cliftonbazaar's page

I was a DM in High school and we had a group of about 8-10 players but one of them wasn't really liked, he just hung around us (he was one of those people who just said the wrong thing at the wrong time).
Well, the problem was that the rest of the group used to attempt to kill his character - the only way he could survive was by me fudging dice rolls and giving him special items.
I simply couldn't kill him off because everyone was around level 8 and the Golden rule was that if you died then you would have to start a new character at level one; and I knew that if he started again as level 1 they were going to simply keep killing him (at least at level 8 thief he could, sort of, look after himself).

After a long period of this they finally got him - the following is a quote from another thread that i wrote -

Background: The player was very annoying and the amount of times others tried to kill him was incredible, but I always fudged the rolls and allowed this player to live - but they finally got him :)

Circumstances of Death: Thief swam under water (with the help of a ring) in order to get under the pirate ship that was sitting in the bay. The water was about 10 meters (30 feet) deep.
The thief finally gets under the ship and the other characters on shore, using a variety of magic spells and items, manage to make the water under the pirate ship disappear. So the pirate ship falls to the ocean floor on top of the PC - I allowed the PC to live with one HP (to the howls of derision from the other players).
But then the water rushed back in and and drowned the PC, the pirates and the Princess who was a hostage on the ship.

After this incident we quit the campaign and went to another game (forget which).

Must admit we all laugh about it now but it was so difficult being the DM for that group :(

I started my boycott years ago - Wotc suck at supporting MtG so I gave up on them.
I used to buy $150 worth of MtG cards a week but that all stopped.

I sell on ebay for a living - been doing it for years.

I started when ebay was a growing company and it was good.

About a year ago the rot started when ebay realised that there were no real competitors - now ebay is nothing more than a money making machine for management. This attitude has seen ebay's share price more than half in less than a year. My profit margins have been slashed.

I remember playing MtG in 1996, I was introduced to it at a convention by a Wotc employee. They tried so hard to get players in and keep them in - being such a great game it wasn't that hard but what made it so great was the fact that Wotc were looking after their players.

I quit Mtg in 2004; by that time everyone that I knew (except for senior management) had been fired; not only fired but shafted.
Is it any wonder that Mtg is far from the biggest game anymore? Everyone I know now plays Pokemon or WoW, in Sydney (Australia) MtG is not getting new players.

What I'm trying to say here is that Wotc don't have a good reputation anymore for looking after quality products.
If they wish to say "look, don't make a decision yet as we know more than you at this time" then I need to look at the company's reputation to see if I believe them - I don't beleive them.

Wotc can say that they will be using the same talent as before, but it needs to be pointed out that this talent will have new guide lines to follow - which will force about half of them to quit.

Dragon magazine needs to be independant; Wotc also needs competition.

James

You did the best thing possible in asking them what sort of compaign they wanted, now do the next best thing and ask them for their previous favorite adventure (wether you were DM or not doesn't matter) - then read that adventure and try to work out what they enjoyed about it.

... but I don't want to railroad them because that's taking control away from the players; frequently, the game involves them stumbling around not knowing where to go next and finding my somewhat-forced cues to be suspicious.

If players are 'stumbling' around then you need to railroad them; this doesn't neccesarily mean you take away their choices.

James

Another problem, while still related to this thread, is DM's who can't run a fight at a certain pace.

My frequent 'haunt' Tuesday nights has 2 groups of D&D players; one group uses miniatures to represent battles and doesn't really allow rule books to be used - this group can finish a fight in about 10 minutes.
The other group is full of 'rules lawyers' who ALL have their player manuals open at all time; combat is done on paper, every rule is double checked and special rules are checked in case they are eligable for another +1 from some obscure rule. This group can take over 30 minutes to run a battle.

Nothing personal against the second group BTW, I know most of them and they are really nice people.
So for the first group 13 encounters per level would create about 130 minutes of combat out of 9 hours of playing (3 sessions of 3 hours) - 24% of the playing time is combat.
The second group can really only run 2-4 encounters per session; I don't know how the rest of their campaign is played as everytime I sit down to watch them they are in combat and it is moving slowly.

James

PC's Name: (It was 15 years ago, can't remember)
Race: Human
Class: thief
Level: 8

Background: The player was very annoying and the amount of times others tried to kill him was incredible, but I always fudged the rolls and allowed this player to live - but they finally got him :)

Circumstances of Death: Thief swam under water (with the help of a ring) in order to get under the pirate ship that was sitting in the bay. The water was about 10 meters (30 feet) deep.
The thief finally gets under the ship and the other characters on shore, using a variety of magic spells and items, manage to make the water under the pirate ship disappear. So the pirate ship falls to the ocean floor on top of the PC - I allowed the PC to live with one HP (to the howls of derision from the other players).
But then the water rushed back in and and drowned the PC, the pirates and the Princess who was a hostage on the ship.

15 years later we still laugh about this.

Setting (and Adventure Path, if you're using one): Home made

First post so please bare with me :)

I agree with many of the posts here about starting small and building the world like growing a tree - start with the seed and let it grow.

The first adventure should be the local town where the characters are based (or tower, or city etc as it may be).
Introduce the local healer as a worshipper of such and such a god; have an evil god worshipping guild. But in both cases you don't need to write down all the details about the god, you simply need a name.
As the story progresses the details will flesh themselves out. There is nothing worse than detailing a full cult only to have the characters go a completely differant way ('the evil guild hall is to the East' 'yeah, but the castle of death is to the West - we'll go west').

Then treat the world as a jigsaw puzzle, adding the next piece as the characters gravitate towards it.
Adding background information as you see fit ("Your friend Davi needs your help", "Davi? never heard of him", "you were neighbors and his mum used to babysit you when your parents needed to go to the next town on business." "Yeah? then I have to help my childhood buddy").

Most details can be simple at this time ("Who runs this country?", "the council of seven", "cool"). Later on this can be expanded if the characters need to know; if they ask to know who the seven are on this council then reply - how many politicians can you name? I personally know my state MP (Member of Parliament) and my federal MP - but I couldn't tell you anymore MP's (except who the leader is!)
The point is - the characters don't need to know everything, especially at the start.

The best example of this is the basic D&D books, the first book (basic - red?) concentrated on your home town and local dungeons.
The second book (expert - blue?) introduced Horses, travel and far away cities.
All the way up until the fifth book (Immortal - gold?) which introduced dietys and immortals.
Please excuse my lack of knowledge on the colours of the books as it was 30 years ago when my brother and I bought them and played them (and used them until they feel apart!).

James