Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MnemonicSV 07-07-07, 04:46 AM	I am a player in a good friend's homebrew campaign setting. The setting is (or at least was) enjoyable enough that we've been playing it for more than 15 years now! The problem is, the DM is adding too many house rules and alterations... so much that it is slowing down gameplay, confusing all the players, and gradually making the game look less and less like D&D, and more like some strange variant d20 game, for which nobody owns a rulebook. Honestly, trying to upgrade a character out of session is becoming a measure in futility, as we're not sure anymore what houserules are in play, or what rules are used. Some changes include: 1) Scrapping the four-element system (earth,air,fire,water) for a 30+ element system (with 30+ corresponding energy types, Yikes!). All spells are also divided into these element types (not schools, or even class/domain lists), and rarely make sense (apparently, scrying spells are of the "salt" element... ???). The element types themselves are quite frankly bizarre. 1a) Mandating that all spellcasters be a specialist in one chosen element (as above), meaning that they are barred from other elements (no "generalist" wizards). Arcane or divine? There is no distinction... or if there is the line has become so blurred as to be irrelevant. 2) Scrapping the entire alignment system for one that nobody understands except the DM. Honestly, nobody knows what alignment their characters are, since the system is too complicated to fathom. No one has any idea how this system interacts with magic (yet). 3) Rewriting combat rules without elaborating. Apparently, all grappling actions have been reduced to a single die roll. What that roll means? We don't know, only he does. 4) Altering magic item creation rules, such that some items can only be effectively made on certain continents, and magic weapon/armour creation rules are completely unknown to the players. Even bags of holding have been scrapped in favour of tiny invisible flying "creatures" with extra-dimensional bellies who carry your equipment inside themselves (and may be killed as well). 5) Creating new monsters (see above) and giving them there own unique "creature type." Or simply making there type "none." And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Us players don't mind a few variants, but it's getting ridiculous now. If he keeps this up, he'll eventually lose his players. I know "what the DM says, goes" and whatnot, but at this rate in a year or so it won't even be D&D anymore. Worst of all, ALL of these variants are completely broken. Many of them don't even conform to the basic "core" principals of D&D. He actually created a prestige class with a non-standard BAB and Save progression. Heck, his houserules don't even support each other. How can we urge the DM to try to lighten up on (or even revoke) his bizarre house rules, without offending him or having to quit the game entirely? Thematically, the campaign setting is interesting and fun... but the mechanics behind the setting are becoming increasingly mind-boggling. How can we urge the DM to save his own game?
ProZocK 07-07-07, 06:01 AM	wow...Simply...WOW... Really, if you guys are not having fun, you should talk to your dm...Simple as that. Just come to your dm and say: Friend, i know you are trying to make a lot of new things, but its too much...we are not having fun or understandig anything in the campaing anymore...cam we just go back to the rules as they are in the core books... I dont mind not having magic bags and trading them for friendly critters, but when i cant understand the magic sistem or even how my character evolves, something is very wrong
Lyinginbedmon 07-07-07, 06:09 AM	If he keeps this up, he'll lose D&D, let alone his players. This kind of alteration is inescusable without some kind of explanation or reasoning, he should sit down and tell you what's going on rather than leading you by the tail through it all.
Fuzzly 07-07-07, 06:12 AM	How can you not love the "salt" element?
GreenghostX 07-07-07, 06:16 AM	That certainly sounds like a mouthful. I know that I would never be happy playing like that, but that is besides the point :) You should all sit down and talk it though. Do not let the guys brush you off with "hey, enough talk, lets just game". It sounds to me like these issues need to be resolved before you can move on. It all boils down to what kind of game you (all) would like to play. Maybe only the GM likes it like that. Maybe you are alone in your dislike. But you need to figure out if there is a common ground where you can all enjoy the game. If not, then maybe it's time to move on. It is sad when you grow apart gaming-wise. But it happens all the time. Oh - one last thing. Don't discuss it too much with the others before confronting your GM. Otherwise it might come out as a rebellion, and the GM will feel like you went behind his back. So either talk directly with him, or with the whole group.
was_fired 07-07-07, 06:22 AM	From the look of it your DM's problem is that he has no self control. It sounds like he is very creative which is likely one of the big reason your still playing in his game, but he doesn't understand how to tell good changes from bad ones. My advice to you is to talk to him about the need for fewer changes within his world because none of the players understands how the game works anymore, and there is a good chance neither does he. Some conventions exist for reasons (such as creature types and the knowledge skill) but others can be bent, broken, and rewritten without problem. His magic item system seems workable and very flavorful. Ask him to spend more time fleshing it out while pulling back some of the strangers changes such as the altered magic system and the grapple rules. Best of luck to both of you. In time he may even become a good system designer if he is able to get a better grasp of how game mechanics work.
Karanth 07-07-07, 07:50 AM	Load, load, load the hammergun.... As much as salt is my favorite element, it's not suitable as it's own energy type.
Pfisiar 07-07-07, 07:55 AM	Reinvinting the wheel is bad. The players signed on to play D&D, not a homebrew system. Talk to the DM. The DM is violating that trust between player and game master (as a generic term)
Kouk 07-07-07, 08:06 AM	Why are you telling us this? You should say the exact same thing to him, that's all...
enlightened 07-07-07, 10:20 AM	Things like this happen in groups where the same person always DMs and the other people always only play. I can guarantee you that if you were to, as a group, have each member create their own campaign and each week rotate who DMs, then you wouldn't have problems like this. What I'm saying is that by only being a player all this years you have created this problem yourself. Every member of your group needs to get off of their butts and start DMing in turn.
Pfisiar 07-07-07, 10:48 AM	Things like this happen in groups where the same person always DMs and the other people always only play. I can guarantee you that if you were to, as a group, have each member create their own campaign and each week rotate who DMs, then you wouldn't have problems like this. What I'm saying is that by only being a player all this years you have created this problem yourself. Every member of your group needs to get off of their butts and start DMing in turn. Problem with this solution is that you create too many campaigns and things start getting confusing. Not only that, but not everyone has enough time to prepare campaign stuff. Not wanting to DM is not indicitive of laziness, necessarily.
Optimized_Commoner 07-07-07, 10:51 AM	Things like this happen in groups where the same person always DMs and the other people always only play. Not necessarily. Our group frequently does this sort of complete makeover and we're all DMs at different times. Though most of us have the good graces to design the rules for a game at the beginning and not change them half way through. Still, we don't run games for FIFTEEN YEARS! (ahem, sorry). Seriously, if you've been getting this guy to run the same game for fifteen years, no wonder he's getting bored. Haven't you people ever heard of a story ending? I nearly went insane running the same game continously for two years. I know I have the attention span of a moth stuck in a kaleidoscope but still... you need to ask why this guy is going a bit kooky? This thread amused me for one reason in particular. Our DM has invented his own system of elements, with the four magical, (something like blood, bone, leaf and stone), four technological (pressure, spark, metal and... something) and the four classical (earth, air, fire and water). In fact, your description with a few changed names and details would be a perfect description of the game I'm currently playing in.
Comus 07-07-07, 11:57 AM	Pfft. What a silly DM. Salt isn't an element! It's a negative quasielement. Duh. :P
zzo38 07-07-07, 12:41 PM	This isn't really much of D&D anymore, but it still may be OK. The players just have to figure out the new rules by themself because nobody knows to you just have to figure it out by yourself, at least I would find it interesting, but it isn't exactly D&D anymore. 1) Scrapping the four-element system (earth,air,fire,water) for a 30+ element system (with 30+ corresponding energy types, Yikes!). All spells are also divided into these element types (not schools, or even class/domain lists), and rarely make sense (apparently, scrying spells are of the "salt" element... ???). The element types themselves are quite frankly bizarre. 1a) Mandating that all spellcasters be a specialist in one chosen element (as above), meaning that they are barred from other elements (no "generalist" wizards). Arcane or divine? There is no distinction... or if there is the line has become so blurred as to be irrelevant. Can you post a list of the elements on here, plaease? And also, can you be multiclassed and be different elements of each class? 2) Scrapping the entire alignment system for one that nobody understands except the DM. Honestly, nobody knows what alignment their characters are, since the system is too complicated to fathom. No one has any idea how this system interacts with magic (yet). I find that OK, eventually all will be revealed (even if you have to figure it out by yourself). 3) Rewriting combat rules without elaborating. Apparently, all grappling actions have been reduced to a single die roll. What that roll means? We don't know, only he does. As long as the rules are consistent, it should be OK just again, you have to figure it out by yourself. 4) Altering magic item creation rules, such that some items can only be effectively made on certain continents, and magic weapon/armour creation rules are completely unknown to the players. Even bags of holding have been scrapped in favour of tiny invisible flying "creatures" with extra-dimensional bellies who carry your equipment inside themselves (and may be killed as well). This is strange and stuff, but it might make it better in some ways it might prevent some abuses of magical items that is sometimes used. For example, if I was playing by this rules I probably wouldn't attempt to destroy an artifact by putting it into a bag of holding and cutting the bag of holding to lose the artifact. 5) Creating new monsters (see above) and giving them there own unique "creature type." Or simply making there type "none." Can you give some examples? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Us players don't mind a few variants, but it's getting ridiculous now. If he keeps this up, he'll eventually lose his players. I know "what the DM says, goes" and whatnot, but at this rate in a year or so it won't even be D&D anymore. And if the DM says too much junk, then the players also go.
Leo 07-07-07, 12:48 PM	I say give it a try. Maybe he's some kind of creative genius. It won't hurt to see if it works for a session or 2. Mainly on the monsters. One of the problems of D&D is that once you start to know the monsters combat becomes somewhat more dull since you end up knowing every one of your foe's weakness and strenght.
Shan_TheBabau_Burke 07-07-07, 01:55 PM	That sounds interesting to me too and I would like to know the mechanics of it all if he would be willing to give you the info or if he would post it himself. I do think though, that if he was going to make such drastic changes, it really should have been at the beginning of the current game. It is cool though that he's used the same world for so long. My DM does that as well and when I roll a new character I can interact with the same people in different ways. It's almost like coming home. We sit and gossip about what the characters do in the time between campaigns also. It's been ten years between the end of my last one (40 level Paladin- Luv ya Dev) and my spanking new rogue and it's been fun to get caught up on what the world's been up to while I was away. I would certainly be horrified if she started messing things up like that too. From your post, I get the idea that you were right in the middle of characters when these changes took place, right? What you might do, if you can, is put the old characters back to rights and make all new ones using his rules if no one minds. Then you can all be new at it with good reason and it might make the changes easier to stomach. Then, when he wants to go back to regular DnD, or if someone else wants to run a regular session, you can use your old characters from before. It sounds like he's put a lot of thought into it and it would be dreadful to let it go to waste.
shadzar 07-07-07, 07:00 PM	take away him PS3, XBox, o whatever video gaming system he has and replace it with a set of core rules from whichever system you used to play.
MnemonicSV 07-07-07, 07:23 PM	First, thank you for all the replies and helpful suggestions. :) The DM is a very creative person, don't get me wrong. We appreciate that (he has to be creative to keep a setting going so long). Creativity is fine and dandy, but not so much if he isn't familiar with the basic concepts of the core rules. Sometimes he just adds new rules without doing his homework or following through with how these new rules will interact with the old ones that are still in play. It's hard to describe, but it's like nothing seems to "mesh" well (or even at all in some cases). I have questioned him in the past about his stranger and more bizarre alterations (all of which have been mid-campaign), not in a hostile or overly critical manner, just to ask him the simple question: Why? His answer is usually something to the extent of wanting to make the campaign "different." The problem is, it already was different by means of style and flavour. Now he's just making it more complicated. Part of it is also because he is not aware of the full intricacies of the core rules, and just tries to "fix" what was never really broken. The other players have very mixed reactions from indifference to simply not caring about character development anymore. Things are generally becoming increasingly chaotic and/or apathetic. Not that there's a problem with that in it's own right, some campaigns just work that way... but I can see a pattern developing in our group that things are going downhill. Slowly but inevitably. It may be that he's just been DMing too long, maybe it's getting to him. It's half the reason I'm gearing up to DM a separate campaign myself.. to take the strain off a bit. But we really enjoy the memories we have of past characters and parties in the setting itself... and I wouldn't want that setting to go away... nobody would. In any event it's a difficult situation which has few options. I'm about to head off to a session tonight, and am planning on discussing with him why exactly he feels all these changes are making the game better, not just different. I'm hopeful, but I know he is not inclined to reverse rule changes, so this won't be easy. Wish me luck.
shadzar 07-07-07, 08:06 PM	have you thought of each other player running one-shots at intervals during the main campaign? this would take some load off the mainstream DM and allow the others to have a go at it themselves. also discuss these confusing changes with your DM and ask him why all the changes came about and how it will affect the campaign world overall. not only the players being confused, but the way they interacted with NPCs in the past has now been changed as well. is it that the PC level are so high that this is a way to challenge the Pcs more without endless gauntlets of dragons fighting against them before they battle the actual gods of the world? find out why the changes were made, both in and out of the game. this will let the DM know you are interested in not only what he has created, but why he feels the changes are needed. good luck to you on both campaigns.
mkill 07-08-07, 01:07 AM	I suggest forcing him to write down all rules and handing them out to the players. Refuse to accept any rule change that is not written down. Make it clear to him that it ruins your playing fun if you don't know on what basic rules your characters are acting. At least, you'll have some common ground to start discussing on. Writing his homerules down will also force him to review them, and maybe he'll start to see what a complete mess he made. It seems like the whole rulesystem is just in his head. Playing a campaign with heavy houserules or completely self-written rules is no problem, I've done that both as player and DM, but it is really necessary to make sure that there that all rule changes are documented. Another hint: Drag your DM to a gaming convention where he can be a player for a change. If you are DM too long, you tend to forget what it's like to be on the player side.
danielinthewolvesden 07-08-07, 01:57 AM	Ask him to come here, read and respond.