Whytecraft's page

As some people seem to be so intent on calling me pushy and whiny maybe you should consider that the whole point of pathfinder is to overcome adversity and that you expect a no up front in most situations. Dragon says no that's my treasure. Evil wizard says no you can't have this cure. Mayor says I won't let you into the crypt it's too dangerous. So all the players who circumvented those situations are whiny and pushy? No they are playing the game. I asked once! Then presented one logical argument. Which he accepted. All he had to say was no. He lead me to believe that it was a possible avenue of play which my whole party supported. They offered to wait the two years and I said I wouldn't expect that at all. There was absolutely no derailment of the quest. The Mage Tower was our quest. Joining was both logical and furthered the parties needs. Instead the DM wasted all of our time with a ridiculous farce of a battle which he literally said was a result of me doing 'so well' in the written exams. So yes I was punished for performing. And since I was allowed in to the guild at the end of that play session for basically completing our task there it obviously had no impact at all and he took that opportunity to humiliate my character in a public space as if to say 'think you are good? Well you're not' and then spat on me in game just to make sure I got the message. If he actually cared about me joining and said no firmly I would have been more than happy but the joining was apparently not even an issue so yes he did punish me for role playing a solution and then for performing well in knowledge checks.

Also perhaps I didn't put enough information or people are just very selective readers but I said I was happy to move on as my group in general are great and that hopefully he has that out of his system. The real issue of this thread is, to me anyway, is that as facilitators of a game I think the DM too should be bound by the rules for fairness of game. Don't enter events only to cheat blatantly. If you have established accepted rules within your campaign don't change them on the fly to benefit only yourself. Be consistent. If a DM wants to tell a story with no room for any choice for the players then he would be better of spending his time alone writing a novel.

I guess ultimately I just wanted some validation for my frustration but it's also hard to hold on to so I'm sure by next week it will all be water under the bridge. It is a thing our DM does on occasion but that's a concession I make to play with a group I enjoy very much. Better preparation and knowledge of the rules would benefit him but that's an opinion that while meant constructively would create only bad blood. I suppose I should mull on it lol

Quiche Lisp wrote:

Zhayne wrote:

I still don't see why he didn't just say 'yeah, that makes sense' and let you in.

Because he didn't want to tell the story of the apprentice to the Mage Tower, or he didn't plan for it and so wasn't able to do it.

Or he simply wasn't interested in that particular story.

Not every GM runs a sandbox game.

It sounded more like the PC just wanted into a club that could possibly provide some benefits further down the line before continuing on with what they were doing. Nothing really derailing story-wise there.

Exactly! The wizards joins the wizard tower. It's pretty standard. Thank you lol

It was ill handled, i would need more information before i started laying blame on the player first though. I mean, do the other players have chances to interact with orginazations in thier world? Is this a straight dungeon crawl or something. I would be upset if i were running a game and my players only seemed to want to gather loot and not do anything else besides level and gear. But to each their own i suppose.

Did the other gamers at your table get upset that you wanted to join said tower? Ask them. From the light information provided the only thing i guess at is the gm was being a bit mean spirited, but then again, maybe the mage in the tower was a jerk to everyone as well. I dont know, like i said before i simply dont have enough details to help too much, you sound like the sort of player i would hope for however so keep your chin up and all that good stuff

The cleric, monk and inquisitor have all had extremely high levels of involvement with their respective churches with those quest lines making up almost all out content up untill now. They also have all been rewarded extremely expensive items front their church (Mithral breastplate, magic weapons) due to their association to the church whereas my character has received nothing other than a masterwork bow in the way of treasure other than gp which we all split equally. My party was supportive and it was also our method of entry into the tower. We had discussed it in the week preceding the session. We are a heavy role play style game with battles maybe only occurring every second or third session. I honestly thought that the Mage Tower connection would benefit us as a party, give us access to magic scrolls/services and provide quest opportunities. I thought the DM was making it a challenge to join. I didn't realise until after he smirked and threw a much stronger opponent at me that he was actually being mean spirited and not in fact offering me a legitimate opportunity to succeed on my own merits.

The tower was not some tangent it's a major plot element in our adventure. We went there for our quest and obviously me joining was advantageous to our whole party as we were far more likely to receive aid as allies than strangers. I did not throw a tantrum as some seem to be suggesting but roleplayed a character questioning the requirements. A second no would have been sufficient. It would seem that people are suggesting that you should always stop at the first no which seems ridiculous to me for a game where overcoming adversity is the whole point. It was purely spiteful as after resolving our quest without ever leaving the tower (my request to join being the only reason we even got access to start with) he allowed to me to join off handedly. He basically humiliated me for no reason and then allowed me to join with no fuss an hour later.His issue wasn't me joining it was me pursuing a character goal and his first instinct was to shut me down cause it wasn't in his original scope. After consideration he obviously realised he had been u reasonable but I don't feel that justifies his treatment of me/my character.

For many young people dming is their firdt chance to have authority. The problem in msny cases is they either lack the maturity or social skills to handle things and feel the need to show they are in charge. That they also often plsy with people who don't know when to back off probably confoundd things. Finally if they are inexperienced at dming they lack the flexibility to handle the fact that controlling playerd is like hearding cats.

Both the op and the dm made a lot of mistakes. At the end of the day the dm always wins and when the em wins the game is over.

To the op. I woukd work it out with your dm see if you can settle things. If you cannot then find a new group.

The sad thing is reading the exsmple I coukd think of dozens of ways to use the desire to join the mages guild to advsnce a plot or add new ones. But I guess in the heat of things dms can get blinders if they feel they are being challenged.

I feel the mentality that the dm always wins is ultimately detrimental. I enjoy my group on most occasions the dm is fine but I feel he is prone to not allowing us as characters to make our way. His characters are usually not open to any discussion, argument or logic and he often uses the because I said so line of logic. I am fine with failing on my own merits but why set up an experience that punishes me for role playing my character and is designed to be unbeatable. A simple no would have been sufficient. Why have me go through the farce simply to humiliate me. That seems malicious to me. I was punished for being my character. Wizard joins wizard tower. Unthinkable. It all just seemed unnecessary to me

I agree with mplindustries. Both you, OP, and your GM handled the situation poorly. The GM tried to handle what he probably viewed as a derailment to the game with a reasonable, if heavy handed requirement of a 2 year apprenticeship at wizards tower. While that certainly wouldn't accommodate the campaign or your character to participate it is actually reasonable in a game world. Without knowing who you are, and with you being only slightly more powerful than their normal apprentices it could be (from the perspective of an NPC) a test to see your commitment to order and acceptance of their training and willing to submit yourself to the will of the tower. If that is a valid view for the NPC mages to have, then you failed miserably and made it worse when you resented this position and tried to force your way in.

However, the DM dropped the ball after this point very horribly. Rather than handling it in an appropriate manner within the game, or an appropriate manner by speaking to you outside the game, he instead made a farce and then broke the normal rules of the game to make you lose and enforce his will. His method was very heavy handed, and he added insulting rp to add insult to injury.

I did not try to force my way in. I presented the logic that I was more experienced than their apprentices who were all in their teens and that perhaps there was an alternative method for a more experienced wizard to join. Logical and in character. He only had to say no. Why string me along to no purpose. I was pleasant and compromising. And he was mean spirited and spiteful

So what really happened is that the GM used game-code-speak to tell you, "Hey, it's really important for the game that you not do this," and you said, "Ha, screw that--I'm doing it any way and my stats are good enough that you can't say no!" so he responded with, "Alright, a random meteor strikes you directly in the nutsack. Stop being a douche."

The problem here is with both of you. He should have just said flat out, "hey, joining this group would really mess up the game, sorry." Instead, he tried to handle it in game, poorly. You either did not pick up on his desire or didn't care, so he moved on to more severe measures.

That was wrong--he should not have thrown GM weight around, he should have just been firm and said no--but you have to see it from his perspective. He's obviously not the best GM, so you have to be willing to "just go with it" some times or else the game is going to fall apart. Wait until you play with a better GM, or he gets the xp and levels up into one before you try something like that again.

There was no intention of leaving the adventuring party and that was made quite clear. I stated my case that I was more experienced than the average apprentice and could possibly forego the apprenticeship as a reasonable alternative. The Mage Tower was presented as the sole collective of wizards and such a desirable and logical group to join. Those no longer apprentices were not required to stay in the tower as their training was done. He should have said no outright if he didn't want me to join. Losing a fair fight would have been one thing and I happily would have accepted that but pairing me against someone alma it double my level was just mean spirited. I was in no way being a douche. I simply role played my character as a logical and intelligent problem solver as she is. Me effectively joining a guild was a natural progression for an academic and in no way detailed our current mission, in fact it would be only beneficial to the party.

I understand that the DM interprets the rules to run his game as he sees best but what happens when he is inconsistent, changing them on the fly to enforce his wishes. As a player aren't the rules there to protect us? Isn't it our story too?

My party recently returned to the Mage Tower, the solitary establishment of its type, in hopes of obtaining a potion for a quest. While there my character a level 4 Wizard asked if she could join the Mage Tower. The initial answer was that she would have to undertake a two year apprenticeship which was obviously the DMs way of saying no as that time period was unfeasable for both my party and our current quest line. So knowing from our previous experience that all the other apprentices were very young and inexperienced with access to only the most basic of spells I argued logically that I was beyond an apprenticeship in terms of power and experience. He conceded that they could test me which consisted of first a written exam which was simulated with three knowledge rolls. I did very well with a spellcraft 27 planes 28 and nature 28. The second was a duel. Now based on doing well he determined that my opponent for the duel. A wizard who had access to level 4 spells and was at least 3 levels my superior. He started with Lesser Globe of Invulnerability which completely invalidated anything my level 4 wizard could do. He then followed by altering spells to suit his needs eg he cast Burning Hands and when I pointed out I was in its area of effect he replied with "oh well its a line then, you're getting hit". While I was able to prolong the duel with invisibility I, obviously, inevitably lost. To top it off the wizard spat on me after beating me.

Losing is one thing but why bother with a farce of a duel when he had obviously already made up his mind that I couldn't win and/or join the Mage Tower. A house rule eliminating a spell is one thing but making them do whatever he wants whenever he wants I feel violates the rules that are in place to protect the player and the game. How can I play my character and pick my spells knowing that I can be invalidated at a whim. What made it worse was that I was basically punished for reasoning, role playing and rolling well in my areas of speciality. Am I wrong to feel this way? Would you consider the DM within his rights? Why bother playing if just to tell the DMs story