You never know, you just might know them. I met someone on these very boards who happens to live a 5 minute bicycle ride from my house. Scary.
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
uh...you wouldn't happen to live in NY, would you?
I'm usually the DM, and as a player, I don't think I've ever left a game...thought that's not true, actually, there were a few game-store campaigns that I gave up on, but managed to find a good player or two from.
I've seen a few game groups disintegrate: once when one of the players was cheating on her husband (also a player) with another player. Hoooo doggie, that didn't go well.
I've watched personality conflicts mysteriously and unerringly come to an explosive head with no warning and no remedy. One player (A) just walked out while we had dinner BEFORE the game, the first time he met another player (B) (he had been on hiatus because of a class he took, and the other two players (B & C) played a mini-campaign until he came back). Then the other player (C) informed me that he wasn't fond of player B either, so... There was some philosophical discussion, but nothing offensive or rude, and in fact, player B was a wonderful asset to the group because she drove the plot forward and asked great questions. But there's no accounting for conflict, sometimes.
So, I politely asked player B not to play, since I'd rather have a group than none. Then player A said that he actually didn't want to play anymore. Ugh. I was not a happy GM. Or person.
On the other hand, as a DM, I've watched games/campaigns (but not necessarily groups) disintegrate. What seems like a good idea at the time doesn't work so well in practice. An experimental campaign, for example, or a dungeon that just, well, sucks. Or the group dynamics just go haywire.
Sometimes, there's conflict from a character, or nobody seems to be into the plot, or there's an enormous gap between what I as a GM want to do, and what the players end up wanting to do.
There are two sides to this coin. If a DM urges you to aim characters toward a particular style, then it behooves you to help or discuss with him the consequences. Now, I'm not saying that everyone has to have roles assigned (or especially if those roles are exactly defined), but 'a good campaign, where you'll be helping people' is not a place to pull out the evil character that just wants to cause misery. I'm a grown-up now, and don't have the time or energy to redesign everything if the campaign goes completely haywire.
Come to think of it, it's usually that one player... but he is often the best player when the characters fit the campaign. Strange.
While the world should survive if the players do something to make it go wonky, sometimes as a DM, it's just not worth continuing if things go way off the tracks. When the party kills the font of information that will lead them to the adventure, and in so doing removes any chance that more information will go to them, it's hard to justify continuing. Like if the PCs meet in a tavern, and then end up killing everyone in the tavern (the ones who know about the adventure) and then burning down the village (where the posters that might tell them where the adventure are hanging). Ahem, still bitter. Still, I did manage to come up with a way to continue the game, but we ended up changing anyways.
Thankfully, Pathfinder showed up about that time and I distracted them with shiny objects like Rogue Talents and Mercies. Heh.
Oh, and then there was the time when my old group told me they kicked a particularly annoying player out of the game. My first thought was...
"Wait, you can DO that?"
What a difference.
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Not as difficult as you might think. She managed to convince the commander of a battalion of enemy troops on the border that his plans were known, so he wiped out the village to keep his movements secret. The village that her character was just passing through, but my character was from. So she got back to find her parents and all twelve siblings dead, including her twin brother. There was nearly an interparty murder at that point as Dorian literally had to be held back by the rest of the group.
OK, so her action sparked the massacre. But it's not like she was responsible for it.
I've only been playing tabletop the last 4 or so years, so I don't have much. I have one story where I left the group and one where I wish I could have.
I left the game when a GM (a very friendly, nice person, really) was in the middle of creating its own system. It really liked MMOs, so it was trying to recreate the "lots of hits for tons of damage each" feel. It would describe the base classes, but there was a lot of discovery in figuring out what they did completely, and I can't say I really appreciated it. I somehow multiclassed as the only, and somehow awesome, spellcaster. All I did was snap my fingers and things died. Literally. What really got my goat was the fact that it was trying to run a game with 20 people. Gameplay was so bogged down, and the poor DM was trying to work with this. I bowed out due to this, even though it was willing to run two individual sessions to manage gameplay. It was just a situation where there was just too many people that I never met before or had a strong ability to socialize with.
The game I wish I could have left was one my significant other was GMing. It was 4e, which was good because we had two new players who had never tabletopped before and they got easy striker roles to enjoy. (I have learned that new players generally want easy access to beating things up.) The player that got my goat was not one of these fellows, but it was trying to step between the relationship these two had. It was romantically interested in one of them, and that caused a great deal of friction outside of the table. I don't know if it influenced at the table, because this one player was always being a dumb jerk. I just don't know how to describe it better. It would make insensitive remarks without realizing how hurtful they were, and when confronted, it would just laugh it off. I must have complained to my SO twice a week for two months because I needed to get it off my chest and we couldn't just throw any of them out. Thankfully, the couple moved back home and the problem player worked out its own issues and matured, so I can finally have a decent friendship with it.
I'm sorry if my stories aren't as amusing as "the other player got my whole family killed" or "not closing the bathroom door", but hopefully they'll add something to the whole.
P.S. For clarification's sake, I used our gender-neutral pronoun "it" when referring to people in order to hide gender, even though "it" is not acceptable when referring to a person. I just dislike using "his or her" because of how clunky it is, and I've had enough of grammar to learn that "their" is considered improper (though I've read it both ways).
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I've only been playing tabletop the last 4 or so years, so I don't have much. I have one story where I left the group and one where I wish I could have.
I left the game when a GM (a very friendly, nice person, really) was in the middle of creating its own system. It really liked MMOs, so it was trying to recreate the "lots of hits for tons of damage each" feel. It would describe the base classes, but there was a lot of discovery in figuring out what they did completely, and I can't say I really appreciated it. I somehow multiclassed as the only, and somehow awesome, spellcaster. All I did was snap my fingers and things died. Literally. What really got my goat was the fact that it was trying to run a game with 20 people. Gameplay was so bogged down, and the poor DM was trying to work with this. I bowed out due to this, even though it was willing to run two individual sessions to manage gameplay. It was just a situation where there was just too many people that I never met before or had a strong ability to socialize with.
The game I wish I could have left was one my significant other was GMing. It was 4e, which was good because we had two new players who had never tabletopped before and they got easy striker roles to enjoy. (I have learned that new players generally want easy access to beating things up.) The player that got my goat was not one of these fellows, but it was trying to step between the relationship these two had. It was romantically interested in one of them, and that caused a great deal of friction outside of the table. I don't know if it influenced at the table, because this one player was always being a dumb jerk. I just don't know how to describe it better. It would make insensitive remarks without realizing how hurtful they were, and when confronted, it would just laugh it off. I must have complained to my SO twice a week for two months because I needed to get it off my chest and we couldn't just throw any of them out. Thankfully, the couple moved back home and the problem player worked out...
"It puts the lotion on its skin..."
Sorry, I couldn't resist :)
You never know, you just might know them. I met someone on these very boards who happens to live a 5 minute bicycle ride from my house. Scary.
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
uh...you wouldn't happen to live in NY, would you?
Nah, central Ohio. I ran into Urizen on these boards and discovered we lived right down the street from each other.
Not as difficult as you might think. She managed to convince the commander of a battalion of enemy troops on the border that his plans were known, so he wiped out the village to keep his movements secret. The village that her character was just passing through, but my character was from. So she got back to find her parents and all twelve siblings dead, including her twin brother. There was nearly an interparty murder at that point as Dorian literally had to be held back by the rest of the group.OK, so her action sparked the massacre. But it's not like she was responsible for it.
Heh. That's how it sounds when you do the recap. The actual game play....not so much. As the entire table is asking her WTF she first gives away our position, then gets us captured, then goads the commander until he gives the orders that start the war we were supposed to have been preventing. And yes, she did do it deliberately. It was my first experience gaming with that particular variety of drama queen and I hadn't really been prepared for a party that included Belkar so it came as a bit of a shock at the time. :)
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P.S. For clarification's sake, I used our gender-neutral pronoun "it" when referring to people in order to hide gender, even though "it" is not acceptable when referring to a person. I just dislike using "his or her" because of how clunky it is, and I've had enough of grammar to learn that "their" is considered improper (though I've read it both ways).
I found it confusing to read. Why do you feel the need to hide gender in the first place? We're pretty respectful around here - I don't think anyone would balk at someone in a same-sex relationship, or at a gamer who considers themselves transgender or intersex.
Heh. That's how it sounds when you do the recap. The actual game play....not so much. As the entire table is asking her WTF she first gives away our position, then gets us captured, then goads the commander until he gives the orders that start the war we were supposed to have been preventing. And yes, she did do it deliberately. It was my first experience gaming with that particular variety of drama queen and I hadn't really been prepared for a party that included Belkar so it came as a bit of a shock at the time. :)Not as difficult as you might think. She managed to convince the commander of a battalion of enemy troops on the border that his plans were known, so he wiped out the village to keep his movements secret. The village that her character was just passing through, but my character was from. So she got back to find her parents and all twelve siblings dead, including her twin brother. There was nearly an interparty murder at that point as Dorian literally had to be held back by the rest of the group.OK, so her action sparked the massacre. But it's not like she was responsible for it.
What was her problem though? Seriously, that's something you only do if you really, really don't like someone else at the table, or are "playing" an evil character or something.
You never know, you just might know them. I met someone on these very boards who happens to live a 5 minute bicycle ride from my house. Scary.
uh...you wouldn't happen to live in NY, would you? Nah, central Ohio. I ran into Urizen on these boards and discovered we lived right down the street from each other.
Cool! I didn't know Urizen rode too. We've got to get some type of Paizo Bike Tour thing going on!
What was her problem though? Seriously, that's something you only do if you really, really don't like someone else at the table, or are "playing" an evil character or something.Heh. That's how it sounds when you do the recap. The actual game play....not so much. As the entire table is asking her WTF she first gives away our position, then gets us captured, then goads the commander until he gives the orders that start the war we were supposed to have been preventing. And yes, she did do it deliberately. It was my first experience gaming with that particular variety of drama queen and I hadn't really been prepared for a party that included Belkar so it came as a bit of a shock at the time. :)Not as difficult as you might think. She managed to convince the commander of a battalion of enemy troops on the border that his plans were known, so he wiped out the village to keep his movements secret. The village that her character was just passing through, but my character was from. So she got back to find her parents and all twelve siblings dead, including her twin brother. There was nearly an interparty murder at that point as Dorian literally had to be held back by the rest of the group.OK, so her action sparked the massacre. But it's not like she was responsible for it.
To this day I have no idea. I think it irked her that she wasn't immediately declared party leader, but still....
I guess she just wanted attention or something.
Mama always said "Drama whore is as drama whore does"...
That's the second time you've made me laugh out loud in the last couple of days. Stop it! I nearly spit chocolate milk all over the computer screen. :)half-celestial nightmare (not sure I want to explore the backstory on that particular conception)Sometimes archons are young and need the money.
Never!
Plus, I'm behind on my quota! Only nearly spilling chocolate milk isn't going to cut it. One player in our Sunday group managed to very nearly make another breath coffee and play caffeine geyser. Usually, that's my job (my advice: Go for cappuccino and isotonic grapefruit drink. The former is a great alternative for air to breathe, and the latter will eat through any blockage when it comes out of the nose).
Oh, and when I read that I managed to make you laugh the second time, I became worried I'm losing my edge. But the qualifier "in the last couple of days" made it better :).
I left the game when a GM (a very friendly, nice person, really) was in the middle of creating its own system. It really liked MMOs, so it was trying to recreate the "lots of hits for tons of damage each" feel. It would describe the base classes, but there was a lot of discovery in figuring out what they did completely, and I can't say I really appreciated it
It?
Did it rub the lotion on its skin? ;-P
"It puts the lotion on its skin..."
Sorry, I couldn't resist :)
Got the drop on me.
But I see I was not alone with that.
I was curious what stories people had about why they quit a particular game. I'm not talking about having to quit because of time or distance reasons but something either in the game or about the game that you became fed up with and quit. Not trying to turn this into a b#@%!ing thread... just seeing what amusing stories others might have about why they quit a game.
So, what was your last straw?
It doesn't take much to get me to walk from a game these days, but I've put up with a lot in the past. Two stories which really stand out for me would be these two...
I joined a 3.5 game (supposedly) that was just starting up. The GM had a fair story planned out (not great but fair) involving a war between nations. I ask if it's fine if I play a necromancy focused cleric centered around undead leadership, and he said that was fine. So I built my character to be mostly support. Decent strength, Constitution, moderate wisdom (I wasn't really caster focused and all the good undead spells like animate dead and desecrate were low levels), and a strong charisma. I was going to provide party support in the form of buffs, minions (for flanking and such), and raising fallen players if needed.
I choose to be very defensive and go - the very sub-par route - sword and board, figuring I'll just try to soak hits when possible (likely using total defense) while supporting the players. So we're starting at like 1st level, and I'm wielding a morning star and a shield. We start the story off in a battle where the city we're in is being invaded; so far so good, I guess.
So my character arrives downstairs and notices them harassing some commoners and fighting with the others. Being the heroic antiheroine she was, my character mocks them openly and tries to bait them into fighting her to let the peasants flee and moves to flank with her ally. So I take a total defense, and describe it as "She is keeping her shield high, occasionally hitting the edge with her 'star, mocking her opponent as she fortifies herself."
So he rolls and misses me. Upon missing he declares "It hit the shield here's the damage against the shield". F--- no is what I'm thinking! So I'm kind of upset about that, because that's not how it works, and if I had known I was going to be punished for choosing to use a shield, I would have made some 2-handed doomsday thing or a wizard. So he then introduces that he's going to be using a called shot system he cooked up and I noted that by the way his system was set up, true strike becomes amazingly gamebreaking. His response was "Well spellcasters need to be able to do something to, since warriors get all the good stuff".
(F---^)^ + (No!^) = My Mental Process right then.
So I politely tell him I will be leaving his game, because it is not for me, and I want no part of it. Shortly after, the rest of the players met me and had quit as well. The commented that it was just going downhill from there, and then the GM spent a great deal of time describing all the useless loot they found since apparently killing the enemies also broke all their armor and he specified all the penalties they had if you tried to wear or use their equipment.
GM Fail.
So the next game I play in, with a different GM, is starting up a game and says "Sure, you can play a psion". So I get there to the game and he informs me just before we're going to play that "Since psionics are so much better than spellcasters, creatures get a will save to disbelieve them" which didn't even scale, and then goes on to say "and since spellcasters aren't as good, I'm letting them use their choice of spell points or recharge magic from unearthed arcana".
(F---)+ NO! * infinity!!
So I quit his game, after I told him just what I thought about his house rules and his grasp on the game and its mechanics (it was biblical).
And for fun, here's a bonus one (in spoiler's 'cause it's NSFW).
Half-way through the game, my character goes into a room where the vampire apparently is. So the vampire proceeds to paralyze her with his domination, and then proceeds to sodomize (yes, anally rape) her while she is dominated. I'm somewhat awestruck by the situation, and comment "If he doesn't kill me, she's going to kill that vampire or die trying", to which the GM rolls some dice and says "No actually, she likes it like that."
(F---^)+(No^)+GM's House*Arson = Favored Idea.
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Heh. That's how it sounds when you do the recap. The actual game play....not so much. As the entire table is asking her WTF she first gives away our position, then gets us captured, then goads the commander until he gives the orders that start the war we were supposed to have been preventing. And yes, she did do it deliberately. It was my first experience gaming with that particular variety of drama queen and I hadn't really been prepared for a party that included Belkar so it came as a bit of a shock at the time. :)
Cripes...
So how did Miss Spotlight roleplay being responsible for starting a war, causing the deaths of a party member's family, and who knows how many other deaths of innocents?
the GM rolls some dice and says "No actually, she likes it like that."
Please tell me everyone left that game immediately and that the GM has been forsaken.
Heh. That's how it sounds when you do the recap. The actual game play....not so much. As the entire table is asking her WTF she first gives away our position, then gets us captured, then goads the commander until he gives the orders that start the war we were supposed to have been preventing. And yes, she did do it deliberately. It was my first experience gaming with that particular variety of drama queen and I hadn't really been prepared for a party that included Belkar so it came as a bit of a shock at the time. :)Cripes...
So how did Miss Spotlight roleplay being responsible for starting a war, causing the deaths of a party member's family, and who knows how many other deaths of innocents?
By denying all responsibility of course. And then vanishing into the night. Funny in retrospect. :)
the GM rolls some dice and says "No actually, she likes it like that."
Please tell me everyone left that game immediately and that the GM has been forsaken.
+1 million. That is so far beyond the pale it is not even funny.
Sometimes I seriously wonder if some of these people weren't raised by wolves or something....and then I realize what an insult that would be to wolves. :/
"If I don't have to roll to open doors, I don't play."What.
He may have been trying to score points with the cute anime chick, but yeah, that's what he said.
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I hadn't played any table top since GenCon moved out of Milwaukee (where I'm from) until last year when I decided to it out again. At first I tried 4e.
I played in one game where the GM didn't read the purchased adventure so didn't adjust the game to take into account their were only two players against a WAY to large encounter but he not so subtly and repeatedly mentioned he would drop in a high level cleric to help us if he would buy him food and soda (later found out at a meetup he is well known for this).
I eventually learned of Pathfinder (total convert now!) and the guy running the game I was invited to ran a "low magic" world. Only it was enemies had all the magical items & abilities which always were destroyed when they died and we would only get some silver from a kill (we were around level 5. I asked if a Wizard would be ok, he said it would be no problem. In my back story I even explained how all his exploring was to become a lore master yadda yadda. On a "6 week voyage by boat" my wizard (who was more of a crafter/knowledge monkey) could not widdle a single masterwork wand because I didn't have the necessary skills. Apparently on top of the crafting: carpentry & sculpting I needed to have profession: sailor (WTF?) I wasn't even trying to make the actual magical wands yet I just wanted to spend some of my time making the masterwork toothpicks so when I had the resources I could help out the party. By the time we were 7th level the GM got mad because we the party pointed out that if we where to take out this ancient lich that was the big baddy boss we would need SOMETHING... and the only "nice" item we had was a masterwork adamantine greataxe. That stacked with only having 35 gold for gear no matter what level you started at. Just a bad GM.
2nd game I left just happened the other week. We were doing Kingmaker and after 3 months we were finally into the 2nd book and a fledgling kingdom. The GM kept adding stuff so no matter what we did, ran to Olegs, went fishing on the river, rested the winter out SOMETHING always happened where we the players had to save the village but the villagers hated us for saving them (WTF?). The last straw was the last game where one of the family's and a Bard (who is in the adventure path but we had already ran him out of town with words not swords) came back with a army of 100 villagers and trapped the party in the barracks. We defended ourselves concentrating on the 2 main people and who ever we couldn't scare away. After the battle the NPCs on the council told the party they didn't agree with the way we did things and left. My dice were packed up right after he said that... I have no problem with a GM altering a adventure path but to rewrite it so we got 1/10 of the xp & loot but still got the troll and hydra encounters EVERY FRIGGING time we walked from the tavern to the barracks.... GRRRRRRR
Sometimes I seriously wonder if some of these people weren't raised by wolves or something....and then I realize what an insult that would be to wolves. :/
At least you realized the error of your ways. Break the stereotype! Wolves are better than some people!
I posted this before in another thread...
Most of my experiences have been with good groups, and I've only had to leave due to RL cropping up. (Leaving college, moving, that sort of thing.)
Save once.
We were playing 1st Edition, but set in the WHFRP setting. I had a paladin, and we had about 5 other players.
We were defending a city and its ruler (also a paladin) against a horde of demons. The party's "leader" assigned myself, and the ruler's royal guard (also paladins, numbering about a half dozen at least) to stay back in the city and guard the ruler.
I had an alternate plan that I wanted to suggest (which I've now forgotten, this having been over 2 decades ago) and the "leader" flat out refused to even let me present the plan.
I turned my character sheet over to the DM (I don't remember if I did so immediately, or at the end of the night, but I suspect the latter) and never attended that game again.
The other players said the leader's player was out of line... after the game. Not one of them even hinted during play that I should be allowed to present the plan.
I would have had no problem with the plan being refused, but to not even be allowed to present it...
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I still love low magic campaigns, I hate games where I walk in and am told things like, "take max HP for each level" or "a character needs at least two stats above 16 to be effective" or "okay guys we're going with a 35 point buy because I don't want you to die at low levels" Those are usually signs that I'm not going to enjoy the game I'm getting into.
I think the problem with a lot of low magic campaigns is inexperienced DMs trying to run something they don't have the practical knowledge to do properly and coming online to hear people say oh you need to increase x and decrease y.
I also tend to break into hives when I hear in character talk about the adventurer economy. For some reason "adventuring economies" bug me to no end.
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It’s been rare that I’ve canned a game or walked out on one. Mainly if I’ve left a group it’s been due to geographic or scheduling issues.
There were a few times, a long time ago that I refused to continue playing in a campaign, usually with the full support of my fellow players.
This was back in high school when the various members of our regular group would take turns DMing different things (pretty much all 2nd edition AD&D of one form or another), sometimes just for a few sessions, sometimes for a year or more before turning the reigns over to another DM. There was one player in our group who was known for playing very one dimensional characters, nearly always martial classes dual wielding long swords or other equally cheesy things (mind you, we all had a guilty part to play in this, as at the time we had developed various house rules as a group that, amongst other things, pretty much allowed characters to dual wield without penalty given a good dex score and the investment of a few weapon proficiencies. Paladins and rangers could also take weapon specialisation if I recall). Mostly he didn’t even bother giving his characters a name.
Well, it was his first turn to DM, and he came to the game with not one but two DMPCs to ‘help’ the group. We couldn’t totally blame him for this, as he was not the first DM in our group to run a DMPC, though two was stretching the friendship. His characters were a (dual wielding longsword) male human paladin and a female elf cleric. He described the elf as being incredibly sexy ... and married to the paladin. On the first in-game night, he told the rest of us that we could hear sounds of passionate sex coming from the couple’s tent (actually he described it a bit more graphically than that). Of course we all gave him crap for that, but hey, we were all 13 year old boys so something like that was almost to be expected.
It soon became apparent that the sole purpose of the elf cleric (apart from as a sex object) was to heal (only) the DMs paladin in combat while he went off and completely outshone the group’s fighter in every combat. Ok ... annoying, but not the last straw.
At some point in the first session the group were exploring an ancient underground tomb, when a spectre surprised our (I think first or second level) party. We thought we were done for, but to our surprise the spectre only wanted to talk ... in fact, it only wanted to tell the DMs paladin that there was a secret room just ahead where he could find a holy avenger longsword.
That was the last straw. Pretty much all the players walked out at that point and next week we were playing another game.
***
Sometime later this same guy took another turn at DMing, and decided that he wanted to run a high level game. We were a bit dubious but also interested as we had rarely played any games that got above 12th level. He wanted to run a 15th level game. So we all created 15th level characters, outfitted them with ridiculous amounts of magical equipment, their own castles, cohorts and henchmen, and fantastic mounts (yes, we all went very overboard).
So the game started and we were summoned to the capital by the king or something and all rode out from our castle. In our first hour on the road we were suddenly set upon by a death knight, whom we took down with no casualties in one round. The DM was annoyed that we took out his death knight random encounter so easily, so decided that while we were searching the body an ancient red wyrm flew / snuck up on us and breathed fire on us before anyone could react. We all survived that (I think a few henchmen and mounts might have died), and then turned around and killed it in another one or two rounds.
Then the guy who was playing the mage and the guy who was playing the thief decided they wanted to butcher the dragon’s corpse for spell components and things to make magic items, then head back to the castle and spend several game-months creating magical items. “Sure,” said the DM, quite seriously. “The king can wait. What do you want to make?”
I packed up and left at that point, and next week we were playing something else.
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I also tend to break into hives when I hear in character talk about the adventurer economy. For some reason "adventuring economies" bug me to no end.
Why? It's completely analogous to the effect military bases have on their surrounding cities. Soldiers deploy, earn a lot of money, come home, and spend. Adventuring parties raid a dungeon, collect treasure, return to town, and spend.
I have walked out on two games in 17 years of role playing
The first was a vampire the masquerade game back in 99, I was new in the town and and not played anything in a months and got invited to a game of Vampire. Now I had never heard of it and had just came from 2e D&D games.
Now I get to the place and well its a basement apartment, with no lights. I get in and me in tshirt,jeans and greenhaired glory see the place is both candle lit and everyone is all gothed up lounging around a table drinking wine. So they hand me a sheet, give me a half assed understanding of the rules And I waste near two hours of my life listing to this group of whiny bastards Larping{ thats what it was but didn't know that term} the most whiny emo vampires known to freaking man.
They whined on being vampires, they whinned on missing the kiss of the sun, on having to drink the blood of mortal, oh the curse of the dreadful curse.
At that point they finely introduce me but I had had enough and informed them I was off to hunt mortal like the sheep they were. Which horrified the group "Oh but you would hate to feed up up the mortal blood, such a curse"
To which I responded "Hell no! they are sheep, I am a wolf, humans are but vessels I feast upon I am better then them!" the GM then tried to rain me in and it just pissed me off so I stood up said "F~$~ you guys I am gonna get laid " and left, gods I was so frustrated.
I avoid WW stuff for years after that.
The second time was about 5 years back in a game. My first sense it was gonna be bad was when I rolled a wizard and the GM, informed me, thats ok if you really want to but wizards are useless you'll need to stay back so you don't die"
He then started getting upset when I one shotted a few of his encounters, upstaging the other pc's he made for the players {badly, so so badly} and he started passing every single save for every single spell. The we found an NPC which then proceed unarmed and without armor to one hit kill the frost giants, and in a battle with the frost giants, my spells just "didn't work" every spell I tired just failed, but his NPC single handily killed the frost giant mage whose spells always worked, and did max damage and used spells I am sure he just made up on the spot.
At which point I was done, I got my books, said thanks for the invite and just left. They looked shocked that I just left but no game is better then that kind of game.
My first ever game of AD&D I rolled up a 1st lvl Human Barbarian and my friend played a Human Rogue.
We chased this black-robed wizard through tunnels (couldn't catch him, of course) until we entered a 20' by 20' room with 30 orcs in it. We entered just in time to see the Wizard leave through the opposite wall, the door closing behind him. Door shuts behind us (of course).
DM says 'Ok, you're both dead, the 30 orcs massacre you (or words to that effect). No rolls. Just dead.
Stupidly, I played with him again, this time a solo game. Rolled up a 5th lvl Human Paladin. I thought it would be pretty cool to have a pegasus mount.
It was great...until it got shot with arrows - couldn't fly because it had less than half HP.
So instead of gliding to the ground the pegasus and I fell...straight into a spiked pit.
Thankfully, after that I found a wikd group that ran DragonLance.
Just curious, was this a D&D-based/PF game, or some other type of system? I cannot see how in the world you can do a PvP type of D&D game and maintain any semblance of sanity (except for the things my players do during long down times when I have to draw a complicated battle scene on the map and they fight each others characters just for fun and practice).Though I don't quite trust my own memory on the matter, I believe I've only stepped out of one game in the 16 years that I've been roleplaying.
** spoiler omitted **...
It was essentially an evil game where the GM gave everyone cart blanch to kill everyone else in the party provided they discussed it with her first. My character was nearly killed after another character dispelled my protection from arrows moments before I was shot down by an enemy firing squad. The GM had received a "secret letter" from the player in question literally 10 seconds before it went down. Discussion my butt.
Essentially, I got tired of having to watch my back from my own team mates in addition to the people we were fighting against. It got to be too stressful for me. I would go home after the game and spend my time trying to figure out ways to (1) not allow them to kill my character and (2) to keep the group at least partially stable. In the end, I made up my mind that it wasn't worth it. I play games to relives stress, not build more of it.
There were never any real hard feelings between any of us (that I'm aware of), it was just a difference in play style preference. Everyone else enjoyed (and continue to enjoy as far as I know) their evil PvP game, whereas I did not.
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There are some winners here, but I've got a few good ones, even a few I don't even want to mention they are so bad.
The winner of the fecal-burger awards, that I'm willing to share anyway, has to be a White Wolf game I was playing in. Ran by a guy who I didn't like to begin with (my friend wanted to play and I figured I could basically make it a player-centric game if I tried hard enough, boy was I wrong)
The game starts out as my character is walking home from the grocery store and a white van pulls up, the door opens up, and a bunch of guys with fully automatic dart guns using tranquilizers pop out and gun me down. I was a were-cheetah, picking it because it was something different, in this game. I could have potentially avoided that much firepower, if we were playing by the rules instead of his "because I say so" policy. The other player and myself wake up on a pallet in a room where the walls, floor, and ceiling are covered in silver. Fortunately were-cats are usually vulnerable to gold, not silver, so I just walked over and ripped open the door. We ended up in a massive arena with a giant worm-thing, I'm not sure what it was, but it could turn me into tapioca pudding if it wanted to. I did the smart thing and ran away, but this availed me not, I managed to make it to the runway, which apparently they had, and smuggled myself onto a plane. I eventually made it home, but when I got there a van pulled up, the door opened, again, and I flipped my character sheet over signifying that I was done here.
One of the most memorable games I was thrown out of was a 3.5e D&D game, gestalt, definitely a power game. The guy who runs this monstrosity uses a previously established setting and has some incredibly complicated character creation rules, to make things worse you can bribe him. He tells the players to build whatever they want at level 5. I bribed him to let me use the Pathfinder classes, because I had a concept that relied on being able to dispel curses and I wanted to play with the rogue talents. Well, when I got done building the character it was a monster truck that walks like man and flies. The GM realized how powerful I was when I made a 40 on a Will save, so he then lies to me telling me I was voted out of the game by the other players, the ones who had been my friends for years. This is especially egregious, because I asked them if they voted me out, and they said no. I wasn't even abusing my powers either, we spent most of that one game session I got to play in talking to people, and investigating stuff.
Though I do get a sense of accomplishment knowing that in his next version of his game, he wrote "No Pathfinder Stuff" 15 times on the page that tells you about the changes he has in place. Special note: I would have been even better optimized for nigh-invulnerability had I played all 3.5, more skill points, meaner classes, etc.
Wow. You were in a 3.5 gestalt game — and it was PF material that broke it.
LMAO!
Yeah that is just, wow, just wow.
Yeah I used to like the low magic settings but now... I think its a turn off... same with Paladins! Everyone has 10 different opinions on how a person should play their Lawful Good Paladin, soooo annoying.
Paladins are like children; you probably have your own opinions about how to play/raise them, but pushing your own opinions on others is bad form.
(And by you, I mean gamers in general.)
Cool! I didn't know Urizen rode too. We've got to get some type of Paizo Bike Tour thing going on!
Erm, I only meant a "5 minute bike ride" as a measure of distance, I don't know if he actually rides bikes or anything. My bad.
I still love low magic campaigns, I hate games where I walk in and am told things like, "take max HP for each level" or "a character needs at least two stats above 16 to be effective" or "okay guys we're going with a 35 point buy because I don't want you to die at low levels" Those are usually signs that I'm not going to enjoy the game I'm getting into.
I think the problem with a lot of low magic campaigns is inexperienced DMs trying to run something they don't have the practical knowledge to do properly and coming online to hear people say oh you need to increase x and decrease y.
I also tend to break into hives when I hear in character talk about the adventurer economy. For some reason "adventuring economies" bug me to no end.
Agreed.
Stuff regarding LARPing
Been there before. Don't care for how you handled it per se, but I've been there before. LARPing really isn't fun for me.
Erm, I only meant a "5 minute bike ride" as a measure of distance, I don't know if he actually rides bikes or anything. My bad.
Cool! I didn't know Urizen rode too. We've got to get some type of Paizo Bike Tour thing going on!
*sniff*
I was gonna have shirts made...
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Erm, I only meant a "5 minute bike ride" as a measure of distance, I don't know if he actually rides bikes or anything. My bad.
Cool! I didn't know Urizen rode too. We've got to get some type of Paizo Bike Tour thing going on!
*sniff*
I was gonna have shirts made...
If you're ever in FL I'll go biking with you :)
I have only ever once walked out on a game, and even then, it was just on the campaign and not the group.
It all has to do with a dm who was buy and large a little too adversarial but not insanely so, but who doesnt understand that sometimes published adventures take a trip to stupid town and need to be ignored.
It was running the 3.5 return to castle ravenloft adventure so I'll park this one in a spoiler:
The party travels to a city overrun by undead. We were going for the 'long' version of the adventure whatever that means so we started at level 6(remember this number). So we have a few encounters where we find a somewhat deserted town with streets filled with zombies, and surviving villagers huddled in a barracaded tavern...fair enough. The first session ends kind of uneventfully do to short of time, but we did learn that things seemed to be originating from this old church.
So start of the next session, we go to investigate this church. We look for side entrances didnt find one, only way in we could find was the front. So my character (scout/ranger) checks the door for traps, checks for locks opens it, and the dm describes a guy inside with a few skeletons performing a ritual. Clearly bad stuff going on but apparently he was waiting for us, because before we could act, he casts a scroll. But not any scroll, Circle of Death. Thats right, a group of 6th level PC's get opened up on with no warning, with a 6th level save or die spell. Odly enough, 2 of the 5 present PC's die. Honestly it should have been more but we got kind of lucky with a few roles. The two players who's characters were killed were fairly pissed (one of them in fact was not present at the game but had someone else playing their character so we wouldnt be short a cleric). My character had to roll like a 17 to live, others were just as bad off. Only the Paladin had a close to 50-50 shot. Really it was luck that we just didnt have a party wipe there
The DM says dont worry to the player who's character died, and that it will work out shortly after telling him not to roll up a new character. Ok, I guess the adventure has some kind of plan. We fight the evil caster and his skeletons (he was clearly a much lower level and had to make a caster level check to use that scroll).
My luck didnt hold from earlier and I roll a 1 on an attack roll. The dm says 'you fall into the pit near the alter'. No save, no crit fuble chart, just into the pit. And loe and behold theres some kind of crazy powerful monster in there waiting for me. That monster alone would have been a hard fight for the whole party, let alone a weakened group of 3/5ths of it. We came within 1 hp of a party wipe on that one.
So we deal with the source of the undead after reviving those of us who were just injured and recover the bodies of our fallen friends, hoping to find a way to revive them. Fast forward through a few encounters with some obnoxious npcs and we end up directed toward a certain seer woman who was going to apparently read our fortune and direct us towards what to do next. Playing along we head there and on the way we meed an NPC night fighting some incorperal undead in a field. Upon meeting him, the dm hands a sheet with the npc's statblock on it to the player who's character was dead to play. We thought this was just for the time being, until he could make a new character or get himself raised but no, the adventure actually recommends preventing any characters from being brought back to life and new characters entering the campaign, but instead for players to PERMANENTLY take on these NPC's that were clearly designed by the character building monkeys at wizards [I dont have to explain here that wizards npc's were built in nonsense ways do I?].
We fight off the undead and off we go to Madaam Eva (I think that was her name). And here is the big moment in the campaign. The big draw, random cards would determine the rest of the campaign and it could be different every time. Interesting, lets see where it goes. So we get our fortunes read, and she flips out saying we have to kill her to succeed. Her whole camp (which apparently are all rogues) ambush us. She flees. We persue her because we have no other plothooks after fighting off the rogues (there was like 10 of them and they were of a descent level). At this point our only remaining caster, a warmage, was nearly out of spells (the cleric and wizard had both been killed by the circle of death) and we were running low on HP, but the DM did his best to instill urgency so we went along.
We finally catch up to her in this clearing in the woods, and face off. Turns out she is some kind of ogre cleric mage and she had a pair of ogres with her. We face off with her and it turns out to be a very challenging fight for a party of 6th level and no real casters. Midway through the fight, 1 of the ogres is down and she is injured but it looks like we can pull through. Then all of a sudden a giant comes crashing through the woods, yea no listen or spot check to hear the huge sized giant running through the woods, he just shows up I guess magically to save his 'mommy'.
The giant proceeds to nearly kill the paladin tank in one hit and on the next turn knocked the npc night unconcious. That was pretty much it for that session for all of us. The DM's explanation, "It was written that way in the book".
Yea we spent a fair amount of time explaining to him that published adventures sometimes take a trip to stupid town and thats where his judgement should come in. Not only where these rediculous encounters, they weren't avoidable either. It wasnt like the random encounter with an owlbear you could run from, we HAD to defeat these encounters or the plot wouldn't have moved forward.
To this day, saying 'That's how it's written' is an inside insult/joke denoting a poorly designed encounter or an inane plot hook. And it is only recently that we have once again taken a serious look at running published adventures (mostly) as written some years after this particular event.
I still love low magic campaigns, I hate games where I walk in and am told things like, "take max HP for each level" or "a character needs at least two stats above 16 to be effective" or "okay guys we're going with a 35 point buy because I don't want you to die at low levels" Those are usually signs that I'm not going to enjoy the game I'm getting into.
You do know there are more options than 5 point purchase and 1000 point purchase, right?
I once joined a game-store game after hearing about how awesome the DM was, and how his stories were always epic and tailored to the party. I had been in a crappy group for 6 months at the time, only holding out because I liked the people I was playing with, so I decided to have my go at it.
I had been in contact with the GM through a couple emails and built a character using his personal rules. It all seemed really solid, and he had a great grasp on the game. When I showed up that session he acted really odd after I introduced myself- in fact, the whole group did. I sat down with my human Bard (3.5e), and waited for 3 hours for the DM to introduce me. Finally, the party enters a tavern where my character is performing, and the DM sort of vaguely mentions me. My character, wanting nothing more than a life of adventure and having no skill to do it alone, approaches the PCs and proclaims them the most valiant people to enter the town in decades. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: I can tell from your equipment that the lot of you are mighty adventurers, roaming the countryside and defeating the evils of the land.
Party: ...
Me: If you allow me to accompany you I will tell your deeds, and sing your names to the heavens.
Human Ranger: Sorry, I don't like your kind.
Me: ...minstrels?
Human Ranger: No, your kind.
Me: (Now out of character) Dude, we're both human.
Human Ranger's Player: (Also out of Character) No, he doesn't like gay people.
Me: But my character isn't gay.
Human Ranger's Player: But you are, right?
Me: Yeah, but so what?
This continued for a few minutes, while the rest of the table agreed that I couldn't successfully roleplay a straight character and that I should either play a woman or accept that my character is gay. When I looked to the DM, he only responded "he's just playing his character."
So I grabbed my books and left.
Stuff about Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
I don't want to break down everything, but some of that stuff isn't exactly how it was written.
First, there is a Reflex save to avoid falling in he hole in the floor, but that only comes into play if you move into one of the 4 squares the hole takes up. Pretty easy to avoid.
If the PC's have a method of reviving characters, there's nothing in the adventure that prevents it. And there are 2 npc's that can be used as pc's, should the need arise, but in no way are they mandatory. Nor does the adventure say the players can't bring in new characters.
If the cards reveal that Madam Eva must be killed to weaken Strahd, there is a Sense Motive check to notice her signalling the Vistani, but she doesn't freak out and say the pc's have to kill her.
Lastly, the hill giant should be there at the start of the fight, so it sounds like the DM initially was trying to protect you, then said "screw it!"
I'm not saying your DM didn't hose you, but I think it was more his fault than how the adventure was written. He seems to have been trying to put the boots to you, making things as difficult as possible for you. Once the undead plague is dealt with (and even during if you don't mind leaving the townsfolk at risk) there should be no rush to do anything. He lacks subtlety, and the PC's should be allowed to proceed how they choose, investigating and learning about the lands and various plots at their own pace. He was just pushing you as hard as he could.
This continued for a few minutes, while the rest of the table agreed that I couldn't successfully roleplay a straight character and that I should either play a woman or accept that my character is gay. When I looked to the DM, he only responded "he's just playing his character."
So I grabbed my books and left.
You win! Hateful bigotry trumps anything I have... oh, wait, you weren't in that dreadful contagious stage of gay, were you?
Once I got to thinking about it, I realized I've left my fair share of groups.
1. About 15 years ago I was playing in a 2nd ed D&D game. I had created a gladiator character and people kept disagreeing with choices I was making in play. I finally found out during a discussion with the DM that the reason people kept interfering was that the entire group thought that a gladiator had to act like Conan the Barbarian. He recommended that I watch the movie and take notes. I thanked him for the feedback and left the game.
2. About six months before that I was in a Cyberpunk game that ran overnight from about 11 pm to dawn. It was fun at first but then we got into our first combat. It started at about 1 am. My first turn finally came up around 3:30 am. Other players were actually taking naps while waiting. I was kind of an ass about the whole thing and ended up not only leaving but taking one of the other players with me.
3. Just a few years ago, I started playing in a 3.5 D&D campaign where one of the players was a total loose cannon. He'd get distracted over his brand new iPhone (this was right after the first one was released), talk about books he'd read that the game reminded him of, spill food or beer all over the gaming table...he was just out and out disruptive.
I did my best to put up with it and tried to be polite until one night he showed up with a giant bottle of vodka and proceeded to drink more than half of it within about 45 minutes. He was so drunk he could hardly talk and what little you could understand amounted to how he couldn't figure out why he was hanging out with us losers when he could have gone home and gotten laid. We kept inviting him to leave and after another hour he finally took us up on it. The game was fine after that but when the night was done I realized I just couldn't put up with another session like that, apologized to the DM and took my leave.