Let me also say that I fervently believe that the authority of the DM is paramount in this game. All too often, I have watched sessions fall apart because players were too quick to bicker with the DM over some creative liberties he had taken. The DM has the final word, and this is not only important, but vital for the overall enjoyment of everyone present.
These things said, several days ago was the first time I felt I had good reason to walk out on the game I love because the DM was abusing his authority. This was not the result of one gigantic nerf, though it was a gigantic nerf that pushed me over the edge. Rather, this was the result of an entire campaign of nerfs. When I left our last session, I was furious, and I have spent the past few days calming my nerves and composing my thoughts.
It might have been my overwhelmingly optimistic attitude towards this game, but the campaign felt like it had a promising start. The DM had a moderately interesting world set forward, and it was a low-magic setting. Caster levels were halved, and magic item prices were doubled. I later found out that the DM was concerned about wizards “blowing up” his encounters.
This would have been fine, except he was completely inconsistent in his limitations. First off, he allowed NPCs to have levels in psionic classes. The PCs could not, but the NPCs could. Essentially, he was banning magic, but allowing something that may as well be magic but isn’t called magic. Furthermore, we were defenseless against his psionic characters. I was a barbarian, and had no way of boosting my will save against the mind flayer’s abilities. (More on them later.)
The second inconsistency was the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery. It was a tower with a bunch of wizards and sorcerers who were all level 40+ so they could actually function normally in his half-caster environment. In his world, it was actually known as the Tower of High Sorcery, but we had a good reason to change the name. When we were level 6, we actually found our first masterwork item. I was ecstatic, and wanted to take it someplace to get detect magic cast on it. The Tower of High Sorcery seemed like the right place for that. When the party arrived, we asked for the detect magic, but the wizards there were all “too busy.” There was not even a 1st level apprentice who could take 6 seconds to cast a 0-level spell. From this point onward, they were known as the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery, and that tower stood to me as a symbol of my DM saying “Nyah, nyah, I’ve got magic, and you don’t.”
From session 2 onward, the game deteriorated at an exponential rate. Despite the fairly elaborate campaign world the DM had set before us, we never had any adventuring hooks. Each game began with, “What do you wish to do?” I began to suspect that my DM was more interested in playing a tabletop strategy game, since all we’d do is wander aimlessly, have a random encounter of a CR that was higher than our level by 3, survive miraculously because of some Deus Ex Machina type circumstance, level up, and get (non-magical) treasure.
I found out yesterday that the DM couldn’t kill my character, because my character had some importance in his campaign storyline. He planned out the beginning and the end, and then expected us to figure out what to do in the middle by a bunch of cryptic clues he’d left after session one. This is a great way to structure an adventure, but the worst possible way to structure a campaign, since by planning the campaign’s end ahead of time, he’d have to railroad us (i.e. more nerfs) into that ending.
Then, there was the adventure with the mind flayers. The group concluded a session I couldn’t make with a bunch of mind flayers who stole from us some artifacts that the campaign was hinging upon. When I returned, I figured we should go after them, not that I had any hope for survival. Still, these artifacts were supposed to be really important. Finding the mind flayers’ hideout took nothing more than a search check with an apparent DC of 10. When I looked in the entrance, my DM asked for another search check. I said I’d rather have a description of what I was looking at. He said that since I was searching for mind flayers, a search check was all that was necessary. HE REPLACED A DUNGEON WITH A SEARCH CHECK!
When I asked why we didn’t have a dungeon, he said that he didn’t have one prepared, and the mind flayer cavern would likely be very complex. He then got irritated that I should expect him to provide such an extravagance. This adventure ultimately was solved because we enlisted the aid of an NPC with appropriate magical gear (ring of mind-shielding, googles of darkvision, helm of Deus Ex Machina) and had him search for the artifacts. At this point I was questioning why I chose a barbarian for my character class when a rogue would fill these niches, except the other PCs were two archers and a monk, and we needed a damage dealer.
I began to wish more and more that I were a rogue each time I needed to lie. Even though I had a +2 charisma modifier, I didn’t have bluff ranks, and somehow every NPC I talked to had a huge sense motive check. As I began to take it for granted that all our enemies would be higher level than us, I needed to think of ways to resolve combat without being brought to the brink of death and resting for a month (since we didn’t have magical healing). An example was the most recent session when we were dealing with 3 black dragons. There was one huge dragon that this town was worshipping as a deity, and two large dragons who would team up to battle the huge one, only to end up in a draw. I figured that if I could play them against each other, I’d be able to have them all dead and the town could worship ME as a deity.
In fairness, the actual interplay between the 3 dragons and us was a lot of fun. Too bad the DM didn’t plan it one bit or else he’d have earned a little of my respect. What ended up happening is one of the large dragons survived and inscribed a rune on my character’s back which, when triggered, would disintegrate him. It was nothing that a remove curse wouldn’t take care of. Basically, my plan became, get rid of the rune, get rid of the dragon, and become a god.
So I go into the town, look for the biggest temple I can find, and talk to the high cleric about getting rid of it. He informs me that it’s a very powerful rune, and “barring a miracle, nothing can get rid of it.” Thus, the next half hour of real time was spent searching the world for 34th level clerics to cast miracle on me. I ended up not finding anyone, as the DM gave me a lecture about how it’s rare for NPCs to advance beyond 5th level.
I reply, “Then my character suicides. I’m not going to play the rest of your campaign as a pawn of an evil dragon.”
At this point my DM got really flustered and informed me that the dragon didn’t give any specific orders other than to look for towns that would be easy for him to conquer. While I am still arguing with him about why I wanted to get rid of my character and make an independent one, one of the other players made a suggestion that completely turned my mood around. (Thanks, Tom!)
THE TOWER OF EXAGGERATED SORCERY!!!
We then send a message to the dragon (he gave us an item that gives us a telepathic bond) that the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery would be ideal for him to conquer. The plan was basically this: the wizards there are too incompetent to deal with this dragon, who, by the way, was not susceptible to whatever force it was that made every mage a half-caster. He lays siege to the tower, and we make plans to come back the next day and walk proudly through the rubble.
If the dragon wins, I feel vindicated because (a) my character had an antagonistic relationship with the wizards all along and (b) the DM doesn’t have his precious magical stronghold anymore. Then I can quit this game with a feeling of satisfaction, which I knew I’d be doing anyway by the end of the night.
If the tower wins, I go back to the town of dragon-worshippers and tell them I’m their new god, which would put an interesting new spin on the campaign storyline. It’s a no-lose situation.
Well, we arrived the day after the assault, and much to my consternation, the tower was still standing. My character knocked on the door, expecting that the only survivors would be badly wounded, only to find the usual terse, rude, impossibly high-level mages, at full health to boot. They informed me that the dragon attacked, but fled while they held their ground. For some reason, I decided to show them the rune on my back, and they just took me to a waiting room. When they returned, they knew I was the one who sent the dragon. I later found out that they had cast contact other plane, which is suspicious coming from wizards who were too busy to cast detect magic. More suspicious was the fact that the DM never rolled any of the failure chances for the questions, and each question is answered in a one-word answer, making it very hard to find out exactly who told the dragon to attack.
At this point, I was really frustrated with the endless nerfs I was being hit with, and I decided that if my character can’t commit suicide without a lecture, he’s going to die trying to kill the mages. The result was that I got hit by 5 hold persons, and was transported (somehow, because teleport only works on willing creatures) to another room. There, they removed the rune on my character’s back, and put on a new one. I was told that if I ever returned to the tower, I would be disintegrated on sight.
At this point, I was determined to watch the tower fall before I quit this campaign permanently. I called up the dragon, and said to him, “You didn’t finish the job.” He replies that he’ll be fully healed in 5 days. When the DM asked what I wish to do, I told him that I was going to set up camp outside the tower and wait 5 days for the fireworks to start.
Then what happened left me without words. As the dragon flew by, it called down a meteor swarm on the tower, which just bounced off. I suspected a wall of force, but I knew it had to be a 2-way wall of force when the wizards cast some kind of finger of death effect out at the dragon through the force-wall. With neither a fortitude save nor a spell resistance check, the dragon was slain.
I generally don’t act out when I’m angry, because I’m usually self-conscious of how rude I would look. I didn’t act out this time either, which was an amazing act of self-restraint on my part, since I was having trouble seeing straight I was so furious. Later that night, I found out that the dragon had assumed divine rank, yet he was killed with a single death ray. It is the single greatest nerf I have ever watched happen, and it is a perfect example of the utter worthlessness of my DM.
After I watched the dragon vanish entirely, my mood swung back into a positive state. They killed the last dragon, which means that there are THREE DRAGON TREASURE HORDES SOMEWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS. I told my DM that we were heading back to the hordes, and collecting every last copper piece. It was at this point that I found out exactly how a dragon assumes divine rank—he consumes his entire treasure horde. The hordes were empty.
At this point, I felt no anger, because I knew exactly what to do. I had my character go back to the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery to get disintegrated. I did it plainly and emotionlessly, as though it was not my own character I was sending to its death. I told my DM, “That’s the deal breaker. You keep on screwing me. I’m out.” And with that, I left.
I still love D&D, and I still think the DM is the final authority. This much should be apparent, since I was so willing to tolerate that campaign. Calling it a campaign is really an insult to all other campaigns ever to be played, since campaigns are fun. This was not fun. It was an endless cycle of railroading, DM laziness, Deus Ex Machina, and above all, nerfs.
I thank you for reading my story, and I hope players and DMs alike will remember it as an example of some of the most horrible structure to ever sully the name of this game. DMs, use this to know the importance of making well thought out adventures. Players, just give your DM a hug—he or she is doing a fine job. I know this because your DM cannot possibly be worse than mine was, and your characters cannot have been as thoroughly nerfed as mine was.
WOW
Wow...even my improved adventures don't turn out that bad...
Feel sorry for you.
That's exactly how my first DM acted.
He railroaded us incredibly. As in "You guys go to ______." kind of stuff. He sent things at us that we should never have been able to defeat, but followed the rule "natural 20 = insta-death, no save". I played a wizard, and I didn't even get to select what spells I memorized for the day (this was 2e, btw). He got bored selecting spells, though, so I just got to spontaneously cast whatever I felt like. Monsters died when he felt like having them die, and anything he didn't expect didn't happen. It was like playing Legend of Zelda; everything was a hard, immovable wall unless you had talked to the right person or beaten the right boss. It got dull fast and everyone left.I'm going to buy my DM's presents after reading that story!!!
Galahad the Pure, I hope you find a new group soon. Good luck mate!
Sometimes I think I railroad my players too much. Then I hear about experiences like this and realize I and the GMs I've played under could never get that ****.
Good luck finding a group, man.
That's why I play DnD. If it was as easy as playing Neverwinter Nights to get that roleplaying experience, then no one would play actual DnD.
Let's see....the worst session I ever had was the session after the DM and I got in a fight (a verbal one, dont worry) at school.
Thaaat's right. A DM with a grudge. I was playing a Monk around seventh or eighth level, I seem to remember. I knew we were off to a bad start when all of a sudden an assassin tries to kill me. I figure that my friends and I will kill him, when theres a flash, and seven wizards jump out, four had cast hold person on my friends. Which all failed their saves. The highest roll I definitely remember because it was a 25. Yet it still failed. The assassin promptly tied me up and carried me off right in front of my friends eyes. The rest of the session, the players were on an adventure looking for me. I was eating potato chips, reading a source book. Ok so it could have been worse. But it got me pretty mad at the time.
Another bad time I had was when I was playing a ghost with the malevolence ability. Well it seems the DM (same DM) was getting tired of my simply possessing his bad guys and then forcing them to kill themselves, or worse, using them to slaughter townsfolk until the authorities killed me (I was neutral evil). Rather than come up with a thoughful solution, like having a celestial or inevitable come visit me to warn me against using my power so freely, or maybe having a group of clerics on a zealous quest to turn me after casting speak with dead on one of my posessee's corpses and wondering why a captain of the guard would go crazy like that, instead of doing something like that, he simply had all his major NPCs have a new special abilitiy from now on. Something called: Iron Mind.
What did it do, you ask? Well basically whenever I tried to posess them, it failed with now saving throw. Now I was a little more than ****** off. I mean, I was a first level sorcerer. This was one of my only offensive capabilities. I was outraged. I promptly told him I was retiring my character. But we never played after that. The DM got bored with DnD.
At this point, I felt no anger, because I knew exactly what to do. I had my character go back to the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery to get disintegrated. I did it plainly and emotionlessly, as though it was not my own character I was sending to its death.
No anger? no emotion? Your really fooled me, because i could tell you were so fed up that I really had no idea how to respond. I'm glad you linked me to this because I got to see your thoughts clearly stated about the situation.
For purposes of those who are reading along(although this is directed at GtP), the DM said that he wants to postpone the campaign until he can get 1-2 more players. Ironic? Perhaps I should quit it. I don't agree at all at what he did to you, regardless of how little he affected the others. I disagree with favortism... or in your case unfair nerfage. As you know, if I quit the campaign, the campaign dies with me.
Good thing my campaign is starting up in 2 weeks or so, huh?
Oh I've got another group, and that DM isn't going anywhere near it.
You refering to my campaign?
Hmm on second thought... perhaps I should order the illithids to take over the tower of misleading sorcery before I leave. :D Yes, the illithids were under my command in his campagin... He nerfed everone too much and gave me too much power
Down with the tower of misleading sorcery!
Likewise, I generally don't have a problem with allowing certain things for NPC only, or vice-versa, so long as it isn't unbalancing. Allowing NPC's to be psionic creatures, with you having no defense, is very poorly done.
All in all, that DM is a moron. I would hope that at some point, he has, or will be, struck repeatedly with a stick, and all of his books taken away?
strider
The DM couldn't avoid making everything take as long as possible, either; he took 3 hours to play a solo introduction section for a temporary player who was only there for 5 hours and could have been easily introduced in 5 minutes. He would spend a long time describing in detail the armor of some powerful NPC who we could never fight and would ignore us if we tried to talk to him, and would spend an entire adventure session of us walking through a boring featureless dungeon in order to get to a single easy fight at the end. On an island that was supposed to be really dangerous, any time a character started a fight in the town they would be instantly whisked away to an arena where they would be stripped of their equipment and given a subdual damage dagger, with which they would have to knock down their opponent's hit points TWICE. Ridiculous.
His story points were ridiculous; at one point there was a guy who was trying to be a god by having anyone challenge him at anything for a year, and if he won everything he would become a god. Of course the bloc of frustrated players had great fun with this, challenging him to card games and asking him to solve impossible logic puzzles. We even got out of a particularly obnoxious story hook when he attached a character with geased armor by asking this dude to remove it, and he had to. At another point, he tried to give my flintlock rifle-using character a modern assault rifle, which I refused because it was so unbelievably retarded.
I could go on for ages about how bad this game was. The best parts of the campaign were after the games, when me and two friends (the bloc of non-DM favored PCs) would go out to a diner, complain about how horrible the DM was and plot ways in which our characters could kill his obnoxious NPCs (if they would ever follow the rulesbook).
Originally posted by edgelett
You did the right thing in leaving - that DM has serious problems. I'd call the police.
I'm going to buy my DM's presents after reading that story!!!
WOHOO!!!!
Thanks for your tale of woe Galahad the Pure, now I get pressies.
I love these boards, they make my try hard games seem good sometimes. Thank You.
I've seen players whine about their DMs on these forums, but I don't recall this level of animosity toward the DM's campaign.
So in short, hopefully writing that rant made you feel a little better GtP (:
BUT
If I should offer a criticism to you, it would be -- why did you let it go on for so long? Tolerance is one thing. But what appears to be an entire campaign's worth of aggrevation should have forced you to quit earlier. One of my 10 commandments of D&D is
Thou shalt not play D&D if thou do not wish to.
Obviously you want to play, but you have to have a good relationship between the DM and the player -- it is imperative! You did not want to play under this DM, but you did anyway -- that's the violation. In your shoes, I wouldn't have let it atrophy to the point it did. So let this be a lesson for everyone! If you're continuously angry with the DM, if the DM is driving you crazy, etc, JUST DON'T PLAY WITH HIM AS THE DM ANYMORE!
Originally posted by meabolex
If I should offer a criticism to you, it would be -- why did you let it go on for so long? Tolerance is one thing. But what appears to be an entire campaign's worth of aggrevation should have forced you to quit earlier.
Like I said before, because I love playing the game. I have an abstract notion of what great D&D is and a continual hope that maybe the next adventure will meet or at least approach that level of greatness. That's what made me willing to trudge through that madness, and that's why it took so much to get me to walk.
And I didn't write this just to vent, though it felt good venting. I guess I was writing my own Gulag Archipelago, a message to other players and DMs about what some people have to go through to play a game.
If you seriously want the DM's perspective on this, I'll link him up to this board, but put on your flame-retardant gear because it could get ugly.
Sometimes I think I railroad my players too much. Then I hear about experiences like this and realize I and the GMs I've played under could never get that ****.
My thoughts exactly.
The first DM I had was pretty bad, but its nothing comparable to that, and it wasn't really his fault. He's just not a good DM. Heck of a player, but really bad DM.
My condolences GtP. No one should have to put up with a game like that for any length of time.
PS: As that sig quote goes, your ex-DM should be shot. With a hammer.
However, I can't understand you complaining about nerfs. Hardly anything you wrote sounds like a Nerf, it really just sounds like the DM making stuff up on the spot instead of trying to use the rules, and too much Deus Ex Machina. Sometimes that's a good thing, but usually it has predictable player frustrating results.
[begin story mode]
I had a group of players quit completely on me once. I was planning to get them involved in the world events surrounding the "Prince of Lies" novel (FRCS setting). They were low level, but I could see plenty of side adventures they could do while this world shaking stuff was happening as background noise.
I decided to start it off by having them observe the fall of a Zhent tower I placed near Daggerdale. This tower was going to be rampaged by a Demon that broke loose from a summoning, and they were going to be involved in tracking some fleeing hobgolbins before they could cause too much trouble.
Unfortunately, some of the players decided to infiltrate the tower when they arrived (while the summoning was in progress). It being my policy to let the players do stupid things when they are probably going to die, I let them try, and they actually succeeded in getting right up to the summoning room. They opened the door, and decided to let them see first hand the summoned Marilinth break free. They fled back up the passage, Marilinth in tow, and booked it out the front entrance while the creature began its rampage through the tower.
We left the campaign there, and I thought it had gone quite well. However, the players told me a few days later that they weren't interested in playing any more, since they didn't want to play in a "scripted game where they faced things way too powerful for them and survived when they had no chance of doing so." Their experiences with the DM I mentioned previously had rightly soured them to such experiences.
The fact that I hadn't intended them to be anywhere near such a creature, or even survive trying to sneak into the tower in the first place wasn't important to them. The fact that the creature had no interest in the fleeing characters and wasn't going to pay them the slightest heed, thus letting them escape, wasn't important. I was a DM guilty of novel writing and Deus Ex Machina, end of story.
I eventually found the whole thing hilarious. My DMing style is to think up a scenario to start a campaign/adventure, and let the players do whatever they want from there (including ignoring presented story hooks), even if it means they try to face down way too powerful foes or do really stupid things that get them killed. I rarely intervene to save characters that get in over their heads due to stupidity or over-agressiveness (attacking a demon/dragon that isn't hostile, what have you). I am almost always the exact opposite of a Novel writing, Deus Ex Machina using DM.
Originally posted by BlaineTog
All I can say is that you so much for sharing this with us. [/not at all sarcastic] This makes me feel much better about my stint as DM. :D
PS: As that sig quote goes, your ex-DM should be shot. With a hammer.
I take it you mean "All I can say is thank you so much for sharing this with us," and not what you said, right?
Hey Galahad, we now have forum proof that our DM should be shot. With a hammer. That's pretty bad.
It was a level 4 campaign, I, a NE rogue, went off to "find" some magic items, but it seemed there was a lot of secuity at the Magic store(three guards, I was in no mood to tango). So I do what any self-respect evil egomaniac would do: I set half the town on fire as a distraction. This town, population 400, apparently has a reserve of 10 level 25 fighters to guard the magic shop. but they don't show up before I get there, thay show up exactly five seconds after I pick up an item and put it into my bag. I get arrested, to get my name cleared, what do I have to do? The exact same quest my party was on anyway.
Here is the Bad DM Test for all of you to see:
First, tell everyone how you want to play this build
----
1 +1 Fighter1 Shield Charge, Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack
2 +2 Fighter2 Cleave
3 +2 Cleric1 Divine Shield, Turning, Domains: War & Magic, Weapon Focus: Spiked Shield, 1st level spells
4 +3 Cleric2 +1 stat
5 +4 Cleric3 2nd level spells
6 +4 Psy-War1 Sunder, Shield Expert
7 +5 Psy-War2 open Feat
8 +6 Fighter3 +1 stat
9 +7 Fighter4 Divine Might, Weapon Spec: Spiked Shield
10 +8 Psy-War3
----
And brag about how your damage will be thus:
1d6 piercing base
+1d6 flame
+1d6 frost
+1d6 shock
+6 div. shield
+6 div. might
+4 strength
+2 spec
+8 Power Attack
Damage Range
Normal: 22-42
Power Attack: 30-50
Power Attack Charge: 57-82
Then make up an exellent background and begin discussing how you will meet the other players and have a perfect reason to be their friends, how righteous you are, etc. etc.
If the DM is intimidated and afraid and begins making gimp rulings contrary to the rules or freaking out, he is a Bad DM. If he doesn't care what your build is at all or doesn't know WTF feats those all are, he is probably a Neutral or Beginner DM. If he smacks you with a rolled-up newspaper with the word "MUNCHKIN" on the side in big bold letters or thinks a shield-charging weirdo is a cool idea, tell him you are just kidding and show him your REAL build, because he is probably a Good DM.
edit: you can replace this with any other intimidating build or rediculously min/maxed concept for similar affect. This was my old 3.0 build for the DM test back before I was DMing myself.
I could never suck quite that hard as a DM even if put max ranks in Perform (crappy DMing) and took Lack Of Skill Focus.
Thank you for giving me a reason not to loathe me.
Have fun screwing up bad DM's campaigns - go on - give it a try!
Originally posted by flyingmoose
I could never suck quite that hard as a DM even if put max ranks in Perform (crappy DMing) and took Lack Of Skill Focus.
:heehee
Truly sig worthy!The worst I've ever had to deal with is a slightly Negator DM. I play spellcasters in his game, so he looks for any way to make me the weakest or most useless member of the party, as I tend to be pretty creative with my spells. The first time he DMed all he did was choose my spells for me at every level up. I was upset, but I could work with what he gave me, so eventually he regretted that. Had I just got my fireball I would've been far less of a threat than I turned out to be with that Lightning spell.
A friend of mine, however, has had a railroading DM almost comparable to yours. He tells the story much better, but the best part is legendary.
DM: You walk into town. You see a small thatch-roofed peasant's house on your left, the tavern on your right, and the mayor's house in front of you *hint hint*
Player: I walk over to the house on the left and knock on the door.
DM: You hear a voice inside telling you to go away.
Player: I open the door.
DM: It's locked.
Player: Ok, I pick the lock.
DM: You fail, it's too good of a lock.
Player: You didn't even roll any dice! Ok, fine. I bash the door down *rolls* That's 20 damage with my greataxe.
DM: You attack bounces off the door ineffectually. It's an extremely well-built door.
Player: Wow, pretty snazzy for a peasant. Ok, fine. I climb up on top and attack the thatch roof.
DM: You weapon causes no damage.
Player: Fine, I set it on fire!
DM: *getting aggravated* A wind blows your fire out before it ever touches the roof.
Player: Wow. One amazing peasant this guy is. Ok, I climb back down and begin digging underneath the building.
DM: You dig and dig and dig, but the walls of the building extend as far down as you can dig. After you give up and climb out of your hole you see a small halfling that looks suspiciously like me. He wanders over and tells you to leave the house alone.
Player: Fine! I go into the mayor's house and demand to be sold the deed to that house. It's invincible!
Originally posted by Sphyre
I take it you mean "All I can say is thank you so much for sharing this with us," and not what you said, right?
Sometimes I get the feeling that my howler monkeys don't appreciate their "indentured" servitude that I force them to serve and, as restribution, secretly mess with my posts when I go for water breaks.Or mabye I just can't type. I think I'll stick with the first explaination, thankyouverymuch. ;)
Hey Galahad, we now have forum proof that our DM should be shot. With a hammer. That's pretty bad.
Please carve my initals into his hammer-shooted skull. To display said forum proof. :D
Originally posted by BlaineTog
Or mabye I just can't type. I think I'll stick with the first explaination, thankyouverymuch. ;)
Please carve my initals into his hammer-shooted skull. To display said forum proof. :D
LOL.
Oh and yes, Galahad and I started the campaign I was DMing tonight, and for some reason, that I do not know, we have a hammer in my living room. At one point we were talking about said DM and I got Galahad's attention, took the hammer from behind my back to pointed to him as a gun, and pretended i was 'shooting the dm he's talking about with a hammer.' (fyi, he was not present) It was quite amusing. I should rig up a gun type thing to actually fling the hammer at him. I have a feeling the campaign we are playing now, though, is more entertaining than that joke.
Rule 0: The DM can change the rules.
Rule .5: Just because you CAN change the rules doesn't mean you SHOULD
This is the best advice you can give your DM. And Good luck with your new campaign.
As I'd said before, from session 2 onward, things deteriorated. Session 1 ended with the party finding a tablet. This tablet was supposed to hold our adventuring hook for session 2, and mine was the only character who was able to understand the meaning of what the tablet said, due to my character's backstory. However, I was playing a barbarian.
And Barbarians can't read.
This was just a minor setback because another party member ended up reading the tablet to me at which point I had my vision:
"You need to go to the mountains to Temple X to find an item."
We were talking about it online, and I asked the DM what kind of item it is. He replies that I don't know, just that I need to get it. So I'm thinking to myself about this in character. My character is insisting that the entire party must risk their lives to retrieve some important artifact but we have no idea what it looks like.
So I say to the DM, "Let's say I tell you to come to my house, and go into my bedroom and find an object. I don't tell you which one, but you have to find the one I'm thinking about anyway, because it's super important. You could feasibly go into my room and grab anything you wanted and be wrong, even though it meets the requirements of what I asked for."
He then replied, "Well, out of character, you know it's going to be sitting there on a pedestal."
I then basically told him how important it was to have decent plot hooks and actual description in his game. I wasn't trying to be rude about it, since it was only session 2, and I was feeling hopeful for this campaign. His response was that if he came up with something descriptive, it would be confusing and no one would have any idea what to do.
Sure, if we were all retards.
However, the all-time winner for retardedness goes to our encounter with Pikachu.
That's right, we met Pikachu.
We were searching for the second [nondescript] artifact, (one that would be stolen by mind flayers later on) and we were investigating a cave. As we proceeded inward, we heard a loud roaring voice from within asking us what we were doing, who we were, etc. I asked in an equally loud roaring barbarian voice, "Who am I speaking to?"
The DM was befuddled, since he did not have the foresight to give this NPC a name. He pondered for a few moments and said, "Pikachu!"
It gets better:
Pikachu was completely unwilling to show himself. He only communicated by shouting really loudly and by sending some lacky out to talk to us. Pikachu told us that he had the artifact, and he would give it to us if we could get rid of this cleric who was giving him problems, etc. I asked to see the artifact, so I could be certain he wasn't lying. Pikachu told us to follow a certain path down the cave and we would see it.
There was a 30ft long pit, and we couldn't see the bottom. At the other end of the pit was the artifact on a pedestal. Since the artifact was right there, we started thinking about ways we could just grab the artifact and get the hell out of there. The DM interrupted us, saying, "But you realize, you CAN'T see the bottom of the pit," as though a bottomless pit would be an effective deterrent.
I don't exactly remember how we figured out how to get accross the pit, but as soon as we did, the pedestals sank into the ground. (I later learned, FYI: cave walls count as unworked stone, Climb check DC 15. 2 or 3 ranks in climb and you can take 10 your way accross. DMG pg 59)
So it was off to the cleric, who I think was a worshipper of Pelor. I then decided to make a reality check: We're following the orders of some monster who won't even show is face to us so we can kill a cleric of the deity of general goodness. It was then that we decided why not get the cleric to come with us, kill Pikachu, and then we'll take the artifact, along with all the other goodies he said he had stashed.
After we met the cleric, the sheer retardedness set in. The cleric rallied a huge army which stormed the cave and took all the treasure except the artifact that we were looking for. On top of that, Pikachu escaped.
To review: We did not really solve any problems. We did not kill the villain. And our only reward was an artifact which conferred no in game bonuses to us and would only be stolen by mind flayers an adventure or two later.
The DM could have saved us all a lot of time if he just started off by saying, "OK, you walk around and do some talking, and you watch an army, and nothing really happens. But here, have an artifact!"
Originally posted by BlaineTog
Please carve my initals into his hammer-shooted skull. To display said forum proof. :D
:heehee this reminds me of "Meet the parents" film where the meant to be husband strikes the volleyball so hard that it lands on his fiencee's sister forehead marking her with the NIKE trademark.
Shortly after my little spat about "Double U, Tee, Eff? Pikachu? We should kill him on principle for having such a stupid name! Can't you even think up a name that's somewhat beleivable!?" I mean... it can't hurt to have at least a little bit of flavor in the campaign, can it? Yes, I admit, I was being offensive, while Galahad was still biting his tounge and being civil about it, but can you blame me, considering the campaign at hand?
After that, I decided to give the DM a little reality check while staying in character. Keep in mind that 'Pikachu' is an evil doer, and we, the party, are supposedly supposed to be trying to stop the apocalypse. (Which, well, he assigned that goal to us, I can't say we ever really seemed to all agree on it as a party, in character) So I ask pikachu, "So, let me get this straight, you want us, to go kill a cleric that is causing you ill trouble. This implies to me that the cleric is more powerful than you. Not only that but we have no reason to trust you, or even barter with you. What motivation do we have to spend the time and resources to travel over 500 miles to slay someone who is obviously more powerful than you, when we could just get it from you right now, and if you resist we'll defeat you?"
Pikachu's response? His normal uneasy laugh, when he doesn't forsee his flaws when 'preparing.'
Another adventure, this same annoying guy plays a 5th level paladin. He reaches a wind mill (he was with his squire, close to a paladin populated city). Inside the windmill he gets attacked by 3 quasits. failing any knowledge skill roll he tried, he starts going "HEY, THAT'S NOT FAIR, THROWING 10TH LEVEL VAMPIRES AT ME!!!!!" i shake my head and tell him to think better, even describing what they look like, from the mm description. So he stays in the mill, a 5th level paladin, fighting 3 quasits, while his squire and faithfull horse are outside. So obviously he dies. And after he dies, he tells me he had nothing to do, and refuses to start with a new character. I tell him he could have retreated to the door (not wanting to tell him he's an idiot for not knowing what they were....oh yes, and i forgot to mention he wasted bout 3 rounds turning undead), and after retreating t the door and trying to take them on one by one, if he didn't suceed (which was unlikely) he would have mounted his horse and left....
The point is there are annoying DM's, that don't know their stuff or how to play nicely....but there are players just like that as well.....right now, i'm working hard with some exams. But when they're all done, i'm beginning a new adventure. I'm going to invite him too, since he's a friend of mine (even if an idiot as a player). And i hope maybe i don't have to kill his character any more.....but please tell me if it was me that was doing something wrong....
oh, and as a ps: i never expected more of the new players, just this one, since he considered himself all-knowledgeable....
Let this happen only once to you.
Bad DMing has to happen to you at least once, so you have a point of reference, a story to tell, an experience you don't want to repeat and the foresight of bringing a hammer to shoot the DM with should he ever try something like it. BlaineTog's initials are an optional extra. ;)
Originally posted by Kolo
BlaineTog's initials are an optional extra. ;)
They're only optional if you enjoy being sued for stealing intelectual propery. ;)
. Mosr often than not it means "control-freak DM, run away from this game".:sad:Originally posted by Kolo
Bad DMing has to happen to you at least once, so you have a point of reference, a story to tell, an experience you don't want to repeat and the foresight of bringing a hammer to shoot the DM with should he ever try something like it.
Bad DMing, yes. However, this goes way beyond any sort of requisite learning experience. It's like saying that since you'll probably have a few crashes when learning to program, you should light your computer on fire.
My current DM also plays a 'low-magic-for-you' campaign, although he does't call it such. For that matter, he seems unaware that there are magic items other than swords and chain mail. As a tenth level mage, the only magic item I have is a long sword the fighter's didn't want, and we are continually pitted against encounters 2-3 CR higher than our average level. I don't think I'll even mention the Phane (ELH p. 166) barkeeper with more than 40 levels.
And I would take that DM over your ex-DM any day.
You know, ranting feels good.
Originally posted by Matrixy
Here is the Bad DM Test for all of you to see:
First, tell everyone how you want to play this build
So, does the Hulking Hurler thread have a comprehensive build on it?;)
-Elemmakil
The many faults of being a DM, of course, comes with the territory of being new. Few people DM well the first time into it. Something's bound to go wrong.
Having said that, this DM has a lot more problems than knowing the rules, ruling consistently, or weaving adventures well. His basic player-DM trust foundation has been compromised and things basically go downhill from there. It's very hard to save a campaign from broken DM-player trust. Even if you do, it's never going to be as great as it should have been.
I've once been in something of this bind, because of a too-obvious and too-powerful NPC. He was never really that influential but I embellished his actions more than the players did theirs. Even though he never did anything campaign moving, he always seemed to be the star of the show. Boy, did I learn from that. Scrapped the campaign and started over with the same players.
When a DM is being especially heavy handed and arbitrary for long periods of time, it usually means that he has no idea what to do - either a neophyte or a flustered DM. Now, while I usually espouse the idea that DMs should be leading the play experience and helping their players, it is not untenable for players to help their DMs provided that the DM is receptive to help.
For example, if your DM is fresh out of hooks, then you can supply him with one! You can gavage it straight into his fish-open mouth if you have to. He'll get the drift eventually. For example, if he says, "Well you go to this cave..." and all of you look at each other in complete confusion to ask "Why?!?"; it's liable to produce a defensive response in a flustered or new DM. Instead, you could suggest: "I suppose we go there because my character likes spelunking as written in my PC background and he invited everyone over for a lark?"
Again if he says, "You all meet in a tavern," you could instead suggest "Maybe we 're all in town for the market fair and there's only one inn and one served dinner?" While it is again not incumbent upon the players to develop the adventure and the campaign, a little help can go a long way towards good play for everyone concerned.
Tone of voice can be critical. I suppose that if you doubt you can pull it off, you shouldn't. You must phrase and tone your voice so as not to sound like a know-it-all or a busybody. I take it that many here can only surmise that yours truly has had several bad player experiences in trying to help a DM. DMs can be very territorial so it helps to assume a nonthreatening pose.
At the last, I suppose I cannot condone dragging this DM out to the lawn and shooting him in the head. Goodness knows there are few enough people out there with the desire to actually DM well. It pays to take effort to separate the chaff from what little wheat there is. His campaign should probably be cremated since it smells like its been dead for a while, but he should probably be rehabilitated and retaught, preferrably under a decent DM.
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful questions. For your information, this guy has been playing for about 5 years. I've been DMed by him twice, and the first campaign was my second campaign playing in ever.
When I first met him, I mentioned that DMing looked like a lot of work because of all the preparation needed. His response was that there isn't any work involved at all. He told me you didn't need to prepare, as long as you were good at ad libbing. I later realized that he thought good ad libbing for an adventure involved flipping through the monster manual and finding something that looked like fun to fight.
It's been my experience that DMs generally emphasize in their campaigns aspects of the game that they like the most. This DM loved rolling out encounters with monsters more than anything, so that's what 90% of our sessions involved. Like I said before, we may as well have been playing a tabletop strategy game.
It wasn't because he was new, or because he was exhausted for ideas. It was because he was a lazy bum, with neither the desire nor the hope to improve.
That's a truly horrid story. I've played with great ad-libbers, and some of those campaigns can be a blast. Really, to be a decent DM you have to be able to ad-lib a bit. After all, players are like the monkeys in the room with 4 exits...they always find a 5th way out.
It's sad that your former DM couldn't realize that there is a huge gap between ad-libbing and just throwing random thoughts together.
Thanks for sharing your story. It makes me realize how lucky I am to play with my current group, both as a player and as a DM.
- Llew
Well, playing experience is no measure. If he's been a player all this time, I can understand his focus. Many players like the combat aspect of the game and rarely depart. When these guys DM, they usually leave out the more important story parts, making for forced, inconsistent plots and worlds. Of course, since some players like it that way, these guys tend to congregate together if the same types locate each other.
I don't care for such gaming myself, and I've removed myself from just such a group, but I can't find it proper to say that that sort of DMing is poor. They simply prefer a different sort of game. If it's fun for them, then all the better, as long as I'm not in it!
Now, although I can sympathize with your frustration and respect your need for venting your emotions; eventually, I think you'll come to realize that this guy isn't "improving" on the aspects of the game you like simply because he doesn't think that they're important, or even that they're an enjoyable part of the game. As far as he's concerned, the less of that said, the better. It's probably puzzling him why you keep bringing up "trivial little concerns" rather than get on with the "actual game."
If that is indeed the case, then your D&D simply isn't compatible with "his D&D" and he's not an experienced enough DM to tell the difference. Better to find another group, though I believe you risk little interference from him in the new group you like.
The best thing to do here, I think, is to let bygones be bygones, release your awful memories and go your separate ways, as far as D&D is concerned. The less you remember of your awful experience, the better!
The sole purpose for him DMing is because he wants to be amused, even at the cost of other's enjoyment. There is no DM-Player trust, because there is no effort from the DM in the first place. The entire thing that motivates him to play the game is half-assed playing out one idea that he thinks would be neat. One idea that isn't even fully developed does not make a campaign.
While Galahad says that we might as well be playing a table top strategy game, our DM doesn't even have a hint of strategy. Any encounters he may have are thoroughly uncreative and there's not much reason for why one would be fighting what we encounter. In fact "his D&D" is comprised almost that of warhammer 2k. The point is not so much the point that his opinion or perception of what D&D is, is wrong. It's that he makes no effort at even looking at what someone else is expecting in D&D, and does everything for his own selfish reason to play the game, despite D&D fundamentally being a social game.
There is no point in playing a game that doesn't even have the capability to be played.
There is such a thing as a "bad DM."
Originally Posted by Roxlimn
Better to find another group, though I believe you risk little interference from him in the new group you like.
The best thing to do here, I think, is to let bygones be bygones, release your awful memories and go your separate ways, as far as D&D is concerned. The less you remember of your awful experience, the better!
He and I already have, and have already stated that in this post. I do not think at any point here Galahad was asking you for advice on what to do with the situation, for it was quite obvious, but rather sharing the experience to purge the negative emotions and allow others to see the situation for whatever reason, whether it be humor, knowledge, relation or any other reason.
Some people think that "Kick in the Door" style of play involves little to no story whatsoever. I think that that's what your DM is thinking. Moreover, I'm thinking that your actions weren't so much "not important" as "annoying the DM". When DMs get annoyed, they tend to do really nasty and insane things, especially when they think that these things aren't really that important.
Sometimes, I'd go off tangent and field in a couple of Marshmallow golems or arrange an important RP encounter with a clown, but I do this only when I think the players won't mind. Presumably, I have a better idea of what my players do and do not mind than your DM does, but I cannot automatically question his motives in doing everything he did. As I said, in being the devil's advocate, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Thus, I believe that he really wanted to play an enjoyable game. D&D is a social game. It's like basketball or hockey. You can't play by yourself or make up your own rules. You have to play with people and you have to abide by what everybody wants. Unless your DM is a socially maladjusted person, I cannot believe that he was not cognizant of this. Where I think he was mistaken, is that he considered a game that was fun for him would be also fun for everybody else.
Sphyre:
Given that you were involved in that DMing fiasco, you'll have to forgive me if I take your words with a grain of salt. People who are negatively affected by a given event don't tend to have a very impartial view.
While I do believe that there are bad DMs around, I believe that the majority of bad DMing cases are because of inexperience or incompetence as opposed to malicious intent. I can believe that he didn't put much effort into DMing, maybe because he didn't feel that such an effort was necessary to have what is to him an enjoyable game. I can't believe outright, however, that he plays at your expense on purpose. When he shares an idea with you that he thinks is "neat", he expects you to also think that it's "neat" and have fun with it. I very much doubt that he intentionally fields in ideas that screws you up, with the intent that you suffer for it. Not without provocation anyway.
If his D&D sessions play like Warhammer, then maybe that's what he thinks D&D is or what he thinks is fun about D&D. He intentionally leaves out "boring" (to him) story episodes because he doesn't think they're fun and thus thinks that you don't think that it's fun.
While there is some basis for calling this behavior "selfish", it's probably better to call it "childish" as it is very much in the character of a child to be unable to differentiate between his opinion and others' opinions. The child is not trying to be mean and selfish in turning the TV to his favorite show. He could very well think that his favorite show is "the" favorite show - everyone's favorite show, in fact.
Many DMs have this fault. Even supposedly good ones. It's just sometimes never uncovered because the DM locates players that do, in fact, share his love for particular parts of the game. When a player comes on the scene with an emphasis on another part of the game, he is the one that is viewed as abberrant - a "problem player;" even when the DM has not, in fact, made an effort to incorporate that player's likes and dislikes into the common game.
Then again, sometimes likes and dislikes are just too incompatible. Even the best meaning DM can't help being bored to death at combat after combat if that really isn't his cup of tea. And bored DMs tend to lead to bad games.
My latter comments were more of an elaboration of this idea rather than actual advice. It goes both ways. Your leaving his game removes "problem players" (as he may see you) from his table, and you won't have to deal with a "bad DM" (as you see him). While he could very well be a maladjusted mean person, why you would ever want to associate with such a person to begin with, much less play a game with him is beyond me. You're better off in any case leaving the table.
Whatever Galahad the Pure's reasons may be for posting this thread, I take this opportunity to tell people the following points:
1. The problem might be two-sided - that you're mutually incompatible.
2. That the DM may not and probably is not a sadistic devil-hearted villain.
3. That there aren't a whole lot of DMs around so you might want to "train" this one, so to speak, to be better.
And that's it, in a nutshell.
1. The problem might be two-sided - that you're mutually incompatible.
Whenever there is ANY problem it's as many sided as there are people (different veiws) involved. This is my beleif, but I beleive anyone should be who they want to be, as long as it does not inhibit others from being themselves (In a broad sense, for example stealing from someone stops them from being who they are because they worked for whatever you stole from them) That's my lawful neutral approach as always. But this DM did affect us. He would call us for gaming sessions in which NOTHING happened. Any attempt at constructive critisism or suggestions was not heard, nor heeded.
2. That the DM may not and probably is not a sadistic devil-hearted villain.
No, I don't think we ever claimed he was. I beleive the claim was that he was a terrible at filling the role of a DM.
3. That there aren't a whole lot of DMs around so you might want to "train" this one, so to speak, to be better.
I wish this one could be trained, we tried. You can have him :P As for him and I playing, I've gone to the role I'm better at, I'm better at DMing than Playing. but that's another story.
(Interesting side note: notice all the italic probable contingencies? Covering your rear well on that one ;))
I would like to take the time to
tip my hat to you. Unlike many other people I encounter, you are able to see a neutral point of veiw. A lot of arguments are indeed created through lack of looking at things from a third person perspective. I'm sure it helps in other threads as well in your everyday life, as the same ability helps me.Have to give my hats off to you as well. Most of the time, people who come to the boards to rant invariable bite the head off of anyone who even so much as "defends" the rant-target in any offhand way.
While being neutral is easy enough when you're on the other side of the world, being so when you've been the target of a bad DMing event tends to be a difficult thing. Kudos to you guys for level-headedness after just a small amount of ranting.
bitnine:
I'm not sure anyone was defending that episode as forgivable. Ugh. It makes me shiver just thinking about it. I was just saying that if he did it at all, and he wasn't the devil, maybe he thought that it was "no big deal."
Originally posted by danielinthewolvesden
"Low magic campaign" is a warning sign =
Oh god it's so true.
After reading and laughing out loud at this thread I'll relate my own story:
My GM is a low magic, low money, I-can-defeat-you-whenever-I-want kind of control freak. In this game I played a fighter and told everyone I would take the Devoted Defender PRC as soon as I qualified. It was my big goal and everyone knew it.
It was a campaign where unknown forces of evil were taking over the world. Displaced nobles asked us to help so we'd perform various tasks for them.
They'd send us all over the place making alliances. To get forces on our side we'd recover "this artifact lost for 1000 years" from easy to find and easy to explore dungeons. Surprisingly all the dungeons would fit on the mat the GM always used.
Why these lazy ass dwarves didn't spend the small amount of time and resources to recover it on their own is unknown to me.
A typical battle would go something like this for me:
GM: Does a 16 hit?
Me: No.
GM: (Surprised) What's your armour class?
Me: 18
After this all the monsters started magically rolling 18 or higher. This didn't happen once - but repeatedly.
So we get railroaded from adventure to adventure and gain a few levels. This grumpy dwarf comes into town one day and claims to be a magic items salesman. So I inquire if he has some items:
Me: Do you have a cloak of elvenkind?
Dwarf: No
Me: How about gauntlets of strength +2? (I guess you can say this was an out of character conversation
)Dwarf: No
We were perpetually poor and couldn't afford much anyways. So I though it would be fun to inquire about items we couldn't afford to see if he actually had anything useful:
Me: How about a +2 axe?
Dwarf: Nope
Me: A +2 shield?
Dwarf: Nope
Me: Scarab of protection?
Dwarf: (After the gm reads it in the DMG) Nope
You get the general idea.
Me: Do you have any burnt out ioun stones?
Dwarf: (Again after consulting the DMG) Oh yeah I got a bunch of em
Me: That's great. How do you make a living selling magic items if you don't have anything useful?
Dwarf:...
Me: I'll take eight of the ioun stones. In fact i'm going to stuff them into small dolls so I have eight dolls floating around me.
The dwarf came back a few times, but, well, when you can't buy magic items he doesn't have with money you don't have you kind of ignore him after a while.
Somehow I survived to level 7. Along the way I'd accumulated an impressive two magic items: A +1 flaming sword and a +1 wooden shield. My coffers were overflowing with a massive 4000 gp I'd managed to accumulate.
Would it surprise you if I said the nobles we worked for didn't seem to care for our efforts in the latest? THey didn't reward us at all and wouldn't even cover our expenses until I made a big deal of it.
(I suggested we leave the nobles and strike out independantly. The GM relented finally.)
With the 4000gp I tried to hire a mage to create +2 armour for me. THe GM replied that "Magic item factories don't exist" and that it couldn't be done.
The wizard in our party could scribe all the scrolls he wanted, but "magic item factories" don't exist...
This is all buildup to the bad part:
At level 6 we had a diplomatic mission to a backwater kingdom no-one cared about - including us. We were to forge an alliance with these island hippies to get them to fight on our side of the war.
The condition was simple: One of us had to marry the chiefs daughter to cement the alliance. This seemsed to fit my devoted defender goal well so I volunteered. She was a Swanmay after all - an exhalted PRC - so I thought it would be interesting.
Level 7 happens and I get my first Devoted Defender PRC level. The DM reads it and declares that the ability to protect someone else it "too powerful." He says that if I protect someone, any attack high enout to hit their AC is enough to hit and damage me.
Now he's a pig headed fool and impossible to reason with. Even though he claims to be "open to communication" it's really his way or the highway.
This is where it turns bad: I tell him that because of his unexpected change I want to redesign my character because the D.D. doesn't work like I expected. (Remember he's known since first level.)
He lets me do this and I redesign my character's feats and skills to make him more like a commando.
Alls well and good. Though this new concept no longer includes being married so I bastically say it's over and divorce her. It's harsh I know, but when I chanced concepts there wasn't room for a wife anymore.
Now little did I know that this would have such a huge reprecussion in the game. Apparently the DM is really hung up on getting his people married - and keeping them married. My divorcing was like going against the predestined plan of god. It was like spitting in the eye of Jesus (or Mohammad or Buddha, ...) himself. I didn't know it at that meeting, but I was going to be punished for jumping the railfoad tracks.
In the span of a few weeks my former wife created an alliance more powerful than the one we had been working for the entire game. Somehow she went from backwaters swanmay to political expert. Perhaps being jilted does that to people
So she comes back and tells our alliance her detailed plan to reclaim the world with her new alliance..
"Oh my god that's brilliant." I burst out. In the context of the campaign her plan really was brilliant. I was all for enthusiastically supporting it - forgetting for a brief instant that this is punishment for going against the DMs divine plan.
He was visibly angry at my outburst.
She approahes me afterwards and says, "My brothers are here to beat you up. Harm them and you'll have to deal with me." Remember this is coming from a Swanmay - an exhalted good character. Of course she doesn't have any alignment problems for saying that.
Ok, I'm no fool and I know what's happening. I realize the game is effectively over for me and I'll be leaving it at the end of the session anway, but I had to play it out to the end:
"You'll help me right?' I say to my alliance.
"No." The GM replies, "This is a personal issue."
"So you're going to hang me out to dry after all the things we've done for you?"
"It's a personal issue."
"So you guys will help me then?" I say to the other two players
One noodles wiht his laptop and doesn't reply. He's trying to be invisible and avoid acting.
"As they said - it's a personal issue." The other player says, "I'll come with you and watch, but I won't help you."
So at this point I packed up and went home. I let everyone know I was leaving the game. The GM called me a name, but I didn't care because I decided not to game with that group ever again.
Since that time I've found a more mature group. I played a 16th level cleric briefly - before the game ended. Now I'm going to GM the 'City of the Spider Queen' module for them.
Congratulations. You win.
Now that's how to deal with crappy DMs.
I don't quite remember how we got the ring of 3 wishes, perhaps Galahad can fill in that information, but I do remember what was said.
See, for some reason we have a ring of three wishes and the DM expresses his intentions to pervert any wish we ask for, even such things as +1 inherent stat boost, or anything else under the spell description that it plainly states it can do. No matter what you asked for, he'd pervert it in some way.
(Tangent Rant: Lets see, so if i play a 17th level wizard in his campaign, and cast wish, i not only pay 5000 xp, but i also get something bad happen to me, regardless of whether it's within the spell power or not, but enough of my tangent about stupid DMs and proper wish granting. Oddly enough a player in my campaign yesterday said "I just love wish. Every now and then i just crack the book open to wish to read it out. It's beautiful. Let's see what wish can do...")
I decide that I'm not going to use a wish. I'd be better off giving it away for free, than using a wish. Sarcastically, out of character of course, I say "I wish I had a better DM." The DM laughs and says "It fails, the DM gets worse!"
And the worst part of the story? What he said came true, he truely did get worse.
What this DM sounds like is one of a species with whom I have also played, albeit very briefly. This species is a creative and imaginative one. It is entirely possible for them to develop what sounds like being a truly glorious campaign set in a wonderful and original gaming environment, filled with new initiatives and innovative use of available resources, where NPCs are as well built as characters and not just knocked together on the spur of the moment, speeches are read out from carefully scribed notes and maps and shopping lists and such are produced.
(The above to a greater or lesser extent anyway. I am, in fairness, referring to a particular DM.)
The main failing that they have is one of pride. They have created this world, planned a campaign and they like how it looks. It has a set plan, a storyline that they will lie awake at night giggling about, they wil be eager for you to reach the parts of the campaign that they believe they have developed really well just to see if you enjoy it as much as they will.
What they don't do is realise that the players will always find a new plan and that they will enjoy doing what they want to far more than what he wants them to. Even if they end in the same place having the same encounter they will always enjoy it more if they chose to be there rather than being pushed onto a train and having to stay on until it reaches the terminal.
A perfect example of this happened when I was playing an exalted monk with touch of golden ice.
An enemy who was largely dex. based was running away. (This was part of the DM's plan.) I run after him. (That wasn't.)
DM: You can't catch him.
Me: Why not?
DM: You both have the same speed, he's human too.
Me: I'm a monk, I could charge him from here, in fact, I will. I charge him and make a trip attempt.
DM: Oh. Okay, er, roll a touch attack.
Me: Does an 18 hit?
DM: Yes, roll opposed strength or dex.
Me: Is he evil?
DM: Yeah.
Me: Can you roll a DC 14 fortitude save.
DM: Why?
Me: Because I've touched him and he is evil and I have ToGI.
DM: You haven't touched him.
Me: I made my touch attack?
DM: Yeah.
Me: Which part of not touching him have I done then?
DM: What is your str. or dex. check.
Me: 15
DM: I win, he jumps over your leg as you try to trip him.
Me: No he doesn't, I made a successful touch attack. He has been touched. It's pretty clear cut.
DM: Roll a strength or dex check.
Me: Why?
DM: He is atempting to trip you back.
Me: ????????????
DM: He beat your trip attempt so he is tripping you back.
Me: Can you roll a fort. save.
DM: Why?
Me: He's touching me.
DM: No he's not.
Me: How the goddam hell is he tripping me then you moron?
DM: He jumped over your leg. You tried to trip him, you didn't beat his dex., he jumped over your leg, you didn't touch him, now he gets to trip you back. Oh, I roll a natural twenty, you fall down.
Me (Having realised that the DM wants this guy to run away as that is part of his plot.): I beat his dex. the moment I made a successful touch attack, I then attempted to overbalance him, he passed his dex. check to maintain balance. He might not have done had he actually made the fort save he is required to. But nevermind, I'll tell you what, save the fu*king hassle, I watched him run away, mildly interested in his actions but not tactically aware enough to catch on to the fact that he may be running away to warn the rest of his allies so I don't bother charging him in the first place and sit down and start making daisy chains instead. Can I do that?
DM: No.
Me: Why not?
DM: There are no daisies.
Me: There is no monk either, bye.
Oddly I was a little miffed by the whole encounter. What it came down to is that the DM had decided that this was a really good NPC (it may or may not have been) and he had planned for a big show down type thing, and in his game there was only one way that things could go: according to his preplanned picture of them.
Your DM sounds similar to this.
The railroading DM is very boring to play with. Thankfully he does not DM too often. For some reason we (the group) keep giving him the chance. We have two or three good DMs and we alternate between us. Every now and then he comes up and says he has a campaign idea, can he DM it. For some unknown reason we always think 'well maybe after the last campaign ended after two sessions he'll have learned something and watched the way we DM and try to follow our example of reffing a game, not running it' and so we say yes.
So far we have been let down every time!
He s a freind, and quite a good player so I guess we just humour him in the hope that he will learn. Who knows, maybe he will. We live in hope!
(BTW: I found a valid reason why the monk had to leave the group at this point (to escort a couple of prisoners back to town) and took my opportunity to get out of the campaign situation. It was actually more fun to watch him railroading everyone else and them getting more and more wound up (they tend to suffer things for longer than I do before they mention it) by it. Some people may think watching a RPG is dull, but although these DMs may be crap to play with they are a hell of a good show to watch from the sideline!
)I have never been as bad as the stuff I read on here.
I am going to start demanding tribute from my players.
At LEAST $5 a session. Maybe $10. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes...
Originally posted by Phrennzy
I have never been as bad as the stuff I read on here.
I am going to start demanding tribute from my players.
At LEAST $5 a session. Maybe $10. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes...
I think that you're just kidding, but IMHO a DM that charges is immoral. OTOH, a DM does have the right to ask that certain snacks & refreshments be brought for his (and others) enjoyment.
Originally posted by danielinthewolvesden
I think that you're just kidding, but IMHO a DM that charges is immoral. OTOH, a DM does have the right to ask that certain snacks & refreshments be brought for his (and others) enjoyment.
Immoral? I charge $20, and whoever comes in last during the session has to give me a foot rub.
I feel much better now :D
I might never be a great DM, but I'll shoot MYSELF with a hammer before I get this bad......
And as a player, if I get this kind of DM, I think its time to create the HammerGun(TM). BlaineTog initials included ;)
Originally posted by Chaotica Maxima
I thought I was a fairly bad Dm.... The I read this thread.....
And I thought I was a good DM, but in reading this thread I see some hints of things that I am doing that might possibly just maybe :D irritate the players just a tiny bit :D. Since Sphyre and Galahad have given such a useful summarization of how to be a bad DM, I think that I will try to avoid some of the mistake that I might possibly have been making.
Originally posted by Tevandel Surefacet
And I thought I was a good DM, but in reading this thread I see some hints of things that I am doing that might possibly just maybe :D irritate the players just a tiny bit :D. Since Sphyre and Galahad have given such a useful summarization of how to be a bad DM, I think that I will try to avoid some of the mistake that I might possibly have been making.
YES!!!
That's the right way to do it!This is to players abused by their DMs.
Rule 0-->DM has final say over every in-game subject. That final say may be changed with some convincing done by the players, but the DM still rules all.
Rule 0.5 (or so) --> Players may leave a game they find unfair.
Unfortunately, your story isn't really surprising to me, but it still infuriates me nonetheless that such BS still happens out there (and it's probably not as uncommon or rare as people would like to think). I hope you have found or can find another worthy gaming group to continue enjoying your passion for D&D. God have mercy on any stupid DM that I come across because I certainly will give such mercy.
The worst experience I ever had wasn't that bad, but it was pretty lame. The DM didn't give us any leads on adventures or anything, and our players didn't know where to go. So he said "Why don't you guys ever do anything?"
And I reply "Ok, I gather information about someone who needs mercenaries, adventurers, etc..."
"Nothing"
I was so ****** that I just laughed because of the stupidity of the situation. The campaign ended soon afterwards.
Firstly, we started playing 3.0 forgotten realms campaign with him & rolled our characters. He made us use the rolls in the exact order they fell in (contrary to the PHB, which says roll then assign as you like), so my halfling ranger ended up with a con of 7 (Dex of 20 though). I equiped her with a short bow & short sword/dagger TWF combo, cause these were the biggest weapons a halfling could use in 3.0. I get a riding dog & state I'm going to use him as my animal companion. I also inform the DM I want to eventually use the deepwood sniper prestige class in Masters of the Wild..he says OK.
We start having adventures, which all seem to involve the party of 4 being stuck in 5ft tunnels in single file...person at the front gets attacked, people behind can't move forward to help & person at the front can't move out the way cause they're surrounded, person at front goes under 0 hit points,...this continues every session.
Eventually we reach level 3, and our DM announces that he's converting to 3.5. We all say "um...how about asking us? none of us have a 3.5 players handbook". DM says that none of the classes have changed much and we don't need one.
We rock up to the next session, where the DM points out to me I have to choose either a bow or TWF, I can't have both. Oh, and re-roll your HP cause you're now a D8 hit die. Oh and by the way your short bow now does only a D4 damage, same as the shortsword, cause halflings use smaller sized weapons. I say "hang on, I bought a shortbow cause it was the biggest bow I could use..can't I just change it for a longbow?" DM says "no, you have to sell it & buy a longbow. Sell value is 50% of the purchase price". So I sell all my gear & buy new gear, and have 6 GP left to my name.
At the end of THAT session, the DM says to me "By the way, I looked at that Deepwood Sniper class...it's way too powerful and it's not a 3.5 class, you can't play it unless you drop it down to a D6 hit die". rememebr I have 7 con....Not wanting to take such a hit to con I asked why. DM says that it's a ranger class, and as rangers dropped a hit die the sniper has to drop too. I try to point out that ANY class can become a DWS, he says no it's a ranger class. I say fine, I won't bother.
Next game rocks around, and we're being atatcked by goblins with longbows who are within 30 ft, shooting in to melee. Goblins doing 7 points of damage with their D6 damage longbows. Goblins who all have precise shot & point blank shot. With masterwork arrows. I start getting really frustrated now when I try to shoot one who's running away at 4x speed, only to be told I miss cause a creature running with their back turned at 4x speed still gets their dex bonus & I can't hit them with a roll of an 18. HUH???
Which brings us around to last week..we ask shouldn't he tell us a bit about the land we're on, but he doesn't give us any clue as to where we're from, where we live, what the names of continents are, etc. I say "If you're using a campaign setting, shouldn't you tell us something about it??? We don't even know where our homes are!" DM says "Well you only know what you call it, not what others call it" another HUH???
He throws us a campaign hook (we're level 4 now), which consists of "Can you guys check out the sanitarium? I'll give you 5 gold each for going there." We say "what if it's dangerous" he says "Oh, then you'll get 200 gold....to share amoungst you" There are 4 of us. We are the only 4th level characters alive with only 300 GP to their name.
I then say "OK, I've got the complete warrior now, it's all 3.5 prestige classes, and I want to eventually choose the Order of the Bow Initiate". DM says "I have to check it first" I go "But it's a 3.5 bow class....you said I couldn't have the deepwood sniper cause it wasn;t 3.5, this one is" DM says "Yes but I want to look at it, it might be too powerful"
We have another game tomorrow - it he insists on being so restrictive I can't play the character I want, I'll be thowing my PHB in his face & leaving.
Originally posted by edgelett
ok, my turn to rant...I have 3 DM's, 2 are great and one, well, he sucks.
Oh and by the way your short bow now does only a D4 damage, same as the shortsword, cause halflings use smaller sized weapons. I say "hang on, I bought a shortbow cause it was the biggest bow I could use..can't I just change it for a longbow?" DM says "no, you have to sell it & buy a longbow. Sell value is 50% of the purchase price". So I sell all my gear & buy new gear, and have 6 GP left to my name.
At the end of THAT session, the DM says to me "By the way, I looked at that Deepwood Sniper class...it's way too powerful and it's not a 3.5 class, you can't play it ...
He throws us a campaign hook (we're level 4 now), which consists of "Can you guys check out the sanitarium? I'll give you 5 gold each for going there." We say "what if it's dangerous" he says "Oh, then you'll get 200 gold....to share amoungst you" There are 4 of us. We are the only 4th level characters alive with only 300 GP to their name.
We have another game tomorrow - it he insists on being so restrictive I can't play the character I want, I'll be thowing my PHB in his face & leaving.
First of all- when there is a rule change- your PC doesn't have to sell his stuff and buy new stuff, That's just
I mean- I have heard some crazy things here, but that one takes the cake.
Next of all- he's a "cheap" DM. There's a chart in the DMG. DM's who aren't even close to that and score way under are bad controlphreak
. Talk to him and the other players. Tell the DM what he's doing wriong. Be polite but firm. Then you'll likely have to leave- but I bet you won't be going all by yourself.:D
Originally posted by was_fired
Erlana read the rules on trip. Except for refusing to allow TotGE to work he was right. If you fail your trip attempt they get to automatically attempt to trip you. The improved trip feat doesn't stop this.
I am aware of that, the argument is regarding the 'a touch attack doesn't mean you have touched' argument and the ToGI. It really centred around the fact that we were making opposed Dex. checks, therefore ToGI was a pretty important factor to take into account. Had he made the save, or failed to save and still won then fine, no argument.
Me "None of us have played forgotten realms"
"DM "Yes you have, Neverwinter Nights is set in forgotten realms!""
Me" um....I'd hardly call playing a computer game the same as having knowledge of a realm!! Besides, You haven't told us anything about what continent we're on, who the gods are, what town names are..."
"DM" You don't know any of that, you only know what the name of your home town is, you wouldn' t know the names of the gods, just what you call the god you worship!"
Me"But you haven't told us what town we're from!"
DM' Yes I did. it's on your background I made for you"
Me" No you didn't - look!" (I hand my background to my DM who sees no towns mentioned"
DM "Well you must just be from the town I started you in then...whatever one that was"
And he wonders why I seem like I don't want to play.
I also must thank you. You have provided an example of the absolute worst a DM can be. It is a good lesson for newbie DMs like myself to learn from.
Originally posted by edgelett
well, we gamed last night..Before we got our dice out DM says "OK, since some of you have played Forgotten Realms, if any of you mention anything about the realm or gods your characters wouldn't know I'm docking experience"
DM's should not be docking xp. Thats right there in the DMG.
Next- there is such a thing as "common knowledge". How many people in American know the name of Allah? Buddah? You may not know a lot about either faith- but just the name of the God is another thing entirely. Your PC never ever have even talked with someone else who worshipped another God? Never, ever even SEEN another Temple (you have to keep your eyes closed when you walk down Temple row, I guess),
And- for Oghma's sake- every kid in America knows they live in American and what State! Sure, i can buy you might not recognize the more obscure ones (in Faerun, each area has a list of the most common temples- I'd say anyone from that region would recognize those without even one rank in Ks-Religion)- and most Holy symbols would require a roll, but let's not get silly.
DM- You're walking along the street when you hear two voices from an alley call you over.
PCs- OK, we go over there.
DM- You see two humans talking. "Do you guys want magic items?" One of them asks.
"Yes, we do." We reply.
DM- "These guys are Admodeus and Baal, by the way."
Us- "What the..."
Yes, two demon princes were chatting in an alley in a level 5 adventure, selling dodgy magic items to PCs and generally for all intents and purposes acting like fencers. No, there was no secret plan, nor did they do anything except sell the items and teleport away. Everybody was stunned, it was too stupid to believe. They weren't plot items, and funniest of all, they were polymorped so we didn't know that in character, but he wanted us to know because they were "cool".
There was also a paladin with 50+ strength for no reason.
And the munchkiniest PC was randomly turned into a werebear, breaking any semblence of balance...
But it was more funny and lame than irritating. We just laughed at him...
:D
Originally posted by angryman
They weren't plot items, and funniest of all, they were polymorped so we didn't know that in character, but he wanted us to know because they were "cool".
Heh. One of my old DMs would do that too...he had his own homebrew race that one of the players (otherwise known as the DMPC By Proxy) played. Around the other characters he acted mysterious and rude, never letting us in on what he was doing or what he was or anything you'd expect people adventuring together to do, but when he went into his cabin ALONE, we would be forced to endure literally an hour of him roleplaying out the gritty details of a stupidly overcomplicated character, WHEN NONE OF US WERE AROUND AND HAD NO REASON TO CARE. The DM and his friend already knew everything this character did since they made him up wholesale, but would spend hours just roleplaying by themselves while the other characters played cards. Same situation as you and the "Your characters don't know this, but I'm telling you because I'm a jackass who can't think of ways to integrate interesting characters in a way your characters care about" DM.
Originally posted by edgelett
well, we gamed last night..Before we got our dice out DM says "OK, since some of you have played Forgotten Realms, if any of you mention anything about the realm or gods your characters wouldn't know I'm docking experience" "(our other DM does this too and we're fine with it - players shouldn't act on knowledge characters wouldn't have)
Me "None of us have played forgotten realms"
"DM "Yes you have, Neverwinter Nights is set in forgotten realms!""
Me" um....I'd hardly call playing a computer game the same as having knowledge of a realm!! Besides, You haven't told us anything about what continent we're on, who the gods are, what town names are..."
Actually, NWN and default DND are both set in Greyhawk.
Some player-made modules are based in FR, though.
eudas
Actually, NWN and default DND are both set in Greyhawk.
Well, Neverwinter Nights is set in the town of... well... Neverwinter. Neverwinter is in the Forgotten Realms. It's further up the coast from Waterdeep last I looked. Having said that though, the computer game didn't really do a good job of conveying the flavor of the realms.
You are indeed correct though, that Greyhawk (or Oerth, or whatnot) is the sort of default setting for D&D.
Regardless of that... edgelett's DM is a bit of a dolt. There's an amazing amount of basic knowledge that people (and, by extension, characters) pick up in their lives.
- Llew
Originally posted by eudas
Actually, NWN and default DND are both set in Greyhawk.
Some player-made modules are based in FR, though.
eudas
The default setting of D&D is indeed Greyhawk.
NWN however, is indeed set in the Realms. Check the game manual (not to mention the paperback anthology called NWN).
Tales of these DMs are truly starting to scare me. It's never too late for a round of introspection to see if any of these traits have started to creep in.
Happy Gaming.
P.S. Oops, Llewelynn beat my post. Sorry :embarrass
The DM had a moderately interesting world set forward, and it was a low-magic setting. Caster levels were halved, and magic item prices were doubled.
Call me a cynic, but once that one was dropped on me, I'd have just smiled, wished him the best of luck in his game, and walked out. Life is short and I don't have time to waste on crappy DMs. I've NEVER once met a DM who introed his D&D setting as 'low magic' that turned out to be anything better than awful.
Let that be a lesson to ya... avoid DMs who run D&D games 'low magic style' like the plague. All that's saying is 'I'm a whiney little poosy who doesn't have enough imagination to compensate for any PC who can cast a spell.'
And do note, I only say D&D settings. DMs who choose Modern or Spycraft and have magic, I smack on the head for being idiots.
Originally posted by UMCorian
Call me a cynic, but once that one was dropped on me, I'd have just smiled, wished him the best of luck in his game, and walked out. Life is short and I don't have time to waste on crappy DMs. I've NEVER once met a DM who introed his D&D setting as 'low magic' that turned out to be anything better than awful.
Let that be a lesson to ya... avoid DMs who run D&D games 'low magic style' like the plague. All that's saying is 'I'm a whiney little poosy who doesn't have enough imagination to compensate for any PC who can cast a spell.'
Amen, Brother!
The set up is that there is a mage school who monopolise magic. Anyone caught using magic outside of the mage school is hunted down and killed, they sell magic items to the general public at double cost and they are generally a nasty bunch of people.
There are, however, renegade mages who the PCs can find if they look hard enough who sell magic items at the correct prices and will help them. (They have already made contact with one.)
The history behind this is only known to the elves. At some point (if they follow the plot hooks) the PCs will find themselves in the elven lands and see a world they have never experienced before, magic being freely taught, enjoyed and used by regular members of society. Should they ask the right questions they will receive the right answers and should end up on a side mission to bring down the mage guild and free magic.
There is a mage in the group who is heading toward Loremaster and fronts herself as a teacher. They can make powerful renegade mages their allies if they go about it the right way and are allowed to use magic, but indiscretion may result in, erm, liquidation!
Seeing as, at the end of the day this is a low magic campaign (although only arcane magic) does that make me a nerfy DM?
Originally posted by Elrana
Seeing as, at the end of the day this is a low magic campaign (although only arcane magic) does that make me a nerfy DM?
I've always used the term "nerf" as a word that describes a depowering of something.
You nerf a spell because it's too powerful or you nerf a class because it can be abused.
The only word I have to describe the sort of campaign that Gallahad went though would be censored, unfortuately.
But anyway, what I think would make this sort of campaign a -bad- one has more to do with the individual DM. Low Magic (and high magic, for that matter) require a lot of effort to run and work and run and work well.
What GtP went through involved a ... I'll use the word lazy... DM that "fixed" all of his problems in the worst possible manners. He didn't use any sort of creativity and imagination. He basically forced the players to go along with what he wanted to see and didn't let them deviate.
You, El, and other DMs that might be considered good don't do that. They let the restraints go and, for the most part, let the players play the game to their satisfaction and only tightens restraints when it's absolutely necessary. (Like when bag-o-rats trick-like problems crop up.) They solve their problems within the bounds of the game without sacrificing continuity or player ingenuity and lets it be a creative environment. Not a constant DM vs. players.
There's much more to it, but that is, in a nutshell, what seporates a good DM from a bad one. But to sum it up as much as possible, it really has to do with how much work the DM is willing to do to make the game enjoyable, overall, without sacrificing a player's ability to choose or otherwise be creative. (which, I believe, is why low magic campaigns are usually warning flags for this sort of thing. Whenever I hear "low magic campaign" I forsee the DM enforcing a lot of questionable restrictions, especially since I'm so used to having all, or at least the majority of all of the D&D material I own at my disposal.)
I've always used the term "nerf" as a word that describes a depowering of something.
You nerf a spell because it's too powerful or you nerf a class because it can be abused.
The only word I have to describe the sort of campaign that Gallahad went though would be censored, unfortuately.
Nerf toys. safe, harmless, foam instead of plastic, doesn't hurt on impact.
If you nerf a gun, you turn it into a nerf gun and it doesn't quite hurt as much :P Actually, I do beleive that's where the origin of the term "to nerf" came from.
What GtP went through involved a ... I'll use the word lazy... DM that "fixed" all of his problems in the worst possible manners. He didn't use any sort of creativity and imagination. He basically forced the players to go along with what he wanted to see and didn't let them deviate.
LOL, that's exactly what he did. I actually run a high magic campaign right now. It doesn't hurt the PCs any, and I still can challange them with CRs of their level despite their having more power. Anyone who tries to break the game, obviously gets corrected. There's a pact between me and my players that I won't nerf them, if they don't abuse the rules, but at the same time they should use the rules to overcome the challenge I present with them. I can't say I'm the best DM, but I am a billion times better than the DM Galahad and I had previously. People actually have fun!!!
Originally posted by Llewelynn
Well, Neverwinter Nights is set in the town of... well... Neverwinter. Neverwinter is in the Forgotten Realms. It's further up the coast from Waterdeep last I looked. Having said that though, the computer game didn't really do a good job of conveying the flavor of the realms.
You are indeed correct though, that Greyhawk (or Oerth, or whatnot) is the sort of default setting for D&D.
Regardless of that... edgelett's DM is a bit of a dolt. There's an amazing amount of basic knowledge that people (and, by extension, characters) pick up in their lives.
- Llew
Doh. Working the early shift (with the attendant sleep deprivation) has really gotten to me. I stand corrected!
eudas
Originally posted by Elrana
Seeing as, at the end of the day this is a low magic campaign (although only arcane magic) does that make me a nerfy DM?
1. Do the PC's have useful equiptment in line with the values in the DMG (pg 135?).
2. Do most of the fighter-types have a weapon that can bypass the DR of the monsters they encounter?
If the answer to both is "yes" then you're OK.
Useful loot does not have to be magic. In a low magic world, they would have more super high quality items to compensate for less magic. Herbal healing potions/salves. "Grandmasterwork" weapons that get +1 to hit AND damage- but cost almost as much as a +1 magic weapon (thus in a normal magic world, there woudl be very little call for them). "Grandmasterwork" armour that either was an add'l +1 to AC or allowed an add'l point of dex to be used with it- with again, a cost near that of Magic armour. Maybe some smith has devised a way to harden silver so that it doesn't get the -1 to dmg. Maybe another has devised a way to make damascus blades that meld silver & cold iron to get a weapon that could beat DR of both.
A good DM can devise other great stuff to make up for less magic, whilst keeping the PC's useful equiptment in line with the suggested DMG guidelines.
Originally posted by Elrana
I am a little worried about some of your beliefs here. I have always considered myself to be a good DM, I don't railroad, I allow the players to fully exercise their skills and abilities and if I am outwitted because someone finds a get out clause in a challenge I set up that I didn't notice then they get XP for it, however, I am currently running a low magic campaign.
The set up is that there is a mage school who monopolise magic. Anyone caught using magic outside of the mage school is hunted down and killed, they sell magic items to the general public at double cost and they are generally a nasty bunch of people.
There are, however, renegade mages who the PCs can find if they look hard enough who sell magic items at the correct prices and will help them. (They have already made contact with one.)
The history behind this is only known to the elves. At some point (if they follow the plot hooks) the PCs will find themselves in the elven lands and see a world they have never experienced before, magic being freely taught, enjoyed and used by regular members of society. Should they ask the right questions they will receive the right answers and should end up on a side mission to bring down the mage guild and free magic.
There is a mage in the group who is heading toward Loremaster and fronts herself as a teacher. They can make powerful renegade mages their allies if they go about it the right way and are allowed to use magic, but indiscretion may result in, erm, liquidation!
Seeing as, at the end of the day this is a low magic campaign (although only arcane magic) does that make me a nerfy DM?
Well, unfortunately, most DMs that are awful think they are very good... so I can't really take your opinion there. Based on what I've seen, yes, I'd say there's a 95% chance you are a bad DM, and that's not being said personally. I have to lop you into the group of DMs that run low magic campaigns, and I have yet to play in one that wasn't awful. As little as it probably means, if you described that setting to me, I'd smile, wish you best of luck, and head over to the next table.
In my experience, D&D itself isn't MEANT to be a low magic setting. It's like... I don't know... taking The Force and Jedi out of Star Wars campaign and replacing it with angry clowns who drink beer and swear alot or something. It makes no sense to run D&D like that.
Now, I'll hedge this one off before it begins - yes, you can run D&D however you want to run it. That's the beauty of a game of the imagination... blah blah blah.
You can also drive a car with your hairy manbreasts too, but that doesn't make it a good idea or something that should be done.
Sorry, until I see otherwise, I'll never respect a 'low-magic DM,' no matter what lame excuse he makes up to have his setting be that way.
Originally posted by Simetrical
UMCorian: you did notice that the PC's still have divine magic, that they can still get magical items at their appropriate prices, and that they can still practice arcane magic if they're discreet about it? Elrana's campaign barely looks low-magic to me, in fact. In most ways it would function exactly like a normal campaign.
Thanks Simetrical, my campaign does function exactly like any other campaign, I was just testing the waters to see if the blinkered 'magic good, low magic bad' attitude was actually as blinkered as it read. Apparently in some cases it is.
The players in my campaign are all enjoying it a hell of a lot, they have the characters that they want, in a setting that they like, clear ideas of where to go and what to do to progress and plenty of appropriate enemies to kill and lots of treasure to find (I am a generous DM). They have to exercise their intellects to pick up on subtle hints and clues, and it is pretty role-play intensive with plenty of NPCs to meet, talk to and get to know.
The fact that they have a side plot they can choose to follow that will (if successful) result in freeing up the use of magic for all and sundry seems to me to be an additional level of intrigue they can investigate if they want to. The game is based around political machination and underground activity. The nature of the control of magic in this particular campaign is just a part of the history of the land that has led up to the current era of unrest and dissatisfaction and ultimately to civil war unless the PCs discover and defeat who is behind the conspiracies and so on in time to prevent it.
Originally posted by UMCorian
Well, unfortunately, most DMs that are awful think they are very good... so I can't really take your opinion there. Based on what I've seen, yes, I'd say there's a 95% chance you are a bad DM, and that's not being said personally. I have to lop you into the group of DMs that run low magic campaigns, and I have yet to play in one that wasn't awful. As little as it probably means, if you described that setting to me, I'd smile, wish you best of luck, and head over to the next table.
Whether you meant it personally or not that is the way I am taking it. I didn't ask if anyone thought I was a bad DM, but if you thought I was nerfing my players. And you are wrong, the fact that you would smile and wish me luck as you walked away does not mean very little, it means a lot. It means I would probably think 'thank buggery that supercilious snotrag has decided not to play'.
In my experience, D&D itself isn't MEANT to be a low magic setting. It's like... I don't know... taking The Force and Jedi out of Star Wars campaign and replacing it with angry clowns who drink beer and swear alot or something. It makes no sense to run D&D like that.
Yes, because that's the same. Well done, good point.
Now, I'll hedge this one off before it begins...
Don't try to second guess a person's arguments, it only makes you appear 1. supercilious and patronising and 2. very silly when you are wrong.
You can also drive a car with your hairy manbreasts too, but that doesn't make it a good idea or something that should be done.
Sorry, I don't really get this one. Are you suggesting that my campaign ranks in the idiocy stakes alongside attempting to drive using one's breasts to steer with, or are you calling me fat and hairy? Either way is pretty offensive, off the topic and maybe a wee bit juvenile.
Sorry, until I see otherwise, I'll never respect a 'low-magic DM,' no matter what lame excuse he makes up to have his setting be that way.
Oh, working out a land's history, writing a tale of political intrigue, separatist factions, religious upheaval, arcane control, civil unrest and racial segregation and setting a plot hook that allows the PCs to wrest arcane control from the hands of the current evil monopolisers and return it to the general populace is nothing but a lame excuse I have made up to have my setting that way?
I have to suggest an alternative, either your innate bigotry overcame you at the line that said I was running a low magic campaign and you read no further but went into auto-response mode or you simply do not have the imagination required to visualise a game played in a setting that is not exactly the setting you want to play in.
Exactly how do you expect to see otherwise if you just smile and walk away as the setting is described and thus go without ever experiencing such a campaign?
Just because you can't have everything that you want from a DM does give you the right to throw your rattle out the pram, but don't expect him to pick it up and give it back to you, or even to care.
You strike me as a narrow-minded and petulant twelve year old without much experience of role-playing. This is not an unusual state of mind in which to find a twelve year old, it is fairly standard. Oh, and being accused of being a twelve year old is not a good thing even if you are actually only ten. :D
Let me first note that I never once made a personal attack on you. I specifically said 'based on my experience' anytime I bashed low powered campaigns and the people who have DMed it. They have all been awful, the ones that I've played.
All I needed to see was that magical items cost twice what they are supposed to to read in between the lines: 'Magic Items will be rare, and the only magic items you will have are those I throw in your path. You *can* try to find guys who will sell at a fair price, but since they are very rare, it's entirely in my court.' Sure, that might balance them out, pricewise, but it doesn't nessecarily make it an awesome experience... sorta reminds of of a master throwing dogs a bone.
And please... they are allowed to use magic discreetly, but not otherwise lest my Dues Ex Machina casters finds them and liquifies them? (that's because I'm afraid of PCs Fireballing my precious encounters and otherwise doing clever things that I might actually have to have imagination to counter for)...
... and once more, I will remind our oversensitive viewers that this is merely an implied mindset that I put low-magic DMs on when their campaign turns out to be garbage. I think the OP of this thread will back me up here.
Am I open to the possibility that Elrana is the 'low-magic DM pariah,' the one and only who, if I had the pleasure to play under him (or her), would captivate me with his breathtaking detail, his awesome 3D NPCs, his adreniline pumping battle management and his overall fair and lucious rewards...?
... Sure why not. I'm also open to the possibilities that God is One of Us, we are really a cartoon, and Dell Desktops will one day liberate the people of Cuba.
In another words, I'll believe you when I see it.
Clearly, based on the vigor you have bit my head off with for comments that were based on my experience and, by no means, personal, you come off as a stereotypical blowhard that I'd expect to run a game that is considered nerfed (IE, limiting) to players... all those who don't like low-magic settings are, and I quote: "supercilious snotrags."... I don't know what the heck those are, but it sounds rather negative.
And the manbreasts analogy was my somewhat snide way of saying: "Just because you are within your power to do things doesn't make it a good idea." Chris Rock used a similiar analogy by saying "You can drive a car with your feet if you want to... but that don't make it a good fugging idea."
You strike me as a narrow-minded and petulant twelve year old without much experience of role-playing.
And to return an immature personal attack with an immature personal attack, you come off as a disgruntled, 45 year old fatbeard (or fatbeardess... can't tell your gender based on the screename) that thinks if people establish opinions based on their experience that conflicts with yours, they are 'petulant twelve year olds without experience.' (god, who the hell actually speaks this way? I mean... wow... he actually used the word supercilius twice in the same post.)
Originally posted by danielinthewolvesden
Elrana- could you answer my questions? please?
Oh, okay. Sorry, I thought they were rhetorical.
1. Do the PC's have useful equiptment in line with the values in the DMG (pg 135?).
Yes, wealth by level in mundane, precious and magic items.
2. Do most of the fighter-types have a weapon that can bypass the DR of the monsters they encounter?
They are currently fifth level, so no one has uber items yet, they all have magic weapons, at least one, and items of defence and utility and so on.
Let me first note that I never once made a personal attack on you. I specifically said 'based on my experience' anytime I bashed low powered campaigns and the people who have DMed it. They have all been awful, the ones that I've played.
Low powered? Where was it stated, anywhere, that my campaign is low powered? Hmm. Is a fighter low powered because he has no magic? Or a monk, or whatever?
Are you a munchkin?
All I needed to see was that magical items cost twice what they are supposed to to read in between the lines: 'Magic Items will be rare, and the only magic items you will have are those I throw in your path. You *can* try to find guys who will sell at a fair price, but since they are very rare, it's entirely in my court.' Sure, that might balance them out, pricewise, but it doesn't nessecarily make it an awesome experience... sorta reminds of of a master throwing dogs a bone.
In order to read between the lines you first need to read the lines themselves. This may have been your crucial error. Instead of jumping to conclusions based on your obviously extensive and conclusive experiences all you have to do is read what has been written. I was right about you reading no further than the bit that said low magic wasn't I?
And please... they are allowed to use magic discreetly, but not otherwise lest my Dues Ex Machina casters finds them and liquifies them? (that's because I'm afraid of PCs Fireballing my precious encounters and otherwise doing clever things that I might actually have to have imagination to counter for)...
Which part of discrete don't you understand? Fireballing a group that you intend to wipe out to the last man is discrete. Using magic in an abandoned mineshaft now inhabited by giant spiders is discrete. Attempting to charm the captain of the guard when he refuses you entry to a city after dark is not discrete.
(BTW, Deus. Dues ex machina sounds more like the Inland Revenue.)
Am I open to the possibility that Elrana is the 'low-magic DM pariah,' the one and only who, if I had the pleasure to play under him (or her), would captivate me with his breathtaking detail, his awesome 3D NPCs, his adreniline pumping battle management and his overall fair and lucious rewards...?
... Sure why not. I'm also open to the possibilities that God is One of Us, we are really a cartoon, and Dell Desktops will one day liberate the people of Cuba.
Shall we take that as a 'no' then? Once more you display your trademark openmindedness and broadness of vision.
In another words, I'll believe you when I see it.
But you'll walk away when you hear it, thus never getting the chance to see it. This causes something of a paradox.
Clearly, based on the vigor you have bit my head off with for comments that were based on my experience and, by no means, personal, you come off as a stereotypical blowhard that I'd expect to run a game that is considered nerfed (IE, limiting) to players... all those who don't like low-magic settings are, and I quote: "supercilious snotrags."... I don't know what the heck those are, but it sounds rather negative.
Again you display your ability to incorrectly ingest that which is clearly written before you. Smiling politely at someone, wishing them luck and walking away makes you a supercilious snotrag. Someone who doesn't like a low magic campaign is probably an underimaginative munchkin, but that is just a guess.
And the manbreasts analogy was my somewhat snide way of saying: "Just because you are within your power to do things doesn't make it a good idea." Chris Rock used a similiar analogy by saying "You can drive a car with your feet if you want to... but that don't make it a good fugging idea."
So the answer to my questioning of this comment was correct in the first instance. You feel that someone who runs a campaign with any kind of magic restriction is as stupid as someone who tries to drive with their breasts. But none of this is meant personally?
To what was Chris Rock referring when he said this? He also said 'white people don't got no butts' but I am not convinced that this is pertinent on a D&D forum. Instead of trying to be funny try to remain relevant and, if possible, original.
quote:
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You strike me as a narrow-minded and petulant twelve year old without much experience of role-playing.
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And to return an immature personal attack with an immature personal attack, you come off as a disgruntled, 45 year old fatbeard (or fatbeardess... can't tell your gender based on the screename) that thinks if people establish opinions based on their experience that conflicts with yours, they are 'petulant twelve year olds without experience.'
Wow, you can judge my physical appearance by your interpretation of my personality traits based solely on a couple of posts on the internet. Can you do the same in reverse? Judge a person's personality based solely upon a fleeting view of their physical appearance?
There are organisations all across the southern states of the US that hold their arms open to the likes of you. Narrowmindedness, prejudgement and a dogged adherence to a given dogma in the face of evidence to the contrary are highly regarded in their circles.
BY the way, for future reference I am neither fat, bearded or 45. I am, however, disgruntled by your post, and your attitude. If you looked at my signature you would be able to divine my gender.
(god, who the hell actually speaks this way? I mean... wow... he actually used the word supercilius twice in the same post.)
I find that anyone with intelligence and any kind of vocabulary can talk this way rather than resorting to quoting stand up comics and mispelling Latin that they don't understand. And yes, I used 'supercilious' twice in one post, and I spelled it correctly both times despite not having it written in front of me.
As a player I strongly prefer to play in low magic worlds, so this clearly isn't some sort of control issue like you think it is. I kind of see it as a maturity issue. Immature people want all of the magical items that they can get. Semimature people want everyone to have lots (say according to the wealth levels in the DMG). Mature people realize that too many magical items takes away from their wonder.
Low powered? Where was it stated, anywhere, that my campaign is low powered? Hmm. Is a fighter low powered because he has no magic? Or a monk, or whatever?
Are you a munchkin?
Nope... just a mistyper. Low-Power=Low-Magic, *usually* synominous, but apparently you are the true Low-Magic Pariah.
Which part of discrete don't you understand? Fireballing a group that you intend to wipe out to the last man is discrete. Using magic in an abandoned mineshaft now inhabited by giant spiders is discrete. Attempting to charm the captain of the guard when he refuses you entry to a city after dark is not discrete.
(BTW, Deus. Dues ex machina sounds more like the Inland Revenue.)
I love this guy. I come in with an opposing oppinion and leave with a spelling lesson as well. Can anyone say BLOWHARD?
In order to read between the lines you first need to read the lines themselves. This may have been your crucial error. Instead of jumping to conclusions based on your obviously extensive and conclusive experiences all you have to do is read what has been written. I was right about you reading no further than the bit that said low magic wasn't I?
Yep. I don't believe I ever led onto the belief that I did read further than the point where I said "All I needed to read was... etc." Now, I actually have gone back and read it... and stand by all the opinions I expressed. All I see is a DM who hates PCs using magic, made up a lame excuse to keep it from them, and balances it by saying: "Well, they'll have a chance to overthrow this tyranny!"... and has the BLOWHARD personality I've come to so expect from such a DM.
Now I'll say this... if you'd put half the effort you spend on creating creative ways to keep magic from PCs, you'd probably have figured a whole bunch of ways to actually defeat them without nerfing them.
Besides... if all your PCs absolutely *love* your game, as you say, and nothing could be going better for it... why, pray tell, are you coming at me like a rabid dog with his genitals in a vice? Just pat me on the head, smile, and walk away. That's what I do to BLOWHARDS like you, usually.
Shall we take that as a 'no' then? Once more you display your trademark openmindedness and broadness of vision.
Whoa... I have a trademark already? Cool!
But you'll walk away when you hear it, thus never getting the chance to see it. This causes something of a paradox.
See? Professor BLOWHARD caught that one too...
Let's whip out a big, BLOWHARD type word and do a little Juxtoposition here between one quote of yours and your basic message (at least, I think) from a few posts ago.
Someone who doesn't like a low magic campaign is probably an underimaginative munchkin, but that is just a guess.
Gee... so BLOWHARD says that anyone who doesn't give his low-magic game a chance is a bigot, and how it's wrong to judge - bigotry, right? Now, he turns around and makes a comment like this saying that all people who enjoy using magic in a D&D setting and don't like games where they can't have no imagination and are munchkins. Holy Double Standard Batman! He's a hypocrite AND a BLOWHARD
Now to get semi-serious. Call me whatever you want... a bigot (yes, that's me. I oppress people based on the Dungeons and Dragons games they run... Sieg Heil), a supercilious snotrag (I still have no idea what that means. lol) an underimaginative munchkin, or a petulant twelve year old... all I can say is, at least, I'm not a BLOWHARD whose idea of 'putting someone in their place' is overanaylizing their posts, lashing out against anyone with a different opinion with personal attacks, and when all else fails, proving their superiority by pointing out... SPELLING MISTAKES in the other person's post.
And as far as divining anything from your signature, stop posting it after 1 time per thread. As if it wasn't annoying the first time, do we have to keep reading it?
God, what a fugging BLOWHARD...
((Ooh, I used Blowhard 9 times in the last post... I feel so special))
Originally posted by UMCorian
Nope... just a mistyper. Low-Power=Low-Magic, *usually* synominous, but apparently you are the true Low-Magic Pariah.
Pariah. You keep using that word. You do know what it means don't you?
I love this guy. I come in with an opposing oppinion and leave with a spelling lesson as well. Can anyone say BLOWHARD?
Hey, I'm touched, I love you too. I can say it but don't know what it means. Feel free to explain. (BTW, as a return favour 'snotrag' means a tissue. Something one clears one's nose into.)
Yep. I don't believe I ever led onto the belief that I did read further than the point where I said "All I needed to read was... etc." Now, I actually have gone back and read it... and stand by all the opinions I expressed. All I see is a DM who hates PCs using magic, made up a lame excuse to keep it from them, and balances it by saying: "Well, they'll have a chance to overthrow this tyranny!"... and has the BLOWHARD personality I've come to so expect from such a DM.
As I have stated several times, my PCs have and use magic. Why are you constantly chasing a route that is closed?
Now I'll say this... if you'd put half the effort you spend on creating creative ways to keep magic from PCs, you'd probably have figured a whole bunch of ways to actually defeat them without nerfing them.
I don't aim to defeat my PCs, I aim to run a game that they enjoy. As far as I am aware that is the job of the DM. Aiming to defeat your PCs is, so you have led me to believe, a trait of a control freak DM.
Besides... if all your PCs absolutely *love* your game, as you say, and nothing could be going better for it... why, pray tell, are you coming at me like a rabid dog with his genitals in a vice? Just pat me on the head, smile, and walk away. That's what I do to BLOWHARDS like you, usually.
I am coming at you like a rabid dog with his genitals in a vice because you are a narrowminded moron who is incapable of comprehension, lacks any kind of vocabulary beyond the tabloid favourites and is threatened by the educated. That annoys me in a person.
Whoa... I have a trademark already? Cool!
It is not something to be proud of, not all reputations are good reputations.
See? Professor BLOWHARD caught that one too...
Let's whip out a big, BLOWHARD type word and do a little Juxtoposition here between one quote of yours and your basic message (at least, I think) from a few posts ago.
Gee... so BLOWHARD says that anyone who doesn't give his low-magic game a chance is a bigot, and how it's wrong to judge - bigotry, right? Now, he turns around and makes a comment like this saying that all people who enjoy using magic in a D&D setting and don't like games where they can't have no imagination and are munchkins. Holy Double Standard Batman! He's a hypocrite AND a BLOWHARD
Once more your lack of comprehension wins out, that was aimed at you, not at everyone who "enjoy using magic etc..." I play wizards in plenty of games, I also run games with no restrictions on magic, in this particular game magic is restricted by the powers that be, but not by the nature of the world, in the same way as murder and **** are illegal. Killing the town nice-guy without sufficient proof that he is actually a child sacrificing worshipper of Hextor will also result in prosecution. Is that also a nerf? Or just more hypocrisy?
Now to get semi-serious.
About time, I've been hoping you would.
Call me whatever you want... a bigot (yes, that's me. I oppress people based on the Dungeons and Dragons games they run... Sieg Heil), a supercilious snotrag (I still have no idea what that means. lol) an underimaginative munchkin, or a petulant twelve year old... all I can say is, at least, I'm not a BLOWHARD whose idea of 'putting someone in their place' is overanaylizing their posts, lashing out against anyone with a different opinion with personal attacks, and when all else fails, proving their superiority by pointing out... SPELLING MISTAKES in the other person's post.
Unfortunately I don't really need to call you anything at all, you manage to do it quite admirably yourself. Although I am glad that you recognise my superiority I do not attempt to prove it by pointing out spelling mistakes, it is simply in the first case explaining a mistake you made in a foreign tongue, and in the second displaying the lack of attention that you have evidently paid to what you have read.
And as far as divining anything from your signature, stop posting it after 1 time per thread. As if it wasn't annoying the first time, do we have to keep reading it?
You don't have to keep reading it, and apparently you hadn't, otherwise you would have been aware of my gender, so why complain about it?
God, what a fugging BLOWHARD...
((Ooh, I used Blowhard 9 times in the last post... I feel so special))
Ah, the age old classic, resorting to spelling manipulation in order to truly display your lack of imagination and vocabulary and fall back on the swearing that I can only imagine would make up the majority of your peurile ramblings if the forum hadn't disallowed it. How clever of you to find a way around this little point of recognition of peoples' sensibilities that WotC saw fit to put in here.
Hey, I used 'the' numerous times in my thread, does that make me any more special? No, there is no alternative to the definite article, there are several alternatives to 'blowhard', it just shows your lack of imagination. However, I am willing to believe that you are special in other ways.
After your first post someone PMed me saying 'ignore this guy he's just a troll.' I chose to give you the benefit of the doubt and ignore that warning. On the strength of how you continued I looked at your profile and checked out a couple of your other posts. Some seem trollish, some don't.
If not a troll you are certainly confrontational rather than tactful, boorish rather than diplomatic and stubborn to the point of immobility. Further you seem to believe that any who hold an alternate perspective to you are open prey to your attempts at ridicule and you have yet to fully grasp the mastery and subtleties required in order to make sarcasm work to your benefit.
All of which return me to my original point: so how old are you?
After your first post someone PMed me saying 'ignore this guy he's just a troll.' I chose to give you the benefit of the doubt and ignore that warning. On the strength of how you continued I looked at your profile and checked out a couple of your other posts. Some seem trollish, some don't.
Well, thank you, but I'm not a troll. A troll is someone who lobs a grenade and hopes someone will pounce on it. This is a thread that started at the expense of a Low-Magic DM who runs campaigns that are boring to his players... if anyone is the troll, it's you man. You come in and basically throw about your low-magic setting and then get offended when someone thinks you are one in the same as the DM the OP was originally talking about.
Come on guy, you obviously are relatively smart... you were the one who took it to a personal level first. I was content to just say my preferences on low-magic games and how, based on my experience, you probably weren't a good DM. Then you call me an immature 12 year old snotrag.
And, finally, I really don't believe anyone PMed you with that message. Kinda strange he'd know I posted if he followed his own advice and ignored me.
I am coming at you like a rabid dog with his genitals in a vice because you are a narrowminded moron who is incapable of comprehension, lacks any kind of vocabulary beyond the tabloid favourites and is threatened by the educated. That annoys me in a person.
If you must have this detail of my life... no, I'm not threatened by education. I'm just the type of person who doesn't say 'I must pass excreetment' when I mean 'I have to take a
.' I don't say 'Supercilious Snotrag' when I mean '.' I'm a simple kid from Boston and don't use big words most people don't understand and that you'll never find spoken outside an academic seminar or a 1,000 dollar per plate dinner... and people who annoy me as a person are the ones who nitpick on Latin references and spelling errors when it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. We stumbled across each other's buttons there, I suppose.If not a troll you are certainly confrontational rather than tactful, boorish rather than diplomatic and stubborn to the point of immobility. Further you seem to believe that any who hold an alternate perspective to you are open prey to your attempts at ridicule and you have yet to fully grasp the mastery and subtleties required in order to make sarcasm work to your benefit.
I'll admit, perhaps I should have sugarcoated my first post directed at you... you posted how you were a little worried about some of our beliefs concerning low magic and described a low-magic setting which I bluntly said something like, "Well, I'd lob ya in with the low-magic crew, which means you have a 95% chance of being a bad DM." Maybe I should have said something like: "Sorry, but a DM running a low magic setting has to work much, much harder to impress me." I don't mince words, that's all... and if you took that as me saying: "You obviously must stink at DMing," then, fine, I apologize for that.
I don't aim to defeat my PCs, I aim to run a game that they enjoy. As far as I am aware that is the job of the DM. Aiming to defeat your PCs is, so you have led me to believe, a trait of a control freak DM.
This was a reply you gave me when I was using sarcasm that was *too* subtle. You are exactly right... you shouldn't aim to defeat PCs. Whenever a DM has run a low magic game in the past, that is all I see from them. They do it just like the DM the OP was talking about... they hold it over the heads of their PCs and use it against them at their will. Every DM I've encountered who runs low magic, ever since I was 11, 11 years ago (there's my age, if you must know as well), was a power mongerer.
I mean, really, can you not see the similarities between you and the OP's DM? You both have a faction that uses all the magic they want, and if a PC wants to have the freedom to use magic, they have to do it without them knowing. All magical items in your game cost x2 as much (unless they track down the venders that are extremely rare... which I cannot help but find suspect, blame my cynic nature). Heck, the only difference seems to be that you don't half your caster levels.
Which brings me back to a point I made in the first... which I will strip all sarcasm from: Can a DM run a low-magic campaign that is so fun that it might make me forget all about it? Yeah, I guess so, but it's never happened. I played at my University club, surrounding game clubs, home games and even online on OpenRPG (and WebRPG when it was big)... and I've *never* played in one I enjoyed. Now, you are going to tell me I'm a bigot and unimaginative munchkin because I don't feel like wasting an hour or two making up a character for a game that I believe will be crap, when I could just easily go over to the next table and play D&D the way I like it?
Please, buddy. Sell it somewhere else, I'm not buying it.
One last thing.
Someone who doesn't like a low magic campaign is probably an underimaginative munchkin, but that is just a guess.
Once more your lack of comprehension wins out, that was aimed at you, not at everyone who "enjoy using magic etc..."
How was that NOT aimed at everyone who doesn't like low-magic games? You didn't say 'You are an underimaginative munchkin'... you address that to 'someone who doesn't like a low powered magic campaign.'
I'm at the edge of my seat, watching to see the next episode of "Flame Wars: Low Magic Strikes back,"
Personally, having been in the campaign that started this thread in the first place, I wouldn't mind playing a low magic campaign again [i][u]IF[/i][/u] it were an interesting storyline, it were not a nerf, it were not the same DM doing the exact same BS he did, and basically it was just a different setting yet still balanced. The biggest problem with the campaign was it was "haha I can use magic, but you can't" The "tower of exaggerated sorcerey" was a giant phalic symbol for the DM.
Low magic is not a bad idea - biasing the world against the players is. From the information given by Elrana I can say it shows signs of being a good idea, but it doesn't show the whole picture. It could go either way.
Low magic campaigns do not make poor campaigns. My most memorable moments in my campaigns where not where I whipped out some awesome magical item that save the world but campaigns where I worked step by step to topple the evil plans of arch villain bob (whatever).
The campaign I’m in right now I what by your terms is low magic. However in reality it is high magic but restricted. Post magic wars left the earth barren there is almost no water major plant life is dead and clerics are about the only thing keeping concentrations of people alive. A group of surviving wizards (LG) have banded together and are devoted to keeping the wars from ever recurring. That means that you have to pass their test b4 you can become a wizard and detectors in towns search for unauthorized magic much like in Baldur’s gate 2. Except now there is no license to buy. There is no night on this world. Clerics are allowed to perform magic but are limited to non offensive spells to prevent magical warfare from breaking out. The elves where wiped out by kobolds and the seas are sandy wastelands. My rogue wants to learn magic so I had to steal books from wizards. No easy task. We are relatively poor having only earned about 30 gold apiece in the last level and are level 2 now. Are we upset? No. every gold piece is earned and every magic item is precious to us.
It seems to me that many of you have forgotten that DnD originally had almost NO way to produce magic items. Every single thing you found was precious and unique. Characters where defined by who they were instead of what they carried. One poster made a great remark about “my +5 Vorpal great sword walks into the room, oh and my character comes too.”
UMCorian & Elrana, Please drop it, regardless of origins or backgrounds the question at hand is about bad dm’ing. Nothing in the last couple posts by either of you have had much to do about dm’ing. I’m not saying this to be harsh or anything I just would hate to see a good thread be derailed please stick to pm’s if you feel that this needs to continue.
I’ve played in a couple of high magic campaigns and they are even worse IMO than ultra low’s due to the fact that character class becomes superfluous I never feel as if my character does anything its all the items in his bag.
One of the examples of bad dm’ing I had involved a dm with several dmpc’s… that there should tip you off to a problem. While I have nothing against dm’s playing npc’s dm’s with pc’s should never be allowed to play them. That being said I had a teifling wizard who couldn’t speak common…. Now that was a fun rp opportunity. The big problem was that the wizard through careful hording and a few lucky horserace bets made quite a bit of cash 500,00gp and a robe of eyes. This was from 1 by level 15. Not a single other magic item on me. Well long story short and countless examples of dm munchkin pc’s (I’m ace I own a city of paladins) or (I’m an elf lord who owns an elf city let me dip into the vaults). Well level 15 goes around and I have to miss a session. I ask the dm how long we will be separated, and how much exp I have to burn. (dm tracked exp loved that control *grrr) ok right then with that info I now craft items to boost Intelligence for my wizard My Constitution and some other sundry magical items that while weak individually made up for in versatility. (Like nolzur’s marvelous pigments). Well we can’t have a pc being more powerful than the dm’s character now can we. All of the sudden we are teleported to a bar… I try to tp back…
Dm: you can’t
Me: why not?
Dm: you don’t know
Me: then how did we get here?
Dm: you’re holding up the game…..
Right ok then long story short we wind up in a temple and everyone walks into a side room and a 40 ft slab of stone crashed down and seals us off.
Dm: all of your magical items are not working.
Party:???
Dm: the room lights up and you see 5 beholders looking at you.
Dm: they shoot rays make a will save.
Me (oc): aren’t beholders affected by Antimagic fields as well?
Dm: these are special
Right…..
Well everyone’s charmed and they are told to wait outside.
I’m immune to charm but to rp properly since my character hadn’t seen the rays (nor knows much of underdark creatures) I stood up and asked what was going on? They then disintegrated me… HA! 5 fort save later I’m still alive did a little dance.
Dm: you see an illithid walk in
Me (oc);!!!!
Me IC: what’s wrong with your face?
Dm: the Ilithid attaches itself to the back of your head
Me (oc): *cough* saves
Dm (Little miffed); fine
Me: what are you doing 4 reflex saves later (Ha I win!)
Dm: roll another
Me: !
Me: ok… makes it
Dm: roll another
Me: !!
Me: ok… makes it
Dm: roll another
Me: !!!
Me: ok… finally fails
Dm: You die the mind flayer take all of your stuff and the rest of the party’s charm wears off and you all start walking back to town.
Me: I left the paladin 100k to rez me if I died.
Dm: ok the paladin pays for a true res it fails.
Me: I left funds for every option
Dm: Miracle fails my god kalemvor hates you cause you were a necromancer
Me: in never made undead nor have I infringed on anything kalemvor hates...
Dm: well he hates you
Me: what about the wish?
Dm: it fails
Me: bloody hell reincarnate?
Dm: it fails.
Me: WHY!
Dm: Because you’re an outside and can’t be rezed.
Me: your telling me in spite of the rules in the core books about outsiders and wish and despite the fact you ok'ed a tiefling and despite the fact that in the faerun handbook which you agreed and specifically told us to use tieflings are native outsiders and may be raised normally, AND the fact that 100k worth or gold was spent to try and bring me back none of this works!!!!!
Dm: I said you can’t and in my campaign native outsiders can’t be rezed.
Me: the paladin is an assimier (sorry forgot the spelling) and has been raise twice as have I once before and suddenly it stops working.
Dm: GET OUT OF HERE WHAT I SAY GOES COME BACK WITH MORE REPECT FOR ME AND I MIGHT LET YOU PLAY AGAIN.
Well you can guess how that ended; on a positive note I stole one of his 8 sets of dice.
Originally posted by Lokiyn
Well you can guess how that ended; on a positive note I stole one of his 8 sets of dice.
Good for you, Lokiyn.
That's exactly what I would have done in that situation.
UMCorian: Final round to you, sorry, can't be arsed to continue. It would never have worked anyway, our beliefs are just too different. It was fun while it lasted, we had some good times. Don't be upset, it's me, not you, move on and find something else.
And remember, we'll always have Boston.
Lokiyn: That isn't anything to do with high or low magic, it is just muppetry to the highest degree, what a tosser.
I too remember early D&D when your character finally found a +1 short sword at fourth level and clung on to it with all his might. I once had a seventh level paladin who was granted a +2 sword by his god for defeating a twelfth level barabarian warlord in an honour duel and the whole group were stood around staring at it in amazement, it was probably the highest powered magical item they had ever seen.
In today's D&D for managing the same feat you would get the fourteen magic items that the warlord was carrying, a holy avenger +5, a ring of three wishes and a get out of death free card or something.
I am quite happy to play either way, the important thing is game balance. So long as the NPCs are following the same rules and restrictions as the PCs are then all is fine.
My only objection to the new system D&D is death and dying. It used to be the nature of the game that you tried your damnedest to keep your character alive because you went up in level slowly, you worked bloody hard to make him the character you wanted him to be and if you died that was it. Game over.
Now death is nothing more than an expensive inconvenience. And if you don't mind the level drop it needn't even be that expensive. Unfortunately, as I am sure certain readers of this thread will agree, you can't just decide to disallow one spell because you don't like it.
In our games we ask the players for their character's attitude toward death and resurrection as they enter the game and that is the belief that we follow if they die, short of them experiencing some kind of epiphany and letting us know mid-game that their religious/philosophical attitude toward death has changed.
I lost a damn good gnome ranger who saw death as the ultimate adventure that way. Bloody vampires. All you have to do is name yourself Shadowstalker Woodsfriend the Trueseeing, Hunter of the Undead and Slayer of Vampires and every damn bloodsucker in the realm comes looking for you.
The really annoying thing is that if he knew about Reincarnation he would definitely have been happy, if not determined to give it a whirl, he liked to gamble and was happy to enter into anything so long as he couldn't be certain of the outcome.
Anyway, RIP Shadowstalker, end transmission.
We had a PC council to rule over our country but he had enough DMPC's to out vote all of us.Almost every enemy had a ring of non-scrying that desappeared when killed along with all his weapons and crap. But it was the only game in town so we stuck it out for a while but the group broke up we didn't play again till 3rd edition came out the old DM refused to switch so we now have a better game going without out him
Originally posted by Elrana
[b]Sphyre[/b
I too remember early D&D when your character finally found a +1 short sword at fourth level and clung on to it with all his might. I once had a seventh level paladin who was granted a +2 sword by his god for defeating a twelfth level barabarian warlord in an honour duel and the whole group were stood around staring at it in amazement, it was probably the highest powered magical item they had ever seen.
In today's D&D for managing the same feat you would get the fourteen magic items that the warlord was carrying, a holy avenger +5, a ring of three wishes and a get out of death free card or something.
Oh gods no. I played D&D since the first printing, and early D&D was rather Monte Haul in comparison to 3.5. That is- assuming the DM followed the suggested tables. YMMV.
"No, it's not magic, it's psionics," he says, "Every NPC in the game has the same restrictions on magic. Psionics is different because it comes from within the user, not from manipulating existing energy."
Whatever.
Every time I got annoyed because my character got mind-blasted, I'd have to hear him get smug and lecture me about how psionics are unique and special, so there's absolutely nothing inconsistent about letting them run free and rampant. Of course, no PC was allowed to have psionic levels.
Each time there was a psionic character that shone out in the campaign where one of the party members had failed was just insult to injury.
Sorry folks
There is a difference between high and low magic campaigns and high and low magic worlds.
A high or low magic campaign is one where the characters encounter or possess that amount of magic. A high or low magic world describes how much magic is generally available in the campaign setting.
The Realms and Greyhawk are normal magic campaigns. Adventurers have about the same amount of magic. Most of Greyhawk is a low magic world, making adventurers an anomolous concentration of power. Some parts of the Realms are low magic (Narfell, the Shar) are low, some are mid (Silver Marches, Cormyr) and some are high (Halruaa, Thay).
In a low magic world, ordinary adventurers will have more power against ordinary people. The will be more extraordinary, but that doesn't necessarily change the campaign much. You may need an extra knight to challenge them in encounter A, but the Hydra in encounter B is fine as is.
Same for a high magic world. Ordinary PCs are less extraordinary, but that doesn't necessarily change much.
My simpathy for being shackled to the rowing bench. I am fortunate enough that it has been a long time since I've had anything close to as terrible treatment from a DM.
Just my 2 cents.
Originally posted by Elrana
Now death is nothing more than an expensive inconvenience. And if you don't mind the level drop it needn't even be that expensive. Unfortunately, as I am sure certain readers of this thread will agree, you can't just decide to disallow one spell because you don't like it.
Well, it's not very fun to lose a character you've grown attached to because of an unlucky roll.
Originally posted by Enslaved DM
Just my 2 cents.
One for each post? ;)
Originally posted by Elrana
My only objection to the new system D&D is death and dying. It used to be the nature of the game that you tried your damnedest to keep your character alive because you went up in level slowly, you worked bloody hard to make him the character you wanted him to be and if you died that was it. Game over.
Now death is nothing more than an expensive inconvenience. And if you don't mind the level drop it needn't even be that expensive. Unfortunately, as I am sure certain readers of this thread will agree, you can't just decide to disallow one spell because you don't like it.
Umm, Raise dead was there in the original 3 Volume Set. It's right there on pg 224 of the 2nd ED PHB. And Resurrection is right there too on pg235. So- it has NEVER been, in the entire history of D&D "if you died that was it. Game over.". Sorry, friend, but I was playing back in the 70's and I know it's always been there.
Originally posted by danielinthewolvesden
Umm, Raise dead was there in the original 3 Volume Set. It's right there on pg 224 of the 2nd ED PHB. And Resurrection is right there too on pg235. So- it has NEVER been, in the entire history of D&D "if you died that was it. Game over.". Sorry, friend, but I was playing back in the 70's and I know it's always been there.
The ethos of the game when I was playing way back when was very different. You were expected to stay alive and not to just rely on magic to resurrect you every time you dropped dead. Maybe that was just the particular groups I played with but it seemed far less frequent in the earlier editions than it is now.
Right now, in 3.5 you can ban all those spells if you like.
originally psoted by UMCorian Let that be a lesson to ya... avoid DMs who run D&D games 'low magic style' like the plague. All that's saying is 'I'm a whiney little poosy who doesn't have enough imagination to compensate for any PC who can cast a spell.
So I guess this makes me a whiney little poosy who deosnt have enough imagination to compensate for any PC who can cast a spell...
Thanks for not insulting me UMCorian
Whats not fun is player = low magic while rest of the world != low magic
In other words if i have to scrounge through ruins as a rogue to even find enough materials to begin multiclassing into a wizard (my original desired class) and bob the 40th level wizard attacks me for using magic in town then i'm going to be a little miffed.
Originally posted by Lokiyn
Low magic is fun. Not necessarily better than anything else but still fun.
Whats not fun is player = low magic while rest of the world != low magic
In other words if i have to scrounge through ruins as a rogue to even find enough materials to begin multiclassing into a wizard (my original desired class) and bob the 40th level wizard attacks me for using magic in town then i'm going to be a little miffed.
With all due respects Lokiyn, if Bob the fortieth level wizard attacks you then you're going to be a little dead long before you get the chance to be a little miffed!
Originally posted by Lokiyn
In other words if i have to scrounge through ruins as a rogue to even find enough materials to begin multiclassing into a wizard (my original desired class) and bob the 40th level wizard attacks me for using magic in town then i'm going to be a little miffed.
Dude, where you in my campaign somehow? Because that was what practically happened to me.
Which reminds me of yet another stupid thing that happened during that nerfy campaign. My barbarian was getting 5 skill points per level (10 int, human) and that's more than I have any idea what to do with, so I decided, "What if I became a literate barbarian who was a virtuoso of many languages?" So I decided to start buying ranks in Speak Language.
When my DM found out about this, he asked me who I was learning these languages from. Of course, no one was, so I couldn't learn any languages without finding someone to teach me.
His logic was that for any other skill or feat, anyone could put forth the time and effort to invent it on his own. But you can't unilaterally acquire knowledge of an existing language.
Now I don't have any problem with a DM making PCs seek training before they take feats and put ranks in skills. But he let me freely take any feat I qualified for. Furthermore, I was allowed to buy ranks in survival, another skill that you can't really figure out on your own. So this ruling was another blatant inconsistency.
This ruling was just a little irritating to me, but at least it wasn't an instant-death ray that passes through walls of force and SR getting rid of dragons who had ascended to godhood.
Oh but my character ultimately did learn a few languages. He went to the library of the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery, and checked out a bunch of books on how to speak Undercommon, Dwarven, Sylvan, etc. When it was time to level, he'd get some new languages, and then he threw the books into a river. It was great.
i like taking things like that and running with them. For example i forgot to write down common as a language known. The dm said all things where final you can spend points to learn it.... well no i never learned common for 15 levels of gameplay.That was some fun times (for the players).
Sometimes dm's can take the training methods too far. Expecially the magically ignorant who play fighters and monks. (nothing wrong with that they just need to respect us crazy egomaniacal wielders of force incarnate....):D
Once you learn wizard level 1 you can self study the rest.
Once you learn cleric level 1 you can self study even better than a wiz
Once you learn druid level 1 you can self study even better than a wiz or cleric
Barbs don't even need to study
If a rogue is stealling things he is getting training.
Bards are self taught musicians who stumble upon magic making melodies
etc...
So I guess this makes me a whiney little poosy who deosnt have enough imagination to compensate for any PC who can cast a spell...
Thanks for not insulting me UMCorian
As I said to Elrana... it's based on my experiences. Maybe most DMs who DO run low magic games run phenominal games that put the best games I've ever played in to absolute shame and I've just had horrid luck with DMs. Who knows. What I do know is that I've played in quite a few low-magic games, and I've not enjoyed them (as I'm sure anyone who observed the Flame War will note). As someone said above, more often than not, it isn't a low magic game, it's a 'low magic for you' game.
And all this was by the players choice... they asked me to run a low-magic campaign...
And, if this is true, we are talking about apples and oranges. If I'm running a Star Wars game and all the players want me to replace the Force and Jedi with angry clowns who drink beers and swear all the time (this one was Elrana's favorite), then everyone's happy. (have to admit, I might be onto something)
If everyone at your table would like a low-magic game, great, give it to em! Just don't be all that surprised if someone who doesn't like low-magic games comes along, inquires, then walks away. Life's short... you have to play the type of games you like.
Sincerely,
Bui Mei Ginn of the Empire, Level 14 Soldier/Angry Drunk Clown
Because a response against any Low Magic campaign (of any kind) that uses any and all other Low Magic campaigns as a basis for judging an individual is showing such behavoir. It is Bigitory.
Really, that's what seemingly occured in this original example.
I generally agree that most DMs who run low-magic games are just having control issues... but I am still gonna give any game the benefit of a session before I decide to quit.
Currently I am playing/running 3 games... I play in one high magic game and I play in one by the book game(he is running us through Cauldron... I think that is the name) and I am running a low magic game and all the people are the same in the low and medium game and 5 of those people are also in the high magic game...
I was just trying to point out that it may not be good to call all DMs that run low-magic campaigns " a whiney little poosy"
heck this is my first low-magic game and it is really kinda cool... the players have to come up with non-magic solutions to problems that magic would have solved in any other game.
Originally posted by Galahad the Pure
For the record, the DM I was talking about in the original post was someone I would characterize as a whiney little poosy.
What was that about not calling him a D on the board, yet you call him a whiney little poosy? Delicious. *nods* but you are correct, he fits that criteria.Originally posted by starfire311
I was just trying to point out that it may not be good to call all DMs that run low-magic campaigns " a whiney little poosy"
heck this is my first low-magic game and it is really kinda cool... the players have to come up with non-magic solutions to problems that magic would have solved in any other game.
He's basically said his experience is negative, and that he is jumping the gun. First rule of thumb in not looking like a fool is to "Look before you leap" But, at the same time he is defending his reason for beleiving it. He is wrong by not having a broad veiw, but at least he came to his conclusion in a somewhat rational way.
For the very fact that you said "they asked you to run a low magic campaign" puts the responsibility on the players not you, the DM. I hardly think asking someone to give them less magical power is the DM trying to control and limit the PCs.
Originally posted by Sphyre
I made this smiley yesterday. I think it's more than fitting for the DM of the Nerfiest Campaign Ever.
I bet Bitinine would love it.
Best. Smily. Ever.
Originally posted by TheDarkestOfAngels
I bet Bitinine would love it.
Best. Smily. Ever.
Heh, yeah, that's pretty good.
I'm still waiting for a smily that has an armored face tossing a match on a pile of small green faces and starting a bonfire, though. ;)
Originally posted by bitnine
Heh, yeah, that's pretty good.
I'm still waiting for a smily that has an armored face tossing a match on a pile of small green faces and starting a bonfire, though. ;)
You know... I might just take you up on that. Small green faces, like orcs?
Originally posted by Elrana
Which part of discrete don't you understand? Fireballing a group that you intend to wipe out to the last man is discrete. Using magic in an abandoned mineshaft now inhabited by giant spiders is discrete. Attempting to charm the captain of the guard when he refuses you entry to a city after dark is not discrete.
(BTW, Deus. Dues ex machina sounds more like the Inland Revenue.)
Actually, the word UMCorian used was 'discreet'. On a related note, you might want to double-check the definition of 'discrete', as I don't think it's the word you really intended.
I try not to post to correct spelling mistakes (especially subtile ones like the above that don't get caught by spell checkers) as I realize few people get as excited about them as I do. However, I'll break the rule for someone who misspells something in a post that also corrects someone else's spelling.
I'm currently playing in a "low magic for you" campaign, but luckily our DM is very good, and sadly our lack of magic items makes total sense given the campaign background. I do prefer campaigns with normal levels of magic to low magic campaigns in general, though. As I see it, it's just a matter of taste.
Originally posted by AlephOne
Actually, the word UMCorian used was 'discreet'. On a related note, you might want to double-check the definition of 'discrete', as I don't think it's the word you really intended.
I try not to post to correct spelling mistakes (especially subtile ones like the above that don't get caught by spell checkers) as I realize few people get as excited about them as I do. However, I'll break the rule for someone who misspells something in a post that also corrects someone else's spelling.
Quite right, it's unusual for spelling mistakes to slip past me, no matter how subtle. Consider me suitably chastened.
I thought the Dues ex machina thing was probably a typo and not a spelling mistake, however, I still like the idea of it!
Originally posted by Sphyre
You know... I might just take you up on that. Small green faces, like orcs?
Or the children thereof. ;)
Heh, I would probably use that one if someone did put it together.
Originally posted by AlephOne
I try not to post to correct spelling mistakes (especially subtile ones like the above that don't get caught by spell checkers)
Originally posted by Elrana
Quite right, it's unusual for spelling mistakes to slip past me, no matter how subtle. Consider me suitably chastened.
I thought the Dues ex machina thing was probably a typo and not a spelling mistake, however, I still like the idea of it!
I couldn't resist putting in an apparent spelling mistake...what can I say, I'm easily amused.'Subtile' is a perfectly respectable word.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=subtile
Originally posted by AlephOne
'Subtile' is a perfectly respectable word.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=subtile
If you want to go back to archaic spelling conventions then I must request at least a little consistency, 'realise' please, none of this modern phonetic 'z' crap!
Your 'Realise' for example. Both realize and realise are correct.
Same with Colour, humour, favourite... Hell if you say anything the way you want long enough it will BECOME correct as the aged overly retentive die out and are replaced by those that don't give a rats ass.
Why is it that people who constantly correct spelling seem to be under the impression that it a)scores them a victory of some sort, b)that the aforementioned spelling mistake is magically capable of over-ruling any points or valid arguments that the post might maintain, or c) that only the intelligent know how to spell properly.
News flash, even APES can learn a language. Not seeing the attainment of continueous 'correct' spelling as being worthwhile doesn't instantaneously negate their smarts.
(not to mention that it is actually completely useless to spell things correctly as any word can be properly read and understood so long as it contains all of the proper letters and the first and last letters are in their porepr pcale.)
[end rant/pet peeve explosion]
I personally find this thread coming as a suitable warning to me as I am currently in the process of designing a low magic world so as to allow for the intricacies of ancient combat, shield stacks, mongol style riders, the phalanx et all. Military formations that would be all but useless in a warzone filled with magic.
Mainly because on the battlefield in D&D, the side with the 5th level wand toting battlemage wins.
Fly + Windwall + 50 fireballs = an army of THOUSANDS defeated by a wizard singlehandedly. A site that would make Toastytot proud.
Not what I want for my world.
And if both sides have wizards it goes like this:
Wizards fight.
Side with victorious wizards win. see burning comment above.
The warning lies in ensuring that I can limit the setting's magic, while still ensuring that I do not hardhand my PCs. I will definately put forth considerable effort to ensuring that this game runs as smoothly as my standard ones.
Definately an eye opener to the 'low magic' = BAD CONTROL FREAK DM phenominon.
Well it worked now my character is forbidden from buying oil.
Oil in large clay jars thrown at people with lit wicks = lowmagic fireball.
Waterskins with oil being squeezed and lit at the end = flamethrower.
If magic goes down start using alchemy its fun. Nothing like a billows pressurized barrel of oil.
Originally posted by Xavim
Mainly because on the battlefield in D&D, the side with the 5th level wand toting battlemage wins.
And if both sides have wizards it goes like this:
Wizards fight.
Side with victorious wizards win. see burning comment above.
There are several ways this has been handled in literature and a couple more I can think of but first some observations.
First given the RAW and lack of restrictions on being a spellcaster and the fact of D&D combat, spellcasters can win a combat all by themselves if given the chance. No country that wants to exist would be without spellcasters in their army.
Second spellcasters tend to cancel each other out, either by killing each other or by dispelling each others spells. So, the country with the most spellcasters wins right?
Third spellcasters are a valuable finite resource for a country, these are the smartest/wisest/most charismatic people your country has. So unless your country is in danger of being destroyed there are better more important things for them to be doing than blasting several hundred War1’s.
So, you could take the path of Mercedes Lackey in the Valdamar books. Every country has spellcasters, they tend to cancel each other out so they only impact the wars if there is a huge discrepancy in power or number of spellcasters available to one side. Most battles happen with spellcasters acting like special forces/artillery.
Or you could take the path of the Sword and the Chain series. Spellcasters don’t like to be involved in combat because they have better things to do. Low level spellcasters can turn the tide of combat but they tend to be canceled by tactics or other spellcasters.
Or you could take the path of the Lost Legion series by Harry Turtledove and make wizards much weaker in combat. In essence what he did was once blood had been spilled it became much easier to resist magic. So his magic was most useful before and after combat. The way I would do this in D&D terms is lower all the save DC’s on spells on the round that someone (anyone) was damaged by non-magical means in combat. In the books this was a huge hit, spellcasters than were near gods outside of combat had people resisting their magic left and right in combat, I would guess it was something like combat DC = 0.5 * (non-Combat DC)
I hope this gives you some ideas!
Originally posted by Xavim
I'm cirtain that one as learned in the intricacies of language and grammer as we have here are well aware that language is an ever evolving form of communication in a constant state of flux.
I think in this particular case it is being done primarily to amuse ourselves! It was not intended to a) be taken seriously, or b) offend anyone.
But, as you have joined in...
There is no such thing at all as correct spelling or incorrect spelling, there are only generally agreed spelling conventions.
The reason this is the case is to facilitate accurate communication. The purpose of a person adhering to these conventions is not only for the previously stated reason but also out of respect for the reader, the same way as one says please and thank you and doesn't talk about diarrhoea at the table so one maintains a polished hand. It is very much a case of good manners.
The correction of spelling/grammar neither wins arguments nor invalidates opinion (except in the case of arguments concerning spelling or grammar! :D ). Writing correctly is not a sign of intelligence, it is, however, a sign of manners and courtesy, in the same way that not bothering to write correctly is a sign of laziness and/or apathy.
Personally I really don't care how you write within this forum, but I do care how I write, and I am quite happy to have spelling mistakes pointed out to me as this can only work toward my betterment. You don't have to share my opinion and even if you tell me that you don't in the most atrocious English I shan't consider your opinion to be any less valid.
However, just as a word of warning, I work for a large multi-national organisation, one of the world's top ten, and I can tell you that should I receive offers for tender or application forms for employment they will be turned down if they are written lazily, filled with spelling mistakes and lack clarity and precision. I can also tell you without fear of contradiction that every other manager in the company follows the same rule of thumb. There need to be methods by which one weeds out the innappropriate and this is always one of the first applied.
But, just to remind you, in this particular case it is just for personal amusement on my part and I have assumed the same with regard to AlephOne (BTW, nice tautology! Why not add a figure one as well for the triple? ;) ) and UMCorian.
Oh, and yes, this is also poking fun at you!
(Much of the above is inapplicable to dyslexics, those for whom English is not their first language etc. etc.)
Originally posted by Xavim
Mainly because on the battlefield in D&D, the side with the 5th level wand toting battlemage wins.
Fly + Windwall + 50 fireballs = an army of THOUSANDS defeated by a wizard singlehandedly.
Well, while without saying that this isn't a symbol of a general problem trend that occur in certain circumstances, this particular one isn't quite accurate. Note that wind wall states:
While the wall must be vertical, you can shape it in any continuous path along the ground that you like.
So a flying caster cannot use a wind wall spell to protect himself, though he could try to enclose some enemies on the ground, who would probably move out of the effect.
Now, upon being fireballed, one would expect the force to spread out as they could. The 5d6 damage (reflex 14 for half) deals 17.5/8.75 damage. (Meaning those shoddy dex 10 con 10 hp 4 1st level warriors will end up having about a 12% natural stabilization survival rate.) A single wand isn't going to kill thousands, it will kill perhaps a hundred with change at most.
With a price tag of 11,250 gp, a 5th level NPC couldn't afford that wand with his gear value of 4,300 gp, though a 9th level NPC could with his 12,000 gp. A 5th level PC couldn't even afford the wand, with his 9,000 gp gear value - he shouldn't be toting one until 8th level, where 11,250 gp is under half his 27,000 gp gear.
Now, those personal loot guidelines might not matter much when a warmage is being supplied by his kingdom to take out an advancing army, but it doesn't change the fact that the wand of fireball is a poor investment for your gp/casualty ratio, even if dealing with nothing but the greenest of warriors. As with any artillary bombardment, it'll certainly wear on morale a bit, but you can do a hell of a lot better with your money.
Originally posted by Elrana
(Much of the above is inapplicable to dyslexics, those for whom English is not their first language etc. etc.)
:D I am dyslexic and I use it to my advantage. I had a hard time reading language until I learned about grammatical structure and focused on proper spelling. So much as to be able to note your one unconventional spelling (Since, as you say spelling is a generally agreed upon concept) of organisation. When refering to a group or said organization, it is generally spelled with a Z. While to a lesser extent you may find it spelled with an S.
To add, I will note that language is a a method of transfering ideas from yourself to another person. Doing so, one must use language that is mutual among the recipeint and the transmiter. This is where the convention of correct spelling and grammar comes in. If you use your own variaton of language you will not be as effective at communicating as others will be. It's a pretty haughty and unwise decision to choose to go with spelling things at your own whim. It doesn't show much respect for others too. It's like a charisma based skill.
bitnine,
as for that smiley, i think i'll get to work on it
I need to decide what the little green faces are going to look like though...Originally posted by Sphyre
:D I am dyslexic and I use it to my advantage. I had a hard time reading language until I learned about grammatical structure and focused on proper spelling. So much as to be able to note your one unconventional spelling (Since, as you say spelling is a generally agreed upon concept) of organisation. When refering to a group or said organization, it is generally spelled with a Z. While to a lesser extent you may find it spelled with an S.
I'm glad to hear that you have found a way around it, it's quite an acheivement from what I understand of dyslexia. Well done! It is actually quite interesting that the study of grammar and spelling got you around it. Do you think it is to do with perceiving language as a series of recognisable patterns as opposed to a stream of individual letters that are grouped together?
I only ask because one of the theories of language and reading in current circulation follows the belief that basically we come to recognise words that we know well by their shape, not by their make up. Basically as if it were a pictogram. This makes a lot of sense but it is only attainable through practise (i.e. reading a lot).
The majority of dyslexics I know have been unlikely to spend much time reading as they find it difficult and frustrating, therefore they are unlikely to achieve this level of word-shape recognition. Now the reason I ask is because there is a general consensus that those who suffer from dyslexia have a more inherent leaning toward art and symbolism. If this is true, and if the word-shape recognition theory is true (which I have a lot of time for personally, it makes sense) then there is a likelihood that an amalgamation of the two could lead to an easier way for dyslexics to overcome their difficulties with reading.
The only reason I ask is because a friend of mine is a dyslexic psychologist who is researching into dyslexia and ways to counter it and you, as an example of someone who has overcome it, and particularly considering the method by which you managed it, are highly commensurate with the theories that she is currently looking into. If you have no objection it might be useful if I were to inform her of how you mastered the challenges set by written language.
(Incidentally we don't use 'z's in that context in English English. We always use an 's'. The use of the 'z' is a US English convention.)
(Sorry everyone, off topic I know but it got me thinking.)
To add, I will note that language is a a method of transfering ideas from yourself to another person. Doing so, one must use language that is mutual among the recipeint and the transmiter. This is where the convention of correct spelling and grammar comes in. If you use your own variaton of language you will not be as effective at communicating as others will be. It's a pretty haughty and unwise decision to choose to go with spelling things at your own whim. It doesn't show much respect for others too. It's like a charisma based skill.
That is a very good way of looking at it in terms of D&D. It is as much a charisma based skill as oral communication. Previously I have considered it as requiring an intelligence check but charisma (or diplomacy if the PC has it) would actually work pretty damn well!
Being English english, would do it
Originally posted by Elrana
That is a very good way of looking at it in terms of D&D. It is as much a charisma based skill as oral communication. Previously I have considered it as requiring an intelligence check but charisma (or diplomacy if the PC has it) would actually work pretty damn well!
It's int based to learn a language. Xavim was intelligent enough to know what language is. The thing is, his choice to not use the convention has created an ongoing penalty to all his language dependant charisma checks. Did you see that post? It was just horrid on the eyes. I certainly didn't enjoy having to read it. Compound on that the fact that I'm dyslexic, it I have to look at the word without relation to everything else just to see what he actually wrote.
Most of the times it's not what you say, but more importantly, how you say it. That's where Charisma comes in.
As for my dyslexia, it's way too long to post here, in addition to still being offtopic. I'll PM it to you.
Originally posted by Elrana's Signature
pointing out speling/grammatical error's
LOL
Are those intentional? speling/grammatical error's?Originally posted by Sphyre
LOL
Specifically intentional. Think of them as working examples!
I am aware of that, the argument is regarding the 'a touch attack doesn't mean you have touched' argument and the ToGI. It really centred around the fact that we were making opposed Dex. checks, therefore ToGI was a pretty important factor to take into account. Had he made the save, or failed to save and still won then fine, no argument.
I agree with you on the first point that you attempted to trip him and if you had made contact then you touching him would have activated the effect, but touch based attacks have the fineprint stating that someone touching you doesn't set them off so his tripping you shouldn't turn him to golden ice.
At least it was that way in 3rd edition. If this changed in 3.5 please point that out and I'll make note. Still trying to convert myself to it
*Cel
If I should offer a criticism to you, it would be -- why did you let it go on for so long? Tolerance is one thing. But what appears to be an entire campaign's worth of aggrevation should have forced you to quit earlier.
Sometimes you've just been friends for over 10 years, and it's his first time DMship, and you hope things will improve. (We take turns DM'ing)
I tell him he could have retreated to the door (not wanting to tell him he's an idiot for not knowing what they were....oh yes, and i forgot to mention he wasted bout 3 rounds turning undead), and after retreating t the door and trying to take them on one by one, if he didn't suceed (which was unlikely) he would have mounted his horse and left....
If he failed his knowledge checks he shouldn't know what they were, even if he did OOC. Secondly most of the time the players will not see what seems to be the "obvious" solution. In my experience you then have to ask yourself if you have described your mental picture properly to them.
As to the general thread, yeah I've had a bad DM once, although maybe not as bad as you, and he fortunately did improve with time and advice.
He basically had this dungeon with 20 deadly traps and only one secret door as a way out. We all failed the roll to spot the secret door, he kept us running from trap to trap trying to get out for 8 sessions, until we ran out of supplies and committed mass suicide.
Wow, Celine. Talk about casting true resurrection. This thread has been dead for quite a while.
The sad part is I spent over an hour reading this thing and didn't even notice that until you pointed it out...
The sad part is I spent over an hour reading this thing and didn't even notice that until you pointed it out...
I noticed by about page 3 that these posts were made last summer. I too spent over an hour (about 80 minutes, in fact) reading this entire...damned...thread. I'd comment, but I doubt it would do any good, so instead I leave you with this:
Nobody writes jokes in base 13.
Nobody writes jokes in base 13.
...You seem like an interesting person. I like interesting people.
Where do you live again? *gets out stalker gear* :angelhide
Aaand to keep this vaguely D&D-related: I'm making a homebrew that's going to be based on the Middle East/Arabian Nights-esque. Anyone got any suggestions? (I already know I'm using desert races and a boatload of other class variants from UA...I never knew the extent of what was in there. Wow. I'm going to have to pare some stuff back and save it for another campaign.)
...You seem like an interesting person. I like interesting people.
Where do you live again? *gets out stalker gear* :angelhide
Aaand to keep this vaguely D&D-related: I'm making a homebrew that's going to be based on the Middle East/Arabian Nights-esque. Anyone got any suggestions? (I already know I'm using desert races and a boatload of other class variants from UA...I never knew the extent of what was in there. Wow. I'm going to have to pare some stuff back and save it for another campaign.)
You have Sandstorm, correct? Can't get more Middle Easy-y than that.
This thread needs to stay bumped as a testament ot how ****** a DM can be.
You have Sandstorm, correct? Can't get more Middle Easy-y than that.
Nope. Our group, who usually buy all the supplements, hasn't touched that series. I think we flipped through Frostburn, once, in the FLGS. But we haven't used it. I managed to pull some stuff out of UA, but not much...so I'm going more for the flavour aspect. I will ceck out Sandstorm though.
This thread needs to stay bumped as a testament ot how ****** a DM can be.
Too true...that, and it's a good read.
The sad part is I spent over an hour reading this thing and didn't even notice that until you pointed it out...
Well at least I am not the only one.
Im not really a great DM, don't have very good vocal skills and Im pretty bad at ad libbing on a long period of time, although im pretty good at a short term lighthearted adventure that lasts a few sessions.
T'was an interesting read, and I feel compelled to tell my own story about a cruddy DM.
Now, I didn't even know this guy when we started out, he was a stranger that a was a friend of a friend. But we were desperate for a DM after we mutually decided that the previous DM with his constant beat-my-paladin-into-the-ground-ness had to go.
It started all fine and dandy, with an evil outstretching dwarven empire and a rotten-to-the-core party. We can play evil, we're mature roleplayers.
It turned sour a couple of sessions in, when we were about 7th level (we leveled every time the DM took a smoke break, and he took a smoke break about three times per session. Hm....). We were still roaming about the game world without a quest after being "trained" by a family of crazy drow (who had the same, boring personalities as the rest of the damn NPCs) and hanging out with the drider pirate captain when we decided to return to Port City (original name) to go to "Dwarf Day", the same dwarves-invade-Port City on a specific date every year holiday we had been to the previous year.
The DM had not predicted this possibility, and despite the fact we spent most of our time beating the snot out of dwarves (who had magic items, despite the fact we had none, and they all miraculously disappeared after they died), he had no NPCs prepared for a battle. So a werewolf killed all the dwarves. We get to watch as the last straggler gets eaten.
Let me repeat that. A werewolf killed ALL the dwarves.
All of them.
Anyhow, I went to the assassin's guild, bored as hell (rogue/assassin, woot!) and got a job for what would later turn out to be a DMPC. I chase down the rather bulky human only to get my butt whupped. When asked how powerful he was, the DM shrugged. "He's about your level."
I get the other PCs to help me, and in a knock-down, drag-out fight, the bulky dude whups the crud outta me. My character died a horribly painful death, and we all sat there, stunned, as the bulky guy paid to have him ressurected by a LN fallen celestial. Who, by the way, we had previously met (small world) and hated my guts.
Now, I was resurrected, and my DM informed me plainly that the bulky man was "now travelling with the party".... no roleplaying, no complaints from me, nothing. My character comitted suicide after another failed assassination attempt, and the campaign spiraled downward from there.
That being said, the DM was a complete jerk to the player who had invited him, and he continually shot down everything the player wanted to do. So, after a heated argument where the DM tried to act holier-than-thou, the game collapsed. Thing is, the DM left the sheet with that DMPC's stats on it.
It was a fey'ri (mind you this was a homebrew) fighter that was two levels higher than anyone in the party, and had magic items out the wazoo. What blew my mind, though, was the equipment the fey'ri fighter had....
One of his magic items was a hat of disguise. Apparently, the DM was too lazy to read the beast's spell-like abilities....
That's just the tip of the iceberg, but I felt I had to vent.
I would suggest to all players when you find a good dm make sure they know how much you appreciate them. I have a theory bad dms are created when dms start feeling unappreciated and than they turn to hating their players and turn into bad dms.
Hug your dm (if doing so is socially unacceptable or just wrong to you) Say to them: "I would hug you but it would be ackward" or ask the nearest person who would find it appropriate to hug your good dm for you
At this point, I was really frustrated with the endless nerfs I was being hit with, and I decided that if my character can’t commit suicide without a lecture, he’s going to die trying to kill the mages. The result was that I got hit by 5 hold persons, and was transported (somehow, because teleport only works on willing creatures) to another room. There, they removed the rune on my character’s back, and put on a new one. I was told that if I ever returned to the tower, I would be disintegrated on sight.
The thing with the hold persons and teleport actually happened to me (except that they were dominiate monsters, and it was 7.)
So at that was pretty much the end for me and that campaign.
I don't actually beleive in the whole DM is always right thing, I prefer a rules concensus, with rules agreed and presented before a campaign begins (although changes sometimes are necessary, like when I realized how much I hate the epic level spell system.)
Half of you complain about being railroaded, and the other half complain about not being railroaded enough.
I think that really however many of you are talking about extreme cases. I think every good campaign needs a small bit of railroading, or at least nudging in the right direction.
At the same time the campaign needs freedom, so the players feel their actions and decisions have a realistic impact on the world.
I generally set out a 'plot' that I want to achieve, and I nudge the players in the general direction. How they get there is up to them. If they want to divert from their 'quest' and do something else? Fine.
However certian events will move forward and may spiral out of control due to their lack of attention.
The other side of the coin is while I enjoy creativity from my players, just because it is creative doesn't mean it's going to work.
The most important thing I feel that many inexperianced DM's dont realize, is that the world has to be consistant, believable, and dynamic.
NPCs act from their own perspective, not the DM's metagaming perspective, and NPCs follow the same rules as the PCs do - the laws of that particular world. If some NPCs are be able to 'bend' the rules, the PCs should be able to also.
The DM is the clockwork that keeps everything ticking forward - including the players, he is not the overgod of the NPC/monsters fighting against the PCs like in Heroquest.
I also think as a DM you should avoid too many houserules (such as low magic) if you're starting with a new group. It makes it so much easier for everyone to 'gel' together if you start simple and consistant - core only.
As your group gets more comfortable with each other and you all start to iron out what you like and dislike, then it's time for the houserules, extra material, whatever.
Many DMs ban things they personally don't like about the game, rather than things that are actually unbalancing, broken, etc. These things should be a group consensus, and should be tailored to match each particular groups playing style.
A dm probably will:
1) want to run a fun campaign
2) know the rules
3) spell out house rules beforehand
4) correct oversights immediately
5) be able to law down the law
6) know when to law down the law & when it is would be an abuse of power
7) not be afraid of work
8) be an approachable friend
9) if in doubt follows the rules that professionals have playtested
10) allow the players to win & fail, so that there is meaning to their actions
A player probably will:
1) want to play in a fun campaign
2) know the rules pertaining to their character
3) play in character
4) play creatively but not rapaciously
5) be an approachable friend
This is by no means exhaustive but you get the gist.
I've found that being a player has helped me be a better dm, my personal failing in the past was a reluctance to allow the pc's to win. Now I construct my npc's in a more detached manner, they need to be cool memorable foes but they don't have to recurring. I think I've largely left behind the BBEG as an adventure feature.
.
In my experience, D&D itself isn't MEANT to be a low magic setting. It's like... I don't know... taking The Force and Jedi out of Star Wars campaign and replacing it with angry clowns who drink beer and swear alot or something. It makes no sense to run D&D like that.
I know it's been over a year since this was posted, and it was in the middle of a mini flame wat, but i can't belive no one claimed this fabulous bit of random nonsense for thier siggy. So i guess i'll take it for mine. my sig needed a dash of non sequiter anyway. :D
Wow, This is on Par with one of my DMs on the railroading scale.
It was a level 4 campaign, I, a NE rogue, went off to "find" some magic items, but it seemed there was a lot of secuity at the Magic store(three guards, I was in no mood to tango). So I do what any self-respect evil egomaniac would do: I set half the town on fire as a distraction. This town, population 400, apparently has a reserve of 10 level 25 fighters to guard the magic shop. but they don't show up before I get there, thay show up exactly five seconds after I pick up an item and put it into my bag. I get arrested, to get my name cleared, what do I have to do? The exact same quest my party was on anyway.
That is a rather obvious railroad, but I'd say your DM was just trying to be nice and keep you in the game. Personally I find the 25th level Fighters rather stupid, I don't usually have any NPC's in my game over 16th level so when the players start getting up there they really are some of the most powerful people in the world. I really hate it when DM's start throwing in high level NPC's, especially in unbelievable groups like that, without even considering the guidelines in the DMG for NPC's by type and level for dfferent sized towns.
That being said, in my game you probably would've died - or at the very least gone home empty handed. Something like a magic shop isn't going to need guards when they're not open, because they'll have locks and traps. Even a simple 7th level Wizard can bring a pretty good array of security spells to bear, and an Amazing Lock is like what, 250 gp? Not just magical traps, mechanical ones are actually cheaper and everyone knows redundancy and and diversification are key to a great security system.
Going by that 7th level Wizard (not much higher than your guy) you're going to be going up against an exterior (door) and an interior (chest, cabinet, etc.) system including at least two Amazing Locks, two mechanical dart traps with the Dexterity damaging poison (don't have my DMG out ATM,) two Arcane Lock's, an Alarm, a Sepia Snake Sigil, a Shocking Grasp, and a Summon Monster IV (the latter two built as permanent 1x/day items.) Even though yes, your DM was railroading - I'd say you got off easy considering what I'd be putting together with a lot less resources and no rules abuses.
;)
Yet another case of a dm not reading bla bla bla...
When I play with a new group, I do my Bad DM Test
Here is the Bad DM Test for all of you to see:
First, tell everyone how you want to play this build
----
1 +1 Fighter1 Shield Charge, Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack
2 +2 Fighter2 Cleave
3 +2 Cleric1 Divine Shield, Turning, Domains: War & Magic, Weapon Focus: Spiked Shield, 1st level spells
4 +3 Cleric2 +1 stat
5 +4 Cleric3 2nd level spells
6 +4 Psy-War1 Sunder, Shield Expert
7 +5 Psy-War2 open Feat
8 +6 Fighter3 +1 stat
9 +7 Fighter4 Divine Might, Weapon Spec: Spiked Shield
10 +8 Psy-War3
----
And brag about how your damage will be thus:
1d6 piercing base
+1d6 flame
+1d6 frost
+1d6 shock
+6 div. shield
+6 div. might
+4 strength
+2 spec
+8 Power Attack
Damage Range
Normal: 22-42
Power Attack: 30-50
Power Attack Charge: 57-82
Then make up an exellent background and begin discussing how you will meet the other players and have a perfect reason to be their friends, how righteous you are, etc. etc.
If the DM is intimidated and afraid and begins making gimp rulings contrary to the rules or freaking out, he is a Bad DM. If he doesn't care what your build is at all or doesn't know WTF feats those all are, he is probably a Neutral or Beginner DM. If he smacks you with a rolled-up newspaper with the word "MUNCHKIN" on the side in big bold letters or thinks a shield-charging weirdo is a cool idea, tell him you are just kidding and show him your REAL build, because he is probably a Good DM.
edit: you can replace this with any other intimidating build or rediculously min/maxed concept for similar affect. This was my old 3.0 build for the DM test back before I was DMing myself.
if i saw that id say and what inspired your character to do that besides the fact that he'd be "ub3r 1337"?
If you're starting at higher level you can pull off some of these tricks but it can be pretty hard to do if you actually have to play through the development. I won't look too carefully but I suspect there are going to be several levels where the above character is pretty weak overall.
Level 1 & 2 look rotten; there is a high charisma floating about unused & no weapon focus to bolster a secondary str in the case of point buy (or even just the 2nd highest stat in str)
Level 3 & 4 continues the no development of the reflex save as this becomes more important.
Level 5 sees this guy piddling around with 2nd level spells & reduced BAB.
Level 6 & 7 I don't know about psiwarrior, maybe the character gets a boost after 19 odd sessions.
Level 8 will look enviously at the pure fighter.
Level 9 is I think the optimum level that the player is aiming for, better hound the dm for a mid-level campaign. I for one wouldn't want to play this guy but then I don't know what the psiwarrior is all about.
****
His damage range is awfully optimistic & with a priority on str, cha, wis & dex I suspect the con is not too flash & this guy is supposed to be some tank? His cha booster spells are few, being made redundant at this level by magic item boosters & have a woeful CL vs the relatively common dispel magic.
*shudders*
:OMG! I have no words but WHAT THE
The
Elder^_^;;
Your DM's scare and worry me, remember to hit them with the corner of your PHB when you leave.
That wasn't a DM. That was someone who thinks D&D is meant to be a story, with no control from players at all.
open for my opinion
That DM should never go anywhere near a die again. nerf is for video games, not D&D.
open for my COMPLETE UNABRIDGED opinion
THAT DM SHOULD GO TO HECK AND GET KILLED BY A BALOR BECAUSE HE THINKS THAT NO-ONE SHOULD DIE WITHOUT HIM SAYING SO!
By the way, I love what you said to your DM when you left the game once and for all. By saying that, I think he will realize how much of an idiot he made of himself and how much of a bad DM he is. But as someone said in that thread (If I'm not mistaking), this bad experience actually GAVE him experience. Next time, maybe he'll be more careful.
P.S: Some DM's find it tough to just improvise games... Like I do :P. What I say is, write your adventure down but let some blank spaces so you can practice improvising. When you're becoming a better and better DM, start writing less and less...then you've ''mastered'' improvisation. ALSO READ DM CORE BOOK, IT GIVES NICE HINTS!
The thread came back, they thought it was a goner but
The thread came back, it just wouldn't stay away
Wow, good to see that the cockroaches will have this thread with them after the nuclear winter. It just won't die.
On that note I need an epic level spell that creates a nuclear explosion, a race of elves that worships cockroaches, and creatures similair to Driders with their lower portions raplaced instead with cockroach bodies.
Let me begin by saying that I love Dungeons and Dragons. I think it is a great game, and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing it, by and large. Despite all the disagreements I’ve had with the revision and the supplements, I still love this game and think it is a great hobby.
Let me also say that I fervently believe that the authority of the DM is paramount in this game. All too often, I have watched sessions fall apart because players were too quick to bicker with the DM over some creative liberties he had taken. The DM has the final word, and this is not only important, but vital for the overall enjoyment of everyone present.
These things said, several days ago was the first time I felt I had good reason to walk out on the game I love because the DM was abusing his authority. This was not the result of one gigantic nerf, though it was a gigantic nerf that pushed me over the edge. Rather, this was the result of an entire campaign of nerfs. When I left our last session, I was furious, and I have spent the past few days calming my nerves and composing my thoughts.
It might have been my overwhelmingly optimistic attitude towards this game, but the campaign felt like it had a promising start. The DM had a moderately interesting world set forward, and it was a low-magic setting. Caster levels were halved, and magic item prices were doubled. I later found out that the DM was concerned about wizards “blowing up” his encounters.
This would have been fine, except he was completely inconsistent in his limitations. First off, he allowed NPCs to have levels in psionic classes. The PCs could not, but the NPCs could. Essentially, he was banning magic, but allowing something that may as well be magic but isn’t called magic. Furthermore, we were defenseless against his psionic characters. I was a barbarian, and had no way of boosting my will save against the mind flayer’s abilities. (More on them later.)
The second inconsistency was the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery. It was a tower with a bunch of wizards and sorcerers who were all level 40+ so they could actually function normally in his half-caster environment. In his world, it was actually known as the Tower of High Sorcery, but we had a good reason to change the name. When we were level 6, we actually found our first masterwork item. I was ecstatic, and wanted to take it someplace to get detect magic cast on it. The Tower of High Sorcery seemed like the right place for that. When the party arrived, we asked for the detect magic, but the wizards there were all “too busy.” There was not even a 1st level apprentice who could take 6 seconds to cast a 0-level spell. From this point onward, they were known as the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery, and that tower stood to me as a symbol of my DM saying “Nyah, nyah, I’ve got magic, and you don’t.”
From session 2 onward, the game deteriorated at an exponential rate. Despite the fairly elaborate campaign world the DM had set before us, we never had any adventuring hooks. Each game began with, “What do you wish to do?” I began to suspect that my DM was more interested in playing a tabletop strategy game, since all we’d do is wander aimlessly, have a random encounter of a CR that was higher than our level by 3, survive miraculously because of some Deus Ex Machina type circumstance, level up, and get (non-magical) treasure.
I found out yesterday that the DM couldn’t kill my character, because my character had some importance in his campaign storyline. He planned out the beginning and the end, and then expected us to figure out what to do in the middle by a bunch of cryptic clues he’d left after session one. This is a great way to structure an adventure, but the worst possible way to structure a campaign, since by planning the campaign’s end ahead of time, he’d have to railroad us (i.e. more nerfs) into that ending.
Then, there was the adventure with the mind flayers. The group concluded a session I couldn’t make with a bunch of mind flayers who stole from us some artifacts that the campaign was hinging upon. When I returned, I figured we should go after them, not that I had any hope for survival. Still, these artifacts were supposed to be really important. Finding the mind flayers’ hideout took nothing more than a search check with an apparent DC of 10. When I looked in the entrance, my DM asked for another search check. I said I’d rather have a description of what I was looking at. He said that since I was searching for mind flayers, a search check was all that was necessary. HE REPLACED A DUNGEON WITH A SEARCH CHECK!
When I asked why we didn’t have a dungeon, he said that he didn’t have one prepared, and the mind flayer cavern would likely be very complex. He then got irritated that I should expect him to provide such an extravagance. This adventure ultimately was solved because we enlisted the aid of an NPC with appropriate magical gear (ring of mind-shielding, googles of darkvision, helm of Deus Ex Machina) and had him search for the artifacts. At this point I was questioning why I chose a barbarian for my character class when a rogue would fill these niches, except the other PCs were two archers and a monk, and we needed a damage dealer.
I began to wish more and more that I were a rogue each time I needed to lie. Even though I had a +2 charisma modifier, I didn’t have bluff ranks, and somehow every NPC I talked to had a huge sense motive check. As I began to take it for granted that all our enemies would be higher level than us, I needed to think of ways to resolve combat without being brought to the brink of death and resting for a month (since we didn’t have magical healing). An example was the most recent session when we were dealing with 3 black dragons. There was one huge dragon that this town was worshipping as a deity, and two large dragons who would team up to battle the huge one, only to end up in a draw. I figured that if I could play them against each other, I’d be able to have them all dead and the town could worship ME as a deity.
In fairness, the actual interplay between the 3 dragons and us was a lot of fun. Too bad the DM didn’t plan it one bit or else he’d have earned a little of my respect. What ended up happening is one of the large dragons survived and inscribed a rune on my character’s back which, when triggered, would disintegrate him. It was nothing that a remove curse wouldn’t take care of. Basically, my plan became, get rid of the rune, get rid of the dragon, and become a god.
So I go into the town, look for the biggest temple I can find, and talk to the high cleric about getting rid of it. He informs me that it’s a very powerful rune, and “barring a miracle, nothing can get rid of it.” Thus, the next half hour of real time was spent searching the world for 34th level clerics to cast miracle on me. I ended up not finding anyone, as the DM gave me a lecture about how it’s rare for NPCs to advance beyond 5th level.
I reply, “Then my character suicides. I’m not going to play the rest of your campaign as a pawn of an evil dragon.”
At this point my DM got really flustered and informed me that the dragon didn’t give any specific orders other than to look for towns that would be easy for him to conquer. While I am still arguing with him about why I wanted to get rid of my character and make an independent one, one of the other players made a suggestion that completely turned my mood around. (Thanks, Tom!)
THE TOWER OF EXAGGERATED SORCERY!!!
We then send a message to the dragon (he gave us an item that gives us a telepathic bond) that the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery would be ideal for him to conquer. The plan was basically this: the wizards there are too incompetent to deal with this dragon, who, by the way, was not susceptible to whatever force it was that made every mage a half-caster. He lays siege to the tower, and we make plans to come back the next day and walk proudly through the rubble.
If the dragon wins, I feel vindicated because (a) my character had an antagonistic relationship with the wizards all along and (b) the DM doesn’t have his precious magical stronghold anymore. Then I can quit this game with a feeling of satisfaction, which I knew I’d be doing anyway by the end of the night.
If the tower wins, I go back to the town of dragon-worshippers and tell them I’m their new god, which would put an interesting new spin on the campaign storyline. It’s a no-lose situation.
Well, we arrived the day after the assault, and much to my consternation, the tower was still standing. My character knocked on the door, expecting that the only survivors would be badly wounded, only to find the usual terse, rude, impossibly high-level mages, at full health to boot. They informed me that the dragon attacked, but fled while they held their ground. For some reason, I decided to show them the rune on my back, and they just took me to a waiting room. When they returned, they knew I was the one who sent the dragon. I later found out that they had cast contact other plane, which is suspicious coming from wizards who were too busy to cast detect magic. More suspicious was the fact that the DM never rolled any of the failure chances for the questions, and each question is answered in a one-word answer, making it very hard to find out exactly who told the dragon to attack.
At this point, I was really frustrated with the endless nerfs I was being hit with, and I decided that if my character can’t commit suicide without a lecture, he’s going to die trying to kill the mages. The result was that I got hit by 5 hold persons, and was transported (somehow, because teleport only works on willing creatures) to another room. There, they removed the rune on my character’s back, and put on a new one. I was told that if I ever returned to the tower, I would be disintegrated on sight.
At this point, I was determined to watch the tower fall before I quit this campaign permanently. I called up the dragon, and said to him, “You didn’t finish the job.” He replies that he’ll be fully healed in 5 days. When the DM asked what I wish to do, I told him that I was going to set up camp outside the tower and wait 5 days for the fireworks to start.
Then what happened left me without words. As the dragon flew by, it called down a meteor swarm on the tower, which just bounced off. I suspected a wall of force, but I knew it had to be a 2-way wall of force when the wizards cast some kind of finger of death effect out at the dragon through the force-wall. With neither a fortitude save nor a spell resistance check, the dragon was slain.
I generally don’t act out when I’m angry, because I’m usually self-conscious of how rude I would look. I didn’t act out this time either, which was an amazing act of self-restraint on my part, since I was having trouble seeing straight I was so furious. Later that night, I found out that the dragon had assumed divine rank, yet he was killed with a single death ray. It is the single greatest nerf I have ever watched happen, and it is a perfect example of the utter worthlessness of my DM.
After I watched the dragon vanish entirely, my mood swung back into a positive state. They killed the last dragon, which means that there are THREE DRAGON TREASURE HORDES SOMEWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS. I told my DM that we were heading back to the hordes, and collecting every last copper piece. It was at this point that I found out exactly how a dragon assumes divine rank—he consumes his entire treasure horde. The hordes were empty.
At this point, I felt no anger, because I knew exactly what to do. I had my character go back to the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery to get disintegrated. I did it plainly and emotionlessly, as though it was not my own character I was sending to its death. I told my DM, “That’s the deal breaker. You keep on screwing me. I’m out.” And with that, I left.
I still love D&D, and I still think the DM is the final authority. This much should be apparent, since I was so willing to tolerate that campaign. Calling it a campaign is really an insult to all other campaigns ever to be played, since campaigns are fun. This was not fun. It was an endless cycle of railroading, DM laziness, Deus Ex Machina, and above all, nerfs.
I thank you for reading my story, and I hope players and DMs alike will remember it as an example of some of the most horrible structure to ever sully the name of this game. DMs, use this to know the importance of making well thought out adventures. Players, just give your DM a hug—he or she is doing a fine job. I know this because your DM cannot possibly be worse than mine was, and your characters cannot have been as thoroughly nerfed as mine was.
I swear I've played that exact campaign before...Maybe we had the same DM or something...How long ago was this?
all i can say is wow.
WOW
yep.
It seems as if a perfect game of D&D is a fantasy. In my "group", there is always someone missing, some hole in someones character sheet, or, if all goes as planned and everyone (or most, I've YET to have a game where everyone shows) makes it, someone is arguing or fighting or playing stupidly. It's enough to make me quit D&D altogether. Sometimes I wish we had no lives. As stupid as that sounds, we could do whatever we wanted, which means D&D every Sunday (as my dreams fortell).
This is a good thread, it shows me the serious players' side of the story. So, to the OP, I'm sorry about your delimma and wish you happy gaming to come!
Hey Galahad, we now have forum proof ....
Ha ha ha "Forum Proof". That makes me laugh.
Veratus.Liberatus.Venerato
Wow, good to see that the cockroaches will have this thread with them after the nuclear winter. It just won't die.
lmao, guess I will just quote me from 8 months ago, somehow it still seems appropriate.
Ha ha ha "Forum Proof". That makes me laugh.
Good, because it was a joke ;)
Today's date: 6-21-06
This thread isn't undead. It's at least Divine Rank 1.
On that note I need an epic level spell that creates a nuclear explosion, a race of elves that worships cockroaches, and creatures similair to Driders with their lower portions raplaced instead with cockroach bodies.
Would the 9th Level Spell "Nuclear Winter Fireball" combined with two castings of the Epic Spell Genesis do what your looking for? If you don't know what the former is I have four letters for you: KoDT.
well, on 2nd thought, i can.
funny, insightful, full of vim and vigor.
hell, i GOTTA post to this, if only to subscribe so sometime in 2007 i'll get an email and the WHOLE thing can start over!
namaste'
the hamster
(btw, i finally found the "original" posting of the hammergun smiley! Sweet!)
Level 1-2 party. Party forcfully trapped on a sandbar in a (3000mile radius swamp...?) before we left just incase he was going to be cruel in some way I left 25 gold and a boat +another 25 gold to 5 people if they would come search for us if we weren't back after 8 hours... He says they forgot. So we find ruins on this sand bar in a millenia old swamp And than as we search it the floor slides out from under us dropping us into a dungeon where 4 gargoyles attack us... So we run and run and we finally win with only the barbarian standing at 2 hp. 2 casulties of 6. We go back and suddenly 2 more people appear who amazingly are suddenly part of our party... we go through a secret door down a hallway for 30 minutes, game time *Yawn* Worst 4 hours of DnD i've ever played. We come to a room where we find books and we're compelled to read them (the wizards perfect 20 roll = 26 doesn't make it...) So we read, 1 more death, wizard loses spell book and all weapons distengrated... Next room we come to a chest on a table between 2 pillars.. Everyone can tell they're mimics. In the center of the room, our 3rd addition to the group. Mimics attack... another brutal fight where everyone but wizards familiar, cleric, druids wolf and barbarian die. Next room we find a collosal (sp?) water elemental and amazingly 4 new companions, now I'm the only 1 remaining form the orginial party going, wtf? Water elemental turns out to be friendly. and gives us each water breather, always. So out of contect I write the DM a note asking, how the heck we got water breathing for talking to a big wave. After all this no treasure I'm about to be beating on people with caltrops on the next encouter we walk back out onto the island. And Lo and behold theres a juvenile white dragon, in a swamp, waiting for us, out side the dungeon, we were focibly pushed into. Needless to say he finally TPK'd us than blamed us for our stupid choices....
(Bonus points if you know what game that's from)
Although this thread is epicly old I think the lessons and heart of the story rings true. Avoid, at all costs, a DM who views the role of a DM as a pedestal worthy position. This is not to say that the DM shouldn't be respected, but no more than the DM should respect the players.
Anyone else sort of want to play with this DM? Just to see what it's like?
Absolutely.
To give some background, I had just found out about DnD and had never DMed before. Also, I only had played like one or 2 games but as the DM left, I decided to start one of my own! I really aren't that poor anymore - I swear! :D So, about the campaign...
I had not made any decent plans. The whole campaign design was:
"The story begins at inn, where a wizard hires them to start looking for several chests. As they collect the chests, they will find out that they all contain some part of powerful demon. They find all but one - tthe head piece. They will get some hint that it is in a city (I had not even designed the name!!) of paladins. At that time they will be around 15th-20th level and can try to find a way to get it..."
That campaign idea is not really all that bad. With proper design, I could now propably make that into an interesting campaign, giving players lot of chances to improvise (how to get the parts, etc.). However, that was ALL that I had designed... And yes, it was evil campaign.
(Have I catched you unshared attention? How bad can this be screwed up?)
Then, to the character creation! Level 3, all races allowed, I also allowed +2 LA and when player asked for "how much I can get with +1 LA", I created a homebrew race - I had browsed through the PDF of savage species at my friend's place, so I can create those, right. So the "half-setite, +4 str, +4 dex, +2 con, -2 cha, 50 feet speed and darkvision, LA +1" was born as player race.
It actually had an interesting history about god of rogues getting drunk with a snake god, but really, it seems obiouvs that the character might have been a bit too good for LA +1...
So, the campaign started at an inn and they saw a character (yes, it was mysterious cloacked figure) talking to every party in the inn and eventually coming to them, asking them to help him collect a few chests. The players wanted to see his face and I improvised more - it was fiendish red. Well, as I had not heard of half-fiend template, it naturally had to be because of he had taken acolyte of the skin prestige class. The players were level 3 and behold - the allmighty DMPC had born.
So, what more can one botch in a game? A lot!
So, the pcs asked for what they would get. As I had not heard of stuff such as "Wealth by level guidelines" (Or "DMG" for that matter...), they were promised 10k PER WEEK. Actually, this one could have been saved as I asked them for sense motive checks to keep them on their toes and - as a DMPC - he had maxed bluff it could have been avoided to actually give them that amount of money...
Well, they start the traveling and finding chests. By finding, I mean that DMPC knwe where they all were and each of them had just one easy fight and chest would be theirs. These fights were all pretty much won by the warmage/acolyte of the skin/DMPC x.
At this point, they did not know about what was in the chests, so the rogue tried to pick lock. Here started the "It seems high result, you succeed" -attitude. I really had not thought of DCs so when they said some high number - such as 17 - they succeeded.
So, during these generic and unimaginitive fights they advanced a level or two in one session (I guess it is because of I gave exp for whole groups of enemies and their EL, not from each independently. Also, I am not sure if I divided the exp between them...)
Then, still in the same session, they got into a big city.
"What do you want to do?"
"Find some magic items."
"There is not really magic-item-o-mart... A temple of hextor is in the city, tho..."
I actually thought, they would not even try. However, as they were as new to DnD as I was, they wanted to try.
I, on the other hand, was still improvising, it was getting late, I had not looked into DMG to find stuff such as "traps"... So, I think thay got into the temple with something like DC 20 open lock. They cleared out a few rooms (all seeming to cointain something of their CR, such as a group of imps...) and I started to panick "This is main temple to hextor in a big city! It must have too powerful magic items! I can't let them get them!", soo... I created 2 routes to the treasury. Other had 2 level 10 monks guarding it, other went through the bedroom of highpriest of hextor. He was sleeping, I let rogue pick the lock and he managed to slit the throat of the priest!! (I had not heard of stuff as "coup de grace, which allows fort save" or anything...)
So, they found 3 major wondrous items, 4 medium wondrous items and a bunch of smaller stuff. They were about level 5, so bye bye wealth-by-level. They just got stuff worth of 300k or so... "I don't think that you can sell that stuff in this city..." "That is okay, we sell them to the wizard!" "...okay."
They spent that money all to magic weapons and rings. I also allowed flaming weapons of frost, etc. enchantments. No, I do not know where there they found a guy selling these weapons. It was like 2am and we had played for 12 hours straight, still we continued.
I realized these guys were getting too powerful, so I knew what to send against party of evil players. I sent a pair of paladins. What did happen? The PCs survived, but paladins crit the DMPC wizard thingy. He died, the whole campaign plot and railroading tool was no more.
Well, the PCs continued without anything special to do and we played untill 4am. Then we stopped and the next morning I called "I quit DMing for now. This campaign is something that has gone wrong..."
Guess what? THE PLAYERS DIDN'T KNOW WHY I QUIT! It seems that they had a lot of fun. :D:D:D
So, this was story of the first time I DMed. Total failure, but as players liked, I guess it was kinda of success at the same time.
I honestly don't think I could be that bad if I tried!
Wow, good to see that the cockroaches will have this thread with them after the nuclear winter. It just won't die.
lmao, guess I will just quote me from 8 months ago, somehow it still seems appropriate.
ok guess I will just quote me from 5 months ago, quoting me from 13 months ago.
Congrats galahad on a thread that cannot die.
Rise from your grave! :D
(Bonus points if you know what game that's from)
Altered Beast???
That was a terrible experiance GtP, really.
EDIT-
Oops, sorry guys for bumping this thread, I had replied by the end of page 5, not realising that the topic had died on page 6...
Anyway, my bad.
The great THREADTHULU :coolcthul
I've been at these boards for almost 2 years, yet never saw this thread before.
At long last, I've witnessed yet another clue to the spell of Create Greater Unthread.
BTW, that OP story reminds me of around 4 campaigns. Immature, unthinking, biased, convoluted, contrived, and DM-centric. I miss Junior High *sigh*
We had been chasing this villain all over the Forgotten Realms and after months of gruelling searching, we had found her! She was about to board a ship and the DM pulled out his "DM Speech Notes" (do not disturb) to read her speech to us. I decided that, no, she was going to get a sword in the face instead of making us listen to her trite and self-righteous speech so my cleric, Otto von Steelythews does this:
Otto: I charge her.
DM: Er? She casts Hold Person.
(fair enough, she won initiative...not that he'd rolled any dice...)
Otto: I make my will save. I am a cleric, after all. I charge her!
DM: She casts Hold Person again.
Otto: How strange. OK, I make my will save again. I bloody well charge her!
DM: She casts Hold Person again.
Otto: ...
Other PCs: ...
DM: Well she is a powerful wizard.
Otto: No, you're just an idiot. My cleric commits seppuku.
And later when I told him that you can't cast 3 non-quickened spells in a surprise round, he said it was "for the plot". I said, "If you DM like that, you'll be running the plot solo."
And so, the one obnoxious and annoying "knowledgeable" player (who's char was sleeping) starts interfering, telling the other player what to do...i'mm annoyed,
...
i tell them that i will give them the armor and weapons for no charge other than the annoying char's shield The result: he gives me the shield, but acts like a prick for the rest of the adventure.
And rightly so. 1st rule of DMming - never apply in-game penalties for out-of-game behaviour. Don't do it. Only in-game is the DM god. Out of game, players and DMs are equal - a group of people playing a game at someone's home. Applying in-game penalties for players that annoy you is crossing an important line.
Regardless of that... edgelett's DM is a bit of a dolt. There's an amazing amount of basic knowledge that people (and, by extension, characters) pick up in their lives.
Not if you are illiterate and live in a villiage. Villiagers can be astonishingly ignorant, in ways that we who live with TVs and newspapers just can't appreciate. A villiager can live and die never having traveled more than 5 or 10 miles away from the place they were born. An itinerant tinker who has a regular round of 5 villiages and one small town become Marco Polo by comparison.
In any case. What's wrong with a DM saying "guys, I have prepared a module for us to play this evening"? You can go jump up and down about railroading - "but our caracters dont want to go to the forgotten mine!", but as a matter of practical necessity, the forgotten mine is where the game is at, tonight.
And rightly so. 1st rule of DMming - never apply in-game penalties for out-of-game behaviour. Don't do it. Only in-game is the DM god. Out of game, players and DMs are equal - a group of people playing a game at someone's home. Applying in-game penalties for players that annoy you is crossing an important line.
Depends on how "out-of-game" it is. My little brother should have known better than to insist on mispronouncing "Bestow Curse" as "bee stow curse" where the stow rhymes with cow. Since he was my lil brother, I was quite harsh on him and made a stupid houserule that to cast any spells, you must pronounce them correctly. Each time you say "Bestow" in the way he did, in game or out of game, your character takes 1 point of intelligence (double if you're well educated and should know better).
Besides, he's fortunate enough to live where we do and get a good education, there's no point in intentionally being stupid. It "learned him good."
(Note: Since he stopped being stupid I since then have revoked such an absolutely stupid house rule.)
Albeit, I, for the most part, agree with you. Out of game issues should be dealt with out of game, and in game issues should be dealt with in game. But I do beleive there are scenarios that merit an exception to your statement.
I'll pop off a recent one, since I played with the same DM for years... *sigh.* Long story. Moving on!
The DM declares that tonight, he wishes to try something new, and says the entire party is going to start as commoners.
"Um, ok... So, we're level zero, right?"
"No, you're level one commoners."
"Uh... 'Kay."
Seems he got it into his head to let us roll 4d6 stats, reroll ones and twos, and keep whatever we got. I know at least three of us got a twelve. Continuing on.
So, we go out, and be... Common, ugh. I made sure to get the party to invest heavily in profession, so we could have a nice nest egg for when we gain our first level of 'awesome'.
Day two, ten minutes into game time. We get drafted.
"Ok, um, what do we get paid?"
"Nothing."
"Uh, no, screw that, I'll stay home, thank you very much."
"No, the general (bad news coming, it should be obvious from this remark) walks over and puts his sword to your throat. You join or you die."
"Well, then I just lean forward, and open my neck up on the end of his sword."
"Uh, no, it's not the point, it's the edge of the blade he's holding at your neck.""Semantics. Fine, I turn my head, and slit my throat on the EDGE of his blade."
"No. He pulls the sword back, since he has faster reflexes than you."
"Fine, then I'll wal-"
"He hits you, and knocks out out."
"Hey, he didn't even roll dam-"
"Fifteen subdual damage. You can't talk until your character wakes up."
"..... Fine."
First thing I say when I 'wake up'? "We aren't drafted, we're conscripted."
So, we muddle along, in a big group. I was thrown on a horse, since I was 'out'. Where I don't know.
So the entire village is drafted, and led by a company of level fifteen knights. I ask why the army needs untrained conscripts.
It turns out that we're needed to DIE on the front lines instead of the good troops. Yes, that's right, we're here to soak up the fireball and ray of enervation spells.
Joy.
Along the way, we're allowed to fight amongst ourselves for exp. Nonlethal fights, naturally. So, I pull out my best, and not only snag a rock, but bean the biggest, baddest guy in our group, who was undefeated all night, until I decided to be me.
"I challenge you, do you accept coward?"
"He doesn't even turn around, telling you to take your best shot."
"Good, I pick up a rock the size of my fist, and bean him in the back of the head with both hands as hard as I can."
"Uh, there aren't any ro-"
"Nope, you said it was stony ground, nice try. I'm rolling dam- oooh, critical hit."
"Fine, he drops, you win. A guy even bigger than him steps out of the crowd and says-"
"I throw my rock at his face, surprise attack."
Yeah, I was a little sore. I was justified quickly too. After I got my licks in, I was knocked out again.
Three more nights of this, and we all gain a level. Yay!
Now we're multiclassing. Allright, I'll- wait, what?
Yes, you got it right, we're still commoners. I had to intimidate the DM, and offer to sack some extra exp to become a regular level one character instead.
I threatened to destroy anything he threw at us, no matter how impossible it was for us to win. The reasons this worked were two fold.
Reason one, I promised to play like a normal gamer.
Reason two, I have a history of being unkillable.
So, moving on. We get to this apparently awesome city. What do they do? "Oh, you're free to do anything you want, as long as you don't leave the city."
"Um, what about our army training?"
"Oh, you don't need that right now, there's no wars going on."
"Er, the point of training is to be READY when a war happens. Rampaging armies don't usually call to set up a meeting y'know."
"The captain ignores you and rides away."
Right, so, we're broke, barely trained semi-commoners in a massive city where we can't even afford to eat. Fun.
Luckily, they have an arena in town. Downside? It's round robin style, so we often ended up fighting each other in knockout style tourneys.
I pretty much charged a few hundred people a handful of gold each to come see some 'memorable' battles.
Let me say this again, in one night, I made eleven THOUSAND gold, at level one, by throwing a fight. The first fight of the tourney, and I throw it. I also got paid for this fight.
Oh, yay, time for gear!
"No, sorry, as conscripts, you aren't allowed to own any weapons or armor."
"This sucks."
"Hey, I decided we're trying something new. You don't like it? Too bad! You want to do something different, then you DM."
"Fine, can I DM then?"
"No! I'm DMing. You're all allways like this, anytime I come up with something fun, you have to ruin it."
"Being a commoner isn't fun. That's why they have adventurer classes. Because commoners suck."
"But I gave you extra stats to make up for it."
"Are you kidding? I have a twelve of wisdom. I barely beat out the town DRUNK!"
"Yeah, but you have awesome scores, you got-"
At this point, my friend pipes up. "Uh, no, he didn't. Look at his sheet, he's got the worst stats out of the entire group. His best stat is a.... Is that a seven, or a one?"
"It's a seven. I have a seventeen as my best stat. What's your worst? A sixteen."
"Nineteen actually."
"I hate you."
At this point, the DM asks everyone else, at my suggestion, if they're having fun. The one who's gone the entire night without complaining, says he's been bored since we started, the only fun he had, was when he got a pile of gold.
He stopped having fun when I told him that at 23K, he had more than a level eight character should have.
At this point, the DM blew his top, swore, yelled, and made a general ass out of himself. He had a hissyfit, and stormed out.
We all sat there for a minute or two, silent, just staring at each other, and the door. My friend broke the silence.
"Yeah... That went well."
"Actually, he took that a lot better than I thought he would."
I wasn't kidding either. When everyone asked 'now what?' I picked up the players handbook, and grinned.
"Now you all roll 3d6 for stats. Erase those character sheets, you won't be needing commoner levels."
We had more fun creating level one characters, than we had the entire previous session.
So, in summary, the worst way to nerf a game, is to remove all the classes.
I've got more horror stories, but I think one massive is enough for now.
OH! There was one other thing. A campaign where dragons were talking over the land. They were EVERYWHERE. The same DM, let one player be a dragonborn... No, the magic using type, the name escap- spellscale adept?
Whatever. So, he walks into town, and is promptly executed within five minutes, drowned, and then, when he gets out of the wooden box, beaten to death.
Apparently, he thought there was no problem in not telling us that anyone who isn't human, or an elf, would be killed on sight.
Also, we weren't allowed to play elves. That race was reserved for the DM PCs.
First fight of the night? Six adult red dragons. I got a little mad, asked the party leader OOC if I could go nuclear on the dragons. His answer?
"Only if you lend us enough of your awesomeness to do the same."
"Deal."
It is a very sweet thing when you not only beat out the TPK, but even have the party's weakest guy kill two dragons on his own. This campaign too, only lasted one night.
I've played more one shots that were supposed to be lasting games, than ACTUAL one shots. Sad, no?
So, in summary, the worst way to nerf a game, is to remove all the classes.
No, the worst way to nerf a game is to be a total **** DM. The specifics don't really matter.
First a little background.
I, my best friend, and another friend(well not so much anymore) have been playing DnD together for a long time. Up untill a while ago Austin(my best friend) and I had always DMed. About a year before the incedent we started some early level characters(maybe 3...). I played a monk(for which I have become notorious authority on monks) who was heavily strength and Con based. He became the essential Face Smasher of the party. Austin played a wizard(who later became a lich). an our other friend(Nate) played a slew of characters, including a ranged ranger(He got some fame for it too). Anyways, My character(through a bit of bullying-we were all evil) had maintained massive power up to 30th level. By this time Austin and I were able to easily defeat even minor dieties(from dieties and demigods) not to mention the monsters in the MM's and Epic handbook.
So after Nate got the draconomicon he decided to DM for once. We got off to a rocky start with Tang and Spellspitter( the names of Austin and my characters) Finishing off the last ruler of the continent and bringing it under their total domination. we were in a Free-play and the Dm got all the liberty with the map. However instead of opening up a new area to explore, nate decided to rewrite history. He said that one area had repelled us and forced back out Blighted Legions. We said Ok and proceeded forward with the game. Deciding that we were powerfull enough to go forth ourselves and reconquer this land(or whatever) we set out. Using our captured dragon mounts, forced into slavery through dominate monster, we flew there quickly. Arriving in the land we snt the dragons into a sheltered valley, and flew in on our own. Immediatly we were assaulted by strange ghost dragons, that we couldnt see(evne though it turned out they were in the ethereal plane and we had true seeing) They unleashed breathweapons(every round-no recharge) that did somewhere in the area of 40 Wisdom damage. The attacked until we landed, then left us alone. Then we fought some skeletal collosal dragons(approx 60 of them)and after an hour of mindless slaing,we had only gotten rid of 3 of them. Nate stumbled over stat blocks, and eventually decided that they fled. we continued on, and saw a collosal+ sized gold dragon corpse. We put 2 and 2 together and got a dragon graveyard. We combatted our way through a few more ranks of undead, and gor into the corpse, expecting a necromancer or buried treasure for guarding or SOMETHING. we got Flux slime. For those who dont know Flux slime is like antimagic field incarnate. It was supposed to only be controlled by the major gods, but it had decided to live in the big corpse. Now we saw why the big nasty ghost dragons were around, to stop us from flying over the corpse and breaking in. Eventually(useing the plane of shadows and a few orbs of anihalation) we got through. Then we met a indestructably barrer, which molded back almost instantly. This was a fairly good part of teh game, as we had to find really creative ways of busting through. After that we got to a big room filled with rare and exotic treasures. Finally the thing we had been waiting for, a reward for the 9 hours of playing, putting up with crappy enemies and forceplay. we counted it up, and values it out, wasting a few scrols of analyze dweomer, and were very happy(we even discussed making this our great palace, guarded from the world by these creatures). however after 30 minutes we found that there was another in the room. An onld man had appeared, and walked over to us. We were baffled by the fact that succesful spellcraft checks resulted in a teleportation spell, which was impossible with the slime. The man walked over, and delivered a long speech, somehow holding us immoble and speechless(no saves or attacks rolled), and then teleported away, with ALL OUR TREASURE. All that work, and we ended up being stuck in a room with no treasure. we ended the session there, and Nate hasnt run a succesfull campaign, with or without us, for more that 3 sessions.
I hope you enjoyed this long and rambling speail, and didnt die in the process of reading it.
Oh boy, a place to vent a fun story.
First a little background.
I, my best friend, and another friend(well not so much anymore) have been playing DnD together for a long time. Up untill a while ago Austin(my best friend) and I had always DMed. About a year before the incedent we started some early level characters(maybe 3...). I played a monk(for which I have become notorious authority on monks) who was heavily strength and Con based. He became the essential Face Smasher of the party. Austin played a wizard(who later became a lich). an our other friend(Nate) played a slew of characters, including a ranged ranger(He got some fame for it too). Anyways, My character(through a bit of bullying-we were all evil) had maintained massive power up to 30th level. By this time Austin and I were able to easily defeat even minor dieties(from dieties and demigods) not to mention the monsters in the MM's and Epic handbook.
So after Nate got the draconomicon he decided to DM for once. We got off to a rocky start with Tang and Spellspitter( the names of Austin and my characters) Finishing off the last ruler of the continent and bringing it under their total domination. we were in a Free-play and the Dm got all the liberty with the map. However instead of opening up a new area to explore, nate decided to rewrite history. He said that one area had repelled us and forced back out Blighted Legions. We said Ok and proceeded forward with the game. Deciding that we were powerfull enough to go forth ourselves and reconquer this land(or whatever) we set out. Using our captured dragon mounts, forced into slavery through dominate monster, we flew there quickly. Arriving in the land we snt the dragons into a sheltered valley, and flew in on our own. Immediatly we were assaulted by strange ghost dragons, that we couldnt see(evne though it turned out they were in the ethereal plane and we had true seeing) They unleashed breathweapons(every round-no recharge) that did somewhere in the area of 40 Wisdom damage. The attacked until we landed, then left us alone. Then we fought some skeletal collosal dragons(approx 60 of them)and after an hour of mindless slaing,we had only gotten rid of 3 of them. Nate stumbled over stat blocks, and eventually decided that they fled. we continued on, and saw a collosal+ sized gold dragon corpse. We put 2 and 2 together and got a dragon graveyard. We combatted our way through a few more ranks of undead, and gor into the corpse, expecting a necromancer or buried treasure for guarding or SOMETHING. we got Flux slime. For those who dont know Flux slime is like antimagic field incarnate. It was supposed to only be controlled by the major gods, but it had decided to live in the big corpse. Now we saw why the big nasty ghost dragons were around, to stop us from flying over the corpse and breaking in. Eventually(useing the plane of shadows and a few orbs of anihalation) we got through. Then we met a indestructably barrer, which molded back almost instantly. This was a fairly good part of teh game, as we had to find really creative ways of busting through. After that we got to a big room filled with rare and exotic treasures. Finally the thing we had been waiting for, a reward for the 9 hours of playing, putting up with crappy enemies and forceplay. we counted it up, and values it out, wasting a few scrols of analyze dweomer, and were very happy(we even discussed making this our great palace, guarded from the world by these creatures). however after 30 minutes we found that there was another in the room. An onld man had appeared, and walked over to us. We were baffled by the fact that succesful spellcraft checks resulted in a teleportation spell, which was impossible with the slime. The man walked over, and delivered a long speech, somehow holding us immoble and speechless(no saves or attacks rolled), and then teleported away, with ALL OUR TREASURE. All that work, and we ended up being stuck in a room with no treasure. we ended the session there, and Nate hasnt run a succesfull campaign, with or without us, for more that 3 sessions.
I hope you enjoyed this long and rambling speail, and didnt die in the process of reading it.
You and your friends all gimped the encounters, Gods and Dragons should easily be able to TPK.
Unfortunately, it ended up crappy as we were soon stuck on a boat (worst place for adventurers ever) where he didn't give us anything to do but sail, and then expected us to be doing things, leaving our characters to play card games for months of game time.
See this, THIS is why I hated Legend of Zelda Wind Waker SO VERY MUCH!
Oh and Kothardarastrix, SHRINK OR SBLOCK YOUR SIG OR I WILL FIND YOU AND DEFENESTRATE YOU!
anyway slap that DM SLAP THE **** OUT OF HIM!!!!!!
with the DM manual, take it and say this:
"see this book" (point at DMHB)
"LOOK CLOSER"! (HIT HIM WITH IT!)
This thread has mads me feel much better about DMing.
I've only played around a month, but I DM for the first time tomorrow (!), and I was ****-scared about being terrible at it, but I'm positive that, no matter how hard I try, I couldn't possibly be quite as useless as the DMs in this thread. Thank You.
-Drake-
Note: this is a tale of only medium-bad GMing. It's only the punchline that really carves it a place in the record books.
Let the tale begin...
I believe the characters were 5th level or so. We were in service to a city where the Church ruled supreme (there, the phrase 'separation of Church and State' was never heard, but that's because it's hard to talk around a mouthful of molten lead ... or so I understand :P). In any case, the first few adventures were relatively low-key. Go out, find the Monster of the Week, kill it, get its treasure (if it has any), then return and wait for the next mission. It did get a little wearing that any tactical planning on our part was 'accidentally' nullified by they way the monsters set up things; "They just decided to post a guard there because they felt like it" and stuff like that. Anyway, I figured the GM might work his way up in the world, and it really wasn't that bad. Playing a dwarf, I got to say (in my really bad imitation of a Scottish accent) "What'm I doin'? I'm gittin' drunk, laddie!" regularly. I did this anytime the plot got boring. I believe my character was a major shareholder in all the breweries in that town. :D Though there were no brothels (the GM apparently never having heard of the excesses of some of the leading lights of the Catholic Church through the ages...), which sort of honked my character off. He even considered leaving, just so he could find out what real sin was all about :P.
Anyway.
We were summoned to deal with an organisation of evil clerics. Now, our clerics were hell on wheels with all the weird and wonderful clerical spells that help keep the peasants amazed - but not one of them ever considered going out and fighting, instead of hiring soldiers. Expensive soldiers. More money than brains, my guess is.
So I asked where the bad guys were, just to get an idea how long we'd be on the road (I'd quickly figured that my ranger's animal companion, a dire rat that I'd taught to pee on any target, on command, would die really really quickly out in the field, so I wanted to know how long we'd be away). "We're teleporting you there," we were told.
Okay, so where were we being teleported to?
"Oh, we have no idea. We just know how to teleport you there."
So.... get some sort of magical or mystical beacon, teleport it there, then home in on it for a location. Y'see, I'd really hate to not be able to get back...
"No, we have no time."
Bing, we are teleported. Despite the fact that I didn't want to go, and wanted to look at the map first. Heck, I wanted to go to the toilet first. And get some food. And water.
But there we all were, teleported against our will.
"Ye know, sometimes I git ta wonderin' why it is I'm workin' for these wee jobbies." (my character again. :D)
We come out of the teleport in a room full of animated skeletons, and not a few zombies. And nasty clerics. There were so many skeletons that the GM (who had many figurines) had to put down bases and say, "There's 10 skeletons behind this one." He had a lot of bases. Oh, and we had to pick numbers for where we landed. Pick the wrong number, and risk ending up conjoined with a skeleton. One of the PCs ended up with a bit of bone (not hers) sticking out of her arm. Ouchie.
Long story short, we won. Really-dead undead all over. One evil cleric dead, another fled. Through the door he left by, just a mysterious blank, black surface. Weird.
So we decide, which way is out? Several doors open out of this room, but none lead to an exit. Experimentation leads to the unsettling discovery that the black wall is actually something that eats anything touching it. And every time it does, it gets bigger. When we try fire on it (harking back to the good ol' black pudding) it gets bigger quickly. Apparently it likes energy.
In one corner of the room is a bookshelf with a stack of books on it, along with a table and a lot of papers. My character, once he found out these were the secrets of making undead quickly and easily, took it on himself to destroy these papers and books, just in case the bad guys counter-attacked. Then we started thinking about getting out.
The place was solid. Four doors out of the room, one with the creeping black wall. Were we underground? My dwarven sense said, no. But we were under solid rock; the room was tiled with these stone blocks, all 4" thick and 2' square, and behind them was solid, seamless, stone.
Mind you, despite the fact that we had a dwarf (me) with mining experience and a crowbar - it took us two hours to lever those stone blocks off the wall. Even after we had one off, the rest were just as difficult. Two hours, each one. Remember that figure.
So after a few misadventures (mainly finding out what the black thing ate - anything - and watching it grow considerably larger in the process) the GM called it a night. Come back next week.
So we did. Almost the entire session was spent levering blocks off the wall to try and find a way out. We did it on the walls, the floor, the ceiling ... to no avail. Solid, seamless stone, too hard to tunnel through, the same all the way around. We searched the entire room top to bottom, to no avail. There was no way out.
After one more misadventure, where we tried to blow up the encroaching monster with the mixed contents of the evil clerics' potion store, and found that it liked explosions too, we were trapped in one side-corridor, with about thirty feet of corridor and one small room left to us. When the GM went for a smoke break, we consulted with each other. When he got back, he was faced with a group decision that the black wall must be a teleport out of there, so we were going to leap into it and see what happened.
Almost immediately, we got to make Listen checks. Looking around, we saw a hole being tunneled into the room behind us. Once the hole was wide enough, one of our almighty-powerful clerics climbed through, looked at the black wall (which was making us feel really cramped now) and said, "Oh, one of those," tossed a simple spell, and shrank it back again. Turns out that it was a standard mutated black pudding, that shrank back when it was hit with a Light spell. Used all over the city for garbage disposal. Not that any of the PCs were gifted with this information.
So once we get out (it turned out we had been in a cavity magically hollowed within the fifty-foot-thick city walls - so technically not underground), I turn to the GM and say, "Right. All I need to level up is fifty points." He knew this - he'd been hanging this over my head for a week or two - deliberately cutting the XP from the conquest of the room short so I didn't have it. "How much do we get?"
First off, he tried to wave it off, as we'd really done 'nothing'. Fine, we hadn't defeated the 'black pudding' because we didn't have the one spell that defeated it. We didn't know to have the one spell that defeated it (the room was magically lit. Of course it was...). But we had roleplayed like mad while trying to get out. We really had. He finally told us that if we had looked behind the bookcase, there was a door there. I said, we'd looked behind the case. He said we didn't specifically say we had. I said, "What part of we look over every square foot of the room, in detail, means we don't look behind the bookcase?" I'd said that, several times.
No dice. Apparently, looking behind the bookcase would only have happened if we had mentioned it by name.
So eventually, he said, "okay, you all get ten experience for roleplaying."
I said, "WHAT?"
He looked surprised.
"Come on," I said, "I just need fifty. That's it. Give everyone else a hundred if you want - I don't care. I've been trying to level up for three solid weeks. Fifty points - come on."
So then he did the thing that I still do not believe.
He rolled percentile dice, and said, "Okay, you all get ... thirty-two experience."
That's when I blew my top. I said a few rude words, then a lot of heated ones (the phrase, "you do NOT roll percentile to award experience points!" being a major part of my diatribe) before storming out.
Didn't go back the next week.
Week after, I found that everyone (including me) was levelling up to EIGHTH level, to compensate for someone turning into a vampire werewolf. Or a werewolf vampire. Or something.
Anyway, the game didn't last much longer.
But the 32 experience points still burns me.
I've got four games running (that lapsed recently, partly due to that series of attempts to upgrade the boards), of which one is up and running properly again, one has just gone into its fourth chapter, one I am just starting to kick life into again ... and one that I will try to bring back up to speed.
And I intend to start another real soon, aimed specifically at newbies on the boards.
Oh, and I'm in about a dozen :D
Gods.. that's...
I have two bad encounters that I remember...
One being one of the first times I was playing AD&D, and the group's regular DM was playing for once, and one of the players were gonna DM. This new DM was thoroughly jealous of my boyfriend at the time, and didn't do anything to hide that fact. ... about 15 minutes into the adventure, our group were walking down a road, on a plain, and up toward a city when suddenly my elven wizardess gets blasted from out of nowhere by a fireball. Which instantly killed me, and rendered my body to dust. Nothing could be seen around our group, it was an open plain after all. The group started to try to gather the ashes, but the moment that was said by the players, the DM decided a strong wind came in from . And I was out of that game. Man was everyone peeved. :P
Bad encounter #2 was some time after my Kiaransaleean drow cleric had gotten a very nice set of white dragon armor crafted by scales given to her by a great white (and yes, we allowed Kiaransaleeans to wear actual armor in our campaign).
It must be said that this encounter was in an online game, so I did not know the worst DM in the world was paying me any mind -- nor looking in my inventory to see my awesome armor and getting jealous that his own drow character didn't have an armor that good. -.-
Anyway.. my girl was walking the tunnels from one place to another, with her companions (8 skeletons) and absently having mind-boggling conversations with them (:rolleyes
when suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge old white dragon appears... in the narrow, tiny Underdark tunnel my character was walking in ... seriously. Next I get a few deus ex machina emotes about the dragon picking my character up (no roll against it allowed), ripping the armor from her body, and tossing her into the tunnel-wall before walking around a corner and vanishing. WOW!!! Greatest DMing ever. 
Whew, venting all that felt really good. :D
[/i][/color]
Best thread evAr.
*Disgusted noise.* A time elemental.
Never mind that they don't exist, that he never defined the abilities, or that he never wrote them down and therefore were as fluid as the six hour old, half emptied slurpies on the coffee table we played on.
That is when you know you've got a jackass for a game master.
Still, I do miss playing AD&D, even if that GM soured it for me a bit. Nearly all my dungeon crawls, good and bad, took place within the mechanics of the AD&D system.
... All my barroom brawls too, come to think of it.
"Oh, then you'll get 200 gold....to share amoungst you" There are 4 of us. We are the only 4th level characters alive with only 300 GP to their name.
Actually right now in a campaign I am currently in running a dread necromancer with only 181gp from the 300 I started at at lvl 3, the money I have made currently sofar was from my profession(cook). :D
I warn you ,though, the power of the curse on this game may force you to move away.
Our Barbarian moved to Germany, our Fighter moved to Arizona, and our Cleric moved to Northern California.
Only the Paladin and the Rogue remain, and now they say goodbye to each other out-of-character at the start of each session...
Wow, good to see that the cockroaches will have this thread with them after the nuclear winter. It just won't die.
lmao, guess I will just quote me from 8 months ago, somehow it still seems appropriate.
ok guess I will just quote me from 5 months ago, quoting me from 13 months ago.
Congrats galahad on a thread that cannot die.
Galahad_the_Pure, if you ever move to Southern California, send me a PM. You can join my unnamed campaign that has acquired the nickname "The Best Campaign We Can't Keep Players In."
I warn you ,though, the power of the curse on this game may force you to move away.
Our Barbarian moved to Germany, our Fighter moved to Arizona, and our Cleric moved to Northern California.
Only the Paladin and the Rogue remain, and now they say goodbye to each other out-of-character at the start of each session...
Oh dear lord necromancy doesnt even cover it anymore. The OP is from 3 years ago and I havent seen him post in a longtime, so I doubt he will be taking you up on the offer, although it is a nice offer.
And good luck finding mroe players for your game, good players are hard to find, and good campaigns aer even harder.
*Takes a shot*
I mean dude. You wanted to kill the dragons so the town wanted to worship you as a god? What the heck kind of plan is that? Why would they worship you as a god just because you killed the one they worshipped before? It makes no sense. And what kind of lame ass story is that. "My character wants to become a god", what is a DM supposed to do with that?
And the rune on your back was obviously a part of the DMs story, why not just run with it?
The DM sounds like he wasn't very got either, but I could just picture the DM writing another thread where you come off as the guy who broke that game, because it sound like you were both the cause of it.
Now I read this story the first time today.
Sadly, you missed the "posted on" date, and forgot to read any of the other posts. Thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Sadly, you missed the "posted on" date, and forgot to read any of the other posts. Thanks for playing, better luck next time.
I missed nothing. And no I didn't read 8 pages worth of discussion.
Now I read this story the first time today. The first story, on page 1. And I have to say, it sounds like you're every bit as guilty in that game going wrong as your DM was.
I mean dude. You wanted to kill the dragons so the town wanted to worship you as a god? What the heck kind of plan is that? Why would they worship you as a god just because you killed the one they worshipped before? It makes no sense. And what kind of lame ass story is that. "My character wants to become a god", what is a DM supposed to do with that?
And the rune on your back was obviously a part of the DMs story, why not just run with it?
The DM sounds like he wasn't very got either, but I could just picture the DM writing another thread where you come off as the guy who broke that game, because it sound like you were both the cause of it.
You actually agree with the OP's DM? Making you the pawn of an evil dragon through complete fiat and then being sent off to destroy cities is 'a part of the DM's story' and you should 'run with it'?
Huh.
Can you account for your gaming whereabouts in June 2004?
Now I read this story the first time today. The first story, on page 1. And I have to say, it sounds like you're every bit as guilty in that game going wrong as your DM was.
I mean dude. You wanted to kill the dragons so the town wanted to worship you as a god? What the heck kind of plan is that? Why would they worship you as a god just because you killed the one they worshipped before? It makes no sense. And what kind of lame ass story is that. "My character wants to become a god", what is a DM supposed to do with that?
And the rune on your back was obviously a part of the DMs story, why not just run with it?
The DM sounds like he wasn't very got either, but I could just picture the DM writing another thread where you come off as the guy who broke that game, because it sound like you were both the cause of it.
Why shold the OP allow the Dm to use deux ex machina to stop the player from decideing what the charecter should do?
No anger? no emotion? Your really fooled me, because i could tell you were so fed up that I really had no idea how to respond. I'm glad you linked me to this because I got to see your thoughts clearly stated about the situation.
For purposes of those who are reading along(although this is directed at GtP), the DM said that he wants to postpone the campaign until he can get 1-2 more players. Ironic? Perhaps I should quit it. I don't agree at all at what he did to you, regardless of how little he affected the others. I disagree with favortism... or in your case unfair nerfage. As you know, if I quit the campaign, the campaign dies with me.
Good thing my campaign is starting up in 2 weeks or so, huh?
You refering to my campaign?
Hmm on second thought... perhaps I should order the illithids to take over the tower of misleading sorcery before I leave. :D Yes, the illithids were under my command in his campagin... He nerfed everone too much and gave me too much power
Down with the tower of misleading sorcery!
If you can get anything from your DM, try getting the RIng of the Succubus if you play a female character, and then just walk into the tower.
Within a few minutes you would have the whole tower listening to you if the DM doesn't try making those saves:evillaugh
Here started the "It seems high result, you succeed" -attitude. I really had not thought of DCs so when they said some high number - such as 17 - they succeeded.
This sounds familiar. I have had a DM who just looked at the dice, and didn't even bother considering what your characters stats and such were. If you rolled high you won, rolled low you lost, and otherwise it depended on how tough it was. Regardless of whether your modifier was -10 or +10. For instance, I am playing a warrior who doesn't like to kill if they can avoid it, but they will.
DM: Roll attack
Me: *rolls*
DM: A six, you trip yourself
Me: WTF?
DM: You rolled low
Me: I have a +11 bonus.
DM: You still trip
That was annoying but then its another players turn. This guy is an archer who uses a crossbow to compensate for his nonexistent strength. He is using a sword, on the same guy with the same AC as the guy I just attacked and tripped myself on
DM: Roll attack
Guy: *rolls*
DM: A 13, you hit, instant kill.
Guy: Really?
DM: You rolled high
Guy: Cool I hit with a -4 penalty.
The trip game goes on for about five minutes, then I leave. It turned out that the DM had never even glanced at a rule book, and had no idea how the rules worked. There was no real point for character sheets at that point.
EDIT: Of course, thats not even going into the lame excuse that was the story. For the first session we are all given standard gear from the military and sent out, so we manage to escape and fight out way over a bridge, with an important NPC giving us a quest to get some information to some high quality spies right before he dies. We rolled high and were against weak enemies, so we didn't really suspect the rules were being broken.
The second session we start back at a military base we never went to quitting without saying anything about it, and they stole all our gear including the spear I stole from an enemy since I was a better spear fighter than sword fighter. The DM then proceeds to say that the quest the NPC gave us is "a bad quest" and "optional" so we shouldn't go on it. We are later attacked by a giant ninja squirrel then the trip game shows up.
If you can get anything from your DM, try getting the RIng of the Succubus if you play a female character, and then just walk into the tower.
Within a few minutes you would have the whole tower listening to you if the DM doesn't try making those saves:evillaugh
Whats book is that from?
Your a good player though, you have a lot of good ideas, but they don't work with a railroading DM like the one in your story. Nice job killing yourself though, hehe.
Same thing happened with my first ever GMing in Cyber punk, I made about the same mistakes as the GM in the first post.
Good thing my previous GM saved my hide and suggested he would take care of the GMing.
Wow, your like, an expert on the basic principles of Duex Ex Machina or however you spell it, that really made me think, "My DM is great!"
I don't think your DM is great, I think he sucks.
!I'm a first time DM for a group of much more experienced DnD players. Thanks to this thread - long as it is - for pointing out some things that make bad DMs. As useful as it is for helping someone realize they have a bad DM (or a good one), it is equally useful to help people recognise that they are (or help them avoid becoming) a bad DM themselves.
With that - I apologise to those who want this thread to finally go to the Elysian Fields for its well deserved rest. I couldn't resist.
Being a part-time DM for my group, of course, tips my opinion. Toward my glass :P
I guess they're everywhere...and I'm a level 4 among level 46 DMs...
:invasion:
If you can get anything from your DM, try getting the RIng of the Succubus if you play a female character, and then just walk into the tower.
Within a few minutes you would have the whole tower listening to you if the DM doesn't try making those saves:evillaugh
Where is the Ring of the Succubus from? Like what book?
So eventually someone told him that he shouldn't tell us things that wouldn't make any sense for us to know.
So we start the next adventure and it goes something like this:
Me: We head off to the area that was marked on the map for us.
DM: You can't go there, something's in your way.
Me: What is it?
DM: I'm certainly not going to tell you. Maybe it's a bottomless pit... Or perhaps some sort of monster... Who knows?
Me: Uhm... I attack the monster.
DM: Turns out it was a bottomless pit. You fall to your death.
P.S. But he was just being silly, and it wasn't a permanent death, as a random cleric who happened to be in the neighborhood managed to recover my body then ressurect me.
Seriously, now I know some people are just raising this for kick's sake.
good Lord, this thread must be a lich, every time it dies, it keeps coming back. gets its phylactary must be a well hidden one.:P
Seriously, now I know some people are just raising this for kick's sake.
You got a problem with that?
And that, kids, is why you should never play in a game DMed by Gary Gygax.
I assume this was supposed to be a joke, but to prevent the maligning of a gaming giant I am going to have to say that I gamed once with Mr. Gygax and the game was amazing. He is an excellent storyteller with a firm grasp of fantasy and not nearly the nerfing railroading ogre he's made out to be. I walked away from that one game praying I'd be half as good as The Dungeon Master.
Gary Gygax is fond of deathtraps, and years ago, very much into long descriptions, but I kept finding myself thinking "One day, I want to be half as epic."
Just for creating something that has lasted over 30 years, that millions have played.
Luckily, the worst DMs I have had are 10% of the utter and total badness seen here.
"You get all your gear, and depart the station for the rebel alliance. Roll % to see how much of the dock rips off, as you leave."
(We were so stupid, it wasn't until this happened 4 times, that we realized, Heyy.. it's always gonna be at least 01%...)
I had a very low level Jedi in a SW D6 game. Semaj. His lightsaber was not even complete. I wanted to work for it.
A few sessions later, it goes like this:
Semaj Pisnik: I'm almost done crafting my lightsaber.
DM: Okay, roll.
Semaj: Crit Failure!
DM: Your lightsaber slips out of your grasp and falls to the floor in a billion pieces. Start over.
Semaj: force point?
DM: okay it falls to the ground, and breaks into three pieces.
Semaj: What pieces are broken?
DM: the main mirror thing is cracked. And the activation button... And one of the crystals inside. maybe. It rattles a bit.
Semaj: Damn.
Player 2: what's up?
Semaj: I dropped my lightsaber. It's broken.
Player 2: I've got mechanical skill. let me see it.
Semaj: It's broken. It'll be dangerous. Probably won't work.
Player 3: (Laughing) You BROKE your lightsaber? Didn't you just finish making it?
Player 2: Hand it over. I'll make it work.
Semaj: Might as well.
DM: (cackling gleefully.) Here we go.
Player 2: okay, I've got 5D mechanical skill. (rolls wild twice) 30. Here, fixed.
DM: Not exactly. While you have 5D mechanical skill, you have zero lightsaber skill, and no force powers. It fires up, the beam is spread out like a fan, and cuts you in half.
Player 2: (dumbfounded)
Player 3: Holy ****!
Semaj: I use my force point to try to save him.. something...
DM: You used it already to save your lightsaber from being broken. Seems like someone didn't have their priorities straight.
Semaj: No, this is a prescient dream. Some kind of farseeing power. Always in motion is the future. That man is my comrade, I would have forseen this.
DM: Fine.
Player 2: Wow. Close. Thanks, dude. (to DM) Thanks.
DM: So, are you gonna finish your lightsaber?
Semaj: No. I'll wait until my skills are complete.
DM: Fine.
Later in the episode:
The others have escaped. Wounded, your gun smashed, The Stormtroopers bail out and surround you.
Trooper: Look out, He's got an energy weapon!
Trooper 2: Drop your weapon.
Semaj: (with a glint in his eye.) I drop it.
DM: The lightsaber smashes into a billion pieces.
Semaj: I use a force point.
DM: Fine, it drops to the ground, and lies in three pieces.
Semaj: I raise my hands in surrender. "Don't touch that, it's dangerous."
Trooper: We'll decide that, Rebel Scum.
Trooper 2: Shut up, you. Let's take him to lord Vader.
Trooper: I'll get his energy weapon.
DM (rolls): His clumsy, gloved hands touch the firing stud. It activates and...cuts your wanna be Jedi in half.
Semaj: I use... I already used my last one.
DM: Yep.
Semaj: At least nobody else died. How about I disappear, like Kenobi?
DM: No. There's a messy cauterized lump of flesh on the ground, that used to be you. Someone gets a mop.
Player 2: Damn.
Player 3: Damn, dude. Harsh.
I don't know if that is bad DMing or not, to this day. Harsh DMing, maybe. I think the DM didn't like Jedi.
Agreed.
Gary Gygax is fond of deathtraps, and years ago, very much into long descriptions, but I kept finding myself thinking "One day, I want to be half as epic."
Just for creating something that has lasted over 30 years, that millions have played.
I've always considered him to be the Sigmund Freud of gaming. Sure, in hindsight he made a few mistakes, but before then people weren't even talking about the subject.
Luckily, the worst DMs I have had are 10% of the utter and total badness seen here.
"You get all your gear, and depart the station for the rebel alliance. Roll % to see how much of the dock rips off, as you leave."
(We were so stupid, it wasn't until this happened 4 times, that we realized, Heyy.. it's always gonna be at least 01%...)
I had a very low level Jedi in a SW D6 game. Semaj. His lightsaber was not even complete. I wanted to work for it.
A few sessions later, it goes like this:
Semaj Pisnik: I'm almost done crafting my lightsaber.
DM: Okay, roll.
Semaj: Crit Failure!
DM: Your lightsaber slips out of your grasp and falls to the floor in a billion pieces. Start over.
Semaj: force point?
DM: okay it falls to the ground, and breaks into three pieces.
Semaj: What pieces are broken?
DM: the main mirror thing is cracked. And the activation button... And one of the crystals inside. maybe. It rattles a bit.
Semaj: Damn.
Player 2: what's up?
Semaj: I dropped my lightsaber. It's broken.
Player 2: I've got mechanical skill. let me see it.
Semaj: It's broken. It'll be dangerous. Probably won't work.
Player 3: (Laughing) You BROKE your lightsaber? Didn't you just finish making it?
Player 2: Hand it over. I'll make it work.
Semaj: Might as well.
DM: (cackling gleefully.) Here we go.
Player 2: okay, I've got 5D mechanical skill. (rolls wild twice) 30. Here, fixed.
DM: Not exactly. While you have 5D mechanical skill, you have zero lightsaber skill, and no force powers. It fires up, the beam is spread out like a fan, and cuts you in half.
Player 2: (dumbfounded)
Player 3: Holy ****!
Semaj: I use my force point to try to save him.. something...
DM: You used it already to save your lightsaber from being broken. Seems like someone didn't have their priorities straight.
Semaj: No, this is a prescient dream. Some kind of farseeing power. Always in motion is the future. That man is my comrade, I would have forseen this.
DM: Fine.
Player 2: Wow. Close. Thanks, dude. (to DM) Thanks.
DM: So, are you gonna finish your lightsaber?
Semaj: No. I'll wait until my skills are complete.
DM: Fine.
Later in the episode:
The others have escaped. Wounded, your gun smashed, The Stormtroopers bail out and surround you.
Trooper: Look out, He's got an energy weapon!
Trooper 2: Drop your weapon.
Semaj: (with a glint in his eye.) I drop it.
DM: The lightsaber smashes into a billion pieces.
Semaj: I use a force point.
DM: Fine, it drops to the ground, and lies in three pieces.
Semaj: I raise my hands in surrender. "Don't touch that, it's dangerous."
Trooper: We'll decide that, Rebel Scum.
Trooper 2: Shut up, you. Let's take him to lord Vader.
Trooper: I'll get his energy weapon.
DM (rolls): His clumsy, gloved hands touch the firing stud. It activates and...cuts your wanna be Jedi in half.
Semaj: I use... I already used my last one.
DM: Yep.
Semaj: At least nobody else died. How about I disappear, like Kenobi?
DM: No. There's a messy cauterized lump of flesh on the ground, that used to be you. Someone gets a mop.
Player 2: Damn.
Player 3: Damn, dude. Harsh.
I don't know if that is bad DMing or not, to this day. Harsh DMing, maybe. I think the DM didn't like Jedi.
Umm... did you play this game in Washington State with a GM named Eric?
San Diego, with a DM named Bryan, 1989.
Strange... I ran a game with that exact scene in the 1990's in Washington state...
BTW
It was at this point that I found out exactly how a dragon assumes divine rank—he consumes his entire treasure horde
Best line ever.
Also to simpathise with poor Galahad.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
One time, a few 6 years ago, I ran this dnd game where I let the party get ahold of my npc's boat of flying. Well, they row it through the sky and go to the home of an LG dragon. They hide the boat safely and then go talk to the thing.
Well, the dragon hates magic, senses the boat, and yells, "who brought foul magic to my mountain!" and walks over and flattens their boat.
I still get a player or two crying about it!
I just read the original power.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
One time, a few 6 years ago, I ran this dnd game where I let the party get ahold of my npc's boat of flying. Well, they row it through the sky and go to the home of an LG dragon. They hide the boat safely and then go talk to the thing.
Well, the dragon hates magic, senses the boat, and yells, "who brought foul magic to my mountain!" and walks over and flattens their boat.
I still get a player or two crying about it!
And the first thing I think is "how can a dragon, a creature so infused with magic that its freaking breath is magic and it gets sorcerer levels just from existing long enough, hate magic?"
Besides, if you were a creature known for having lots of treasure and having skin that can be easily made into armor, you would not react well to adventurers who might be potential dragon slayers/thieves coming near your cave.
Still no excuse (:
Am I the only one that really hopes this thread finally dies?
Not at all. I wish we could sage threads like on 4chan.
Am I the only one that really hopes this thread finally dies?
Possibly. I hope every prospective player and every prospective DM reads the OP so as to have a great bad example. DM's should look at that and say, "Oh... I better not do that/." Players should loot at it and say, "Aha! So if this happens, I know what to do!"
I hope this thread NEVER dies.
If the dragon was divine, and didn't actually die, he could be convinced that he needs to keep attacking the tower.
I don't really think I could have lasted very long in the campaign, but generally if they aren't fudging my dice rolls, and just making up how stuff works, I enjoy doing everything in my power to destroy them. They can only do so much to me before I just need a new character... :P
I say we all have, in the light of the wisdom imparted by such a tale, a "buy-a-round-to-your-DM" day. Every day. For a year.
Being a part-time DM for my group, of course, tips my opinion. Toward my glass :P
God bless this idea!!!
Possibly. I hope every prospective player and every prospective DM reads the OP so as to have a great bad example. DM's should look at that and say, "Oh... I better not do that/." Players should loot at it and say, "Aha! So if this happens, I know what to do!"
I hope this thread NEVER dies.
It does make a good example. Although sometimes stuff like that will happen in a campaign. I personally do have stuff hurting the players, although nothing to this extent, and there are bonuses that come around too, which are all that much better after some troubles(seeing a players face light up when you say that the technology in the alien ships is a design stolen from them, that they can use extremely well, is amazing). Thats probably because I'm the kind of DM that has fun when the players do, as opposed to one that has fun by denying it to the players.
I think the original post is buried somewhere in my subconscious now... I didn't even need to read it in order to remember how bad of a tale it was.
Post #79; that one was 287. It's been 208 posts and almost *FOUR* YEARS. This thread seriously needs to get locked, or something. It's just ... gah. Arrows of Slaying aren't enough for this thread ... someone get Shiki here ....
WHY? Best Lines Ever is 4 years old too, do you want that thread to die "just because"? It's forum history, it's community history and frankly, you need to reevaluate your opinion on this. What about it's existence bothers you so much?
:fight!::fight!::fight!:
- silenced_shout: Grand vessel of the lich god thread
Though seriously, I think this should be stickied. I might do it myself.
Post #79; that one was 287. It's been 208 posts and almost *FOUR* YEARS. This thread seriously needs to get locked, or something. It's just ... gah. Arrows of Slaying aren't enough for this thread ... someone get Shiki here ....
of course not, its undead... you need a cleric. I think its a lich too, so you'll need to find a good one
of course not, its undead... you need a cleric. I think its a lich too, so you'll need to find a good one
He can kill a vampire with a common fruit knife, no enchantments or anything. He'll be fine.
I was called a railroading DM once, and only once, after I refused to allow a 3.5 druid to use the spell "summon animal" to drop a porpoise on a guard. Being called a railroader by him doesn't bother me, except that now he's telling people who are thinking about joining the group to watch out for my "arbitrary rulings."
Date of original post: 6-16-04
Today's date: 6-21-06
This thread isn't undead. It's at least Divine Rank 1.
It got that way by consuming it's own treasure horde.
Today's date: 7-22-08
Worst GMing I ever experienecd was someone running Earthdawn. I don't remember much about the setting, but supposedly there was some sort of demonic infection and once you got it, you had no soul and no creativity, so everyone had to know some form of art skills to be able to prove they weren't infected.
Like 5 times a session, the DM would have some uberNPC come up to one of the players and demand they draw, or paint, or something. If the player rolled poorly the NPC would conclude that the bad art was a result of demonic infection causing a lack of creativity and kill them.
I remembered the story when I saw the news that Earthdawn was going to be released for 4th edition.
One of my friends used to railroad a lot when we played Vampire: The Masquerade. Frequently had us chased down by black unmarked cars, and then special weapons teams used to stake us with adapted crossbows (no rolls to dodge). We used to awake in a room with a bad guy standing over us. We'd have to work for him, and the Storyteller made sure we did, usually by having the guy Blood Bond and Dominate us, and then hold our mothers/cats/girlfriends hostage, just to make sure.
I hereby propose June 16th (or the game session night immediately before that date) as official "Buy Your DM a Round" Day. (Birthday of this thread seems fitting, and it appears to have gotten old enough to start demanding recognition. And presents, if not tribute.)
1st I will just quote me from 7 months ago, quoting me from 12 months ago, quoting me from 20 months agoWow, good to see that the cockroaches will have this thread with them after the nuclear winter. It just won't die.
lmao, guess I will just quote me from 8 months ago, somehow it still seems appropriate.
ok guess I will just quote me from 5 months ago, quoting me from 13 months ago.
Congrats galahad on a thread that cannot die.
Oh dear lord necromancy doesnt even cover it anymore. The OP is from 3 years ago and I havent seen him post in a longtime, so I doubt he will be taking you up on the offer, although it is a nice offer.
And good luck finding mroe players for your game, good players are hard to find, and good campaigns aer even harder.
new edition wont even stop this thing.
~ He is the only one with good magic
~ He Had "Plain" for you character
~ He MADE you help an EVIL Dragon
~ Gave the Magic Users the ability to kill an EPIC without even a save even though there magic is only 1/2 lvl
~ Gave Dragon epic because the ate the horde? [what was ther hord, staroids?]
~ Didn't let you character commit suicide even if he was a LG or Good character
Thats not even all that I counted, thats mega Nerfing right there. I would have walked out on him only when I found out about the ruins, and deffintly would have done somthing if he did that to me.
this thread is eternal. Its not a lich, its beyond lichdom. It's gonna be around for longer than tomb of horrors stories.
AGH. check the date it was made. he doesn't even come here anymore. @_@
this thread is eternal. Its not a lich, its beyond lichdom. It's gonna be around for longer than tomb of horrors stories.
Aw, come on, Tomb of Horror stories rule. My party wouldn't even GO into the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and I bought the boxed set, and everything.
Yay, I'm now part of the katamari threadacy!
I will quote me from 14 months ago.
new edition wont even stop this thing.
That's because bad DMing/Storytelling/Referree-ing/Moderating is a universal concept. New editions, new gaming systems, different country: Doesn't matter. When cockroaches are playing D&D after doomsday, I hope they read this thread and take advice.
The second inconsistency was the Tower of Exaggerated Sorcery.
If you didn't buy into this and how it worked, then I think the DM and the players needed to get together to hammer out the tone of the game world before deciding if the players actually wanted to play.
It sounds like a tightly scripted (i.e., railroading) game. This *can* work, and any outrageousness can be turned to comedy, if everyone buys into it. It's like a really campy, cheesy, story where, if you are in the proper mood for it, can be good for laughs. Like early Power Rangers and the giant chicken with a pair of scissors that can cut reality so it could dimension-slip. Stupid? Yes. Funny? If you're in the mood, yes.
If it is utterly railroaded and you are basically sightseers in the DM's story, I wonder why you'd bother making any stats at all, though. Don't play D&D in that case, since you don't need the rules.
I hate to do this... But, happy New Bump year! (very late, I know.)
I hate that you did it too. Now, WHY DID YOU DO IT???
Banning core is crappy DM'ing-this takes the cake!
Ian
Grab any players from his game that you think are worth gaming with, and start a new game (dont tell him). Let him set up a couple times and then have only a couple to zero players. Maybe he will get the hint. I would not let him in the new group.
Banning core is crappy DM'ing-this takes the cake!
Ian
:D you realize that post is from 2004, right?
(He no longer posts here, either sadly.)
I mean, I get concerned about railroading sometimes. Like, I did a solid long term job of getting the PCs attached to this one NPC. Then the evil organization kidnapped him and ransomed him like this:
We're holding him with an order for him to be tortured and executed. Every day you stay loyal to us we'll send an order to keep him alive for another day.
This made the player's swear, but at the same time, they got some healthy respect for this organization's planning skills. Most of heroic tier has been spent with them, to quote another friend, "always getting the end of the stick that was used to scrape the dog sh*t off the sidewalk."
They're just waiting for paragon to turn the tables. Not that they aren't already involved in world-shaking politics, but they are highly conscious of being pawns and plan to exact bloody vengeance on everyone who has screwed them when they get the chance.
It's also a low magic thing, but since it's 4th ed its not too big a deal and I just reflavor magic items. No complaints from them so it seems fine.
Good luck in the future Gallahad. Thank you very much for sharing your story.
-Drillboss