in hit and run attacks. They're doing this out of hunger, though the players may not intitially recognize this. If the players decide to fight these vermin, or if they leave the caravan behind in an attempt to go after them, they will be overrun and the caravan lost. This is because they're weak, low-level players. So, what does an intelligent player do? He studies the situation and, through simple deduction, recognizes that they're doing this out of necessity. The kobolds are effectively trying to mug them for food. If the players are smart, they will give the kobolds a few barrels of jerky or some other food items - but this is a small price to pay for the protection of an entire caravan, not to mention their survival. It's simply not fun to put the players in situations where they can't win or survive. Good, "hardcore" Dungeon Masters almost always give their players an escape route, and they don't mash their superiority and their power over the players in the process. And they don't habitually put them in deathtrap situations.
immaculateblaze 09-18-05, 02:19 AM	wow, I didn't expect so many responses so fast! thanks for the great advice. my DM actually gave me a call a little while after I had posted and asked me if I had any comments or questions on the previous game (where we got ****ed). from the tone in his voice i think he realizes that he ****ed us and it wasn't very leveled out. he mentioned that the barbarian isn't dead yet and that there's still an out route for survival. he didn't give me much info as we had very little time to talk, but it sounds like he essentially made something up that will give us a chance to live another day. we don't have another game till next weekend, but I'll be sure and post what happens in the meantime, from your advice, I will be sitting down and talking to him before the next game. i spoke to some of the other players and they agreed that it was way too challenging and the options open to us all ended in dead ends even if we chose to abandon the woman and children and run each man to himself. so we'll see how that goes. my DM is known for never admitting that he's wrong, but perhaps he'll rework things for future to keep us from destroying story flow. since my character is actually pivotal to the story plot. which doesn't mean i think i'm invinceable.... but hey, i deserve a chance ! thanks again, ;)
createvmind 09-18-05, 10:57 AM	Hopefully he will change but I fully expect my players to walk out if I were to kill their 1st lvl chars in first game just cause I could. Secondly the DM knows or should know that a CR of a creature is for a party of 4 players, to have you guys facing off against multiple higher CR's is ridiculous, no excuse for it whatsoever. Good luck this weekend
jim9311 09-18-05, 05:19 PM	not sure what his political party association has to do with it, but he definately sounds like a jerk. You guys need to take the game somewhere else and let someone else DM. Let him play with himself. After a while, if he wants to play with the group and be a part of them gaming expereience, he will come around.
immaculateblaze 09-19-05, 01:49 AM	the problem is that we don't have another DM. no one else wants to do it. he doesn't even much like doing it. but someone has to. so essentially, we're stuck with him unless we find a new DM, which has so far been very unlikely in that I know VERY few D&D groups out here in Montreal. there was one I was interested in playing with, but the commute is just too far. I am considering DMing a seafaring campaign, so perhaps if the game goes too sour I'll try my hand. until then I've actually come up with a few backup characters for when I die. they include an endearing forest gnome druid named Tweet with his wolf animal companion and a depressed tiefling bard named Jack who has a pack mule. i can't believe i've never had one before. as for the barbarian, his new character is an elven soulknife. and as for my DM, this is his email back to me when I emailed him about my thoughts on the game. notes: reid is the barbarian and will and meli are the other party members who escaped the town via merchant cart (the merchant would only allow two of us to go, so I had the two weaker ones go with the cart) "We will ROLEPLAY where you go from here. The encounter was unbalanced because you were in a besieged town with Reid "drawing their attention" for some reason or the other in the middle of the road. How were you supposed to beat them? Hiding an slinking around may have been a good idea, but if you chose to fight a losing battle that was your choice to make, not mine. I had told Reid how DIFFICULT it was to kill that wolf that became his armor - that he almost died in the process, therefore, fighting two that had goblin warriors on their backs might have been a mistake... especially drawing their attention to you. Alone you had few choices save diplomacy to save yourself, either that or flee into the night and try and evade pursuit. I wasn't going to give you a drunk one-legged worg to fight just because you decided to stay in a besieged town. Will and Meli had a hard time leaving said town because you weren't there, though it would have been easier had you guys been there on the cart. Your statement, however, led to your being knocked out and not killed, for the moment, though we'll roleplay what happens from there. I actually anticipated this possibility before and had stuff prepared in the event. Regardless, I shouldn't need to explain myself for my story arc. If you don't trust me as DM and think that I'm out to screw you then don't play. Otherwise, when I set out an encounter setting deal with it and bring mistakes with regards to the rules to my attention." I don't know if this is a normal mentality, but I take it as a more realistic DMing point of view. in that, just because you're first level characters doesn't mean you'll only fight low level creatures. in the real world anything can happen. and if you were there two worgs are running down the street whether you're 1st or 10th level characters. so yes, that's realistic, but I think in the end... we are playing a game with scalable challenge ratings, engineered for continual challenge instead of overkill and ********.
Silverpanther 09-19-05, 03:28 AM	guys, i am german, and i feel somewhat offended by this thread! i thought bigwizo sister made clear that we have to keep the real world out of our community. i don`t like the idea that you call somebody who likes to kill his pcs in an bloody orgy automatically a nazi. so please stop that. okay?
warlockco 09-19-05, 04:08 AM	guys, i am german, and i feel somewhat offended by this thread! i thought bigwizo sister made clear that we have to keep the real world out of our community. i don`t like the idea that you call somebody who likes to kill his pcs in an bloody orgy automatically a nazi. so please stop that. okay? Hmm Silverpanther does bring up a very good point. The title of this thread should at the very least have been edited by the Moderators. Especially by now.
Sweethug 09-19-05, 09:52 AM	I dont tune the world to my players capacities. Things happens, they choose to be involve in it or not. Hence, i dont kill them. I always give them the possibility to run. If they put their hands on something to big for them, they can manage it by different means. Looking for help, retreat and come back later, flee... Sometimes i make encounter checks that are far to high for them. But 1- They know that traveling is very dangerous and still they are not particullary cautious. 2 - Most of the time they can avoid encounters (hide is very efficient when familiars and animal companions warn you in time). 3 - If things get nasty, they have been warned and some of them can run and come later to rescue or resurect their comrades. I dont enjoy killing a PC (it never happened for now), they often go hp negative, but this is the way they like to play. Unless monsters are hungry animals, blodthirsty creatures or assassins they let their opponents for dead when they fall unconscious (sp). My 2 GM cents
Sovereign King 09-19-05, 09:00 PM	Your dm seems to me to be concerned with the combat aspect of the game rather then the role playing part. One does not have to slaughter the entire party with over whelming numbers to illustrate an attack by a superior force. More often then not detailed description can illustrate the impact of a superior force. I'll give you an example of a game I ran recently that somewhat similar to your dms session he ran. I ran a similar adventure with a town being over run by goblins in the moonshae isles. I however used smaller numbers for the goblin raiding force infact in my story the goblins had already sacked the village and the entire village had been put to the sword. I had the party hired by an absenty landlord who hadn't heard from the village or received his yearly taxes. The party which consisted of 5 members sailed up the coast to the fishing village and slipped onto the docks and started to investigate. They encountered a patrol of goblins and proceeded to slaughter them. During the melee with the goblins one of the characters (a pirate from Nethlander) fired his flint lock pistol and this drew the attention of another patrol. Having given a graphic description and having a map prepared before hand the players utilized their surrondings to engage the second patrol and quickly made short work of them. As you can see the party having a detailed descripition of their surrondings and having a map prepared before hand really assisted them in surviving the first adventure. My suggest for your dm would to emphasize role play over roll play and to flush out the majority of his encounters so it'll give options to clever players that he himself hasn't thought of.
Platinu Kismet 09-22-05, 02:53 PM	My first DM ever back about 22 years ago was like this. Our gaming group would meet at his house every Saturday and roll up between 6-10 characters each play session. Meatgrinder after meatgrinder. If we complained he'd say, "If you don't like it, you don't have to play." After about 2 years of this, I took his advice. It wasn't fun and it had never been fun, I just wanted to play so I put up with it. Then he started calling, begging me to play again. I'd just quote his 'advice' to me and refuse. It was a few years later before I gave him another chance and he was much better. He said that he had came to realize that with him he always saw DMing as 'Me against the players' so he'd take us out. Over and over. It was never really fun in his world and it wasn't until I started playing with another group that I realized just how much fun DnD can actually be. But at least Killer DMs can learn from their mistakes.
GothWulf 09-22-05, 04:12 PM	I'll admit, I'VE ran games where I've done this to the PC's...but I always gave them fair warning ahead of time. For ex. the druid notices that all of the animals in the surrounding woods are acting strange and running...all in the same direction. A warning that a large invading force or something equally big and nasty is headed the party's way, or some other type of warning, subtle though it may be. I like to try and leave it up to them if they are going to die or not. If they decide to stay and fight, well, there isn't much that they can expect, however if they decide to evacuate the town, I always put SOME way in there that they can accomplish it....it's just up to them to find it. Since my players know that I can be rather devious when I set my mind to it, its made them look for options that are anything but obvious. In one game my "way out" of this scenario was that there was a "backroad" in the woods around the village. Between the druid and the bard in the party they were able to discover this by listening to an old woman who told the bard a story about how her sister had dissapeared years before and the local legend of there being a "thing" in the forest that people had been seeing for years. Needless to say I was rather proud of them for figuring it out in record time, and convincing the Guardian to allow the entire village access, so by the time the army got there the village was completely deserted. My motto has always been, "yes, I may have been mean, I may have been cruel, but I always try to be fair". There is only one time when I killed off the entire party <actually, I set them up to die...the players just didnt know it yet> and that was because the way game went the entire party dying was actually part of the plot. Each of the 2nd set of characters was related in some way to the first party <son, wife, ect.> and was able to use part of what the previous party had learned to figure out what was really going on. History is sooo much more fun if you actually get to play though it instead of just having it handed to you....you pay more attention to it...LOL Wulfe
YouRebelScum 09-22-05, 06:48 PM	Sounds like a DM being power crazy... but... When I have DMed in the past, I've found I've had to DM for the group in question - no group of players has been the same. Some know all the fantasy cliches plus better than I do and are intelligent so get what's going on quickly. Sometimes this is due to gaming experience, sometimes, just because they are smart. Sometimes the players are dumb - not in terms of their intellect, but that they treat the game wrong, or are just inexperienced, or just can't take a hint. Parties made from groups like that have died horribly in situations that were meant to be non-violent... And I've been a player in groups where we have been in what should have been non-violent situation just because the DM assumed that we would work something out that we didn't! Have you spoken to your DM about your situation? He/she may not realise that they are screwing up the game because they are ignoring your abilities; using adventures beyond your party; assuming you'd 'get' his plot; whatever... comunicate with the guy. Ask what you could have done to roleplay out of the situation. If the guy can't answer at all, he was on a power trip and no mistake! If he can, listen to what he has to say, and put up some counterpoints if he's wrong! Leave if you don't like what's happening in the end... that's the ultimate vote!
Crust 09-22-05, 09:19 PM	I was once called a Dungeon Nazi. Fall of 1998, I'm DMing a brand new group in Shadowdale. We had just finished Beneath the Twisted Tower.... The ruins of Grimstead Castle, 1369 DR. The young adventurers are investigating a sighting of goblins rummaging around the ruins. A fallen tower, long since overgrown with vines and moss, acts as a cave for a trio of young brown bear cubs. Their cries alert the PCs, and they investigate. As they creep forward, the mother bear rises from her haunches and bristles at the group's approach, fully prepared to die in defense of her cubs. The party gnome psionist and the dwarven fighter look at each other and say, "Let's kill it." The ranger and the paladin frown and step clear away along with the rest of the group. The gnome psionist forms a hook of stone from the inside of the tower, ties a rope to the hook, and attempts to lasso the mama bear while the dwarf charges, bellowing a war cry. The lasso doesn't work. The dwarf gets mauled, and the gnome is grabbed and mauled soon after. The rest of the group fled the scene and didn't look back. An argument erupted immediately. I was steadfast and did't give an inch. The gnome psionist crinkled up his character sheet, fired it into the garbage can, called me a prick, and left the room. A mass e-mail to the group followed the next day, and I was branded a Dungeon Nazi by the former gnome psionist. I think part of the reason he was mad was because I moved in on his group and took over as DM, emancipating them from a horrid campaign with hardly any structure at all. It's still a fun joke amongst the gamers who stuck with me these last seven years. I'm the "DN," not the "DM." I'll never live that down. :D
AW71 09-22-05, 10:37 PM	Your DM is confused. He/she thinks it's "DM vs players" when really it isn't supposed to be that way. I have a general rule when I DM: I don't go out to kill the characters per se, but I will challenge them. If a player does something totally stupid, then they deserve to die. I'll let the players think they're about to be toast, but eventually they'll work it out. Let the players have fun...after all, if you aren't having fun, then why play?
dragonheart 09-22-05, 11:04 PM	the hardest lesson for any new (and many older) DMs is that the game is no longer about them - its about the players. you have to keep the challenging which means it has to have a deadly side but at the same time its not about you vs the characters its you and the characters for a good time by all. as a rough aproximation I've found that anything more difficult that about a 25% lethality give you the title of killer DM while anything below about 10% is too easy and gets boring quickly. I try for about 20% taking into account the power of human stupidity, while good roleplay and planning will reduce the lethality to around 10% if the players/characters actually think :P . When playing and jumping games or moving a lot if I run into a killer DM who wipes out favored characters I simply resurect them at the original stats and move on to another game and a (hopefully) better DM.
Apostate 09-25-05, 10:25 PM	Last I checked my DM isn't a member of the former National Socialist Party of Germany, nor does she claim to be a "Neo-Nazi"... but you never know! As to what you were implying, nah, I wouldn't classify my DM as a Nazi. Just "eccentric".