Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DemonDavyJones 09-06-06, 05:05 PM	Well. The following is a problem I have had with my DM/player. I have already sat down and talked to him (which didn't work), and I have already tried finding another group. The area I live in hates RPG's, and my schedule is too random to try online games. Anyways, on to the problem. Alright, so, we start a new campaign, and it seems to go well for a while. It starts off with challenging (2nd level monsters at 1st level) encounters, but in the other campaigns I was used to that:). However, as I powergamed a fair amount to keep my character in line with the challenges we faced, he simply ramped up the difficulty to higher levels:tantrum: . We just faced a young adult red dragon at sixth level, after a charge of twenty fourth level encounters (we survived because a wall gave us time for arrows and spells, before it broke) followed by a boss that was an eight level encounter :eek: . Being that our group was me (a cleric), a rogue, and a wizard, the DM had a DMPC fighter. All our campaigns had one DMPC, as it's three players and one DM. As I wasted my higher level spells on the boss, after the wizard lost most of his spells to the charge, because he Fireballed a lot of them, obviously, the fighter remained effective. Now, this fighter was very powergamed and very without story or motivation. I pride myself on (powerful but not powergamed) good but cool characters, so this was a bit of a stickler for me:rant: . However, as the fighter mysteriously found the money from his inheritance, as his, and I quote, "Great Uncle" had died, to buy a keen flaming burst frosty burst +2 rapier (at sixth level), as well as a lions shield and mithral full plate of speed, I was starting to feel very gypped. The rogue bought various smaller items and a flaming keen rapier and an icy burst short sword. The wizard bought offensive wands, and the cleric (me) bought a wand of holy smite, and two wands of cure light wounds. Now, as the dragon approached, we all asked the DM how exactly he expected us to win. He replied "Well with the fighter you can't lose." When we realized, with a fluke of the dice, that the fighter lost the save to the frightful presence, we were very, very, nervous:bigeyes: . So, with a few lucky criticals, and a max damage ice storm, we brought the dragon down to a little under 1/3 health. However, the dragon then breathed fire, catching the rogue in it, despite a 20 rolled on a save for evasion (this DM didn't give an explanation). The rogue was subsequentally fried. The dragon left us, and the fighter returned, ran off, faster than our horses somehow:ahem:, killed the dragon by his lonesome with a crit we didn't hear rolled (on a wood table):headexplo , and mysteriously hiding all the treasure. Now, we get to face a horde of as-yet undefined monsters with resistance to everything BUT slashing. Including magic. Magic immunity actually:help: :hoppingma :help: . So, with a party armed mostly with wands and spells, against a horde that can't be affected with anything but slashing weapons. My cleric has a mace as his main weapon, and the (dwarven) wizard (don't ask) has a dwarven thrower should it come to blows. I'm asking, how to either A: Deal with it in-game (besides new weapons, as we don't have time to buy anything), such as a way to deal damage to these things. B: Convince him why we need to be given SOME spotlight (I TRIED ALREADY!). Thanks for any help received! (Oh, by the way, the guy is a horrible player as well, but I've found fixes for most of it. Kicking him out wouldn't work, as his is the only house we can play at, and he is a good friend otherwise). I might hear the idea of getting him to let us start a new campaign with another person (probably me) as the DM, but he'll just become a bad player again, but it is much easier to deal with. I prefer the players side of the screen however, most of the time. I know that was a rant, but I had to get the point accross. Please help, and read the thing, at least.
Aeromus 09-06-06, 05:12 PM	Wow, that DM is totally stupid. He's playing his own game. You're apparently just back-up for his fighter.
Thelandrach 09-06-06, 05:16 PM	I was losing hope for the campaign until you got to... "despite a 20 rolled on a save for evasion (this DM didn't give an explanation)" Game over, dude. This campaign is history. This is a Bad DM. You've said you can only play at his house. Know what? Life is too freaking short. Find something else to do for two months and see how things look this fall. Actively recruit new players and GMs. Fall back, regroup, and see if you can get a better campaign together.
Drodain 09-06-06, 05:21 PM	Doesn't even seem like they're backup. I would say try and DM yourself. He obvioulsy wants to play as a PC.
DemonDavyJones 09-06-06, 05:35 PM	Yeah I tried that... he's not a great player either. Better though, so I think that's what we'll do. Thanks again for the suggestion/pity. Although the "we can only play at his house" should've been "we can only play at his house except for one day of the week".
Thought 09-06-06, 06:19 PM	You could always check your local phonebook (or them thar new fangled online directory-thingies) and see if there is a comic book shop near you. Many (but not all) have areas specifically designed for people to play games (DnD, CCGs, etc). If you are lucky, some might even have lists of gaming groups you could try (though that would be gaming with strangers, which seems to take half the fun out of it in my opinion). Good luck though, and if you do GM for him, make sure there is always at least one encounter every session that he actually has to rely on the other players to get pass (to help encourage him to play nicely with everyone else).
was_fired 09-06-06, 06:23 PM	Yeah... he is unfit to DM. Sorry for your bad luck but you need someone else to DM or to do it yourself.
gamertall 09-06-06, 06:35 PM	I feel like I know your DM...:banghead: If you feel that you should continue playing (despite all of the advice contrary to) then try haveing your characters leave his perfectly planned TPKs and adventure elsewhere; make the DM improvise. I know it is underhanded, but by the time you have left his 100th TPK encounter, he may take a hint. Maybe ask him if he feels fantasy is too under-powered, maybe he would feel better role-playing a super-heroes game. Or maybe ask him if he need time by himself to bask in the glow of his own NPC creations?:whatsthis
Voldar_Mecorthio 09-06-06, 06:52 PM	This DM seems to want to play the game with himself. I have dealt with this problem, he wants to be a player as well as a DM. The best thing to do is try to make him realize that he can't be both. He can either be a DM, or he can give the duties to one of you and he can be a player. I have never seen an instance of DMPCing that was successful. Ever. He also seems to be railroading you, like with the unexplainable failed save on a 20 with evasion, the fighter running faster than horses and killing the dragon alone, and the disappearance of the treasure. He seems to either want his story to go a certain way, or he's just an egotistical wang-waver who wants to act tough by downplaying the PCs with an unstoppable DMPC. If it's the first, explain that a D&D campaign is not an interactive movie, with a set script and a prewritten ending. It's a work in progress. The DM should set up a background story, some ideas on what might happen, and let the story go as it does. Anything less is railroading. If it's the second, there's nothing you can do. IES (inflated ego syndrome) is unfortunatly a common problem among the D&D community. I've encountered several cases of it, and it's completely uncurable. Just abandon him, better a good game once per week than an IES game more often.
SmokeJaguar 09-06-06, 07:06 PM	Talk to your fellow players about it. If everybody thinks the DM stinks (which, judging by your story, he does), just have a vote. The question is up to you, but something like "Who thinks Joe should keep running that DMPC?" would probably do. Any DM who thinks that his players ought to obey him, in spite of an overwhelming vote, deserves to be booted from the group on the grounds of being a childish despot.
Aegeu 09-06-06, 07:09 PM	Hammergun...? Nah.. this needs something better. This needs the COMMONER RAILGUN hammergun. For those of you who don't know this trick, here's how it works: Take every single commoner in the world. Line them up. Give one a hammer. Have everyone ready an action to pass the hammer down the line. The hammer will go down the line in 6 seconds exactly. At this point, Relativity should kick in and give your hammer a mass of several million tons and a speed of 99.99% of the speed of light. Aim this at your DM.
DarkNick 09-06-06, 07:19 PM	Talk to your fellow players about it. If everybody thinks the DM stinks (which, judging by your story, he does), just have a vote. The question is up to you, but something like "Who thinks Joe should keep running that DMPC?" would probably do. Any DM who thinks that his players ought to obey him, in spite of an overwhelming vote, deserves to be booted from the group on the grounds of being a childish despot. Contact the other players, have a chat and see what they think. This is a good idea, maybe together you can come up with a solution. Maybe in protest you could all decide that you don't want the fighter to be in the party anymore. So next session you confront the fighter and say "sorry dude, we don't want you in the party anymore, time to go our seperate ways" The Dm will have a fit. It will be great. I'm not sure if this will solve anything, but at least you have stolen some control back from the DM. He might turn around and kill the whole party because they don't have the fighter but it might be worth it for the small victory. You might have to step up to the plate and be the DM for the next campaign (or one of the other players could do it). I think it is much more preferable to have a bad player instead of a bad DM that is not keen on changing and getting better.
Rhomphaia 09-06-06, 09:42 PM	Hammergun...? Nah.. this needs something better. This needs the COMMONER RAILGUN hammergun. For those of you who don't know this trick, here's how it works: Take every single commoner in the world. Line them up. Give one a hammer. Have everyone ready an action to pass the hammer down the line. The hammer will go down the line in 6 seconds exactly. At this point, Relativity should kick in and give your hammer a mass of several million tons and a speed of 99.99% of the speed of light. Aim this at your DM. Nice idea, I love it. However, you will need one hell of a world population to pull this off. Just over one billion commoners to reach 0.9999c. Still, great idea. I laughed my ass of when I saw it. Back to the thread. EDIT- 1,178,496,000 commoners to be exact.
Juzzman 09-06-06, 11:05 PM	I have to agree with the other, it looks like a fairly unrecoverable situation. If you really want to try and salvage it, here is a entertaining suggestion.... roleplay it as if you didnt know it was a dnd game. Examples -You hear that you may have to face a horde of monsters that you cant effect? ... run away! -The fighter can singlehandedly slay dragons and keeps all the treasure?... dump that hero and get yourself another zero! -Rules that govern the universe start changing? (Ie evasion no longer works)?... Become paranoid and stop adventuring to examine these changes scientifically, or become really paranoid and hide in a cave for the rest of your life. Or, you could just kick out any dmpc and play your characters really badly till he adjusts the encounter level back to where they should be. (sooner or later he'll start to get bored watching you roll up new characters :-)
Roivas 09-06-06, 11:32 PM	The GM shouldn't cross the screen. Ever. It is okay to send NPCs with the players into dungeons, but they should be limited help at best. True the NPC should still have a personallity, but they shouldn't solve puzzles, intiate combats, or finish a fight unless absolutely nessisary. I do the NPC thing on occassion, when a player can't come to game [I will not run a player's character for them], but this list of atrocities seems like grounds for a ritual slaying. Talk to your fellow players, make sure you are all on the same page, and confront this "GM". Make sure to make it clear that you have had enough and that if the next session he runs goes the same way he is no longer your GM. Also one other condition would be his personal little fighter must be removed from game perminately, he must never appear in any adventure nor effect the world in general in any way. Best way for this to happen is for him to get hit in the face with a seagull that accidently rams itself into his throat killing him in seconds, his corpse then getting stolen by a passing ivisble gnome wizard. You should begin preparing a campain for your fellow players now so you are ready when the seemingly inevitable comes. With these experiances you would make a good GM under the theory that you would know what not to do. Also there is no reason three players can't survive a dungeon of their level. My group has to do with 3 sometimes 2 players at a time, and the GM doesn't lower the CRs or send us a helping hand. And everytime we survive by our own merit, or luck, we feel the risk was well worth it.
Feriin 09-07-06, 05:07 AM	Nice idea, I love it. However, you will need one hell of a world population to pull this off. Just over one billion commoners to reach 0.9999c. Still, great idea. I laughed my ass of when I saw it. Back to the thread. EDIT- 1,178,496,000 commoners to be exact. Considering that there are about 6,000,000,000 people already on Earth , no problem there. Now if you were to actually loop around the poles as to intersect with the equater then you could probably lose a 100,000,000 or so people.
batmanjr 09-07-06, 11:09 AM	One thing to consider would be to offer to run two characters so that way the DM doesn't need to control the DMPC. Take away his personal stake on the PC side of the action and see what happens. Just a thought. Or when the hordes come, sit down and tell the fighter to do his job, you're out of spells and can't help. See what he does.
Atirakis 09-07-06, 02:32 PM	I was losing hope for the campaign until you got to... "despite a 20 rolled on a save for evasion (this DM didn't give an explanation)" Game over, dude. This campaign is history. This is a Bad DM. You've said you can only play at his house. Know what? Life is too freaking short. Find something else to do for two months and see how things look this fall. Actively recruit new players and GMs. Fall back, regroup, and see if you can get a better campaign together. Wisdom.
trapspringer 09-07-06, 02:32 PM	Good DMs come from bad games. You should start running a game. You know everything not to do, so you can't fail.
Atirakis 09-07-06, 02:33 PM	Good DMs come from bad games. You should start running a game. You know everything not to do, so you can't fail. How exactly does knowing some things to avoid make you immune to failure?
trapspringer 09-07-06, 02:42 PM	Wow, that came off as spiteful and personally motivated. Are you this guy's DM?
Atirakis 09-07-06, 02:43 PM	You said he cant fail I would like to know how this is possible.
trapspringer 09-07-06, 02:46 PM	It's an expression. "With these shoes, there's no way I can lose the race!" And seriously, are you trolling? What?
Atirakis 09-07-06, 02:49 PM	Accusations of trolling are against the CoC. You should read it. I was simply wondering why you would tell someone they cant fail when they most certainly can and only DMs who are aware of this can make sure that they dont. I am doing what I always do and that is look out for the greater good of everyones gaming.
trapspringer 09-07-06, 03:12 PM	Why so defensive? I just asked a simple question. And you should probably get out more. That's a pretty common expression.
Judging Eagle 09-07-06, 03:14 PM	I think Trapstroinger means that "you know what mistakes to not make." Of course, the OP will make his own share of mistakes, and will hopefully try to solve them when he realizes that he's made them.
Atirakis 09-07-06, 03:17 PM	I thought irony maxed out at Collosal. I can see now that I was mistaken. Ok BC tell me where the irony lies. What part of the CoC was I going against?
trapspringer 09-07-06, 03:17 PM	I think Trapstroinger means.... That's trapspringer, although I think your variation is so far my favorite.
DarkNick 09-07-06, 03:57 PM	Trapstroinging sounds painful :embarrass
Sapp 09-07-06, 04:07 PM	Please don't call him a "powergamer", it gives real powergamers a bad name. He's a cheater or an especially bad DMPC, not a "powergamer". Logically, most powergamers are NOT cheaters, because they wouldn't be spending so much time on optimization if they could just CHEAT. Cheating kind of defeats the whole purpose of optimization, you know?
trapspringer 09-07-06, 04:13 PM	People who cheat to make powerful characters are called munchkins. Powergamers are lawful neutral whereas munchkins are chaotic neutral.
RadicalTaoist 09-07-06, 05:16 PM	A Note To All Players Under Bad DMs (and all DMs who can't find players interested in their game): This is the 21st century. There are message boards. There are play-by-post games. There's OpenRPG (a program that simulates real-time tabletop play online) if play-by-post games are too slow for you. There are ways to find interested players in your area and play games from your computer at home at your convenience. Under no circumstances should you be forced to play with people you don't want to. Assert your right to walk and find a better game. Thank you.
starfire311 09-07-06, 05:24 PM	Good DMs come from bad games. You should start running a game. You know everything not to do, so you can't fail How exactly does knowing some things to avoid make you immune to failure? it was a joke man, lighten up. But if what TS was true that he new everything to avoid, which you then twisted what he said into only know somethings, he would indeed be immune to failure. Accusations of trolling are against the CoC. oh the irony Ok BC tell me where the irony lies. What part of the CoC was I going against? you are trolling
Roivas 09-07-06, 10:51 PM	[QUOTE=Sapp]Please don't call him a "powergamer", it gives real powergamers a bad name. He's a cheater or an especially bad DMPC, not a "powergamer". Don't powergamers already have a bad name?
Keevo_Darkwood 09-07-06, 11:07 PM	Please don't call him a "powergamer", it gives real powergamers a bad name. He's a cheater or an especially bad DMPC, not a "powergamer". Don't powergamers already have a bad name? Only in the eyes of some, unlike cheaters (who, assuming they've actually been playing long enough to know better, are reviled pretty much universally). EDIT: Fixed hanging quote-tag.
was_fired 09-08-06, 01:19 AM	Ok BC tell me where the irony lies. What part of the CoC was I going against? In this instance they are alleging that you are guilty of the following CoC violations: 1. "harassment of another specific person (e.g. persistent flaming or continued personal attacks on the boards or "in-character harassment" without prior out-of-character permission.)" You were exceedingly rude to him and in another thread if memory serves you also threatened to report another poster for a similar noninsult which can be viewed as harassment as well just like you claim that by calling you a troll they are committing an act of harassment against you. 2. "trolling or baiting by putting to the screen inflammatory statements designed to elicit a negative response from the community". They flat out accused you of this act. Those are the only two I am aware of from the CoC found here: http://boards1.wizards.com/community_coc.php . If I missed any or am using the wrong version of the CoC feel free to post the link and point out any errors I might have made. :)
Bulletproof_Condom 09-08-06, 07:10 AM	Don't powergamers already have a bad name? I knew a powergamer named Pete Wiener. That was a pretty bad name.
DracoPhoenix 09-08-06, 10:37 AM	Going with the "ditch him" answer. DMPCs can work, ONLY if they are support characters (ie, the rogue who deals with traps & locks or the cleric that heals and buffs) I have to admit I glazed after the bouncing balls as I've seen variations on a theme for this sort of DM. That said, the sit down & do nothing because you are so pitifully inferior to the fighter might be good for a laugh on the last session. Or ask to re-roll (and if you can resist pun pun), have it turn out that not only are you the heir to throne of some enormously wealthy empire (with a large vault of royal magic items), but it turns out the queen had a one nighter with a powerful dragon (resulting in a secret gestalt sorc) ;)
pres_man 09-08-06, 03:06 PM	So why can't you play at someone else's home? As long as you are giving this guy that kind of power, you'll just have to deal with him acting in this fashion. Next time, I would suggest, after the NPC hides the loot, saying, "Well we can't trust you anymore, so we are taking our leave." If the DM gets all freaky, just start packing up your stuff and tell him when he is done with his mental masturbation and actually wants to play D&D to give you a call. EDIT: By the way the problem is not that there is a character being run by the DM, it is the DM is a bad player, whether he is DMing or not. Talking about a type of character is merely distracting from the real issue = Crappy Player.
WizO_Cat 09-08-06, 06:12 PM	Ok, just as a reminder: 1) Accusing guests of trolling is against the Code of Conduct since it is trolling itself. 2) If you think someone has broke the Code of Conduct, don't call them out on the boards. That can be constued as a violation of the Code of Conduct and can result in disciplinary action as well. Report the thread and the moderators will review it and take necessary actions. Now, let's keep the discussion on the topic of the thread. Thanks.
Archangel62 09-09-06, 04:55 PM	Honestly I wish I could give you a better solution than leaving the game but I don't have one. This setup is pretty bad, however I think I might have a relevant link for just this situation. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/08 It just seems to fit games like this very well.