I play D&d 3.5 (but soon we will move to 4th ed.) with 6 friends once a week. I and four friends use to take turns as a Dm so that we can create and run adventures and also play with our own Characters... the problem is that I and two of these friends are able to create and alternate short adventures linked together, that build our big campaign, with recurring Pngs and so on...
the fourth Dm is instead really problematic. Why?
- He complains that rules aren't realistic, and that he hates power-playing so he made this 8th level adventure his own house rules.
That seemed ok, but now we have few useless martial arts and NO magic items (except the ones we had from the beginning... a +2 weapon and a +1 armor!), gold is scarce and we HAVE TO pay the guards to keep our equipment. Taxes!
- The enemies are NEVER monsters, usually they look like normal persons but they are half-vampires or demigods (custom made), each with a different set of powers (spider climb, invisibility, unlimited deflect arrows... and no attacks of opportunity when they activate these powers!), each immune to critical hits, with a ton of Hp, but with no weaknesses!
He says that he hates power playing and that he likes realism and once we had a demigoddes that melted weapons just looking at them!!!!!!!
- He doesn't know the rules... we saw a wizard that was able to cast a summon monster in free action while running away! Or a lone warrion flanking another enemy! Sometimes we correct him but other times he dismiss every complaint saying: "Oh this is a custom made power... don't worry"
But how can we trust him?
- Of course our Characters die. In one of his adventures all characters died in the last encounter, a friend of mine has his character killed in EVERY adventure this Dm creates! Also, last time a character was going to die in combat but the Dm said "I don't want/think that you have to die in this situation"!!!
The player complained, being a hard-core gamer he wasn't going to be traumatized, after all he was killed in a normal combat (one of my character died killed by a "hit a friend" fumble!), and, first reason, it's just a game and we have fun anyway!
But the Dm didn't allow the death of the Pc!
- Last thing. Usually we make adventures made of 8 sessions, more or less.
This Dm tried to do that too... but this adventure started more than 6 months ago and we do not know WHEN it'll finish... every combat last at least 2 sessions, also he loves creating a lot of unneccessary details, he even create a program to decide the behaviour of his pngs in combat... and everything slows the game a lot BUT he always says that no, that the problem is due to the rules of the game etc etc... (we tried to show our dissatisfaction but... the changes he promised did no good to our game!)
So we started a "parallel campaign" when he can't come to play... and we're having much more fun! But we've to solve this problem since even if we finish this terrible quest he'll come with another one, sooner or later!
Should we say something?
And what can we tell him without making him angry???
1- He complains that rules aren't realistic, and that he hates power-playing so he made this 8th level adventure his own house rules.
2-That seemed ok, but now we have few useless martial arts and NO magic items (except the ones we had from the beginning... a +2 weapon and a +1 armor!), gold is scarce and we HAVE TO pay the guards to keep our equipment. Taxes!
3- The enemies are NEVER monsters, usually they look like normal persons but they are half-vampires or demigods (custom made), each with a different set of powers (spider climb, invisibility, unlimited deflect arrows... and no attacks of opportunity when they activate these powers!), each immune to critical hits, with a ton of Hp, but with no weaknesses!
He says that he hates power playing and that he likes realism and once we had a demigoddes that melted weapons just looking at them!!!!!!!
4- He doesn't know the rules... we saw a wizard that was able to cast a summon monster in free action while running away! Or a lone warrion flanking another enemy! Sometimes we correct him but other times he dismiss every complaint saying: "Oh this is a custom made power... don't worry"
But how can we trust him?
5- Of course our Characters die. In one of his adventures all characters died in the last encounter, a friend of mine has his character killed in EVERY adventure this Dm creates! Also, last time a character was going to die in combat but the Dm said "I don't want/think that you have to die in this situation"!!!
The player complained, being a hard-core gamer he wasn't going to be traumatized, after all he was killed in a normal combat (one of my character died killed by a "hit a friend" fumble!), and, first reason, it's just a game and we have fun anyway!
But the Dm didn't allow the death of the Pc!
6- Last thing. Usually we make adventures made of 8 sessions, more or less.
This Dm tried to do that too... but this adventure started more than 6 months ago and we do not know WHEN it'll finish... every combat last at least 2 sessions, also he loves creating a lot of unneccessary details, he even create a program to decide the behaviour of his pngs in combat... and everything slows the game a lot BUT he always says that no, that the problem is due to the rules of the game etc etc... (we tried to show our dissatisfaction but... the changes he promised did no good to our game!)
7-So we started a "parallel campaign" when he can't come to play... and we're having much more fun! But we've to solve this problem since even if we finish this terrible quest he'll come with another one, sooner or later!
8-Should we say something?
9-And what can we tell him without making him angry???
1- House rules are sometimes good. Making the game more "realistic" is usually not.
2-This sounds like he thinks you guys give too much loot and is trying to get rid of it. It also sounds lame.
3-This is poor DMing. Nothing else really. Humanoid foes isn't bad, but when every one is a demigod or half vampire it is.
4-Just because it is a custom made power doesn't mean it is a good custom made power. Really that is DM code for "I am making this up as I go, but run with it" as a PC you should run with it if it seems cool. If it doesn't call him on it, or ask to take this custom made power.
5- Sort of lame, but also thats decent enough. Maybe he had some form of plot and thought it hurt the progression of it to bring a new pc in. Of course if the PC wanted to die, I guess not.
6- House rules to slow combat down, lame.
7-Good move, I would do the same.
8-Definatly.
9- Any of the following
-Hey, your game is way past the 8 session limit, and one of us wants to DM now, speed it up.
-Hey, it is my turn now, you are done.
-Sorry, but it seems your DM style and the groups don't really match. We would like to keep you as a player, but not DM.
Just finish the current adventure. After that tell him that you didn't have fun & that you won't be playing in another of his adventures again in the future.
We have a very similar player/DM. When one campaign ended he was generous enough to take over for awhile. What he ran was a bizzare, unmittigated mess, where none of us actually have a clear idea of what was going on or why. Play would alternate between weird semi-PVP, disjointed dungeon crawls that went well beyond Monty Haul style, and sessions where absolutely nothing happened - including dice rolls.
To be fair, we were fore-warned about what was going to occur by other local players who've suffered through his stuff in the past....
But no one believed it would be as bad as it was.
We know better now.
So now whenever he offers to DM we all just politely decline.
1- The game is unbearable for a simple reason: it's like a railway! Do what the Dm thinks is ok, do that the Npc says... but never ever think with your head, it'll slow things and you'll have to change your mind or you'll be killed by some overpowered Npc. Some example?
- We complained that one opponen was unbeatable. He said "yes he was but he also was claustrophobic, so he HAD a weakness that could be exploited" (yeah sure!)
- The demigoddess was immortal and able to melt sword etc etc. he said "oh but she was just a neutral mercenary that killed only those who attacked her". True, but since she worked with the henchment of the Big-Bag and for Big-Bad WHY our character should not have tried to attack her????
He loves his Npcs too much, so he creates things like these!
2- I forgot to mention that one of the players is his girlfriend. She likes meeting us but her interest in Rpg is zero. She plays a bard that shoots arrows to everything that moves, for her rpg is just rolling dice.
Now, you probably think that she's just inexperienced...
Well, she started playing with us in 2005-2006 but she NEVER learnt the rules, because, as I said, she likes his friends but hates Rpgs.
And also she complains a lot with her boyfriend when he's the Dm, even when there's NO reason to do that (obvious, since she doesn't know the rules!)
That's why we've some problems to tell him what we thinks of his adventures... he's over-criticized even for a lot of wrong reasons (Ex: "So you enter the cave.." "CUT! We've to go home early!")
1- House rules are sometimes good. Making the game more "realistic" is usually not.
He gave us some "martial arts moves" that requires a Full-Round Actions and only give us some small bonuses in exchange... well now, I'm a 8th level Barbarian, do you think I need them? In fact once he asked why nobody uses them!!!!
Also, at the beginning of the game he said that we could start with some magic items with a total of +3. So I chose a +2 weapon and a +1 armor BUT one of our friends chose a +3 armor. During the first sessions we met the guards of the city that asked us payment to have the permission to carry our weapons and armor around the city (even the nonmagical ones)... and the bad part is that the +3 armor wasn't allowed in town, no matter how much he was going to pay! So my friend felt a little "robbed" but didn't say anything (oh and strangely, the character of the girlfriend of the Dm had no magical items so she had to pay very little money).
We also lost a whole session just for this "taxes" problem!
But, again, "realism!"
3-This is poor DMing. Nothing else really. Humanoid foes isn't bad, but when every one is a demigod or half vampire it is.
He simply doesn't like monsters ("realism!"). We never see a Dragon in his adventures (or even another monster) anyway we almost die in all of them since every time we feel we've fighting the X-Men!!!!!! This is his "realism"...
5- Sort of lame, but also thats decent enough. Maybe he had some form of plot and thought it hurt the progression of it to bring a new pc in. Of course if the PC wanted to die, I guess not.
The reason is simple: he thinks that characters should die for their errors, not for a roll of dice, BUT I probably will never throw myself against the whole town militia, and also encounters aren't balanced so, when things go bad, he saves the situation in a way that our heroes (humiliated) barely survive. He used sometimes some kind of "Deus Ex Machina", really powerful characters that killed our opponents... even if these were OUR opponents so it's not so rewarding
6- House rules to slow combat down, lame.
As I said before he likes unneccessary details (he studies the architecture of the cities, the name of dozens of streets, temples, taverns, and thousands of other useless details)
So another reason why combat is slow it's because if we meet 20 thieves EVERY one will be of a different race, with different stats and he has a lots of trouble keeping track of so many initiatives, wounds, and so on!
Once I said "I attack the brigand" and he said "do you want me to describe your opponent?". Why?
7-Good move, I would do the same.
Yeah. We're 4 DMs, so I think that every complaint is objective, it's true that everyone has his own style, but WHY he's the only one that runs adventures that only he enjoys???
Oh we told him that and he always promised some changes, but never changed! He's too proud of his creations.
-Hey, your game is way past the 8 session limit, and one of us wants to DM now, speed it up.
-Hey, it is my turn now, you are done.
-Sorry, but it seems your DM style and the groups don't really match. We would like to keep you as a player, but not DM.
We tried the first and he said he'll cut the adventure, that (as usual!) was supposed to last 8 sessions (but you know, the rules, blah blah...)
So now we'll try with the second or I'll play the 4th edition in 2010!!!
And, if you're curious to know WHICH set of rules is good for him, I tell you that he really likes one Rpg: one that created himself mixing rules from the Storyteller System and Legend of The 5 Rings. I won't comment that.
We played a session of 4th ed. when he wasn't here so we told him a bit about the rules, and that we were going to play that after his adventure.
He said "but we will use some house rules isn't it? It's so unrealistic and I do not like fancy fireworks"
My suggestions are thus:
Get him a video-game where he is a god. He will be able to kill everything else in the world and feed his need for being the top dog of basically everything. as far as the "Realism" goes, tell him that you don't want it. people play games, read books, and watch movies to ESCAPE the real world, not participate in a different version of it. On top of that, you say he gave you the powers that you have? It's the player's choice as to what powers you should have, isn't it?
The best thing that ever happened to my game style was a player revolt. At one time I was a horrible DM too, until my players told me enough was enough. Once that happened, I had to examine exactly what was causing the problems with the game that I thought was going well, and then re-earn the trust of my players.
So schedule an intervention. Tell your current DM, politely but firmly, that you are no longer enjoying yourselves. Then tell him why.
The first step on the road to recovery is getting him to admit there is a problem. He likely doesn't realize what he's doing is wrong. Many new DMs have certain instincts. They want to create a plot that will rival the sorts of things they read in novels or watch in the movies. The problem is that RPGs are about creating worlds to explore and situations to interact with, not plots to follow. It took me a while to figure this out, and it sounds like this DM hasn't learned this yet.
DMs out of control can be pretty bad, and all this guy seems to want is an audience for his uber NPCs, or somebody to be destroyed see he can gleefully watch as his character destroys another three.
To tell the truth in the end our characters usually win (well one time it ended with the death of the whole party, another they were exiled) but only thanks to some kind of intervention... during the end of one adventure we had just to endure the assaults of an army of angry thieves until the arrival of a mighty warrior-mage that was also the captain of the guards of the city.
But I've a theory for these uber-npcs: since he doesn't want to give us ANY kind of magical item, he creates powerful characters with lots of racial powers, so when we kill them, all we can loot are a bunch of masterwork weapons! (and he even says "they had a good equipment!")
And we're at level 8th!
as far as the "Realism" goes, tell him that you don't want it. people play games, read books, and watch movies to ESCAPE the real world, not participate in a different version of it. On top of that, you say he gave you the powers that you have? It's the player's choice as to what powers you should have, isn't it?
The strange thing is that when he plays and I am the Dm he had a maniac female warrior-cleric armed with a Mercurial Greatsword +2.
Another time he had an elf Ranger/Monk/Sorcerer that was able to increase a lot his Ac...
Hmmm that's strange since he is the one that says to like realism and to hate power-playing isn't it???
The first step on the road to recovery is getting him to admit there is a problem. He likely doesn't realize what he's doing is wrong. Many new DMs have certain instincts. They want to create a plot that will rival the sorts of things they read in novels or watch in the movies. The problem is that RPGs are about creating worlds to explore and situations to interact with, not plots to follow. It took me a while to figure this out, and it sounds like this DM hasn't learned this yet.
Well I hope he saw that we're bored and I hope he heard our comments... some times it's inevitable.
The good thing is that he's so obsessed with creating HIS worlds/cities/shops so that his adventures are always separated from the campaigns that I run with the other two Dms... the bad thing is that we have to interrupt our long campaign...
Once he even tried to "sell" me a temple he created for the scenario... I saw SO many pages of descriptions and Npcs that I refused. I had to refuse several times!
To tell the truth once he run a campaign that was very good, because he found it on the net (and made some changes)... (http://www.dndadventure.com/dnda_campaigns.html)
When I found that and my friend asked how was the original my comment was "Some more magical items, some less bulls..." ok I know you understand what I want to say!
By the way the plan is finishing the adventure as soon as we can and start with something that let's us have some fun!
It seems hard to confront someone about something like that at first, but with all that crap that he keeps houseruling and all the new "realistic" rules that he has to keep track of, you can bet he's feeling the strain of it. It could be that he may be as relieved to step down as you are to see the back end of his games.
If he's a total jerk, uninvite him completely, but it's my bet that he realizes what a mess he's made and he'll be happy to step down.
Wow! I thought I was a crappy DM when I first began, but I feel better now! :D
It seems hard to confront someone about something like that at first, but with all that crap that he keeps houseruling and all the new "realistic" rules that he has to keep track of, you can bet he's feeling the strain of it. It could be that he may be as relieved to step down as you are to see the back end of his games.
I understand you very well because when I started DMing D&d 3.5 I had no experience at all with this game (I was used to run adventures of other games, like Cyperpunk), with the rules and the settings (so I started playing Baldur's Gate, NWN, I started reading Salvatore's novels and so on).
And even with that, I wasn't sure I was a good Dm (I still believe I should make things more difficult for my players), the good thing is that I like improvisation, so if my players do something unexpected, I make the world react to their actions.
Instead think he spends a lot of time creating a consequance of events, a path that must be followed...
For example IF we capture an opponent (ok his half-vampires cannot be subdued but there were other situations) you can expect one of the following:
1 - the guy kill himself diving on our blades
2 - if interrogated he sits silent and nothing on the whole universe (torture, threats and promises of painful death) will make him say anything!
you can say "ok!" on time. But this is every time!
Oh and speaking about "realism", I can tell you that if you are a Ranger please forgot the animal companion since guards will annoy you to death if you try to bring your animal friend into the city!
Also, I have an Halfling Barbarian... the adventures is set in a city with a guild of thieves fighting the sect of half-vampires. Luckily during the last sessions we started some combats since for the first 4-5 sessions of the adventure my character was pretty useless most of the time, the rogue of the group did all the talking, move silently, spied, and so on...
I don't know if we want too much, but it's the second time he makes the same errors (adventures are too long, they last as much as a whole campaign) and I think that he's sure that if he's having fun, that's ok!
[and as one of my friend says, "when I see the stats and the equipment of the characters posted on the forums of the WotC, and then I look at my character sheet, I cry!!!"]
It seems to me like your DM enjoys hogging the spotlight, and that the "realism" of his campaigns is an excuse to keep you underpowered so his creations can continue to be in the spotlight. But maybe he's really trying to give you the feeling of struggling against impossible odds and emerging victorious...except you're not having much fun doing so (hard to derive satisfaction when a deific NPC is constantly showing up to pull your butts out of the fire).
You can't handle this in-game. He's obviously keen on railroading you, so nothing you try in terms of disrupting the game from the inside will work. You'll have to talk to him, but remember that since he enjoys the spotlight so much, he probably takes great pride in his work, even if it's not much fun to play. If you consider your DM a friend, keep that in mind when you're talking to him. Standing up for yourselves doesn't mean you need to tear him down as well.
Really man, you aren't asking too much. I'd find something else to do with my night, like watching re-runs of American Gladiator.
Sure... in fact when he cannot come to play I'm happy because we can play our "parallel quests". We started 6 months ago, we did 6 quests (always taking turns for the Dm) and this 2nd party is at 5th level, while we're still playing this loooong adventure!
It seems to me like your DM enjoys hogging the spotlight, and that the "realism" of his campaigns is an excuse to keep you underpowered so his creations can continue to be in the spotlight. But maybe he's really trying to give you the feeling of struggling against impossible odds and emerging victorious...except you're not having much fun doing so (hard to derive satisfaction when a deific NPC is constantly showing up to pull your butts out of the fire).
You can't handle this in-game. He's obviously keen on railroading you, so nothing you try in terms of disrupting the game from the inside will work. You'll have to talk to him, but remember that since he enjoys the spotlight so much, he probably takes great pride in his work, even if it's not much fun to play. If you consider your DM a friend, keep that in mind when you're talking to him. Standing up for yourselves doesn't mean you need to tear him down as well.
"struggling against impossible odds and emerging victorious"... the players know that by experience, while the characters usually don't since they face normal people... and that these normal people mop the floor with them!!!!!
For example in one adventure we were working for the Thieves Guild against another criminal organizations, and he says we were more or less at the same level of our opponent. More or less...
One of them was a Barbarian with a mechanical arm and a flamethrower! Three of us attacked him and thanks to a couple of lucky critical hits we were able to kill him... BUT wait, the demi-goddess (I wrote before of her) grabbed him and started flying... through the ceiling and the roof.
We met him another time and he killed one of us. Of course the arm was useless for us...
In another we met a mercenary that was there to help us. She helped too much since she was a combat monster that killed every opponent, she was almost solving the adventures and she asked for tons of gold in return... so we stabbed her in the back... it was the last time me could kill one of his loved Npcs!
In the same quest we also found a MAGICAL dancing sword... oh did I say that he never gives us magical items? It's right but THIS is a very powerful talking sword (really annoying because it speaks always at the wrong moment), or better, one of his Npcs and he loves using it. It's also able to pass undetected by guards so nobody said a thing for that, while I had to pay lots of money just go around with my +2 sword and +1 armor.
"struggling against impossible odds and emerging victorious"... I posted a link of the campaign he ran, the one of the Masks... in one part the characters have to fight monsters of the deep using some potions of water breathing.
We had to do that without the potions, rolling a Swim check every combat round...
Another time we had to climb some rocks and he stated we had to do a check every 5 feet (more or less) so we spent a good part of the evening just rolling dice for that!
To me it's lack of common sense... he says it's realism.
Maybe it's because he doesn't like D&d but he uses this systems because we likes it (the problem is that he barely knows the rules and sometimes he forgots them... hence the lack of trusts, but he's the Dm so sometimes we're not sure if he's doing a mistakes... but he did that, that's why we trust him less and less).
I just hope he hates the 4Th edition so much that he won't come up with another adventure!
well, you do have one conceivable option in character, though if he catches on or it's presented in the wrong way it could simply infuriate him. Break character, and kill a nameless NPC in the streets. If you're level 8 you should have no trouble (even with crappy equipment) simply cleaving a random commoner in half, or vaporising him with a spell. The DM will panic and have 2 options if normally no uber-NPCs are in the area:
1. Deus ex-machina for the NPC - The DM will have on of his characters magically appear and save the NPC from certain doom, even though nobody had any way of guessing that your character would snap and kill somebody. This might not be true, but divination spells will be hard to come up with for someone who is panicking to save an NPC. but, of course, this is a lowly NPC, why should he save it? Why would he go to such lengths to try and protect a character that has no bearing whatsoever on the story> question him on that
2. The NPC will randomly be Uber himself - suddenly, you find that you've angered the avatar of Kord, who was travelling the world in the form of a peasant woman but was actually staying in one place leading a completely ordinary life. WHAAAAAAAT? gods really don't have time for silly things like that when there are demons to destroy or ally with, and other gods to lay low, and if it turns out to be a half-god as his excuse, it still falls under the same lines. If a commoner can beat you, then you have obvious evidence that the DM is running the game badly.
of course, this plan is not foolproof. he has a third option to simply let you kill the NPC, and then you have to deal with the police or a good aligned uber character a little later, but when I was a DM out-of-control, that was the tactic my players used on me, and the third option didn't occur to me until three days later, and I'm glad it didn't
Because flamethrower arms and half-vampires (!) are so much more realistic than orcs and goblins, amirite!?
Oh I forgot to say that recently we discovered that these half-vampires weren't created by a vampire but by a sort of experiment since the vampiric blood was inoculated with a syringe or something like that!!!
The funny part is that the Church of Pelor is sure that the ruler of the city IS a vampire. Without ANY proof of that. They tried an exorcism (two times!) but it failed... so they enlisted the help of our heroes (that still do not know that the ruler is a vampire) telling that they have just to show that the queen is a vampire (not just to kill her!).
Recently we had to kill a mysterious assassin master of disguise that nobody knows. The brilliant (suicide) plan suggested by the guild of thieves was "let's go to the tavern and start a fake brawl with us thieves, THEN attack the half-vampires and find who gives them the orders, he is the assassin you have to kill"
Ok in the end the thieves proved to be totally useless, the half-vampires weren't surprised at all (Doh!) and nobody was giving orders to them so we tried to kill every bad guy, but some were able to flee. Oh and one of us was killed (even the Dm did not allow that, see the first post) and the others were severely wounded.
We don't know if we killed the right person, but even with that, I probably will never have a thousand of gold or some magical weapon as a reward, but just the possibility to go on with this endless quest!!!
Now, we followed the "brilliant" plan of the Npc, knowing that if we chose anything different (like looking for informations, details, trying to infiltrate...) was doomed to failure (the Npc said that!).
(2-3 sessions just to do that, 2 of combat... luckily the cannon fodder was meant to die so they had only abilities like spider climb, invisibility, grow and immunity to critical hits... the bad part is that EVERY single enemy was different from another, so you can guess why the combat took so much time!)
well, you do have one conceivable option in character, though if he catches on or it's presented in the wrong way it could simply infuriate him. Break character, and kill a nameless NPC in the streets. If you're level 8 you should have no trouble (even with crappy equipment) simply cleaving a random commoner in half, or vaporising him with a spell. The DM will panic and have 2 options if normally no uber-NPCs are in the area:
1. Deus ex-machina for the NPC - The DM will have on of his characters magically appear and save the NPC from certain doom, even though nobody had any way of guessing that your character would snap and kill somebody. This might not be true, but divination spells will be hard to come up with for someone who is panicking to save an NPC. but, of course, this is a lowly NPC, why should he save it? Why would he go to such lengths to try and protect a character that has no bearing whatsoever on the story> question him on that
2. The NPC will randomly be Uber himself - suddenly, you find that you've angered the avatar of Kord, who was travelling the world in the form of a peasant woman but was actually staying in one place leading a completely ordinary life. WHAAAAAAAT? gods really don't have time for silly things like that when there are demons to destroy or ally with, and other gods to lay low, and if it turns out to be a half-god as his excuse, it still falls under the same lines. If a commoner can beat you, then you have obvious evidence that the DM is running the game badly.
of course, this plan is not foolproof. he has a third option to simply let you kill the NPC, and then you have to deal with the police or a good aligned uber character a little later, but when I was a DM out-of-control, that was the tactic my players used on me, and the third option didn't occur to me until three days later, and I'm glad it didn't
Oh probably I'll try to kill the guy that gave us the suicide mission since the character that nearly died was the sister of my character!!!!
Well probably it will slow the adventure, or worse but hey I'm a Barbarian, the plan sucked, the thieves did not help at all and my little sister was dying!!!
I think it's totally plausible...
Another player suggests to leave the city, in fact:
1)There are promises of gold and power but nothing else, and we probably will end as martyrs
2)We're not sure that the ruler is evil. Ok the clerics told that but there is no proof and also they don't pay much... we're the only mercenarier that pay more for taxes and tolls than for anything else!!!! (and right now the reward doesn't cover these expenses... so we don't even go to see if there are items for sale!)
Another problem is that we're almost sure that EVEN the guards are stronger than us!!!!
(and this time there weren't even Deus ex machina to save us.. he just said "you can't die in this situation!")
AWFUL.
there are two real solutions here. Mass character suicide. Every time he does this until he gets it.
Or, there is the good old "Shoot your DM. in the face. With a Hammer."
I think I can summarize the problem with his DM style in one word.
AWFUL.
there are two real solutions here. Mass character suicide. Every time he does this until he gets it.
Or, there is the good old "Shoot your DM. in the face. With a Hammer."
Hmmm yeah in fact it's NOT fair when you face half-vampires that have EVERY undead trait (immunity to criticals, immunity to stun attacks...) BUT they are NOT undead (so no bonus since our ranger has undeads as favored enemy!)
Suicide... probably we won't even let us die in that way...
I think this is the situation in which the DM is pretty sure that the players have his same mind/ideas...
for example:
- enigmas are so easy to him but it takes months for us to figure what we've to do!
- while we're being attacked by a ton of enemies, arrives a bad guy armed with a rifle (!). And the DM laughs. ONLY he, since nobody finds that funny!!!!
- He has so much fun playing that talking sword... yeah but we would prefer more less powerful magical items instead... and no talking at all!
Anyway I hope he wasn't blind and deaf to our faces and comments during last session so I soon update the situation...
gold is scarce and we HAVE TO pay the guards to keep our equipment. Taxes!
Roll up a duskblade named Ron Paul.
- The enemies are NEVER monsters, usually they look like normal persons but they are half-vampires or demigods (custom made), each with a different set of powers (spider climb, invisibility, unlimited deflect arrows... and no attacks of opportunity when they activate these powers!), each immune to critical hits, with a ton of Hp, but with no weaknesses!
He says that he hates power playing and that he likes realism and once we had a demigoddes that melted weapons just looking at them!!!!!!!
lawls. Sounds like he doesn't want realism, but old fashiioned nintendo style gaming where everythings out to get you. Ask if the name of his badass npc is "Mary Sue". Cause that's what it sounds like..
- He doesn't know the rules... we saw a wizard that was able to cast a summon monster in free action while running away! Or a lone warrion flanking another enemy! Sometimes we correct him but other times he dismiss every complaint saying: "Oh this is a custom made power... don't worry"
But how can we trust him?
I pull crap like that in my games too. As long as players get to do it too, I don't see the problem.
- Of course our Characters die. In one of his adventures all characters died in the last encounter, a friend of mine has his character killed in EVERY adventure this Dm creates! Also, last time a character was going to die in combat but the Dm said "I don't want/think that you have to die in this situation"!!!
The player complained, being a hard-core gamer he wasn't going to be traumatized, after all he was killed in a normal combat (one of my character died killed by a "hit a friend" fumble!), and, first reason, it's just a game and we have fun anyway!
But the Dm didn't allow the death of the Pc!
Your complaining about not dying? Comeon, joke about how you didn't die sheesh.
And what can we tell him without making him angry???
Who cares if he gets angry?
You act as if everything about his GMing bothers you. Wouldn't it be a relief if he didn't do your games anymore?
Then again, your crappy DM story doesn't really concern me. As all I've ever cared about in D&D is getting my girlfriend involved, and when she doesn't. Just being like "Ryuk" and observing while sneering.
Your complaining about not dying? Comeon, joke about how you didn't die sheesh.
Well I'm complaining that the adventure is totally unbalanced BUT the silly thing is that the rolling-fireball after almost killing the character...suddenly avoided his body and decided to move and hit someone else!
oh this only because he realized that he was killing someone, since he sometimes asks how many hp we have left!
Another two reasons:
- the player of that character would have much more fun creating a new character more useful in this setting (a ranger is useless in quest set in a city where companion beasts are outlaw, working for thieves, etc etc) than spending the rest of the session doing nothing.
- it's the fifth time that he lose a character in an adventure of this Dm... it would have been correct to put the fifth cross on the "I'm dead" sheet! :D
And if a Dm cheats I prefer that he does that when I cannot see him!!!
Come on, if I know I will never die until the end of the quest what's the point of fighting and thinking about how can I get out of dangerous situations? It's no fun, there's no risk, simply because I'm doing what the Dm/Npcs want and not walking into the mouth of a red dragon!
[Oh sure when I was Dm one of the characters died, but I was ready so I planned that a mysterious stranger resurrected him... and then the character had a debt with a powerful not-so-good being, that used him for its own plans... just to say that it IS possible to create an event or an excuse to "save" the situation, since we're also working for Pelor!]
I pull crap like that in my games too. As long as players get to do it too, I don't see the problem.
Yeah, but it's not this the case, most of the time these rules go against us. I mean these special-custom-rules makes us cry: I deflect 1 arrows, the enemy unlimited, I cast one spell in ST action, the enemy in Free action... and so on!!! Not funny.
You act as if everything about his GMing bothers you. Wouldn't it be a relief if he didn't do your games anymore?
The problem is that in these adventures we have no fun... and they are also very very long! We told that and he promised some changes but still I prefer when the Dm is someone else, anyway he's still a good player so if he stops just being the Dm everything will be ok...
What he's doing is just hilarious.. And far from realistic..
Our DM lately started giving us too hard fights (we are lvl13 and getting creatures of CR16-20). Even be4, we were losing about 0.3-0.5 characters per fight (totaled about 20 or so dead characters). Now we got party with 1 evil, 2 ch neutral and one lawful neutral char. And as a loot he gave us 200k gp worth sword (after giving us nothing for about 4 sessions).
We like how he is leading campaign, but some parts (like rly big death rate) is what we really disliked.
After that sword thingy (where we almost killed eachother, as CN chars are new to the party) we had a talk. It lasted about 2-3 hours. We were discussing on how to improve our campaign. Everyone said what he doesn't like and then we tried to find solutions.
I would suggest you that. Or just to stop playing.. Why playing when you can't enjoy?
If I was the next DM in line, I'd make sure to give all the other characters their magic items back within the first session, and take his away to drive home the point that it's not fun -- but that's just me.
Just be firm but polite in your wording and tell him he is still welcome to the game.
If things go well he will just accept it, if things go badly he may stop coming to the games. But at this point it should be obvious to him that you aren't enjoying his game and if he is the kind of person to ignore your lack of fun he really shouldn't be considered a friend.
1 - Say nothing and continue to suffer.
2 - Tell him that you don't like his DMing and not enjoying your games. You may risk hurting him, but right now, you're hurting yourselves.