Right off the bat, I decided I didn't like the campaign (a homebrew), the schedule (every Saturday afternoon), or his large list of houserules (ability score generation left you with a +3 total modifier. all magic items were replaced with magic items of his own creation, languages were renamed- the new names sounded like they were taken from Naruto or some similar anime, ect).
Anyway, I mentioned during character creation that his rules stuck us with really underpowered PCs and his response was "Well, I like to role-play in my games, but I guess you're just a totally mechanical gamer who just plays for combat."
Anyway, after characters were created, he proceeded to tell us what our characters' backstories were: apparently, in his game, all races live in their own isolated city/country/continent/world where there isn't any of the other races, and each of us stumbled through a magic doorway that transported us to a strange town inhabited by a tall, human-like race who took us in and clothed us and feed us (we having conveniently lost all our equipment).
So, most of the session after that was the human sorcerer (played by the DM's wife, always a bad sign) monopolizing on the conversation with the DM, while the rest of us waited around.
Then the village got attacked, so, being the good aligned idiots we were, we all run out the the weapon room after the town guards (who, despite the fact that this village was isolated from civilization and surrounded by hostile humanoids, were barely trained and poorly equipped). Everybody proceeded to grab a weapon (my Paladin ended up with a Warhammer, the best looking weapon in the room, and a shield, which brought my unarmored AC up to a 10).
After a brief fight with some homebrewed goblins (seriously, he claims to have homebrewed every creature in the game, but these things looked, acted, and seemed statistically identical to goblin warriors with some dire rats thrown in), my paladin was, unsurprisingly, almost killed because he didn't have any armor and the DM sprang a house rule on me in the middle of combat that once a character falls to 1/4 max HP, he gets a -2 to attacks, saves, skill and ability checks, and AC. Anyway, after I went down, the town guard, who'd been useless even as meatshields up to that point, suddenly rallied and began thrashing the enemies, saving the day.
So, at the end of the session, I told the DM that I didn't like his game, and I really wasn't interested in playing in it. Okay, the DM said, he had plenty of other people who really, really wanted to play, and they could take my place.
Anyway, this week, I ran into one of the other players, who said that the DM wanted to talk to me because he was thinking of implementing some changes, and he was wondering if I'd be more interested in playing.
Again, not having anything better to do, I decided to show up. The DM arrived, and once again, the first thing he did was criticize me for being such a mechanical roleplayer, but he was really glad to see me, because he was thinking about making some changes and he thought that I might be more interested in playing (however, he still believed that every Saturday afternoon was absolutely the best schedule for gaming). So I asked to see what his new rule changes were, and he gave me a big speech about how I shouldn't be so hung up on the rules, they're not that important, being such a rules lawyer made me a bad player, ect. But he gave me his new idea, which was basically the same game, only using completely original rules (no D20 system, instead, you rolled anywhere from a D3 to a D12, and that included D5s, 7s, and 9s, and how effective you were varied based off of how much higher than the target number you got).
So, I handed back his new ruleset and told him that frankly, I was now even less interested, and he gave me a big speech about how he really wanted me in his game, it was so important to him, but he had all these other people lined up to play, and I was so hung up on rules (yet again).
At that point, I told him, yeah, I like games with good rule systems. Because without good rule systems, a game is really nothing more than sitting around the table and listening to the DM tell you a story, and quite frankly, I could think of better things to do than that.
Anyway, that was my weird D&D experience of the year.
DM: I can't find another player to hear me stroke my own ego and your leaving slapped me in the face with too much reality that I'm not the center of the universe.
Cheers to walking away from it. For someone who didn't like "rules-oriented" players, he seemed to have a lot of problems with changing his rules. Why did the other guys stick around? Were they that bored?
As a D&Der married to another D&Der, having your spouse play is not an automatic game killer. My husband is our party's wizard, but he's never been one to hog the spotlight. He has a good grasp of the whole "teamwork" thing, and I'm careful not to give him any breaks that I wouldn't offer to the others. Maybe I'm just wierd.
Translation:
DM: I can't find another player to hear me stroke my own ego and your leaving slapped me in the face with too much reality that I'm not the center of the universe.
Seemed that way to me.
Cheers to walking away from it. For someone who didn't like "rules-oriented" players, he seemed to have a lot of problems with changing his rules. Why did the other guys stick around? Were they that bored?
Well, there were 2 other people besides me and his wife: somebody I didn't know (but one who was super annoying both as a player and as a character) and another guy who's got a bad rep in the local gaming community (also a really annoying player, never roleplays, rarely bothers to help the party out, always wants to talk about how great his WoW character is or how he used to be ranked #3 in the world in the Mechwarrior clicky game). Literally, if I hadn't been playing a Paladin, I quite likely would have killed the first guy's character (a halfling) within about 5 minutes of the start of the game. With the DM's encouragement, he was running him like a kender on meth, and he decided that what he really wanted to do was climb up my character's leg. After three times, I stopped the game to tell the other player that if he did it one more time, I was going to treat his character like a threat and act accordingly.
As a D&Der married to another D&Der, having your spouse play is not an automatic game killer. My husband is our party's wizard, but he's never been one to hog the spotlight. He has a good grasp of the whole "teamwork" thing, and I'm careful not to give him any breaks that I wouldn't offer to the others. Maybe I'm just wierd.
I agree that it's not an automatic dealbreaker, but somehow, his wife's sorcerer seemed to have abnormally lucky breaks: in that fight, she hide in the watchtower (which was, for some reason, undefended despite having an important device there) and cast Grease on the stairs. When an enemy charged the tower and failed his save/check against the grease, the DM ruled that he took lethal damage from the fall that was sufficient to kill him. There seemed to be a hint of favoritism.
I've just gotten to the point where if I don't like the game, I'm not going to play. I've played in enough campaigns where the DM would pull all kinds of stupid crap on us, and I simply don't have the interest in sitting through another such game. As someone said on the boards years ago, D&D is not sex, bad D&D is not better than no D&D.
Never understood favouritism for DMs. I can't play favourites as a DM. My character died three times because I couldn't play favourites. Now I don't use characters (unless they're semi-characters like a familiar or an imp).
Anyway, sounds rough. Don't go back to that sort of game, no matter what he says. Unless you think you can honestly explain to him what he's doing wrong and get him to listen.
But yeah, I'm not going to bother going back.
I haven't been in a campaign in over a year, and the group I played with was split up because the DM died due to a freak medical condition last winter, so I've been trying to find a group that met on a schedule I could match (most groups in my area play during the week, but I live out of town and work a job that requires me to get up early, so I'm limited to weekends).
But yeah, I'm not going to bother going back.
Sorry to hear about the previous DM.
What about a PbP game? Or a PbM game? One day in the next five years before they decide to put out the next edition of D&D they might release the DM Table Top as well, and then you could play online.
I am lucky in that my game is overflowing with players. Having 6 at the table and more asking to join is a nice feeling. But I have been on the downside as well were every player recruited in was a disaster and it was mostly two man sessions.
Hope you find a real game, as no one deserves to be punished like you were.
I'm all for homebrewing both worlds and rules, but this guy seems to just be a bad dm on top of that.
Ouch.
I haven't been in a campaign in over a year, and the group I played with was split up because the DM died due to a freak medical condition last winter, so I've been trying to find a group that met on a schedule I could match (most groups in my area play during the week, but I live out of town and work a job that requires me to get up early, so I'm limited to weekends).
But yeah, I'm not going to bother going back.
WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG AND SELF-PROMOTION
http://shiftkitty.angelfire.com
Some solo rules I wrote up to get a gaming fix when nobody else is available.
I'd have exited with "Dude, if you want to create the Great American Roleplaying Game be my guest, but I'm not spending my Saturdays as a beta-tester. Send me a copy when it's finished and maybe we'll talk then."
Start with all stats at a base of 5. Add racial modifiers. Add special Class modifiers (a total of 6 points distributed between 3 or 4 stats, depending on the class). Finally, you're given a total of 30 more points to raise your stats as you see fit.
My paladin's ability scores were as follows: 16 Str, 8 Dex, 12 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 12 Cha.
I looked at them and said "I'm not playing a hero, I'm playing a gas station attendant!"
The DM's reasoning behind his system was "It prevents one person from getting really good rolls, and another person from getting stuck with sucky ones." Naturally, I responded that he'd managed to stick us all with sucky ones, so I failed to see what the advantage was. I also pointed out to him the page number in the DMG that has the point-buy system detailed (which is only version of stat generation I've used in 3.5).
My paladin's ability scores were as follows: 16 Str, 8 Dex, 12 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 12 Cha.
I looked at them and said "I'm not playing a hero, I'm playing a gas station attendant!"
DM: At the end of the hall you see a snarling Chimera!
PC: All right! Finally something cool that my character can deal with... oh wait, did you say "Camaro"?
The DM's reasoning behind his system was "It prevents one person from getting really good rolls, and another person from getting stuck with sucky ones."
But doesn't prevent a group of people from getting stuck with a sucky game.
I said that the DM was free to play the game however he wanted, but the way he was running it wasn't my idea of fun, and I wasn't going to bother playing in a game I didn't think was fun.
"That rattlesnake bit you? Maybe you just startled him. Stick your hand in again. Give him another chance."
Nope, you gave him a second chance already, and all he had to offer was more of the same crap.
But dude, when you mention your last GM died...perhaps say 'the poor guy died' rather than just go 'yeah, last GM is dead'. C'mon, you gamed with him, surely you want to show a little sympathy.
WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG AND SELF-PROMOTION
http://shiftkitty.angelfire.com
Some solo rules I wrote up to get a gaming fix when nobody else is available.
Well it worked on me! Downloaded and finished reading just now, a sensible solution that will be circulated to the rest of my friends 'just in case'.