Angry Rant: Don't really need responses, just ranting


Gamer Life General Discussion


Just ranting angrily over something that happened tonight. Not pathfinder, gm is a good friend, but he did something i consider to be a dick move tonight.

rant:

We're playing Traveller, ship combat. If you've looked at that the armor numbers are ridiculous. I told the gm this when he told me to do a system analysis. I told him that missiles are a joke. He says ok, but makes no changes. I'm given the ok to go ahead and make a ship.

I give it 5 instances of armor. Not the best armor or the most you can have, but a respectable amount. We get into the game and he launches, get this, missiles at us.

I roll initiative and get 3 actions for each turn. He allows me 1 action, which i use to maneuver to better shoot at some of the missiles. He then skips 2 of the other actions and allows the rest of the missiles to hit automatically.

He looks at the damage and is now aghast. I tell him my armor value and its clear even on maximum roll with the strongest missile he could have launched he'd be 9 points of damage short of even harming us. So he auto rules we have 0 armor. Not reduced armor, or larger damage. All of our armor is gone.

So i get pissed because i told him beforehand and he made no changes to the system. I'm pissed, but its cool. All I ask is for the 240 tons of the ship (1200 ton ship) that i allocated towards armor back. Not the money back, just the space. He ignores me and moves on, refusing to acknowledge that something we spent a solid amount of money and ship space on is worthless and he refuses to refund anything.

In Short, i'm pissed and ranting

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Sucky situation dude. Sorry. :-(


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Fireable offense, in my opinion. He's out as GM. There's a difference between GM fiat and completely altering game reality because you a) didn't plan well, b) forgot or misunderstood something, or c)...you're a dick.

Seriously, I'd confront him (non-confrontationally) and ask him to explain why he made such boneheaded/arbitrary calls, and if he can't adequately justify his reasons, I would tell him you simply don't feel you can keep playing with him as GM if you want to continue being friends.

Good luck. Something like that would send me around the bend.

Silver Crusade

scrmwrtr42 wrote:

Fireable offense, in my opinion. He's out as GM. There's a difference between GM fiat and completely altering game reality because you a) didn't plan well, b) forgot or misunderstood something, or c)...you're a dick.

Seriously, I'd confront him (non-confrontationally) and ask him to explain why he made such boneheaded/arbitrary calls, and if he can't adequately justify his reasons, I would tell him you simply don't feel you can keep playing with him as GM if you want to continue being friends.

Good luck. Something like that would send me around the bend.

Amen!

Sovereign Court

Never understood why it mattered if the GM was a friend or no. If he did such dick moves, he would be out of the GM chair, or I would be out of his game.

He's obviously either a sucky GM or has problems with admitting he didn't plan well...


I'm curious whether your GM regularly asks you to analyze games he wants to run, and then completely ignores your warnings.


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There are points at which a GM has been so egregiously incompetent that you must quietly but firmly say, "Sorry ... no. This justifies interrupting your game, because you've so disrespected me, the rules and your previous rulings that I've no intention of sitting through any more until you reconsider." If he doesn't, you leave ... and make it clear you'll be back only after his apology, admission he was wrong, and what you deem appropriate recompense. You should also quietly mention to the other players that they should stand with you, or he may eventually turn on them, as well.

This is only applicable, of course, if you've attempted to speak with the DM privately and he's ignored, denigrated or given lip service to you.

The Exchange

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Also, a good GM should realize that feeling powerful is a lot of fun for players. If, as a GM, I find myself flatfooted by some awesome strategy or mechanic the players utilized to win a combat, I just roll with it and let them feel awesome.

But I won't make the same mistake again *infernal smile*.


Excellent point, Lord Snow.

Let them get away with it—once. :)

Sovereign Court

How experienced is he with Traveller? Maybe he just made a msitake with his on the fly rulings. Or like everyone else says kick him from group and maybe even light his house on fire.


Jaelithe wrote:

There are points at which a GM has been so egregiously incompetent that you must quietly but firmly say, "Sorry ... no. This justifies interrupting your game, because you've so disrespected me, the rules and your previous rulings that I've no intention of sitting through any more until you reconsider." If he doesn't, you leave ... and make it clear you'll be back only after his apology, admission he was wrong, and what you deem appropriate recompense. You should also quietly mention to the other players that they should stand with you, or he may eventually turn on them, as well.

This is only applicable, of course, if you've attempted to speak with the DM privately and he's ignored, denigrated or given lip service to you.

Jebus - did the GM kill his dog or just make a crappy, spiteful ruling? Taking this way too serious.

As always you can talk to the GM or just ignore it. If, after talking to the guy, he still insists he is going to run things this way from now on (arbitrary rule changes to favour himself) you walk. Make sure the other players at the table know exactly why, though. Do not rely on the GM to relay the story.

Sovereign Court

I take my free time very seriously. Because there is so little of it.


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PsychoticWarrior wrote:
Jebus - did the GM kill his dog or just make a crappy, spiteful ruling? Taking this way too serious.

This from the guy who calls himself "PsychoticWarrior" ... and then basically says something similar to what I did: Talk to the guy, and then if necessary, act.


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O.o I didn't really need responses but thank you all.

Its not really such a big deal, our attempts at traveller fall through on a longterm scale all the time.

Yes, he pretty often asks me to analyze rule sets because I'm good with analyzing complex systems. Usually he makes changes based off of my observations and I'm generally very honest with him about what is wrong with most systems overall.

I confronted him this morning via text, he apologized, told me he forgot and made the change on the fly to make the story more intensive as we were basically nigh invulnerable at the time. (A nuclear missile does 2d6 damage, we had 20 armor)

Edit: besides, now that i've cooled down i realize how awesome it was to wreck a speeder at 450 kph into the side of a military complex in order to make an opening. Though my group says i am now officially the worst pilot they've ever seen and i'm restricted from all piloting duties forever.

Sovereign Court

Which Traveller version were you using?


Pan wrote:
Which Traveller version were you using?

I believe it was mongoose that used the d6 edition.

Silver Crusade

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I remember playing Traveller about 1980 or so. I rolled up a pretty cool character.

Shame that the tables said he died before the game started. : (


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I'm glad this turned out alright for you!

I hope that, in the future, gaming will go well ^^

Sovereign Court

Damn just noticed you have a 1200 ton ship? Yeah I would just board it that thing must be slow as hell. Of course a ship that big must be full of soldiers.


Pan wrote:
Damn just noticed you have a 1200 ton ship? Yeah I would just board it that thing must be slow as hell. Of course a ship that big must be full of soldiers.

Yeah we were a crew of heavy trooper mercenaries. Full combat armour, broadsword, heavy ranged weaponry, high physical stats, you know the works lol :P We actually do better in a fight when they bring it to boarding parties rather than ship to ship combat, but meh.

Though to be frank it was an expensive ship, we had maneuver 5 and jump 5, it was not in fact "slow as hell"

Sovereign Court

Thrust 5 with all that armour? I guess its possible. When we play my characters start in garbage scowls and work their way up to maybe a corsair so thats out of my league. Generally all high tonnage ships are considered slow if memory recalls though because you have so much to move. upgrading manouever drive to give that much thrust would be well out of any group I have run ability to purchase. I guess you are flying around in the imperial flagship or something because the cost of your ship is going to be insane.


Pan wrote:
Thrust 5 with all that armour? I guess its possible. When we play my characters start in garbage scowls and work their way up to maybe a corsair so thats out of my league. Generally all high tonnage ships are considered slow if memory recalls though because you have so much to move. upgrading manouever drive to give that much thrust would be well out of any group I have run ability to purchase. I guess you are flying around in the imperial flagship or something because the cost of your ship is going to be insane.

The Ship rules state that armor has nothing to do with ship speed, merely hull tonnage. It matters not if the ship is empty or a solid piece of steel. If you have an appropriate engine drive, you get the drive speed.

As for amassing wealth, I don't see how you're having problems there. The trade rules as written make it nearly impossible to not make a profit on every venture you undertake. One of the games in our area, though before my time as a gamer, amassed enough to make their own legion of ships starting from ground up. We generally start with the 100 ton scout ships in the book.

And the imperial flagship would be a capital ship most likely, not normal sized craft. Mongoose made rules for 2000 tons to 1,000,000 ton ships.

Sovereign Court

I guess you guys just play on a higher level. My point is I can now see why the GM was struggling a bit.


Thomas Long 175 wrote:


As for amassing wealth, I don't see how you're having problems there. The trade rules as written make it nearly impossible to not make a profit on every venture you undertake.

How boring to be assured of great success every time out. Sounds less like a game, and more like fun with accounting.

Just sayin'.

Sovereign Court

Bruunwald wrote:
Thomas Long 175 wrote:


As for amassing wealth, I don't see how you're having problems there. The trade rules as written make it nearly impossible to not make a profit on every venture you undertake.

How boring to be assured of great success every time out. Sounds less like a game, and more like fun with accounting.

Just sayin'.

Often times traveller does feel like accounting but I have some of those types at my table. Strange thing is we have gone over the trade rules and came to different conclusions. In fact there are many rants online about how trading doesnt make enough money. For instance my players will take 20 years to pay off their ship. Not sure how people end up making fleets from trading. hmm


Pan wrote:
Bruunwald wrote:
Thomas Long 175 wrote:


As for amassing wealth, I don't see how you're having problems there. The trade rules as written make it nearly impossible to not make a profit on every venture you undertake.

How boring to be assured of great success every time out. Sounds less like a game, and more like fun with accounting.

Just sayin'.

Often times traveller does feel like accounting but I have some of those types at my table. Strange thing is we have gone over the trade rules and came to different conclusions. In fact there are many rants online about how trading doesnt make enough money. For instance my players will take 20 years to pay off their ship. Not sure how people end up making fleets from trading. hmm

Which of the 3 forms of trading do you use?

Speculative trading is vastly broken.

Edit: I should expand I guess. Speculative trading gives several bonuses, but not many negatives. It always has the players rolling. Foremost it keeps standard dc's though but has the players roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 that the system is built upon.


Jaelithe wrote:
PsychoticWarrior wrote:
Jebus - did the GM kill his dog or just make a crappy, spiteful ruling? Taking this way too serious.

This from the guy who calls himself "PsychoticWarrior" ... and then basically says something similar to what I did: Talk to the guy, and then if necessary, act.

I guess the item by item list of Things the GM Must Do threw me off what the hell you were trying to say.

And yeah I call myself PsychoticWarrior because I just so crazy...


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Hama wrote:

Never understood why it mattered if the GM was a friend or no. If he did such dick moves, he would be out of the GM chair, or I would be out of his game.

He's obviously either a sucky GM or has problems with admitting he didn't plan well...

I think it matters in a lot of ways. We tend to give friends a lot more slack at the table. We tend to be more familiar with our friends behavior and possible actions, than a random PFS table player, for example. We have relationships with friends that extend beyond the game table, so there is always the risk and worry that negative actions at the table will reverberate outside the gaming table.

I have some friends whom I cannot game with anymore. Our styles have clashed so hard, on so many occasions, that we cannot play even a simple board game without possibly damaging the friendship. As long as we leave gaming out, we get along as friends just fine.

Friendship matters.

Sovereign Court

I don't give anyone slack at the table when it comes to friendship. If they are terrible players or horrible GMs I simply stop playing with them and keep seeing them in other venues.

Friendship matters. My peace of mind matters more.


Guys, i'm over it k? lol

I went to dinner with him, talked to him about all the issues and reexplained the problems with the math in certain parts of the system and then we moved onto terminal velocity and why the final speed of a meteor hitting the earth was the same regardless of its initial velocity and angle of entry.

Besides, theres friendship, then there's peace of mind, AND THEN THERE'S CHOCOLATE AND CAFFEINE.

Sovereign Court

A pint and few fingers of bourbon gives my peace of mind in any environment. In really trying times I put on a Tom Waits record.

You know I rememeber a thread over at mongoose about a great discussion on what a 2G planet would be like. Whether your heart would explode instantly or if you could manage to crawl around while being careful.


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Thomas Long 175 wrote:

Guys, i'm over it k? lol

I went to dinner with him, talked to him about all the issues and reexplained the problems with the math in certain parts of the system and then we moved onto terminal velocity and why the final speed of a meteor hitting the earth was the same regardless of its initial velocity and angle of entry.

Besides, theres friendship, then there's peace of mind, AND THEN THERE'S CHOCOLATE AND CAFFEINE.

People enjoy helping ^^

Chocolate and caffeine... mmm...


Thomas Long 175 wrote:

Guys, i'm over it k? lol

I went to dinner with him, talked to him about all the issues and reexplained the problems with the math in certain parts of the system and then we moved onto terminal velocity and why the final speed of a meteor hitting the earth was the same regardless of its initial velocity and angle of entry.

Besides, theres friendship, then there's peace of mind, AND THEN THERE'S CHOCOLATE AND CAFFEINE.

Glad to hear the situation got resolved!

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