This is a 4e campaign.
The problem I have with our current game is that we are only Level 2 (and for some of the below encounters were Level 1) and our DM is constantly putting us in encounters against opponents of Level 14+.
I understand that there is a need to teach parties humility sometimes but I do not see the fun in constantly having to back down and walk away from encounters.
For example these are the encounters we have had to deal with so far:
1. Attack on town (standard level appropriate encounter)
2. Attack enemy caravan (standard level appropriate encounter)
3. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 14 - this was an obviously evil enemy but we pretended to be from the enemy caravan)
4. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
5. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
6. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
7. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 14+ - we were very aware that this enemy was evil but again understood that he was way too powerful - just because we were told that "The Great Enemy" would be within the tower)
8. Meeting with potential enemy/ally (Level 14+ as well as large number of other opponents)
9. Attack from powerful enemy (This was the Level 14 opponent from the 3rd encounter - this encounter was setup so that the opponent would leave at a set point)
10. Attack bandits
11. Attack bandits
12. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 20 opponent + his ally)
For those of you keeping count that is 5/12 (42%) of our encounters that have been with opponents we have no hope of defeating.
The last encounter was the straw that broke the camels back - the earlier encounters made a "type" of sense as they may sort of set the backdrop for what the campaign is based around but when on our next quest we run into another impossible encounter it seems like this will be the standard.
This last encounter was super frustrating - not only because we are constantly facing opponents we can not defeat (its not very fun or heroic) but because the whole point of our new quest was to return a kidnapped prisoner and hopefully kill the bandit leader for his bounty. We fight our way through the entire bandit camp to corner the leader and prisoner - only to learn that the prisoner has now been taken control of by a powerful dead wizard and is Level 20.
So what are we supposed to do? Say OK you are too strong, we will just leave and head back to town like losers that can not complete even a simple quest? If there is no "boss fight" then a lot of the fun is taken out as well.
Anyway thats my boring story - am I just being stupid or does this sound like not a very well DM'd game?
I think most people tend to dislike that kind of a campaign (greatly), in favor of a more player-driven and focused world, as far as the actual adventures are concerned.
Something like, "I really like all the [SOMETHING] in your campaign. But now that we've established the identity of several powerful villains, I was wondering if the game would continue along this vein, or if it would shift to a more PC-focused storyline."
If your goal is to make a better future, try to avoid alienating people based on the past.
And, btw, 'RulingLordAndMaster' has no idea what he's talking about.
You should talk to him about it, but there's the possibility that those weren't intended to be combat encounters, merely scenes meant to introduce the opposition. You aren't intended to take him on now; it's there to whet your appetite and give you a goal to get stronger so you can whup him later.
I thought that may be the case so I did not worry about it - but when it happened again on our next quest I started to get a bit frustrated.
The first couple potentially made sense to set the scene - but for it to happen again in the setting it did makes it seem like this is going to be the standard.
I just wanted a quick sanity check because I am relatively new to the group and dont know anyone from it outside of the game - so did not want to say anything to anybody if I was completely out of line.
EDIT: Just to make it clear there is no doubt that not all of them (or any) were intended to be combat encounters - but thats basically my point - its no fun to constantly be forced into situations where you are weak and helpless - there is no options - you basically just have to be nice and do whatever the DM wants you to do.
hm TRD23 , one thing to take into account , that what ever the situtation a player is Never Helpless . The Dm Has to provide atleast one way out of the situtation that he thought of, and remember that the players out number the DM. You have more heads more ideas to get out of a stick situtation . Say your locked in a cell , suddenly the envirment is your friend; your cell mate is a living a lock pick , an extra hand to steal the key from the gaurd , a fist to knock him out . Your towels and bed sheets ... well you get the idea .
As for the source of your frustrastion , well fighting stand up fight agensts oppents that your statisticly likely to win over and over agian , well no real challenge . You might try this meme , When the fighting get impossible the Impossible get tricky . So you can't win in a strait up fight don't fight fair .
"Ravel's thought of the day - Putting out 200,000 bountys is very expencive printing them isn't . "
Especially when each of these "encounters" has only two options - do what the DM (through the opponents) tells you or die.
It might help if I give an example - in the most recent encounter we have cleared the area of the bandits and are now in a man made underground structure - we have walked down a long corridor to an open room - at the mouth of the open room stands the bandit leader with some sort of flamethrower type weapon (we are two abreast in the 10" corridor) and behind him stands the "prisoner" we have come here to rescue - only the prisoners body has now been taken over by some L20 controller wizard (Human Mystagogue) who tells us he is not going to release the body and we should leave.
We have already tried a couple things - like offering a different body for him to take over etc but we are just told to leave. It would make sense if perhaps the wizard would ask us to do something for him in order to change bodies but all he is saying is that he and the body are staying here and we should leave.
So basically we have to attack or leave and return to the village like a bunch of losers - which to my mind is not a fun adventure - especially when the first quest involved a lot of similar situations.
That senerio , well to really get around that DM railroad say to this , loudly declare that your palyer have declared a blood oath to kill that wizard and get the party to do the same suddenly the entire parity is lazer focus on a non railroad objective . It's a terrible DM that would just ingore that . Plus you said "man made underground structure" Man made structures can be sturical weakened , exicavited , hell one time myself and my party found the Dungoen of Forbbbing Doom , we where told it was a L15 ecounter area we where L5 at the time , so we diverited a river into it .
When he want's to be conivental , go crazy .
I think I will talk with some of the other players and see if they feel the same - we are switching games next week anyway (we play on a 5 week/5 week basis between two games) so I think when it comes back to switch to this campaign we will either start a different one with someone else DMing or make it known that a lot of things need to change.
@rulinglord
i couldn't disagree more. there's nothing about 4e that stops you from having a story driven game. if anything, i think it helps by simplifying a lot of the mechanics, thus allowing a DM to spend more time worrying about his villain's motivation and less time worrying about buying points for his crafting: pottery skill.
@TRD
you could try refusing his quests and go out looking for adventure elsewhere. failing that, buy a copy of the dungeon delve and go crazy.
he may be the type of DM that doesn't announce skill challenges, or even that you are to use a certain skill. I'm that type of DM - and I've thrown very hard enemies at the PCs when they decided to do something stupid (like start killing guards in a mansion they're trying to sneak into). Not everything can and should be resolved by combat. It seems to me that that is what the DM is trying to show you guys
@TRD23: If you get frustrated with the GM's story-telling technique, try a simple "time-out" and ask him out-of character to level with you. Is this encounter just a stand-up fight, or is it just a matter of exposition?
If it's just exposition then you are wholly prepared to let the major NPC do his speech and tricks. Hell, you'll even dance to the pretty tune and interact with him, playing your character and all. But you won't touch the dice if there's no intent on the GM's part that there's a chance of success.
If your GM is just presenting the major players of his campaign world to give you a feel of what they do, well, that's kind of good story telling in the long run. But can he please hurry things along to the point where your characters and their actions actually matter?
-DF
If your GM is just presenting the major players of his campaign world to give you a feel of what they do, well, that's kind of good story telling in the long run. But can he please hurry things along to the point where your characters and their actions actually matter?
-DF
Thats what I thought at the beginning but it seems to be the norm - we are way past the point of introducing the major players.
It seems more to me that he's trying to push you guys to solve problems using skills rather than always combat.
he may be the type of DM that doesn't announce skill challenges, or even that you are to use a certain skill.
If it was skill challenges that would be awesome - but we have not seen anything resembling a 4e style challenge (I actually do not think this particular DM is even aware of what they are or how they work).
I talked about it with one of the other players and apparently everyone feels the same - I think its just a case of this DM being an old school DM and not quite getting the feel of 4e.
I talked about it with one of the other players and apparently everyone feels the same - I think its just a case of this DM being an old school DM and not quite getting the feel of 4e.
I don't believe there was ever an edition that advocated putting players against impassable obstacles, and then alternately staring at them and shutting down their ideas without further comment.
Killing them left and right and having monologing bad guys yes -- but not just giving them a whole lot of nothing to do.
It sounds like these high-level encounters are simply meant to not be combat encounters, but story encounters. It would have been better for him to have given you SOME "boss-battle" to fight, just so you felt like there was a proper capstone on the adventure before throwing you a purely story encounter with the high level badguy.
Ya, it sucks that you didn't get to kick this guy's ass. But how much playtime did it take up? Did you lose out on treasure or xp because of it? Remember that your DM is a member of the playgroup as well. It's not asking all that much that you weather a bit of him showboating with his badass BBEGs early on, so that you feel sufficiently pumped when you take the mofo down.
Sounds to me like he was expecting some roleplay from you, and wanted to create some cinematic buildup (however poorly executed), and all you guys wanted was more monster fodder to hack to pieces. Maybe you guys just have mismatched expectations for what everyone wants from this campaign?
If your GM is just presenting the major players of his campaign world to give you a feel of what they do, well, that's kind of good story telling in the long run. But can he please hurry things along to the point where your characters and their actions actually matter?
-DF
Thats what I thought at the beginning but it seems to be the norm - we are way past the point of introducing the major players.
Ah. Now I know for a fact that it's not just a faulty DM. Because it's NEVER too late to introduce players (major or minor, powerfull or not {yes there's a difference}) into the plot.
You seem to be stuck in the roll dice now, attack/perform scripted skill challenge/win mode.
But have you tried anything on your own power/skill wise when forced to talk to these uber NPCs?
Once you've learned that uber-wizard IS in control of the victem have you done anything but hang your heads in shame & lament how they could crush you?
Because the people I play with? They would be sizing him up, trying to weasel info/clues out of him over tea, picking his pockets, studying his lair (so we can teleport in later or such), and then once out of the encounter doing research on how to kill/effect him/break the control, enlisting aid, etc etc etc. Some of this wouldn't even involve us touching a dice.
So. What've you done?
Ah. Now I know for a fact that it's not just a faulty DM. Because it's NEVER too late to introduce players (major or minor, powerfull or not {yes there's a difference}) into the plot.
It may never be "too late" but it certainly can be "too frequently," particularly when they are vastly higher-level enemies that pop in to say hello.
Ah. Now I know for a fact that it's not just a faulty DM. Because it's NEVER too late to introduce players (major or minor, powerfull or not {yes there's a difference}) into the plot.
It may never be "too late" but it certainly can be "too frequently," particularly when they are vastly higher-level enemies that pop in to say hello.
I can kind of see the story he's going for though. The whole adventure seems like an excuse to get the players psyched up about killing this new BBEG. He foiled their mission, possessed the body of an innocent victim, and casually brushed them off without even bothering to try and kill them. They should be OUT FOR BLOOD!
Yes, having him be level ?? is sort of unfair, but not every encounter in the game need be winnable by the players.
I will agree that he seems to be using it too much though, and not as effectively as he could be. Still, not an altogether deplorable tactic.
Probably that point comes between the first and third meeting :p
Ah. Now I know for a fact that it's not just a faulty DM. Because it's NEVER too late to introduce players (major or minor, powerfull or not {yes there's a difference}) into the plot.
It may never be "too late" but it certainly can be "too frequently," particularly when they are vastly higher-level enemies that pop in to say hello.
I can kind of see the story he's going for though. The whole adventure seems like an excuse to get the players psyched up about killing this new BBEG. He foiled their mission, possessed the body of an innocent victim, and casually brushed them off without even bothering to try and kill them. They should be OUT FOR BLOOD!
Yes, having him be level ?? is sort of unfair, but not every encounter in the game need be winnable by the players.
I will agree that he seems to be using it too much though, and not as effectively as he could be. Still, not an altogether deplorable tactic.
Victory in the classic sense may not be possible, but creating a situation where the players can't do anything is BAD. They can achieve something heroic without defeating the enemy.
What did the heroes in lord of the rings do when they first encountered ring wraiths? They ran their butts off. Later they hid. Much later they got a high level friend with an encounter power to drive them off (and one character was in need of ressurection due to that fight).
It would have been a bit of a joke if the heroes simply killed the scary dark riders in their first meeting.
Personally i am glad that there is still one gm out there who recognises that this game has a story to it and that bad guys can actually get some build-up.
The current game I am playing in is bugging me a bit so I wanted some advice on whether I am actually justified in being annoyed or whether I am just a big girly pants and need to get over it.
This is a 4e campaign.
The problem I have with our current game is that we are only Level 2 (and for some of the below encounters were Level 1) and our DM is constantly putting us in encounters against opponents of Level 14+.
I understand that there is a need to teach parties humility sometimes but I do not see the fun in constantly having to back down and walk away from encounters.
For example these are the encounters we have had to deal with so far:
1. Attack on town (standard level appropriate encounter)
2. Attack enemy caravan (standard level appropriate encounter)
3. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 14 - this was an obviously evil enemy but we pretended to be from the enemy caravan)
4. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
5. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
6. Attack tower guard (standard level appropriate encounter)
7. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 14+ - we were very aware that this enemy was evil but again understood that he was way too powerful - just because we were told that "The Great Enemy" would be within the tower)
8. Meeting with potential enemy/ally (Level 14+ as well as large number of other opponents)
9. Attack from powerful enemy (This was the Level 14 opponent from the 3rd encounter - this encounter was setup so that the opponent would leave at a set point)
10. Attack bandits
11. Attack bandits
12. Meeting with powerful enemy (Level 20 opponent + his ally)
For those of you keeping count that is 5/12 (42%) of our encounters that have been with opponents we have no hope of defeating.
The last encounter was the straw that broke the camels back - the earlier encounters made a "type" of sense as they may sort of set the backdrop for what the campaign is based around but when on our next quest we run into another impossible encounter it seems like this will be the standard.
This last encounter was super frustrating - not only because we are constantly facing opponents we can not defeat (its not very fun or heroic) but because the whole point of our new quest was to return a kidnapped prisoner and hopefully kill the bandit leader for his bounty. We fight our way through the entire bandit camp to corner the leader and prisoner - only to learn that the prisoner has now been taken control of by a powerful dead wizard and is Level 20.
So what are we supposed to do? Say OK you are too strong, we will just leave and head back to town like losers that can not complete even a simple quest? If there is no "boss fight" then a lot of the fun is taken out as well.
Anyway thats my boring story - am I just being stupid or does this sound like not a very well DM'd game?
I specifically avoided reading the OP and any and all replies. I wanted to reply to the subject alone.
There are only two possible answers:
You have a bad DM and you are an idiot.
You have a good DM and you are an idiot.
Here's why.
Let's say you have a bad DM. He comes up with ridiculous house rules on the fly. He forces a DMPC upon the party that everyone hates. He consistently makes bad calls. He fudges dice. He considers D&D to be a contest: DM vs PCs. Whatever. If you are still playing under this DM, you are an idiot.
Other possibility: You have a great DM. He creates original and engaging storylines. Keeps the game moving. Finds a way to include all players no matter what is going on. He's every players dream DM. But you still find something to complain about. You're an idiot.
So, you see? The question is loaded. You're an idiot no matter what.
That being said, I'll go back and read the OP and replies.
As soon as I sober up that is.
b.
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ridiculous
You should talk to him about it, but there's the possibility that those weren't intended to be combat encounters, merely scenes meant to introduce the opposition. You aren't intended to take him on now; it's there to whet your appetite and give you a goal to get stronger so you can whup him later.
And, btw, 'RulingLordAndMaster' has no idea what he's talking about.
I don't post often, and when I do, I'm typcally hammered. But I read a lot. And, Salla, I like the cut of your jib. And that wonder dog action thing avatar you've got going on is, well, kinda hot.
Are you seeing anyone?
We'll worry about gender later.
b.
b.
You should talk to him about it, but there's the possibility that those weren't intended to be combat encounters, merely scenes meant to introduce the opposition. You aren't intended to take him on now; it's there to whet your appetite and give you a goal to get stronger so you can whup him later.
And, btw, 'RulingLordAndMaster' has no idea what he's talking about.
I don't post often, and when I do, I'm typcally hammered. But I read a lot. And, Salla, I like the cut of your jib. And that wonder dog action thing avatar you've got going on is, well, kinda hot.
Are you seeing anyone?
We'll worry about gender later.
b.
its from a old show called road rovers.
Your description rings of "deus ex machina" to me - your players aren't really pushing the storyline, they're just along for the ride and to see all the "cool shinies" that the GM is whipping up. That, to me, is about as boring as listening to someone tell me stories about their 12th level 2ed paladin who found a Holy Avenger at L4 and la la la la la la la...
Just tell him (and be honest) that you like the way the story works, but that your role in it feels really inconsequential. Having nearly half the time result in a feeling of impotence makes all but the most masochistic of players want to quit.
Maybe it'd be easier if your group just heard about the evil terrible overlord of the purple mountain, and ran into his henchmen on occasion. Then as you become a little more competent, you work up the scale until you finally get to the boss fight - and at which time, you hopefully are in a state where you can have a reasonable chance at winning it.
As it stands, a logical and smart BBEG would see your "pitiful little band" and simply crush them like bugs, rather than let them fester into something that might one day threaten him. What kind of competent evil emperor just sits back, taunting junior heroes, laughing his belly-laugh, and then just leaves?
No, the competent overlord doesn't leave. He strings you all up on gibbets, oils your skins, and outfits his sergeants in the leather armor he fashions from your stripped hides so that when his troops are on the march, would-be adventurous opponents look at them and say "Hell if I'm taking him on, look what he did to the last bunch that looked like the might cause trouble?"
The only logical way you guys survive is by staying under the radar and not being noticed, long enough that you become strong enough to be a genuine threat.
T
Bad guys, as you say, would seem odd if they turned up, laughed at the players and left. However, its usually the case that players might just be part of the crowd that witnesses some act of evil, or are otherwise not recognised to be a danger. Bad guys seldom kill every single person around, in fact, they like to leave survivors to spread fear and to raise the reputation of wicked acts.
If you look at films, say, star wars, there are frequent situations where the lowbie heroes are in direct contact with major villains, only to be largely left alone. Sometimes they are captured, oftentimes an npc hero takes the fall and the players end up escaping or witnessing this dark deed. It is worth remembering that just as there are high level villains out there, there are high level npc heroes also fighting the good fight and sometimes losing, only to be replaced by the pc's when the time is right.
I specifically avoided reading the OP and any and all replies. I wanted to reply to the subject alone.
There are only two possible answers:
You have a bad DM and you are an idiot.
You have a good DM and you are an idiot.
Here's why.
Let's say you have a bad DM. He comes up with ridiculous house rules on the fly. He forces a DMPC upon the party that everyone hates. He consistently makes bad calls. He fudges dice. He considers D&D to be a contest: DM vs PCs. Whatever. If you are still playing under this DM, you are an idiot.
Other possibility: You have a great DM. He creates original and engaging storylines. Keeps the game moving. Finds a way to include all players no matter what is going on. He's every players dream DM. But you still find something to complain about. You're an idiot.
So, you see? The question is loaded. You're an idiot no matter what.
That being said, I'll go back and read the OP and replies.
As soon as I sober up that is.
b.Your avatar is PERFECT.
-If you all die, tell the DM he sucks. Roll new characters and start over.
-If you win, you probably just finished the whole adventure at lvl 2! Awesome, roll new characters and start over.
Dont be a wuss, attack the high level character!
-If you all die, tell the DM he sucks. Roll new characters and start over.
-If you win, you probably just finished the whole adventure at lvl 2! Awesome, roll new characters and start over.
You sould read KoDT ( knights of the dinner table) they as a group rolled up 200+ chrs , and got them killed trying to grab a intellegant +15 Great sword .