Post/Author/DateTime	Post
hollow_ghost 07-05-06, 11:22 PM	This guy asked me to join his campaign he was going to start in school. The players: two guys who know how to play, one that knows a lil and will join soon, and one that is clueless whatsoever. Starting level: 6. Here this should have already rung an alarm bell, but I was too thrilled to finally be able to play DnD again. NOTE: the "DM" wants us to roleplay. We are in a war-ravaged world where our side is concentrated in a mile-wide city. I had asked the "DM" who we were fighting against, for my favored ennemies. He answered that we didn't know. "Ooo K... I'll just take humans." (Thinking: I'll give him his chance...) So me and the total newb come down a ship, and are told to report to our superior. Told, not interacted. Our superior: a half-minotaur cleric in full-plate wielding a single-handed hammer that does 1d12 ("DM" had set the race at medium-sized with a lvl adjustment of +1. Also gave it a +2 to wisdom) Now here is the starting equipment he gave to me: breast-plate and longsword, all the army could sparev for me. I had to settle for a Studded Leather for my rogue levels, and had asked for some sort of pole-arm instead, and maybe some kind of long-ranged weapon. "The army does not use pole-arms and bows. They use catapults instead." ME: :confused: My superior was kind enough to give me one of his two daggers. We are told to go to some ruins. Still no NPC-PC interactions (wich means no role-play). Archeologists have gone missing. First battle. The newb has fired a Ray of Frost from like 60ft. away, then charged into the fray without any defensive spells. He was a sorcerer level 6, with no clue whatsoever as to his ability and his spells' usage. The "DM" hadn't explained anything, just given him a character sheet with a repertoire "he would've chosen for himself". Here it is (ill skip the cantrips): - 1st: mage armor, ray of enfeeblement, reduce person ("DM": "You will know why later."), shocking grasp - 2nd: eagle's splendor, invisibility - 3rd: fireball So anyway, we survived our first battle, against orcs who had greatswords/greataxes (DM couldn't decide). I had noticed during the fight that the half-minotaur has a strenght of 20, a wisdom of 16, and a pretty high constitution. Only his intelligence is below 10, at 8. We had used a 28 point buy. Anyhow, the party decides to send me ahead to scout. I climb up a wall, and suddenly receive 5 arrows in my chest while the others see 3 more arrows flying in the sky. Scouts, as in the Scout class, had readied action and rapid-shot me. The rest of the party charge in, with the DM making the sorcerer use fireballs on single targets. Frustrated of being incapacitated, I asked my DM why I didn't see them. "You didn't do your spot check." and "They had taken 20 on their Move Silently and Hide." were his answers. End of first session, wich had lasted about 1h15. Second session, I wasn't there because the "DM" couldn't find me to tell me there was a session that he decided to hold the same day. The fourth guy recounted on how the noob had used a bow in melee reach, that the "DM" didn't teach anything to the newb. Third session. The "DM" recounts events of the last session, wich I was curious to know, since I wasn't there. DM: "You went into the ruins. [me] stayed outside to watch. Now, the cleric you were fighting against dies of a heart attack." (the newb and I were LMAO-ed) "Wait, wait nevermind. Let's just say the cleric never existed because he doesn't fit with the story anymore." Then we come out of the ruins with what we came for. A messenger from HQ delivers a message that tells us to negotiate peace with an uprising, using any means necessary, that will happen. Direction: three days away north-west. "DM" tells us he fast-forwards us there and asks for our plan. Note that there are many interruptions for other people were in the room and talking to the "DM" and so we had spent 40 minutes doing nothing. I try to tell him for 15 minutes that I make a white flag. "DM" asks with what. Newb (who now isn't a sorcerer anymore, because "DM" had said he didn't know how to play it) and I decide to take parts of our clothing, maybe underwears if need be. Meanwhile, I notice the other player, the one who was the half-minotaur (the fourth couldn't come) is now a sorcerer and changing the level from 6 to 7. He said it was nothing and he was leaving this campaign after this session, because he was joining the evil side ("DM" had decided to make a parallel evil side). So tired of waiting, I ask the "DM" if we can play already. "DM": "I'm willing to play. I'm just waiting for you guys to stop fooling around. me: "We aren't the ones fooling around. Besides, I've told you my plan!" "DM": "That plan is going to get you killed. You should listen to [ex-half-minotaur now sorcerer]." me: "Ok... what is his plan???" player in question: "We walk into the camp, hands away from our weapons. Maybe they will think that we are the reinforcements and then we can go to their leaders." me, just wanting to do something: "... Ok fine we'll do that." DM: "Ok well start walking towards the camp already! You're still three days away!" me: "waaa???" So anyhow, that was pretty much all we did that session, wich supposedly would have lasted 1h30, but after one hour of just getting to that camp and meeting a party (the evil side, comprised singularily of experienced players) near the camp. Meeting, not interacting. The "DM" had even been fighting over a quarter of a submarine. Me and the newb asked again if we could start playing. "DM": "Hey! If you aren't happy, you can leave." Guess what me and the newb did. We left of course.
Drodain 07-05-06, 11:42 PM	alright....that sux.....but wat was the point? i mean that really does suck but i dont see the point, ill just assume your ventingand say i would ask u to play with my group but we got the whole 1000s of miles good luck with ur dungeon and dragons explorations, go to the classifieds and look for players nearby
LuckyLeprechaun 07-05-06, 11:44 PM	:twitch: To quote from OotS: "I feel dumber just reading that." That was the saddest story I ever read... I'm still amazed that is lasted 4 sessions. Oh, and to answer your question, that's not a DM, that's a guy who still has to read the book through at LEAST ONCE before ever playing again.
Razieliffied 07-06-06, 12:07 AM	I can empathise with you my friend. I like ot hope that few of us ever encounter DM's like this, though, sadly, most of us do. My story: One of my players [I'm a DM, and player in my spare time], asked kindly at the end of one of my sessions if he himself could run a short game to test out his gaming style. We all agreed readily, after all, he's our friend. The game was rather simple to start off with, we were to create PC's at lv 8, and we were to be playing in the forgotten realms. Character creation was simple, we all had spare PC's we could use, though equipment had us worried. He simply had us ask for anything we wanted, giving us huge overpowered weapons, but no armor or anything else. We wern't concerned though, we figured that we could always purchase what we needed later on. The session started then, with the DM explaining the general plot and background. The last sentence that he said here was 'oh, by the way, your all under a greater gaes spell to complete your quest'. Now, our quest was to assassinate a notable evil figure. He was polite enough to let us poison the BBEG's food before the session began, then set us to start in the BBEG's bedroom. Our first reaction was to run away, after all, you never stick around after a job. The doors were locked. The BBEG here was an alhood [lich/mindflayer] which laughed at us, then made us explode, with no effort at all [one round of combat it took]. We were a little angry at this, though the DM explained that it was all part of the story. We woke up in the afterlife. This, we said, was a good idea. Though the method used to get us here was a little odd. Turns out the gaes spell kept working after death too, so we had to find a way back to the real world and continue to kill this monster [CR at 3 times our level we learnt]. We ended up fighting some demons, etc. Eventually finding a mirror. We were each allowed to use it once, to contact a person on the material plane, for a single conversation. The party called a few people from their backgrounds, but were each refused aid [the fighters own mother, lv 20 cleric, couldn't ressurect him :weep: ], my character went last, and having all of my FR experience tied into baldurs gate and anything by R.A.Salvator, I ended up talking to elminster. He brought us back to life, where he explained that he couldn't break the gaes spell [by now we were ****** at the thing] and then ordered us to attack the cult of the dragon. We died facing a CR 23 dracolich. We were lv8. The next time he DMed was online [the game still runs, though I'm not part of it]. He continues to use monsters at +8CR for our level and killed three of my charcaters in one session, so I left. I've never had a complaint with any of my games [*dance for joy*].
utilitarian 07-06-06, 01:42 AM	Allow me to quote another user on this board, who's name I can't remember and i appoligise for that. "Pick up your nearest DMG and hit him with it, preferably corner first" Once that's done, assuming he's done writhing in pain, explain to him that you don't appreceate his style of DMing, and that you have several problems with the way he runs his game, and how he, as a DM, interacts with his players. If he's willing to work through these problems, great. If not, leave. Consider hitting him with the PHB on the way out.
Whisper_Swiftblade 07-06-06, 01:58 AM	Allow me to quote another user on this board, who's name I can't remember and i appoligise for that. "Pick up your nearest DMG and hit him with it, preferably corner first" Once that's done, assuming he's done writhing in pain, explain to him that you don't appreceate his style of DMing, and that you have several problems with the way he runs his game, and how he, as a DM, interacts with his players. If he's willing to work through these problems, great. If not, leave. Consider hitting him with the PHB on the way out. hold on, that is a terrible and unnesesarly violent thing to do. Just think of the potenchal damige to the book, the DMG does not deserve that. Instead hit him with a hammer.
utilitarian 07-06-06, 02:01 AM	The hammer lacks irony. If you have some spare 3.0 edition books laying around they'll work too.
Whisper_Swiftblade 07-06-06, 02:03 AM	agreed
Cifer 07-06-06, 07:13 PM	You might also try the Book of Vile Dorkness (oh, how these spelling mistakes always manage to creep in...) Or, you could of course also use the mighty hammergun - it has got tradition and was proudly passed around on these boards for a long time...
Bruunwald 07-06-06, 07:35 PM	If ever there was a job for the hammergun, this is it. Then again, that mess reminds me of my own upcoming campaign. It's going to feature a world comprised of two walled cities balancing on the tips of pins over a bottomless abyss from which nameless creatures hurl indeterminate missiles upwards at the sky. The north city, Vaguera, will be the home of a bunch of guys that I don't know what they look like, but they're half-something or other. The south city, Randomshite, will hold the masses of good-aligned but oddly misanthropic vampiric paladin minotaurs who defend the world against the invading hordes of six-armed ant-orcs who rain loaves of bread down upon both cities from their flying gnomish submarines. Players will be able to choose between playing evil sorcerous teabags or their divine kitchen fawcet rivals. Unless I don't want them to, in which case, they can't. The first adventure will involve the Unseeable Forest, in which the party is expected to do nothing until I berate them for not doing it.
CryoSilver 07-06-06, 07:35 PM	Bah. Just put 5 minute epoxy on a soda and hand it to him and be done with it.
Sinaz 07-06-06, 07:56 PM	... Frustrated of being incapacitated, I asked my DM why I didn't see them. "You didn't do your spot check." and "They had taken 20 on their Move Silently and Hide." were his answers. 'Taking 20' on move silently and hide would be equivelent to someone moving from bush to bush yelling "can you see me know? can you hear me? no? good... this is where I'm hiding!" Since failing a hide check means your opponent sees you, taking 20 means you start where you are plainly visible and move until you are out of sight. LOL... hate to belabor this idiocy, but that gives you 2 minutes to watch where the archers go to hide! My retort would have been, "well then I ducked 2 minutes ago."
hollow_ghost 07-09-06, 05:39 PM	Anyone know in wich book I can find that half-minotaur race? or that uber-martial-hammer?
Psychoticpsymon 07-09-06, 06:00 PM	Then again, that mess reminds me of my own upcoming campaign. The south city, Randomshite, will hold the masses of good-aligned but oddly misanthropic vampiric paladin minotaurs who defend the world against the invading hordes of six-armed ant-orcs who rain loaves of bread down upon both cities from their flying gnomish submarines. The first adventure will involve the Unseeable Forest, in which the party is expected to do nothing until I berate them for not doing it. Sigged as quoted
cat_god 07-09-06, 06:32 PM	Generally when a post starts with a title like that it rarely bodes well. I was going to suggest to shoot him with a hammer, because of a sig I read. Where's it from?
Psychoticpsymon 07-09-06, 06:44 PM	Methinks the hammergun was something someone made up in one post.
Chaotica Maxima 07-09-06, 06:58 PM	I dont remember who thought of it, but "Shoot him. In the face. With a hammer." is now officially a board legend. Its basically how stupid players/DM's/"Dm's" deserve to be shot, hopefully knocking some sense into them, but probably just knocking them out. Though that, often, is even better :D
Bruunwald 07-10-06, 02:34 PM	Sigged as quoted LOL! I'm honored. Thank you.