I'm just venting here. We have all had DM's who we thought were just out to get us. If you haven't, then you haven't played long enough:P
My question is, how to handle a dispute with your DM in a civil manor? Lets face it we all play games to have fun. A few of us, just to win. Unless you're a gambler, your not in it for the money. Logic would say if your not into games for fun, and all you want to do is win, then you might as well be in it for the money
Then D&D is not the game for you. Some DM's seem to forget this. So thats usually the first thing I'll say to the DM, "this is a game, its supposed to be fun for all of us". My last DM at a local game day, didn't like this response. Instead the DM made our encounter harder, by allowing a rust monster to rust a wooden club. At that point I was nearly ready to get up and leave. But, I wanted to finish the encounter for the rest of the group. I also held my tongue. I was about to ask why rust monsters and scarab beetles kept shifting and flanking into spots where only an intelligent adversary would consider doing so. I knew that was not going to help anything at this point
I just wonder what some of you as players would do in a bad situation like I describe above. Also, I do some DM'ing at times, so I have learned to appreciate the time DM's put into preparing for games, and trying to learn rules and how to make a game flow.
So Cheers to all the Good DM's out there. Without then we wouldn't have a game to be players in.
"Enjoy, for this game is
what dreams are made of!" -Gary Gygax
"Bad" or "inexperienced" are usually more appropriate words.
Everyone has different views on how a given monster will act in a fight. You might see the beetles as unintelligent bugs, but the DM might see them as keenly efficient natural predators just following the instincts which kept their kind alive through thousands of years of evolution.
Some DMs do just fight with their best, trying to make every fight brutal. Somewhere along the way they were taught or just got the idea that players prefer that (or maybe they just prefer killing the PCs, it's a fine line).
As for shifting, I'd say that any animal is capable of moving in such a way that it isn't unprotected against a predator that it can see.
More complex manoeuvres (for example, shifting in to a position where an opponent's special attack becomes useless), I tend to reserve for smarter monsters. One or two tactics I "save up" for the *really* intelligent monsters.
Regarding your encounter, it's hard to say. I don't see a problem with a rust monster or scarab beetles shifting and flanking. I haven't seen the stats for a rust monster, so their rust attack may simply be abstracted and able to affect non-metal weapons in much the same way that a gelatinous cube can be knocked prone or undead are not immune to the sleep spell.
Without knowing that, it's impossible to say whether your DM was running the game correctly. However, I would expect a good DM to alter the flavour text to match the mechanics. So if a rust monster CAN affect a wooden club, I'd describe how the attack from the rust monster makes your club rot away.
Then you have met a real Dungeon Master of Evil (tm).
I was a monk, so I figured, if anyone had an advantage, it was me. while I was running from the storm, it turned a wagon and horse into a pegasus and wagon, and it bashed into me, knocking me unconcious. I wake up with the rest of the PC's in a dungeon, no gear and severly in need of healing. but we did not find aid. we found a minotaur zombie. oh, and guess what that ether storm did to me...I had penalties to my A.C. and attacks from all undead creatures.
dead...
imagine our newbie faces, as we sat around the now silent table, slowly crunching on our snacks, bewildered that anyone would play this game. trying to ignore the excited smile of the DM.
The next session, the players were made to jump off a cliff into water, (acrobatics, swim.) and even though the fighter made both his checks, he "jumped too soon" and killed the player who jumped before him. no dmg rolls.
If I hadn't been rescued by a better game, I would probably never have picked up any RPG again.
My question is, how to handle a dispute with your DM in a civil manor?
Well it helps if you use a calm rational tone and explain your position clearly.
If your DM isn't A) an asshat or B) Immature he will either A)capitulate a bit and reach a compromise or B) explain why he hold his position and that although he respects your position his will be remaining the same for now.
Although the assumptions seem to be fairly large in real life.
I don't see a problem with the rust monster ability though, I assumed it was an abstraction and that it could affect any material. It doesn't say metal only in it's description although commonsense would lead you that way; game balance leads the other. It's really a judgement call on the part of the DM.
By the way. I did get a chance to read about rust monsters in MM2 the other day. Here is what I learned. "A hunger for metal drives the rust monster, and it heads straight for the closest enemy wearing metal armor or brandishing a metal melee weapon. A rust monster isn't clever, and often provokes opportunity attacks as it turns to its next target." So, I'm not sure why this monster would be shifting from here to there as it did in my encounter. Furthermore, I am still shocked that it rusted a wooden club. After reading about the monster, I am convinced the DM played it wrong. Plus he ticked off a player as well. I think Bobbi_Wilburn's experience is a lesson to us all. This is supposed to be a fun game. If we want to keep growing the base of players, DM's and current players alike need to keep this in mind and keep the game fun, but still challenging.
The next session, the players were made to jump off a cliff into water, (acrobatics, swim.) and even though the fighter made both his checks, he "jumped too soon" and killed the player who jumped before him. no dmg rolls.
Hearing stories like this makes me sad and bewildered. This DM must be a very lonely person - he obviously doesn't realize other people actually exist.
Anyway, I do agree that your DM isn't doing his job right. IMO the point of a DM is to be the storyteller, not the "bad guy". Personally, I'm the opposite of this guy, I tend to bend the game to let the PCs survive (unless they didn't think their actions through that resulted in death).
which brings me to the monster tactics issue. if the DM is consistent about which monsters are using tactics (due to instict or cleverness) then I can't see it being an issue. the "tactics" section in the 4.0 MM is a wonderful addition, but it wasnt always there, and if a DM build their world and campaign with tactical combat in mind...not much can be said.
A) May or may not have good points. I play my monsters intelligently, and a lot of players seem to think that low-INT monsters must be played as if they were badly lobotomized.
BUT
They either:
B) Whine like little babies
C) Complain bitterly
D) Use some sort of passive-aggressive crap that they are trying to pass off as "reasonable"
They DO NOT just speak reasonably.
Yeah, I was abducted into a better gaming group shortly after, and fell in love with the game.
Good to hear that Bobbi. Glad you gave the game a second chance.
As far as the stat section on rust monsters. It does not say they only rust metal. So any DM could let that little monster rust anything it touches. Case in point. My friend had his metal magic weapon rusted when he was in a fighter's stance with the weapon keyword. The DM allowed him to continue the stance with his hands. If the rust monster can rust his hands, could he also eat them? Now my friend would be walking around without his hands. Or better yet, what if he was kicking the rust monster. I guess we would need to fashion a wheel chair for our fighter. If he was a minotaur charging with his head, could he rust and eat his head?:P What the !@#$.
Obviously this abstract idea of rusting anything has to be corrected with an errata. As you can see above, this little rust monster could cripple a player permanently, or take his head off, by just playing the monster literally from the stat section, and not using the tactical section in the MM.
Anyway my point was that the rust monsters were provided with a rediculously good target and several other targets who were not as good and harder to hit. Perhaps your DM wanted to spread the pain out a little bit rather than just focus on the palidan. It was a creative interpretation of the rules but the adventurers were poorly planned out to evenly exhibit the capabilities of the rust monster.
As for the bit about tactics I used flanking and stuff like that on my pc's. A rust monster likes to eat metal and does anything it can to get metal. Over the years it is not illogical that even with a 2 int it would learn that flanked enemies are easier to hit. Since having a better chance to hit = eating more metal they would probably do it.
For being evil, I view my DM'ing like this. Adventurers are after danger and intrigue. If battles do not regularly present a degree of difficulty that challenges the PC's they will get bored quickly. My benchmark is usually that at least one PC should get bloodied every battle. In a boss battle, 2 or more should drop to 0 HP. If the PC's are fighting against a long running villain who they have fought/foiled before, he is not above coup de gracing one of them while they are down. They would not hesitate to do it to him, why should I hesitate to be just as brutal (used very seldom). Unless they are rolling exceptionally well I will very often have the leader of the group call for reinforcements. This goes the other way. If they are just having a difficult time of the battle and it should not be as hard as it is, I will adjust it downward or allow some unorthodox moves such as wall runs to get a flank, or letting the barbarian take grab two minions that are adjacent to them and smash their skulls together.
The whole point is fun with some balance. I was not there so I could not speak for your DM, but perhaps he thought you were walking through too easy or like I did that the palidan was too attractive a target so he decided to spread the pain out with a little rules bending.
My question is, how to handle a dispute with your DM in a civil manor?
Beat him black and blue while tearing up his DM's screen and shouting "Hoody Hoo!" :P
I did this with a DM back in 2e and it worked well. Got to the point where every single night when camped we were ambushed by several human NPCs, with at least 2 of them wearing things like full plate (how you walk silently in the middle of the night wearing full plate is beyond me). There also seemed to be no underlying plot reason for these constant nightly attacks. I talked to him about it after one game, just me and him. Turned out he didn't want us to level too quickly and at the time, humans were not worth as much XP as an equivalently leveled monster. It never occurred to him that this was simply getting boring and annoying.
I left the game shortly after due to RL reasons, but he did start mixing things up a bit making things less tedious.
First, with respect to this particular DM, you said this was at a Game Day, is he someone you game with often, or was this a one time thing? The reason I ask is that if it was a one time thing, it may simply not be worth it to raise the issue. For one thing, he knows that you won't be in his game again, so he really has little need to back down, etc.
However, assuming that you are dealing with your regular DM, a good friend, etc., there are a couple of steps I would normally take. During the game, when the questionable ruling is made, I feel it is fine to ask about it (politely of course). If the DM holds his ground at that time, move on and keep playing. Then, after the session is over, and when you are alone with the DM, bring the issue up again. Explain to him or her that the decision to have a wooden weapon rust doesn't seem logical (or whatever the issue was). Again, be polite, acknowledge that you could be wrong, etc. Explain your side of the situation, while respecting his. Could well be that in the case of the rust monster for example, he sees that the ability doesn't explicitly say metal only, but now that you explain it to him, he realizes that logically, it should be so.
There are a couple of reasons why I say to wait until after the session. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is to keep the game flowing. Getting into a drawn out rules discussion during the game is almost certainly going to detract from the game itself -- particularly for those players who are seemingly unaffected by the ruling. Second, DMs are human too (usually anyway :P ) and like most everyone else, they don't like to be shown up by somebody else. If you get into a drawn out dispute during the game, the DM may well take it personally, which is only likely to make him hold his ground more firmly -- and to perhaps retalliate. Bringing up the dispute later though keeps it away from prying eyes. Think of it this way, in Major League Baseball its often been said that a catcher can say almost anything when disputing a call on a pitch so long as he is facing the pitcher's mound. Once he turns around to face the ump while arguing the call, he will almost immediately be ejected because now the entire stadium knows what's going on.
Hopefully, in the end, the DM will realize that its a game for both of you, but that you are not competing against each other. Hopefully you'll see that as well (lets face it, sometimes the players are wrong too), and at the very least, an understanding can be reached (if not an actual agreement). I had a player recently who questioned the fact that Twin Strike does not include an ability mod bonus to dmg like most other weapon attacks do. I explained to him that the primary reason for this was likely because the attack already tends to do more damage than other weapon attacks (particularly at-wills) because you get two shots at it. He didn't really like it (he has a long history of playing archers in D&D going back to AD&D) but he eventually understood the reasoning behind it -- particularly when I explained that 4th Ed is really trying to tone down damage in general and make the fights longer.
And yes, Bobbi, you had a terrible DM there. Hopefully he has improved as well. I know that I made some stupid decisions when I first started DMing because I thought it would make the game more fun. While I don't believe I ever even remotely approached that level, I do realize that there were times where I was at least borderline railroading (if not in fact driving the train). Do you know, was he new to the game at the time too?
For a player to sit through a session without having fun does a disservice to the others as well as himself, IMO. It starts to show in his playing, and if he doesn't address the problem, he becomes like the girlfriend who frowns at her boyfriend without telling him what's wrong. ("You should know what's wrong!" or worse yet, the icy "Nothing!")
Of course, the only thing this solution needs is a DM who's willing to listen.
Regarding Bobbi_Wilburn's story: Now that just plain tops the cake of Evil DM's. I hope you have had better experiences with another DM. And I certainly hope you have not given up on the game from this experience either. These are the kind of things that drive potential players away from D&D.
By the way. I did get a chance to read about rust monsters in MM2 the other day. Here is what I learned. "A hunger for metal drives the rust monster, and it heads straight for the closest enemy wearing metal armor or brandishing a metal melee weapon. A rust monster isn't clever, and often provokes opportunity attacks as it turns to its next target." So, I'm not sure why this monster would be shifting from here to there as it did in my encounter. Furthermore, I am still shocked that it rusted a wooden club. After reading about the monster, I am convinced the DM played it wrong. Plus he ticked off a player as well. I think Bobbi_Wilburn's experience is a lesson to us all. This is supposed to be a fun game. If we want to keep growing the base of players, DM's and current players alike need to keep this in mind and keep the game fun, but still challenging.
As much as I hate to say it - sometimes, I make a point of taking Monster Manual monsters and totally flipping them on their heads. While I haven't tried the wood eating rust monster, I have done Salamanders that were immune to ice-based effects (in reality, they're supposed to be weak against them).
I, of course, had the rational that the wizard who summoned them wished to protect them from their greatest weakness, and placed Energy Immunity (Ice) on each of them.
Bottom line - while your DM does seem to be something out of a toolbox, as he seems to delight in killing players, not challenging them... you can *never* win an argument with me in my game by pulling out a DMG or a MM unless I inadvertently broke a rule that I didn't mean to.
Only things that I won't alter are the rules in the PHB... need a bedrock fundation.
Next session our DM found the Coup de Grace "bloodied value" rule and went out of his way to apply said rule to the wizard. After he did a couple sneak attacks and had the BBEG ignore the swordmage (who had him marked) to try to kill the wizard, we formed a revolution and stole his DM throne. I took over, he made a rogue, then the rogue was killed by the wizard after he tried to steal the wizards bag of holding. Grudges make evil DMs and evil PCs, settle things OFF the board plz!
Kudos to all the good DM's out there who actually make the game fun and challenging to play.
Imagine this,a bunch of lvl 4 adventurers (none of us evil) had been sent to find and track 2 necromancers by 2 paladins(whom the DM later revealed after the session to have been lvl 12). Eventually found them in this city with a church dedicated to another lawful good god and which one of the adventurers (a paladin) served. 4 of them went back to tell the 2 paladins while 2 stayed behind in case the necromancers tried anything funny.
And this is where it gets really annoying. The 4 of them tell the paladins, who then somehow summon 68 other paladins as reinforcements and ride to the town, intent on killing everything in the town. Why? Because they're supposedly lawful good and they obey orders from their superiors or god. Nevermind that this is basically a normal civillian town and there's another church dedicated to a lawful good god in it. They ride up, surround it and start shooting arrows into the midst. By this time, I argued that all the paladins should basically have fallen just for killing innocent people, but the DM ignores the protests. The PC paladin decides he must help his people and rides to the church and gathers the remaining paladins. I decide to pray to the god of the temple for a miracle. The DM decides that on a roll of less than 10 on a 100% die, I would contact the god. I roll a 02. I apparently hear a divine booming voice say "My paladins will be victorious". Fine, so the PC paladin and the other 14 paladins in the church ride out. when they reach the 70 paladins surrounding the town, 5 of them run away. Because of fear.
The other PCs point out that paladins are basically immune to fear unless they're lvl 1. The DM decides to go with the explaination that those who ran away were lvl 1. The remaining paladins go into battle and turns out the enemy paladins were Level frigging 15. against lvl 4s.
Needless to say, everyone got slaughtered except for the 3 PCs who had brought the paladins to the town and decided to run away while the paladins attacked. Even when the fighter who had been wounded to -9 and stabilised and for all intents and purposes should have looked dead to the paladins got killed cause the paladins decided to make extra sure. Along with the rogue who was hiding in the coffins in the crypt and then had the DM tell him that a booming divine voice warned him to stop desecrating the coffins.
I'm a fairly new player to D&D 3.5ed, and I've just had a session where I'm pretty sure the DM was just out to kill people.
Imagine this,a bunch of lvl 4 adventurers (none of us evil) had been sent to find and track 2 necromancers by 2 paladins(whom the DM later revealed after the session to have been lvl 12). Eventually found them in this city with a church dedicated to another lawful good god and which one of the adventurers (a paladin) served. 4 of them went back to tell the 2 paladins while 2 stayed behind in case the necromancers tried anything funny.
And this is where it gets really annoying. The 4 of them tell the paladins, who then somehow summon 68 other paladins as reinforcements and ride to the town, intent on killing everything in the town. Why? Because they're supposedly lawful good and they obey orders from their superiors or god. Nevermind that this is basically a normal civillian town and there's another church dedicated to a lawful good god in it. They ride up, surround it and start shooting arrows into the midst. By this time, I argued that all the paladins should basically have fallen just for killing innocent people, but the DM ignores the protests. The PC paladin decides he must help his people and rides to the church and gathers the remaining paladins. I decide to pray to the god of the temple for a miracle. The DM decides that on a roll of less than 10 on a 100% die, I would contact the god. I roll a 02. I apparently hear a divine booming voice say "My paladins will be victorious". Fine, so the PC paladin and the other 14 paladins in the church ride out. when they reach the 70 paladins surrounding the town, 5 of them run away. Because of fear.
The other PCs point out that paladins are basically immune to fear unless they're lvl 1. The DM decides to go with the explaination that those who ran away were lvl 1. The remaining paladins go into battle and turns out the enemy paladins were Level frigging 15. against lvl 4s.
Needless to say, everyone got slaughtered except for the 3 PCs who had brought the paladins to the town and decided to run away while the paladins attacked. Even when the fighter who had been wounded to -9 and stabilised and for all intents and purposes should have looked dead to the paladins got killed cause the paladins decided to make extra sure. Along with the rogue who was hiding in the coffins in the crypt and then had the DM tell him that a booming divine voice warned him to stop desecrating the coffins.
Your DM sounds more like he is a young, immature teenager/inexperienced DM and less like he is out to get everyone.
I was about to ask why rust monsters and scarab beetles kept shifting and flanking into spots where only an intelligent adversary would consider doing so.
I think allowing mundane creatures to flank and shift is not exactly playing them unfairly, as those are some rather basic combat moves and decisions that could be of animal like, instinctual behavior. Doing something elaborate like casting a water walk ritual and then archering people from the center of the lake, now that would be an intelligent creature thing only.
The first time I ever played D&D, my DM started us in a military situation, which was fine. It was a beginners game, and the first day was going to be these fantastical drills to get us used to rules. excellent idea. unfortunatly, an 'ether storm' hit. everything it touched got new properties or straight up died or some other random thing. we didnt have the gear we bought in character creation because we were in our "PT gear."
I was a monk, so I figured, if anyone had an advantage, it was me. while I was running from the storm, it turned a wagon and horse into a pegasus and wagon, and it bashed into me, knocking me unconcious. I wake up with the rest of the PC's in a dungeon, no gear and severly in need of healing. but we did not find aid. we found a minotaur zombie. oh, and guess what that ether storm did to me...I had penalties to my A.C. and attacks from all undead creatures.
dead...
imagine our newbie faces, as we sat around the now silent table, slowly crunching on our snacks, bewildered that anyone would play this game. trying to ignore the excited smile of the DM.
The next session, the players were made to jump off a cliff into water, (acrobatics, swim.) and even though the fighter made both his checks, he "jumped too soon" and killed the player who jumped before him. no dmg rolls.
If I hadn't been rescued by a better game, I would probably never have picked up any RPG again.
Bobbi, you have my sympathy...the drill thing was a great idea, but this DM needs his game books revoked. His kind hurt the game. You do that to vets and then only after forewarning them that its going to be lethal.
Even then I doubt I could bring myself to do that to my players. Its cruel.
Sometimes DMs will do something ridiculous or stupid and need to hear from their players. The players need to be rational and mature when bringing up there disagreements. Also, the players should only object when something is seriously wrong, not over every little grievance. Get other players to support your decision. Group consensus can help sway a mis-aligned GM :D. Yelling or being immature, will not help convince a GM that he / she is wrong.
However, sometimes players just have to walk away. If my character was killed in the above stiuation, then I just would have just left and not come back to that world / DM. I have been in that situation where some stupid or ridiculous killed a character, but the GM was willing to let me rejoin the campaign with a new character. If I felt the death was due to some thing stupid or ridiculous, then I just decline and not rejoin the campaign and probably not let that person GM for me for a while.