Post/Author/DateTime	Post
slorak 11-23-05, 04:50 PM	I think that I have learned after a few DM's started the session by saying "I apologize in advance if I kill you" to just get up and leave because the game will not be fun. Just thought I would share my experience playing in the Core Special for the Secrets of Tsojcanth at Gen Con Socal last weekend. I guess this is just a vent to let off some steam after ruining most of the day for me as well as destroying the one mod I was really looking forward to playing in this year! The downward spiral into suckdom started when the DM gave all of the players the 3rd degree about our prestige classes, what we could do, etc. He was probably gathering information on who was powerful etc. so that he could take us out. (which is basically what he did) Without going into any spoilers for the event here is basically what transpired. The DM decided that he wasn't going to roll any D20's and had prepared this chart of numbers that he had used in prior sessions and continued into our session (we were playing in the afternoon slot). This was questionable but we continued. He then proceeded to waist 2 and a half hours of our time at the first encounter grilling us on rope, how many could climb down at a time, the weight of carrying people while flying, and giving wrong descriptions of an encounter in the room that caused us to take actions that would have been completely different had he described it properly (this was verified by talking to several other people that had played through it that weekend). As the attacks began we noticed an unusually high number of Criticals (not hits mind you but criticals) This was coming from his chart of numbers and in the first combat he must have called out at least 5 criticals. We became frustrated with this and called him on it and asked that he roll dice from then on. He stressed how his numbers were averaged out and good (though computer generated numbers are rarely average and since he was carrying over from previous games not quite so random). He argued with us that there were creatures that had numerous attacks and rolling each one would take too much time. Seeing as half our time was gone and we were still in the first room we reluctantly agreed for him to continue. He quickly dispatched our main cleric and separated him from the party. We were still fighting him on dubious vision and rope rules and didn't have the whole party together. He then proceeded to seed our thoughts with things such as - if the character (cleric) isn't rescued he will be gone forever. Turning a dungeon crawl into a rescue mission. He should never have been meta-gaming in such a fashion to begin with. At this point we were getting annoyed and focused soley on getting our missing player back. As we forced our way deeper the crits kept flying and by the end we had made only minimal progress and due to time running out we were given a change to finish a single fight to see if the majority of the party still stood - in which case we would have "rescued the separated party" or it would be a TPK. We were given two rounds by one of the senior RPGA members to see how it resolved and for the next 2 rounds our DM cheesed 2 more of our characters into death by maximizing damaging area effect spells making it such that 1 character was allowed to escape and the other 5 considered gone forever. He then asked for our character sheets. We protested to a triad member and found that he shouldn't have been using a pre-rolled sheet and that his tactics of stalling (2.5 hours of rope and vision arguments) weren't necessary and they decided to grant us amnesty by saying the game never happened. We had used up some really good favors from other AR's trying to prevent death - which were unrecoverable now but at least we had survived. The cost though was way too high for me. We were talking with another group that played the same game after us with him and he tried to pull the same stuff. needless to say they also wanted him to roll dice (which he didn't) and though they didn't quite suffer our fate they didn't make it much further than we did. The rest of my night was ruined. I really had a hard time getting into the next adventure. One of my favorite old school modules that I was so looking forward to return to had been destroyed by a bad time. A bad DM does more than make for a bad game sometimes. In the future I have decided that if a DM starts out by "apoligizing in advance for killing characters" to just get up and leave. Missing a game is much better than suffering through 5+ hours of crap! Just a note - I really am not looking for anything. The triad fixed the problem the best they could and I thank them very much for it. Just thought I would share my tale of woe! :rolleyes: Cheers, -Mike
King Kashue 11-23-05, 06:40 PM	You were not the only one to have an issue with a DM at GenCon, but if I'm not mistaken, it was actually only one bad apple... And don't draw too much of a connection between the statement and the way he judged...I personally have never killed a PC, and don't go out of my way to try (and I do almost everything by the book, openly state my shortcuts and will toss them if the players want me to do it the long way), but I have actually said those words before (before a Mike Hinds mod, great writer, great player, but damn are his mods tough)...
solbergb 11-23-05, 06:56 PM	Ugh. This sort of thing is why I always roll the damn dice in the open, barring secret sense motive/spot/listen type reactive checks that give away something PC's should not know unless they fail. Sometimes I get crit-crazy too, but there is no question that it is fair. The one thing I do that is unusual in this area is I usually pre-roll all the initiatives for bad guys and actully prep the mod with those inits in mind. I find that it runs more smoothly for me if the wiz always goes before the cleric in game as well as in my trial sessions. A bad playtest strategy for mod balance, but ok for judge prep. One thing it does is expose when I have two many bad guys on one init counter (8 rogues all going at init 24 will have profoundly different results than all going at init 5, and it is better to break them into two or four groups, and let the dice help with the clumping) I don't know what to say. I wouldn't have had many red flags until it was too late either. I also have warned parties that their mix wasn't very strong for the mod and to either bring in more players, stronger characters or bring their very best game. I don't apologize though. If they choose to accept my warnings, and go ahead anyway, they'll accept the consequences. As I did recently when I attempted a tough mod with a 4 person party, whose strongest character was played by a tired 6-year old. We had fun, but we didn't finish. All my "weak tables" managed to succeed, often better than strong ones that got a bit overconfident. I've had DM's start with learning about non-core abilites of characters so the game runs more smoothly (he doesn't forget that church inquisitors can see through illusions, or ask why the thief-acrobat can autotumble through his lines). Very good DM's, who ran better games as a result. Core specials are fast paced, I could see somebody doing this as personal shorthand, to make it faster. So no alarm bells at that stage - although it appears he didn't use it that way, since your game was slow. I don't use this approach because I know many of the abilities and trust the players to set me straight if I don't know them. But not all like this approach. Rules arguments - just kill the table at a special. Huge wastes of time. When the Judge is being irrational about something my instinct is to brute force short-circuit the discussion. (ie, if we're bogged down on rope, bust out a levitate, or if the flier is overloaded, cast enlarge on him to greatly increase his carrying capacity or just try to cast feather fall on everyone, which works no matter what the weights are, etc). Don't know if any of those options were possible. If it isn't important, I just let it slide. I had a judge once neglect to tell me that the ogre 20' away from my archer had a spiked chain until after I declared an attack and he started rolling AOO's. After that cute experience, people started asking after each description "and what armor, weapons does he have" because he could no longer be trusted to actually describe the bad guys. So I do sympathize with the poorly-described-room situation. I'm glad you appealed, and that the table was overturned. I'm sorry it ruined your day, and worse the next day. All I can say is I hope the Judge was merely guilty of bad judgement, had good intentions and bad execution in the field. I don't feel competent myself to run a core special. Maybe this was his first attempt to do this at a con, and it went very wrong. I'd hate to think what you described is his typical table.
slorak 11-23-05, 07:05 PM	Well for starters he told us he doesn't play anymore - so I don't know for sure - but it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies now that he simply DM's. What made him stop playing? Is he simply out for revenge for bad player experiences? Dunno! Yeah we didn't have a huge number of options for getting down other than climbing on rope having wasted a few spells that would have circumvent the problem. It pretty much started when he described the scout PC as seeing small fuzzy humanoids cowering behind rocks rather than the accurate crouching behind rocks. This set off a chain reaction of Scout PC trying to parlay with them to see if they were in danger, etc. and him finding out they were barbarians ready to attack. This led to a quick rescue option that put all of us back at the top with enemy below having wasted a lot of healing, useful magic, and of course time... Cheers, -Mike
King Kashue 11-23-05, 08:53 PM	One thing it does is expose when I have two many bad guys on one init counter (8 rogues all going at init 24 will have profoundly different results than all going at init 5, and it is better to break them into two or four groups, and let the dice help with the clumping) This is one thing that I will force judges to do, even if it slows things down...Every bad guy gets his own initiative roll, that's the rules, and it's the only fair way...Two characters going on one initiative roll means two attacks before the players get to go, which means the first attack drops the player to 4 hp, there no chance to heal before the second attack...If you roll twice and it ends up the same, then that's just the way the chips fall, but if a character dies because a judge decided to clump NPCs, then the judge killed the char with a rules violation... It's particularly bad with monsters with sneak attack, since the second one can move into a flank before the PC can manuever out...
Sieylianna 11-23-05, 11:31 PM	Just thought I would share my experience playing in the Core Special for the Secrets of Tsojcanth at Gen Con Socal last weekend. I guess this is just a vent to let off some steam after ruining most of the day for me as well as destroying the one mod I was really looking forward to playing in this year! That's a Core Special module which means it will be unusually deadly. Our judge at Gen Con Indy told us in one encounter when we had one PC turned to stone, one paralyzed, and two grappled that his table was TPK'd in that encounter. We were fortunate to have the right spells and a couple of staggering strike reward cards (later banned in LG) and survived, but we were very close to four deaths and I don't know that the other two could have escaped. And the maximized effects may not have been your DM. At APL 6, one of the bad guys had an empowered, sudden maximized fireball for 45 hit points. What APL were you playing and did you have a balanced group? Ed
slorak 11-23-05, 11:41 PM	We were APL 10. We had a strong diverse party. The problem was incorrect information, time wasting on needless things, and non-random pre-generated attack rolls inflicting an unusually high number of critical hits. You are right though it would have been tough - but I am positive it wouldn't have been as deadly if run correctly. I don't know much about what is supposed to happen beyond the first several encounter as we were robbed of a full experience but the first several encounters would have been managable. Cheers, -Mike
King Kashue 11-24-05, 12:32 AM	The Middle Tier of the adventure was beyond killer...Even the HQ staff was mentioning it...The low tier was the only reliably survivable module...The middle tier was lethal and the high tier of almost any module is lethal since you're facing such narsty beasties...
slorak 11-24-05, 02:21 AM	Don't get me wrong. I know it was a really tough mod. We just didn't get the chance to play it as it should be. I really wanted to enjoy this mod - and was really looking forward to playing it. I wish I could get my lost 5 hours of life back! ;) Cheers, -Mike
Simpi 11-24-05, 07:01 AM	The Middle Tier of the adventure was beyond killer...Even the HQ staff was mentioning it...The low tier was the only reliably survivable module...The middle tier was lethal and the high tier of almost any module is lethal since you're facing such narsty beasties... We played in APL4 and had a strict but fair DM (One of Onnwal Triads). It was quite challenging, especially as my cleric was main tank in the party and few other characters were below APL. We did not get quite to the end of the module but got max. exp & gold. There were some pre-rolled D20 rolls for various checks, but I don't know if they were relevant in the module. I would be interested to hear what players in higher APL faced but you can wait until after Winter Fantasy (as I believe that is the final event where it's available) S.H, the guy from Naerie
Sieylianna 11-24-05, 09:58 AM	The Middle Tier of the adventure was beyond killer...Even the HQ staff was mentioning it...The low tier was the only reliably survivable module...The middle tier was lethal and the high tier of almost any module is lethal since you're facing such narsty beasties... We were APL 6 and played the mid-tier version. At least in our tier, you had two options on the direction to follow and following one basically meant you didn't have time for the other. But it was enjoyable. Ed
King Kashue 11-24-05, 11:59 AM	We played in APL4 and had a strict but fair DM (One of Onnwal Triads). It was quite challenging, especially as my cleric was main tank in the party and few other characters were below APL. We did not get quite to the end of the module but got max. exp & gold. There were some pre-rolled D20 rolls for various checks, but I don't know if they were relevant in the module. I would be interested to hear what players in higher APL faced but you can wait until after Winter Fantasy (as I believe that is the final event where it's available) S.H, the guy from Naerie Nope, GenCon SoCal was the last place...It isn't going to be played anywhere else... I know the middle tiers had Grells and Gauths among other things (a friend of mine had his pally die because both clerics decided tanking was better than healing :rolleyes: )
Rannicarr 11-24-05, 05:37 PM	If you got the game nullified why were the favors still considered spent? Btw my GM for living greyhawk kills characters left and right, but its not due to any malevolence on his part. He just refuses to play monsters dumb, at least if they have any intellegence at all. That and he has really hot dice most of the time :(
Samwise 11-24-05, 07:52 PM	This is one thing that I will force judges to do, even if it slows things down...Every bad guy gets his own initiative roll, that's the rules, and it's the only fair way...Two characters going on one initiative roll means two attacks before the players get to go, which means the first attack drops the player to 4 hp, there no chance to heal before the second attack...If you roll twice and it ends up the same, then that's just the way the chips fall, but if a character dies because a judge decided to clump NPCs, then the judge killed the char with a rules violation... It's particularly bad with monsters with sneak attack, since the second one can move into a flank before the PC can manuever out... Well actually that is not the rule. Check page 136 of the Player's Handbook, Initiative, Monster Initiative: Typically, the DM makes a single initiative check for the monsters and other opponents. That way, eahc player gets a turn each round and the DM also gets one turn. At the DM's option, however, he can make separate initiative checks for different groups of monster, or individual creatures. [example deleted] So in fact the DM is under no obligation to make a separate initiative check for each creature, and I very rarely do so even for separate types. And i would hold a player accountable for calling it a rules violation for him not knowing the exact rule. That said, I've warned player several times that an adventure was, in my view, likely to be lethal. Most times this has had the desired effect of inspiring a high enough level of apprehension that the players never let their guard down enough to get hosed bythe encounter or encounters I was concerned about. The one time it didn't there were two deaths "avoided" by that crazy druid spell. As for pre-rolled attacks and damage, and the excessive delay on rope discussion, I would have appealed them immediately, and if he refused to stop using them, I would have requested he be removed and we be allowed to replay the event in a different slot. Finally, there are a number of reasons to just DM and not play. The most important for meis, I just prefer to DM. Second is that when I started, somebody had to prepare the adaptables without waiting to play them, and someone else had to read the cores to be able to address appeals. That it also meant fewer people in the area had to eat an adventure was a bonus. Last is the fact that I just know the background too well, combined with too low a tolerance for some of the less than adequate core adventures that were available at the start of the campaign, so I had no interest in playing even if it were convenient. So there are a number of reasons why someone might not play but still run.
King Kashue 11-25-05, 12:17 AM	And i would hold a player accountable for calling it a rules violation for him not knowing the exact rule. Exactly what does that phrase mean, "hold a player accountable"? What consequences would there be for saying to you "the rule says this" and him being wrong?
JohnduBois 11-25-05, 01:00 AM	I'd also like to take this a step further. Not only have I had Triad members tell me, "this is pretty deadly; I can't believe the Circle let X module get away with this", I've also had the MODULE ITSELF tell DM's to warn players that the adventure was especially deadly. Them are the mods you especially want to stay away from, especially with an under-APL party where the most healing you have is the bard. ;)
Samwise 11-25-05, 01:19 AM	Exactly what does that phrase mean, "hold a player accountable"? What consequences would there be for saying to you "the rule says this" and him being wrong? It means that it is not a rules violation to roll initiative for all the NPCs as a group. If it were actually wrong, it would be an incorrect ruling, but an incorrect ruling is not a rules violation. Calling it a rules violation, and saying you would "force" a GM to roll individual initiative, suggests you are looking for the Senior or Appeals GM to overrule such an action by the Session GM. And that can be taken as both arguing rules excessively with a Session GM, as well as an inappropriate request for a penalty. And if you want to take it that far, you should be prepared for it to have your behavior reported in return. So no, you can't "force" (your word) me to roll initiative for each monster individually. And if you tried, I'd cite you for disrupting the game. You can ask me to review the rule. And you can ask me to consider rolling initiative individually. But trying to "force" me to do something just makes things unpleasant.
SgtHulka 11-25-05, 10:49 AM	I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with my Judge, but your Judge sounds like an absolute tool. I would never have accepted "pre-rolled" dice, and I like to think, at least, that I'd stand up and demand a refund the minute he started pulling that cr*p during combat. Sure, I've had Judges ask the players to make some pre-rolls to use as spot/listen checks, but combat attacks? Point me a passage in the PHB or DMG that tells me that's the rule, thank you very much. My judge was a bit unprepared. He made a potentially deadly mistake on a monster, one that I pointed out to him but couldn't give him a particular page reference on because I feel it's in bad form for a player to consult the monster manual during play. That mistake could easily have resulted in the death of my character. I'm not sure if he "softballed" me, or if it was a legitimate mistake on his part, but he moved the monster off of my character to attack other, stronger characters, and that single round of inattention saved my life. That, however, was the only specific rules violation I experienced, and it's at least somewhat understandable in that we were the first table he ran, so some lack of total preparation should be expected. He did, however, make some questionable calls (to me), like casting Entangle in an underground cavern, without adequately describing before-hand that said cavern had significant plant and fungi growths. My experience with Entangle in the past is that most Judges never allow a PC to cast it underground. Again, that's forgivable, because maybe in his region/play group Entangle is given much more latitude. Here's the thing, though, especially in light of Slorak's nightmare experience, aren't the Judges for the GenCon Special supposed to be the best of the best? I played Castle Greyhawk last year, and though my Judge was ill and had mostly lost his voice, he was absolutely top-notch. He knew the rules to a T, he played the monsters extremely challenging, and he never questioned surprises offerred by the players; he merely acknowledged them as creative play and moved on to figure out a new way to open a can of whoop-ass. So why were this year's Judges less than stellar?
SgtHulka 11-25-05, 11:37 AM	On the other hand, my Judge provided excellent characterizations of the NPC's (and one important NPC in particular). As a result, the game was very enjoyable. So in retrospect, my above negative characterization of the way he ran the game I don't think was entirely fair. I'm still curious, though, what criterion the powers that be use in selecting Judges for these "specials".
slorak 11-25-05, 12:12 PM	Yeah last year for Castle Greyhawk our judge was pretty decent. His biggest flaw was he was incredibly slow. The first few combats took - FOREVER! We were in the final room in the last combat when the game was called. If he had been just a bit more sharp we would have easily cleaned out the level. As it is - we found most of the keys. Yeah this year was inexusable. We should have asked for a refund - and to be honest I don't know why we didn't. I am sure it has something to do with us being distracted, angry, and wanting to resolve our situation. What we should have done though was get a refund on the game after - since none of us were really into it after suckjcanth. Cheers, -Mike
Thanlok 11-25-05, 01:10 PM	I find the best thing to do is get the e-mail or phone number of the main Con organizer. Then wait a few days and have everyone who feels like it voice their opinion about the game and the bad DM. I hate bothering people who are otherwise running a great Con. If he or she gets enough complaints about that DM you will be surprised about what happens. The DM can be removed from running ANYTHING at Cons, theymay offer you a discount on the next COn, all sorts of things. We have that presently happening here in Ket. It was mentioned that the DM did that pre-rolled table for three games in a row. Imagine what would happen if almost 18 people all had the same complaint about that DM. They would have to do something. Thanlok of Ket
Simpi 11-25-05, 01:22 PM	Sorry, misposted.. S.H, the guy from Naerie
SgtHulka 11-25-05, 01:33 PM	Yup, and meta-gamer that I am I immediately looked it up in the PHB when it was cast, and saw that I had no grounds on which to make a rules-lawyer debate. ;) Also, I thought to myself that the Adventure Stat Block obviously has the NPC with Entangle memorized, and the mod author(s) wouldn't have an NPC waste a valuable spell slot on a spell that couldn't be used in the environment the NPC was ecountered in. And the encounter itself was well-optimized for Entangle. I just personally felt a little disgruntled that the Judge hadn't described the passage as having anything in the way of growth prior to the encounter. As you point out, that's as much a personal gripe as anything, though.
King Kashue 11-25-05, 02:05 PM	It means that it is not a rules violation to roll initiative for all the NPCs as a group. If it were actually wrong, it would be an incorrect ruling, but an incorrect ruling is not a rules violation. Calling it a rules violation, and saying you would "force" a GM to roll individual initiative, suggests you are looking for the Senior or Appeals GM to overrule such an action by the Session GM. And that can be taken as both arguing rules excessively with a Session GM, as well as an inappropriate request for a penalty. And if you want to take it that far, you should be prepared for it to have your behavior reported in return. So no, you can't "force" (your word) me to roll initiative for each monster individually. And if you tried, I'd cite you for disrupting the game. You can ask me to review the rule. And you can ask me to consider rolling initiative individually. But trying to "force" me to do something just makes things unpleasant. Change the word "force" to "insist" and chill out a level...I dig you Samwise, but you do seem to get your hackles up a bit, and you must remember to only respond to the actual statements, and not the implications (often unintended) of statements... It's the internet, if you think someone is implying something or suggesting something, ask for clarification, don't just assume they mean it the way you choose to interpret it...You've got me going to Dave at HQ over a word choice in a forum post :D
Samwise 11-25-05, 02:23 PM	Change the word "force" to "insist" and chill out a level...I dig you Samwise, but you do seem to get your hackles up a bit, and you must remember to only respond to the actual statements, and not the implications (often unintended) of statements... It's the internet, if you think someone is implying something or suggesting something, ask for clarification, don't just assume they mean it the way you choose to interpret it...You've got me going to Dave at HQ over a word choice in a forum post :D Such are the joys of the internet. :P And yes, I know I get "twitchy" at times. Too many experiences dealing with various admnistration issues leaves you a bit "sensitive" to certain terms. And besides, Dave could use the company. :D
Sieylianna 11-25-05, 06:14 PM	Here's the thing, though, especially in light of Slorak's nightmare experience, aren't the Judges for the GenCon Special supposed to be the best of the best? I played Castle Greyhawk last year, and though my Judge was ill and had mostly lost his voice, he was absolutely top-notch. He knew the rules to a T, he played the monsters extremely challenging, and he never questioned surprises offerred by the players; he merely acknowledged them as creative play and moved on to figure out a new way to open a can of whoop-ass. So why were this year's Judges less than stellar? Are we talking Indy or LA? The quality of the judges has been declining for years, it's not Dave's fault, but Indy went from 4 slots per day to 3 and they require the judges to judge as many slots for freebies. So I used to judge 4 (admission) or 7 (room) out of 13 slots, which left me plenty of time and there were slot zeroes. Now you're requiring judges to work 4 or 7 of 10 slots. Plus the modules aren't done in time for slot zeroes. The RPGA at LA lost an entire day worth of play, IIRC. Greyhawk actually has better judges for the most part because so many triad members volunteer, the smaller campaigns take what they can get. And another comment, many judges have systems they play and systems they eat. So a judge may play Living Arcanis and eat Living Greyhawk modules, while someone else in his local group does the opposite. Ed
Wavester 11-25-05, 11:58 PM	Quality judges, specials, and judge pools are always tricky things to deal with at large shows. Do I want the best 250 judges in the country working for me at Gencon Indy? Well of course I do. Am I going to get them? Not a chance. First is how do you judge who is a good judge without at least giving them a chance to prove it ? Everybody is a name on a screen until I see their work in person to give some credentials to it. A lot pan out but some do not and are not invited back. By default that means some of you get them at times and while I apologize there is not much I can do about it. As shows mature the judge pool matures and you start getting a nice solid core of judges to work with and that helps a lot. It lets me use that core for special events and such at shows. Newer shows, like Gencon SoCal, have newbie judge pools and sometimes you are forced to use what you have instead of what you would like. Part of this also rests on you, the players, shoulders. I need feedback. I cannot correct things unless I know they are going on. Much like the guy whose judge was falling asleep on them Sunday morning at Gencon Indy but a month later when he mentions it he has no clue who it was. That does me no good. I need to know what is going on. Also, please realize that every judges style is different. Some are much like your home judge and you gel well and the game goes great. Others are not and while they may be a very good judge they are just not what you want from your judge. For example one of my judges at SoCal is feast or famine. I either have a table coming up and raving about how good he was or complaining he sucked and never wanting him again. I have figured this out finally after watching. He plays a little loose on the rules. He is more about the cinematic and heroism then the nit-picky of the rules. Groups that love roleplaying and not initiative rolls love him. Those who have their characters figured out to 3 decimal places and have their PHB's bookmarked on their PDA hate him. He is a good judge but he is different things to different groups. Dave C Somebody Nobody (who knows a bit about judges)
jhorred 11-26-05, 03:16 AM	I played the Core special at GenCon SoCal as well, lower tier. I was a little intrigued at the entangle cast underground myself. (Got the fungus repsonse too, perhaps it was in the mod...) The GM was a little on the quiet side though I thought he did a good job with the game. I didn't feel he was out to get us but he didn't let us walk over the monsters. The GM that ran one of the other mods for us left a good bit to be desired in my opinion. The best GM that I had for the weekend was the one who ran the Eberon special for us.
SgtHulka 11-26-05, 12:24 PM	Also, please realize that every judges style is different. Some are much like your home judge and you gel well and the game goes great. Others are not and while they may be a very good judge they are just not what you want from your judge. That's a very good point and something I was trying to confess in my second post...I felt I had portayed my Judge somewhat unfairly because when I thought longer about the game in question I remembered what a fine job he'd done with the NPC-characterizations. As for how to determine "top-notch" Judges, which is quite admittedly subjective, is there an "official" way to do so? For example, in my home region of Nyrond the website allows you to rate both the mod and the Judge every time you play. You rate the Judge on a sliding scale in different categories and at the end the website calculates a total. Then, at another place on the website, you can see who the "top 20" rated Judges are. No doubt the results are skewed in that people vote for their friends, and others are only motivated to vote when they have a really bad or really good Judge, but none the less I've found the site extremely helpful. When I do go to a Con, I take a glance at the "top 20" and try to sign up for slots with one of those featured Judges. And when I've succeeded in getting such a slot, I've always been impressed by the Judging. Is there anything like this for national cons?
King Kashue 11-26-05, 01:35 PM	I played the Core special at GenCon SoCal as well, lower tier. I was a little intrigued at the entangle cast underground myself. (Got the fungus repsonse too, perhaps it was in the mod...) The GM was a little on the quiet side though I thought he did a good job with the game. I didn't feel he was out to get us but he didn't let us walk over the monsters. The GM that ran one of the other mods for us left a good bit to be desired in my opinion. The best GM that I had for the weekend was the one who ran the Eberon special for us. Heh...I think I played the GenCon special with you...Dwarven Wizard and Suel Sorcerer?
JohnduBois 11-26-05, 10:22 PM	As a first-time major con judge at this year's Origins, I really want to stand up for Dave C. This man goes to AMAZING lengths to ensure that he only has qualified judges, and that they only judge slots and APL's they are qualified to judge. He had to review a number of applications to ensure that DM's were experienced judges in the first place. He had to remind DM's constantly that they were not allowed to slot 0 anything after a certain point (I think it was the Sunday prior to the con) to allow them time to prep the mods, and when DM's stated they weren't going to follow that rule, he immediately pulled them from the con, knowing that he would have to ask other judges to DM extra and preferring that to having unprepared DM's. He bent over backwards to accomodate the needs of his judges, twice in my case - once by moving me to a lower APL table that I was more comfortable in my ability to judge and once by allowing me to miss a slot to go deal with a family issue. Then, after the con, he evaluates everything from player feedback on his judges to whether or not they were on time, and if a judge doesn't show up without a good reason, he blacklists them until they can prove their quality as a judge. In short, there are a number of forces at work that you can blame for a poor judge at a major convention. Dave C, in my opinion, is NOT one of them.
TimRat 11-27-05, 12:57 PM	dave i guess does a great job.. :) anyways the judges for indy were selected and they should have had the adventure pretty far in advance. i know this year they will as well. (not sure when we'll announce what it is but it'll be another classic adventure thats all i will say) as far as socal and the like not sure who they got to DM and such but i know at indy again at this year there will be selected judges again. like a few posters said though it is not easy to get judges to give up practically their entire weekend just to judge and not play anything else.
jhorred 11-28-05, 01:31 AM	I'm actually thinking of starting to judge at cons. I've been GMing my own games for a while and I have about 5 LG mods under by my belt and I'm getting much more confortable at running them. I've pretty much taken the Senior GM role for our local goup. A bit OT perhaps but... Heh...I think I played the GenCon special with you...Dwarven Wizard and Suel Sorcerer? Yes my Dwarven wizard with the waraxe. The Suel Sorcerer was played by my friend. What were you playing? (I still feel a little robbed by the AR and my familiar.)
King Kashue 11-28-05, 02:50 AM	I'm actually thinking of starting to judge at cons. I've been GMing my own games for a while and I have about 5 LG mods under by my belt and I'm getting much more confortable at running them. I've pretty much taken the Senior GM role for our local goup. A bit OT perhaps but... Yes my Dwarven wizard with the waraxe. The Suel Sorcerer was played by my friend. What were you playing? (I still feel a little robbed by the AR and my familiar.) Yeah it was a bummer about the familiar, it would have been cool, though honestly, the aligned weapon will be more useful (still, the familiar would have been cool)... I played the Bakluni Paladin, the other three bastards are friends of mine...And Dave (the GM) is a really nice guy, but his voice carries like 3 feet :D In a noisy setting, it can be frustrating to have him judge...
CdrcJsn 11-28-05, 04:20 PM	Not sure if we got the same judge or not. I also had a judge use pre-rolled d20s for the special at SoCal. I played at APL16 though. There were several crits then as well, though nobody called foul on it, since the judge must've gone through over a hundred d20s. I think a lot of success in these specials has to do with how well meshed a party is. If it's a random pick up group, you can hardly expect to do as well as a handpicked group. The group I played in was constructed prior to the con and had all the bases covered (paladin, 2 tanks, a rogue, a loremaster, and a healing/buffer cleric). Our characters have fought before, trusted each other and was able to coordinate buffs when we sat down to play. A friend of mine played the same APL with the same judge but with a random group of people that showed up to play. Their party didn't know what each was capable of and didn't really offer to buff each other. Our party had a few close calls (two party members had their Stalwart Pacts activate) but managed to make it to the encounter before the last fight before time was called and was still good to go (near full HPs, a few good spells, etc). My friend's party had a death or two and barely made it out of the first room. I don't think our judge held back either (having 4 encounters at once was kinda scary). But our party cheese prevailed (wisconsin and california blend). The judge even commented on how impressed he was by how our group worked so well together. In short, I think success in these killer specials relies on great part on how well prepared a party is. Avoid random groups if possible or try to get at least several people you know when going into one. Cedric Atizado
slorak 11-28-05, 05:08 PM	Yeah our party was constructed of friends. We play together on a regular basis and work well together. We had the spectrum of classes so diversity wise we were good. As for the pre-rolled numbers. We had something like 5 or 6 criticals against us in the first combat alone. My big problem with it is - pre generated computer numbers are not really random. The other issue was he used the same sheet from previous games - really skewing the randomness of the numbers. I know there were lots of dice rolls to be made but I would have preferred if he rolled them. Even if it meant taking a bit extra time. Alas that wasn't the only issues we had and ultimately what I was hoping to be one of my favorite adventures - quickly turned into a complete suckfest and now I wish I could get that 5 hours of my life back! cheers, -Mike
clannagh 11-28-05, 08:04 PM	As for the pre-rolled numbers. We had something like 5 or 6 criticals against us in the first combat alone. My big problem with it is - pre generated computer numbers are not really random. The other issue was he used the same sheet from previous games - really skewing the randomness of the numbers. I know there were lots of dice rolls to be made but I would have preferred if he rolled them. Even if it meant taking a bit extra time. -Mike Whilst pre-rolled sheets may be considered reasonable, deliberately retaining and reusing a particular sheet because it has a lot of good rolls that will give your npc's an advantage is obviously not. The randomness disappears the minute he decides to reuse it because he likes the rolls.
gomeztoo 11-29-05, 03:52 AM	I played the special way down at APL4. We had a very odd party because we only ha done table. It was composed of a 1st lvl cleric, a 2nd lvl wizard, a 2nd lvl paladin, a 5th lvl fighter/sorcerer, a 4th lvl barb, and my 7th lvl dragon disciple. We had some real bad luck in the last encounter, and a very annoyingly stupid act by one player killed off an important (friendly) NPC. As it were, at one point most of the party was either down or fleeing - only my PC was still around (at single digit hp), finally managing to drag away the paladin, then healing him up and after a good talking-to to the PCs that fled, we went back in and saved the rest of the party. Would have been a TPK if not for my hp, and the DM allowing us to retreat (and then almost suicidically go back in again). So quite deadly. We finished the scenario (reached the objective though we failed to fully succeed), though we didn't encounter everything, so we didn't get full xp (not sure how you can get full xp if you didn't finish it). And of course my character is now really famous - all those Iuz clerics now recognize me on sight! Woot!
nony2klerch 11-29-05, 10:35 PM	Hi ya'll I was one of the judges at GenCon Indy and I had a good time judging both the High Tier and the Low Tier. I missed the opportunity to judge the middle tier, which in my opinion had the most potiential for turning bad fast for players. Sneak attack with mulitple arms is bad mojo. Anyway, some may remember fiendish (winged) kobolds and the massive necronaut that took two bags of zombie heads to create. I made those specifically for running that module....(I'm waiting for another chance to use that Necronaut <G>). I almost always ask for feedback from the players about whether or not they had fun. (sometimes in spite of the module) That's what's important is it not? We play this game to have fun, and the "job" of the judge (in my opinion) is entertain his players with the material given (and thereby have the players entertain the judge). That way everyone has a good time and they don't "lose" 4-8 hours of their life. It's important for the player to give feedback both to the judge and the con-coordinator about how things progressed during the game. Sometimes people don't realize there's a problem and will continue on their merry way without knowing. And as GI Joe constantly states....Knowing is half the battle. I'll be at both Origins and GenCon, Hopefully they'll need me again. Lynn Register
RLWilde 11-29-05, 10:46 PM	Sneak attack with mulitple arms is bad mojo. Yeah, at my table, we loathed the multiple sneak attacks and grapples... almost as much as we loathed the auto-surprise. (yeah, yeah, the auto surprises may not be written into the scenario... that doesn't mean that's not how the game played). My group didn't even make it past the first fight (though, amazingly, nobody died). After we managed to retreat and regroup, we looked at the monsters we were fighting, looked at our options, and decided there was no way we could reasonably win that fight (especially in the time we had remaining), so we left. If that game is what the Living Greyhawk campaign expects of Core Specials... I may decide next year that Gen Con is just a waste of money, and not worth attending. Since the games that ARE fun and not just out to kill PCs can be played outside of Gen Con.
jhorred 12-03-05, 12:53 AM	Yeah it was a bummer about the familiar, it would have been cool, though honestly, the aligned weapon will be more useful (still, the familiar would have been cool)... I played the Bakluni Paladin, the other three bastards are friends of mine...And Dave (the GM) is a really nice guy, but his voice carries like 3 feet :D In a noisy setting, it can be frustrating to have him judge... Ah ok. I think I sat next to you. Yeah, I thought he judged fairly. I was across from the table from him and had a little bit of a hard time hearing him. The sorc and I had played about 3 games together at the point we played the special. I think the rest of the group has played together often. I thought that the party meshed together fairly well.