My general point is that, My DM complains alot when things don't go exactly as scheduled and he blames it on the players. I f we try to retort, he (nearly) kills our characters. What should I do?
I'm not even to sure what a Hammergun is (although the concept is interesting).find a gm thats not an angsty teenager? If you tell me hes not a teen then yes, use the hammer gun.
Use the gun anyways. Just set it to semi auto, so you don't get arrested for child abuse. :D
Edit: Use the hammergun on him is a figure of speech for when your DM is an irredeemable asshat that should be dropped. That kinda power tripping is the antithesis of a good game.
Interesting. I t could work under the right sircumstances; but I'm not too sure that's the right way around it.
And what is wrong with simply leaving the problematic DM? Is he the only DM? No D&D is better than bad D&D. And if he isn't, find someone better. Even if that someone has to be you.
"You see a large house"
"I set it on fire. This makes things more challenging, correct?"
or
"The mage raises his hands in a complex arcane ritual"
"I high five him"
:D
But if nobody else even wants to touch the other side of the screen, the best thing to do is gently offer to have him run a premade adventure he couldn't possibly screw up, then hope it gives him ideas as to what a better game of DnD is like, instead of projecting all of his faults onto the nearest living thing
Namely you.
1: continue playing like normal. This will result in more campaigns that are no fun, and eventualy you wont wana play anymore.
2: Talk to him about his problem. If he wont fix it, tell him flat out, you can DM anymore, because quite frankly, it is not fun, and what other reason are we playing for?
3: Skip talking to him, and just make someone else the DM. Can cause some problems, but letting others DM once and a while is a GOOD idea. Bring new things to the table, and learn more about what to do and not to do to keep the game fun.
I'll see what I can do about my DM problems.
If you find yourself liking 4E, and decide to get the DDI, when it is released you can ask around these boards to see if any DMs would like another player.
For the other people on this thread, did you get the evil desire to be in a game of the DM in question, just to see his head explode when you pull off stunts he likely has never even dreamed of?
For the other people on this thread, did you get the evil desire to be in a game of the DM in question, just to see his head explode when you pull off stunts he likely has never even dreamed of?
Oh freaking yes.
DM: "You stand in the small village of-"
PC: "I leave!"
DM:"...But you just got here..."
PC: "I don't care, I leave. Lets go hang out in the woods."
perfect ruiner of railroad adventures.
Oh freaking yes.
DM: "You stand in the small village of-"
PC: "I leave!"
DM:"...But you just got here..."
PC: "I don't care, I leave. Lets go hang out in the woods."
perfect ruiner of railroad adventures.
DM: "Rocks fall, everyone dies."
DM: "The woods catch on fire and the village is the only safe harbor..."
"...plus, rocks fall, everyone dies"
DM: "Rocks fall, everyone dies."
DM: "The woods catch on fire and the village is the only safe harbor..."
"...plus, rocks fall, everyone dies"
"You can't kill me, I quit!"
*PC commits seppuku with a banana*
Listen, unless you're getting paid to play, D&D is not your job. You don't have to just sit around and take whatever the boss is dishing out. If this guy sucks (and it sounds like he does), abandon his ass and find another DM, or start DMing yourself. He doesn't actually have any power without players, you know... a DM alone is just playing with himself.
*Grovel hugs you* QFT!
"The mage raises his hands in a complex arcane ritual"
"I high five him"
:D
I have more or less done that. Except for it was a grab to pin the hands then a series of kicks while the mage was helpless.
Take for instance right now we no longer have a lot of players so we just use 1 CE Sorc/Cleric (soon to be mystic theurge) and 1 NE Rogue. As the evil cleric goes through his own adventures and evil plans, the DM throws out opportunities to meet new NPCs that can join the party. My first NPC buddy was supposed to be a Rogue, before we attained someone who could play one as a PC. When I met the guy at level 3, he started our relationship by accusing me of killing my partners in a dungeon a few days earlier (which I had done of course.) I rolled a nice and high bluff check and he dropped the subect and decided to join me on my adventures. I used him to guard me on my way to the next town where I killed him and left his body in the wilderness. When the DM was shocked at this I told him "In game, my character didn't like the way the guy had accused him of such a crime and therefore did not like his attitude and as a CE, dispatched of him cheerfully.... Metagame, I choose my own NPC partners or I will continue to kill them when they **** me off."
From then on we avoided the situation again by me rolling gather information and diplomacy checks for a few days in a given city until I found "the type of NPC I was looking for." The class and use (tank, spellcaster, buffer, healer etc.) would be up to me, then he would draw up the NPC details and I would be at the mercy of his character creation. A small compromise to achieve what I want as an evil Cleric with a large agenda.
Basically, if he ever throws anything at my character that he finds annoying or trivial, he will simply ignore it, forcing the DM to alter his playing style instead of him shoving a **** poor campain down your throat.
If your DM is the type who would punish your players for it instead of trying to make a better game for you all to enjoy, then simply end the game, but dont just tell him the game is over... Kill the PCs! Have them kill each other, killed by the city guard, commit suicide when he is the last one. Just start beating each other in game as a slap in the face to his thought of control over you by using your paper and pen character as leverage. Just like a video game, this game does have a reset button. If he then proceeds to try to punish you further by giving you all crumby char choices to try and refit you all back into his crappy campain, simply choose someone else to DM.
I personally love this game and think qabout my weekend sessions all week, by the time my DM shows up, my CE Cleric/Sorc is ready to plan out months of in game carnage. He is a freelance sociopath so if the DMs current quest doesnt currently fit or help in his goals, he will ignore them and start creating his own quests. My last one was "I want to hijack a spelljammer" and hijack I sure did.
I have 4 NPC party members now, and one more who we are currently chasing and hunting through a dinosaur infested jungle. Lets just say he burned his bridges one too many times. I also took leadership and have a cohort and 6 level 1 followers. I have a truly evil agenda in the elven realm in which I dwell and if the quests dont help me further that agenda, I wave them off as distractions.
You can't do that. The high-five is a symbol of trust (and awesomeness, but that's (sin/cos)ial). One which should never be abused :D.
Too true. It has a code and everything.
Have him so mad he whacks every character.
Then you all roll up new ones. Then provoke him again.
When he kills you all, roll up new ones.
When it's time to play, don't play, roll up yet more new ones.
Then tell him, "We don't expect to live more than a few seconds in your game, it's actually more fun to roll up characters."
When are you gonna actually realize that you don't have to put up with his crap? When you realize, and stop putting up with it.
I say provoke him. Have all the players provoke him.
Have him so mad he whacks every character.
Then you all roll up new ones. Then provoke him again.
When he kills you all, roll up new ones.
When it's time to play, don't play, roll up yet more new ones.
Then tell him, "We don't expect to live more than a few seconds in your game, it's actually more fun to roll up characters."
When are you gonna actually realize that you don't have to put up with his crap? When you realize, and stop putting up with it.
Didn't you once tell me that passive aggression is the punk move? "Man up and run your own game" was the exact wording I believe. How reciprocal the world is...
That response, (if i recall correctly, I've got over 1000 posts here to date, it's difficult to remember) I felt appropriate to that situation, in which the player was whining, about how his DM was X, Y, And Z, repeatedly...or so it seemed.
In this situation, I call it differently, as the DM is (or seems to be) power-mad.
OP Wrote:
In a resulting fit of rage he made a god shoot a lightntng bolt at my character, bringing him into negative hitpoints.
I don't get thew sense of whininess from this guy. I get the sense of, okay, how do we deal with this...sincerity.
What's your cure for the DM who "delivers bolts from the blue" Cuindless?
Cuindless,
That response, (if i recall correctly, I've got over 1000 posts here to date, it's difficult to remember) I felt appropriate to that situation, in which the player was whining, about how his DM was X, Y, And Z, repeatedly...or so it seemed.
In this situation, I call it differently, as the DM is (or seems to be) power-mad.
OP Wrote:
I don't get thew sense of whininess from this guy. I get the sense of, okay, how do we deal with this...sincerity.
I didn't mean to start a flame war, Etarnon. I'm just being snarky. Don't mind me...
What's your cure for the DM who "delivers bolts from the blue" Cuindless?
I don't have one. I've gamed with a lot of bad DMs and occasionally been one myself. Most of my advice consists of stop gaps. Really, if you want to play (not DM) and no one else will run a game, then you're in a little trouble. You can try talking to him and tell him that you're about ready to quit his game (no D&D > bad D&D), of course he'll probably just yell, "FINE! YOUR CHARACTER ****ING DIES!!!! I'M THE DM!!!!" If you've got all the other players on your side, he might listen to reason, or (if he's a whiny asshat) he might think you all don't like him, pack up his books and leave. One way or another, you're pretty much stuck running your own game or dealing with a crappy DM. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
That was more or less where I was suggesting as a direction.
The guy is only feared as long as players fear character death. If they make character death silly, threatening players with character death is, or seems, equally silly.
Basically the DM needs to be a lot looser style, it seems, based on the info from OP post.