What are some annoying things you've had to go through as a player because of your GM?


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Silver Crusade

cranewings wrote:
Harrison wrote:

Meatgrinders are never fun.

The DM of one campaign I'm in has unquestionably mentioned that he plans to kill us as many times as possible come 5th level (we're at 4th right now), and we've already had one character die. Bonus points for the fact that he charges the group money every time a player dies for his 20th-level Wizard NPC to come and resurrect people (via some weird magic items that I've never heard of, possibly homebrew).

I stay in the campaign because a number of my friends are in the campaign as well and I'm one of the few melee people in the group and probably the only viable tank...

[EDIT] I suppose I should correct myself. Meatgrinders are fun for the people who like the concept of a game so horribly hard that you will die and frequently due to the challenge. For casual players like myself and my friends, it's not fun.

LOL!!!

Meat grinder? One character died by 4th level? I usually kill half the group by then, usually by 3rd. In my recent 4 month long game, 1-8th level, I killed:

High Elf Ranger: Taken prisoner by Drow Women, killed self, understandable.

Monk: Jumped on a CR 8 Dragons Back at 3th level, drove dragon to the ground, died there.

Anti-Paladin: Bitten and Death Rolled by a CR 9 Dire Crock at level 4. Died under the water.

Barbarian: Killed in a field battle when he and the party paladin stepped up to the Orc commander who was 2 levels higher.

Gunslinger: Killed in the final battle, focused down by the BBEG's orc ranger squad.

Human Ranger: Died a round or two after the Gunslinger from the same thing.

I'm sure I'm missing someone.

Point is son, you don't know what a meat grinder is.

Ah I miss those days. I remember one session back in the late 90's where I had 7....Yes, SEVEN!....characters killed by the DM in one night. And had a blast!

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

Xabulba wrote:
I had a DM That made you do that but with gaining levels also. You had to find someone higher level in the class you wanted to level up, then you had to convince them to train you and pay them for the training. He also only let you gain one level at a time so even if you had enough xp to go up 2 levels you could only train up one level. We had to go adventuring to 'gain real world experience' before we could level up again.

Those were actual optional rules in 2nd ed. AD&D. Since you gained levels so comparatively slowly in 2nd ed., it wasn't as big a deal because you weren't taking months out of an AP that advances levels at at 1-to-4-per-chapter breakneck pace.


Sir Matt, I'm jealous. I never got to play a true meat grinder. The closest as our dark Herasy game where the party cycled and I died twice in just a month or so. The only guy that lived was our psychic who kept getting us killed.


Charlie Bell wrote:
Xabulba wrote:
I had a DM That made you do that but with gaining levels also. You had to find someone higher level in the class you wanted to level up, then you had to convince them to train you and pay them for the training. He also only let you gain one level at a time so even if you had enough xp to go up 2 levels you could only train up one level. We had to go adventuring to 'gain real world experience' before we could level up again.
Those were actual optional rules in 2nd ed. AD&D. Since you gained levels so comparatively slowly in 2nd ed., it wasn't as big a deal because you weren't taking months out of an AP that advances levels at at 1-to-4-per-chapter breakneck pace.

Yep, playing in AD&D game atm & after 18 months of weekly play we are getting XP in the next session. With luck I can level for the second time in 5 years.

Liberty's Edge

Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:
Austin Morgan wrote:

...

Could you expand on why you dislike when a DM gets ideas from other sources? Is it just that he/she runs short sessions and railroads you?

Reason I ask is that I frequently take snippets of ideas from various media, and I want to make sure that doing so isn't compromising any of my players' fun.

As others have said. The problem isn't getting ideas from other sources. The problem is trying to recreate the novel.

Have you ever read a novel and agreed that you would make exactly the same choice as the main character every single time? Can you imagine all 4 people in a party making exactly the same decision as all the main characters in a novel every single time?
Very, very, quickly you are off the original story line. Usually with no obvious way to get back onto it.

Now it is very good to set up the situation environment from a book or movie. Let's say I'm going to set a campaign in a place like Dragera city from the Jhereg novels by Steven Brust. {{Awesome series by the way!}} I'm even going to start them running the 'Organization' in a couple of blocks area for the crime lords. The guy running the neighboring couple of blocks is trying to muscle in on their territory. Neither the guard nor the organization care as long as things don't get too out of hand. This is all great.

But if you expected the party to respond just like Vlad and don't have any anything prepared to handle anything else, everyone will be disappointed.

Cool, that's what I was expecting. I apparently missed the "and wishes to recreate it as a campaign" part of the post I replied to :)

I usually rip a map here and there, maybe a monster concept or two.


Austin Morgan wrote:
...I usually rip a map here and there, maybe a monster concept or two.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think most GM's do that alot.

One time back in 2nd ed, I used real life maps of Europe, North Africa, and SW Asia that were in use in the dark ages (copied from history text books). They had so much of the geography wrong back then that noone recognized any of the maps for almost 3 years.


Oh where do I start!

1) "Tie goes to defender." Which means you have to get MORE than than target AC to hit them. This works against the better trained and equipped opponent--which are usually the PCs.

2) Casters do not get free spells as they level. All spells have to purchased or "found". Makes playing casters extremely hard.

3) All new players start at level 1 in an existing high level campaign.

4) New players have to buy equipment from existing players who can charge whatever they want.

5) Complicated fumble charts when you roll a 1 with things like doing full damage against yourself or another party member all the way up to self-decapitation.

6) Rolling two 20s in a row is an auto kill. And you are fighting hordes of low level creatures.

7) Way, way, way, inappropriate encounter levels. Like 10-20 levels difference.

8) Allowing all 3.5 material with Pathfinder. This allows min/maxers to make insane things like archers that can do 300 points of damage on each attack.

9) No matter how high your Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate roll just was, the GM ignores it because you, the player, are not eloquent or convincing enough. Makes taking social skills worthless.

10) Annoying GM NPCs that are too-important-to-plot-to-die. Oh and they can make PCs do whatever they want. Without rolling.


Here are a few other of my GM pet peeves...

Player Dating/Married To the GM
The GM often plays favorites with the PC that's played by the GM's spouse/romantic partner. That could be placing special items for that character (and not doing so for other characters), or just writing the plot to maximize the spotlight on that PC. I suppose it's fun for the GM's girlfriend, but much less so for everyone else.

GM Provides Players Guide for Character Gen and Promptly Ignores It
This one falls under the "keep your promises" category. I've played in games where the GM provided what was essentially a player's guide, detailing setting and some plot hooks, then completely drops and/or ignores some that one or more of the players picked up on.

GM Creates Adventure Without Consideration of PC's Abilities
Not that you have to cater to all of the players' whims, but I always though that you should not design an adventure that requires a cleric to channel positive energy to open a door if you don't have any clerics in the party. Or have lots and lots of traps with no rogue. Or run an extended series of "courtly intrigue" adventures with PCs that have absolutely no business hobnobbing with aristocrats.

Example (warning: wall of text):
About four years ago, I was playing in a campaign that combined all of these, and it ended up becoming a real drag. At character gen, we were told that the game would be a mix of city and wilderness, and were given extensive info about a major city that we'd be based in. So I made an urban-focused rogue street punk character that maxed out Stealth, with a concept of hiding in the shadows and sneak attacking opponents in alleys. My feat and skill selection focused on knowing the underside of the city, having a couple of friendly contacts in the criminal underworld, and generally being a competent member of the local Thieves Guild. I ran the character by the GM, and she told me that it looked great, and would fit right in. One of the other players made an academic wizard who had special "ins" at the city's arcane library. And another player made a fighter that was an officer in the city guard, with connections to the city's aristocracy.

The GM's husband made a druid/ranger (favored terrain: Plains) and poured all of his feats into the Mounted Combat feat chain and all of his skills into the wilderness-focused ones.

So, the first adventure is indeed in the city. It's a "courtly intrigue" adventure set in the palace. My character is a street kid with no ranks in Diplomacy, Disguise, or Knowledge (nobility), and basically had nothing to do for that entire session, but the city watch character and the wizard both get the spotlight. Anyway, we're given a mission to put down the bandits that are raiding the merchant caravans, so I figure that we'll go out into the hinterlands for a little while, but will trace the bandits back to the city, where my connections to the underworld and the guardsman's connections to the aristocracy will come into play.

Or not. The game moved permanently into the wilderness.

We never went back to the city, or for that matter, any city. For the next 20 sessions, we end up fighting mounted and/or flying opponents in the plains (where there's nowhere to hide and I can't get close enough to sneak attack) almost exclusively. So, with four characters, three of which were optimized for play in the city that had been painstakingly detailed by the GM, we end up riding into the sunset playing "Cowboys and Indians" because that's what the GM's husband wanted to play. The kicker was that the GM kept hinting that we'd be returning to the city "soon," but we never did.

That campaign eventually fizzled after about six months, as three of four players pretty much lost interest.


When I first began playing in '85, my DM (who is still one of my best friends to this day) would roll for an encounter every hour of the adventuring day. Marching, eating, pooping, sleeping, it didn't matter. And he had us make the rolls, as well.

Our characters all worked for a pair of evil bosses with unbelievable stats. And if any of our characters needed healing or help with anything, we had to sign a "contract" with one of the bosses to do something for them at a later date.

Today, I wouldn't play in a game like this at all. But back then, I was a brand new player and was having too much fun to care. After I began DMing and read the rules, I discovered he was making up half the rules as we went along. Still had boat loads of fun, though!


Austin Morgan wrote:

Could you expand on why you dislike when a DM gets ideas from other sources? Is it just that he/she runs short sessions and railroads you?

Reason I ask is that I frequently take snippets of ideas from various media, and I want to make sure that doing so isn't compromising any of my players' fun.

I think taking snippets or inspiration from a book or movie is fine.

I think this GMs problem is that he really liked reading the book, and he wanted to experience that same feeling by recreating the book as an RPG. Unfortunately, he wanted to recreate the book in it's exact detail, so when we went off the rails (or couldn't figure something out), "we were doing it all wrong", and basically had to scrap the campaign(s).


1. "This is a core-only game. Because non-core is broken." Alternatively, "Non-core classes don't make sense." Gimme a break!

2. "You're all on the verge of death? Um...okay, the monsters miss. And miss again. And miss again..."

3. "Mwahaha, you're all on the verge of death...luckily my new NPC is here to save you!" Despite this, I don't have anything against well-played DMPCs.

4. *Obsesses about alignment and codes of conduct.*

5. "I roll for random loot." I used to do this, but now that I know how important certain items are it annoys the hel outta me.

And on a related note:

6. "You don't need the Big 6 items. Just play smart!"

Sauce987654321 wrote:
Anybody got things like this to share? I still have more to share like this in the future.

Yeah, I had a DM who loved crit fumbles. The other players had only just started gaming, so some of them believed fumbles to be RAW for a while.

Luckily, I was playing a caster in that campaign. :)


6 is me. You don't need those items.


Haladir wrote:

Here are a few other of my GM pet peeves...

Player Dating/Married To the GM
The GM often plays favorites with the PC that's played by the GM's spouse/romantic partner. That could be placing special items for that character (and not doing so for other characters), or just writing the plot to maximize the spotlight on that PC. I suppose it's fun for the GM's girlfriend, but much less so for everyone else.

Though I agree this happens, I found I had the opposite problem, I was dating the GM at the time and he would go out of his way to make sure he wasn't seen to be 'playing favorites'. It essentially made the game no fun for me always been shot down in reasonable requests, and no part of the campaign suited my character, 'just in case' he was seen as being story biased.


Lex Starwalker wrote:

Personally, I don't find complaining on a public messageboard about someone who has taken the time and effort to come up with a campaign and run it for me a valuable use for my time.

If I had a DM that did something that bothered me that much, I would just quit playing in his game and find another DM. If you can't appreciate what your DM puts into your gaming experience (compared to the time and effort you as a player put in) enough to overlook the things you don't agree with, then I suggest you find another DM to play with. Or run a game yourself.

What you're trying to do here just spreads negativity.

SO rather than work out your difficulties with a DM (who putlots of hard work into the campaign as you stated) you'd just leave the game mid-stride? Without a word of explanation? Oh yeah, that's loads better than coming to a mutual understanding and compromise. Very mature.


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PsychoticWarrior wrote:
Lex Starwalker wrote:

Personally, I don't find complaining on a public messageboard about someone who has taken the time and effort to come up with a campaign and run it for me a valuable use for my time.

If I had a DM that did something that bothered me that much, I would just quit playing in his game and find another DM. If you can't appreciate what your DM puts into your gaming experience (compared to the time and effort you as a player put in) enough to overlook the things you don't agree with, then I suggest you find another DM to play with. Or run a game yourself.

What you're trying to do here just spreads negativity.

SO rather than work out your difficulties with a DM (who putlots of hard work into the campaign as you stated) you'd just leave the game mid-stride? Without a word of explanation? Oh yeah, that's loads better than coming to a mutual understanding and compromise. Very mature.

Agreed.

When a player leaves my campaign, I consider it a favor if they tell me why they're leaving, at the very least. I can always disregard their wishes, if I just don't agree. Ranting and rage-quitting aside, a heads-up is better than just flaking out.


One of my DMs drives me nuts.

Why? Because in his games, we the players are never allowed to achieve anything for ourselves.

We can have almost anything we want, but we are not allowed to work for it, or achieve it ourselves, rather it is given to use by an NPC, and they he tends to poison the achievement further by turning it into a hindrance.

Our victories are also never our own, for even when we play the supposed movers and shakers of a campaign, we inevitably simply act as the pawns of powerful NPCs. We will try to accomplish a victory condition, only to have it handed to use on a plate.

Their is no fun for me in setting out to achieve something in game, only to have it handed to you, so I often find that I have been working towards a goal I desperately want to achieve in game, only to find I have it and I no longer want it.

He also spoilers everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On one occasion the group was so tired and desensitised to this that we got to the end of a fight and realised that we had just targeted a square which held an invisible wizard, without having any in character reason to know of his existence, because our DM had basically told us everything that was in the room, and its location and we had just lost the ability to keep track of what was meta information and what wasn't because of shear flood of meta-game information we where being constantly fed. I normally will let my character die before I metagame, yet non of use could distinguish at that point.

Ofcause, when he is running pathfinder, if I purchase the AP simply for completeness, and the bestiaries, and he finds out, I am the bad guy.*slopes of grumbling.*


Haladir wrote:

GM Creates Adventure Without Consideration of PC's Abilities

Not that you have to cater to all of the players' whims, but I always though that you should not design an adventure that requires a cleric to channel positive energy to open a door if you don't have any clerics in the party. Or have lots and lots of traps with no rogue. Or run an extended series of "courtly intrigue" adventures with PCs that have absolutely no business hobnobbing with aristocrats.

Actually, this can go both ways. I had a situatation when the GM announced he would be preparing a campaign about courtly intrigue, political assassination, espionage, sabotage and the like... and a couple players showed up with concepts like a neanderthal barbarian from a remote valley, a nerd wizard extraordinaire, and a socially inept paladin.

Which was when the GM declared he would refuse to play.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
"This is a core-only game. Because non-core is broken." Alternatively, "Non-core classes don't make sense." Gimme a break!"

While the reasoning for disallowing non-core is not the best, if a GM wants to limit the rules complexity to core only, she has every right to.

Frankly, the campaign I am running at the time has a "CR + most of APG (no gunslingers, no firearms) are valid; if you want anything from UM or UC, please ask nicely" policy, since yes, there are several things in both UM and UC I don't allow (say hello to antagonize, miserable pity, the whole crossblooded level dip shebang)... and somehow, I ended up with a group having fun.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
"You're all on the verge of death? Um...okay, the monsters miss. And miss again. And miss again..."

Looks like an inept GM who couldn't gauge what his group can, or cannot, take care of, and then is unable to cover his mistakes in a non-blatant way.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
"Mwahaha, you're all on the verge of death...luckily my new NPC is here to save you!"

Well, don't we all love the almighty DMPC ex machina?

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
Despite this, I don't have anything against well-played DMPCs.

No problem here either. If they are well played, don't push the PC's back into doing the 'da-doo-wap' choir, and don't otherwise grind everybody's nerves into fine dust.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
*Obsesses about alignment and codes of conduct.*

*laughs* Depends. If you blatantly act against your alignment, I will give you consequences. If you swore to a code of conduct, you'd better uphold it.

I will not engineer no-win situations to cause the Pally to fall from grace, no matter what; but, at times, your code of conduct (which is something you receive advantages for, after all) will preclude you from taking the easy way.
IMHO, the problem here, like always, is finding a sweet spot, making alignment and CoC be of consequence, but not crippling.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:
"I roll for random loot." I used to do this, but now that I know how important certain items are it annoys the hell outta me.

Depends on the setting. With the crafting Mystic Theurge in the party, and a MagiMart in almost every settlement, you should be easily capable to get what you want. With a 'no crafting, no buying; you use what you find' GM (who, of course, still throws encounters at you 'that are based on your level; it's not my fault if you can't find what you need, hurr hurr')... well, let's just say the system mechanics were not designed for this.


I was running a Shannara themed campaign back in ad&d and, looking back, I'm pretty sure we were running the two-weapon fighting system wrong in our application of the weapon specialization and weapon mastery from combat and tactics. I ended up with a bad ass elf who was phenomenal with two longswords. So I broke one, then proceeded to not allow him to find another one for almost a year of game time afterwards. Every town he went in I either had the smith freak out because elves weren't thought to be in the world at the time or just plain not have any longswords in stock because they were farmers. As rough as it was on him and as annoyed as he was while we were playing he still looks back at that campaign almost every time we talk about d&d and says that that is the one he wants to play again. Mission accomplished, make your player hate you the whole time through while he's playing then 10 years later he can't stop telling you how much fun he had and how much he enjoyed the campaign.


On the other side of the coin, I played the Shackled City AP not too long ago with one of my buddies as the DM. Every time we fought any groups, whether it was a group of gang members or a host of goblins someone always got away, no matter what we did to take precautions against it, one of the group always managed to get out of our well laid plans. That was annoying as hell, that we could never just finish off the whole encounter and not have to worry about what the guy who got away was telling the other baddies in the area.

Liberty's Edge

I just recently had a shock from a GM. I decided to play a magus and when I got up to 11th level he told me my magus is far to powerful. I either had to drop all of my touch spells and my arcana that lets me hit incorporeal creatures or make a brand new character to play. When I asked why he said it was no fun for him to have me be the only person consistently hitting the incorporeal creatures we fought every encounters. Also he felt being able to put touch spells through a weapon was waaay over powered.

I have never been told to either rebuild my entire character or make a new one simply because it was effective.


My paladin walks into town and starts talking with the locals to gather info.

GM: "You meet a prostitute."

Me: "I'm not here to judge. I'll ask her if she has heard of <blah blah plot stuff> in the town."

GM: "Make a will save."

Me: "Okay." *rolls badly* "Dang."

GM: "She seduces you and you go have sex with her. She charges..." *rolls* "10 gold."

Me: "Er, what? Was that an enchantment effect?"

GM: "No, she was just really persuasive."

Me: D:

GM: "Now roll to see how good you are in bed."

Me: !! D: !!


Umbral Reaver wrote:
My paladin walks into town and starts talking with the locals to gather info.

Ah, the joys of non-immersion, nothing-you-can-do, and roll joygasm, all rolled (pun intended) into one. Huzzah!

"Umm.. GM... while we're at it, shouldn't you roll for STD, pregnancy, number, gender, vital stats and defining features of applicable children, plus the amount of alimony I'm going to pay? If your dice aren't round by then, you could roll to find out which die you'll be using from now on..." *ducks for cover*

Shadow Lodge

Whew, glad my DM hasn't done anything that blatant yet...

Silver Crusade

A dark part of myself secretly hopes that Umbral Reaver's (hopefully former?) GM tries that on the guy responsible for the bloodninja chat logs one day.

Sovereign Court

What about the "you never asked" GM? Anybody have one of these? You know the type that will make a group suffer through a maze for three entire sessions only to tell them when they reach the end the walls are only 3ft high. "You never asked!"


In a game years ago there was a puzzle the PCs had to figure out. According to the GM, all we had to do was gather the information and put it together.

We attacked the problem from every angle we could think of, asking everyone we knew about it, seeing if any of our previous adventures had anything to do with it, all with no joy. The GM would answer questions, but we weren't asking the right one. ("What do we do?" wasn't the right question.)

Still, time dragged on. We tried to move on; the GM refused to let time pass any faster. He kept repeating, "Figure it out, you know everything you need to know."

Obviously, we didn't.

Eight hours into the game session, after repeated attempts to get the GM to accept the fact we weren't going to "get it", we gave up. A months-long campaign that all of us loved died because the GM wouldn't let us bypass anything.

It was then that our gaming group made a rule that if the PCs spend an hour without progress in any situation, the GM is required to expedite things and force the game to move along. We named the rule after the GM, whose last name was Surber. If the PCs grope around blindly for long periods of time, we call it "Surbering".

Everybody's famous for something. :)


Jerry Wright 307 wrote:

In a game years ago there was a puzzle the PCs had to figure out. According to the GM, all we had to do was gather the information and put it together.

We attacked the problem from every angle we could think of, asking everyone we knew about it, seeing if any of our previous adventures had anything to do with it, all with no joy. The GM would answer questions, but we weren't asking the right one. ("What do we do?" wasn't the right question.)

Still, time dragged on. We tried to move on; the GM refused to let time pass any faster. He kept repeating, "Figure it out, you know everything you need to know."

Obviously, we didn't.

Eight hours into the game session, after repeated attempts to get the GM to accept the fact we weren't going to "get it", we gave up. A months-long campaign that all of us loved died because the GM wouldn't let us bypass anything.

It was then that our gaming group made a rule that if the PCs spend an hour without progress in any situation, the GM is required to expedite things and force the game to move along. We named the rule after the GM, whose last name was Surber. If the PCs grope around blindly for long periods of time, we call it "Surbering".

Everybody's famous for something. :)

Yeah, this is really annoying. I played in a game once, on the first day, first encounter, Palladium Fantasy, where we had a magic / maybe illusionary / maybe magically barred door to the dungeon, locked in an arbitrary way. We spent about an hour messing with it and then the game collapsed into various smoke breaks and shopping trips. The GM thought it was REALLY FUNNY though.


Most of the time monster we are fighting will tend to know what tactics to use against our characters. Example; as soon as my character got into the "Step Up and Strike" feat chain, they all stopped taking 5' steps, even in situations in which it would be a standard tactic (like a caster casting a spell). Even if we had never fought them before and there was little to no way they could have known about us. I used SuaS maybe 5 times in 7 levels, maybe.

He's a decent DM, mostly. But IMO, as soon as the minatures hit the map, it becomes a tactical wargame and he forgets to run the monsters as characters and instead just runs them as pieces on a chessboard. The DM is freaky smart when it comes to tactics and games. So most of his badguy tend to be tactical geniuses.


Sounds to me like 4E is the last game you should be playing with him. You need something less structured.


Valandil Ancalime wrote:

Most of the time monster we are fighting will tend to know what tactics to use against our characters. Example; as soon as my character got into the "Step Up and Strike" feat chain, they all stopped taking 5' steps, even in situations in which it would be a standard tactic (like a caster casting a spell). Even if we had never fought them before and there was little to no way they could have known about us. I used SuaS maybe 5 times in 7 levels, maybe.

He's a decent DM, mostly. But IMO, as soon as the minatures hit the map, it becomes a tactical wargame and he forgets to run the monsters as characters and instead just runs them as pieces on a chessboard. The DM is freaky smart when it comes to tactics and games. So most of his badguy tend to be tactical geniuses.

I have four words for you: Dogs in the Vineyard.


We had one DM who tended not to read the rules very closely and preferred to house rule lots of stuff on the fly. Nothing unusual or too bad in that, except when his handwaving radically changed the outcome of an encounter or event. On one occasion we spent an hour trying to get him to use the proper rules to resolve an event and he refused. The party suffered, but survived and moved on.

Four hours later a similar situation arose and this time he 'got' what we were talking about. Since using the proper rules would have radically altered the outcome of the prior encounter, he insisted that we rewind the entire campaign to the previous event and restart from there using the proper rules, pretending the intervening four hours never happened.

We were not keen on this idea, and the campaign ended there as he wouldn't budge. A very odd situation (from our most eccentric DM, it has to be said).


Wert, there was no point in him running the game for you guys anyway sense you couldn't just relax and play along.

Grand Lodge

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What, and have four hours of gameplay wasted?

Maybe he should have relaxed and played along with the rest of the group.


Quote:
Wert, there was no point in him running the game for you guys anyway sense you couldn't just relax and play along.

That makes zero sense.

He didn't want to read the rulebook properly but was interested in running the game anyway. We thought that was a bit odd, but we went along with it and the game worked precisely because we did relax and play along. What we were not prepared to do was waste an entire evening's gameplay and progress by rewinding to a prior point in the session. In this case, the thing to do would have been to roll with it and use the correct rules the next time the situation arose.

Because of this DM (and another in the same group) misreading the 2E spellcasting rules, we actually spent about 5 years playing through successive D&D campaigns with severely gimped mages but went along with it to keep the games moving. That's a good example of relaxing and playing along for you.


Werthead wrote:
Quote:
Wert, there was no point in him running the game for you guys anyway sense you couldn't just relax and play along.

That makes zero sense.

He didn't want to read the rulebook properly but was interested in running the game anyway. We thought that was a bit odd, but we went along with it and the game worked precisely because we did relax and play along. What we were not prepared to do was waste an entire evening's gameplay and progress by rewinding to a prior point in the session. In this case, the thing to do would have been to roll with it and use the correct rules the next time the situation arose.

Because of this DM (and another in the same group) misreading the 2E spellcasting rules, we actually spent about 5 years playing through successive D&D campaigns with severely gimped mages but went along with it to keep the games moving. That's a good example of relaxing and playing along for you.

Hey, you were posting that you kept stopping and arguing with him. "We complained and he didn't listen. Then we complained later and he over reacted and tried to recon an earlier event."

Maybe you could have just quit complaining and just let him GM.

Grand Lodge

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Or quit the game. That would have worked too.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Or quit the game. That would have worked too.

Or that. If I'm at an RPG and I feel an overwhelming urge to stare at a glowing rectangle while I'm there, I just don't play again.


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cranewings wrote:

Hey, you were posting that you kept stopping and arguing with him. "We complained and he didn't listen. Then we complained later and he over reacted and tried to recon an earlier event."

Maybe you could have just quit complaining and just let him GM.

Right, so you're saying that if the DM does something inarguably moronic, the four players should just let him go ahead and do it, even if it means throwing out the previous four hours of gaming? Or basically, as long as the DM's happy, the players can go to hell?

That really does not make sense.

Grand Lodge

Indeed. I very much believe that players (either side of the screen) need to realize that they are competing with Netflix and XBox for the other players time. If they don't make the experience more interesting than the other options, the players will go elsewhere.


Werthead wrote:
cranewings wrote:

Hey, you were posting that you kept stopping and arguing with him. "We complained and he didn't listen. Then we complained later and he over reacted and tried to recon an earlier event."

Maybe you could have just quit complaining and just let him GM.

Right, so you're saying that if the DM does something inarguably moronic, the four players should just let him go ahead and do it, even if it means throwing out the previous four hours of gaming? Or basically, as long as the DM's happy, the players can go to hell?

That really does not make sense.

What doesn't make sense is breaking complaining and complaining and complaining and whining and demanding the players get to dictate the course of the game, and then complain when you get to do the big redo.

If I had players that never stopped complaining all night I might think they need a redo as well. "I swear to god I'll turn this car around if you four don't shut up!"


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Nevertheless, the proper response to figuring out an erroneous reading of the rules 4 HOURS AGO is NOT to rewind and replay those 4 hours.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

I remember signing up for an Exalted 1e game on campus in college. Basically it was a sort of gaming club at the start of a semester you signed up and the GM for each game would look at the list take the first X amount of players signed up and that would be his/her group. Well I was second on the list and got passed over because the GM had just never played with me before. So I talked with him about it we discussed what my concept was, if you've ever seen Escaflowne the series not the movie, I wanted to play a guy based on Balgus. Basically wield a sword that the Warstriders used. Now we can easily just fluff it to be that big, but the GM said no and that if I wanted to wield something that big I should make the character do it.

So I did.... turns out he didn't think it was possible and was unhappy that I found a way completely by the book to pull it off. Needless to say I didn't get to play with that group. Moral of the story if as a GM you issue a challenge to your player and they succeed don't be a jerk and nay say just because you didn't think it was possible.


cranewings wrote:

What doesn't make sense is breaking complaining and complaining and complaining and whining and demanding the players get to dictate the course of the game, and then complain when you get to do the big redo.

If I had players that never stopped complaining all night I might think they need a redo as well. "I swear to god I'll turn this car around if you four don't shut up!"

You may have misunderstood the situation.

We were not constantly 'moaning' and 'whining'. The DM was running a game he was unfamiliar with but wanted to give a go sooner rather than later. This necessitated a lot of house ruling. We were okay with that up until this one situation which went against us because he couldn't get a handle on how a rule worked (which was quite straightforward but for whatever reason he didn't 'get it'). Since this was a major event in the game, it necessitated a lengthy discussion. Generally speaking we work on the basis that the DM's word is final unless the entire group agrees that he is in the wrong (as was the case here). Still, since he couldn't get a handle on the rule and we wanted to play on, we moved on with the game.

When a similar situation arose a while later, this time he suddenly worked out what he'd been doing wrong before and wanted to rewind the campaign. Although the prior situation had ended with our disadvantage because he hadn't understood the rules, we'd also moved on and wanted to keep playing his campaign and take things forward. Throwing out the intervening hours of gameplay was not acceptable to the group, so we ended the game. We certainly weren't demanding a retcon in the intervening period and we certainly were not up in arms because we'd been disadvantaged by playing the game fairly and having a result going against us by the rules (which happened fairly frequently).


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Indeed. I very much believe that players (either side of the screen) need to realize that they are competing with Netflix and XBox for the other players time. If they don't make the experience more interesting than the other options, the players will go elsewhere.

Power to the Players.

Rise up and overthrow the tyranny of the oblivious DMs.

Grand Lodge

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Notice that my comment runs both ways. DMs are players too. Make the experience less enjoyable for the DM and he might go watch Netflix.


Zombieneighbours wrote:
Valandil Ancalime wrote:

Most of the time monster we are fighting will tend to know what tactics to use against our characters. Example; as soon as my character got into the "Step Up and Strike" feat chain, they all stopped taking 5' steps, even in situations in which it would be a standard tactic (like a caster casting a spell). Even if we had never fought them before and there was little to no way they could have known about us. I used SuaS maybe 5 times in 7 levels, maybe.

He's a decent DM, mostly. But IMO, as soon as the minatures hit the map, it becomes a tactical wargame and he forgets to run the monsters as characters and instead just runs them as pieces on a chessboard. The DM is freaky smart when it comes to tactics and games. So most of his badguy tend to be tactical geniuses.

I have four words for you: Dogs in the Vineyard.

What? Could sombody please explain how this relates.

Grand Lodge

Dogs in the Vineyard Wiki wrote:

The game features an unusual form of conflict resolution, where die rolls are used in poker-style bids.

Characters' statistics and traits are represented by dice pools. At the start of a conflict, the Gamemaster and other players decide what is at stake, determine which pools are applicable, and those are rolled at that point. The character with the initiative puts forward a "raise" of two dice, while narrating a portion of the conflict which is beneficial to his character's position in the conflict. The opponent must respond by putting forward one or more dice whose total exceeds the total of the dice which were used to raise, or "give" — i.e. lose the conflict. If three or more dice are needed, the opponent suffers "fallout" — a negative outcome to be determined at the end of the conflict. If only one die is needed by the opponent, the attack has been "turned against the attacker" and the die can be reused to raise in the next round. The opponent now begins a round by putting forward two dice which the first character must match, and so on until one player or the other gives. Players may bring in new dice by "escalating" the conflict, from non-physical (discussion) to physical (running away) to brawling and then to gunfighting. If the conflict didn't start with non-physical, players may de-escalate from gunfighting to discussion, though it occurs only rarely. The GM's set of rules in conflict is very simple: "Say yes, or roll dice."

One of the most potent aspects of the system is "Town Creation" where the moral landscape of the town is laid out in the form of characters, their desires, and what they've done to each other. This gives the GM the ability to make sure that merely engaging meaningfully in the town is interesting and making wins or losses less important to them. By representing the townsfolk and their interests, rather than presenting a tactical challenge, the GM is able to pose interesting questions of the players and give them opportunities to judge their own characters.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Lex Starwalker wrote:

Personally, I don't find complaining on a public messageboard about someone who has taken the time and effort to come up with a campaign and run it for me a valuable use for my time.

If I had a DM that did something that bothered me that much, I would just quit playing in his game and find another DM. If you can't appreciate what your DM puts into your gaming experience (compared to the time and effort you as a player put in) enough to overlook the things you don't agree with, then I suggest you find another DM to play with. Or run a game yourself.

What you're trying to do here just spreads negativity.

You're kidding right? That DM sound like a idiot. Clearly this idiotic rule would have effected the rest of the players if they were melee characters. Kudos for the OP for getting the other payers to back him up. Since spell casters generally don't roll a d20 to cast spells I bet there was no rule for dropping spell components. Just because you take the time to DM it's still a group game and your "house" rules can ruin the game for the players.

Dark Archive

jupistar wrote:


I'm actually very ok with this kind of thing. Like spells in a spellbook - they don't just magically write themselves.

It can be. But it was one of the most frustrating things in teh world at the time. I spent time wandering around town to various places that ended up either closed, not responding or THe course was already in session. Its one of the few times I think we had a heated arguement between us in 4 years of gaming. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating thing for 1 skill point.

Beyond that he's a very very great DM.


I had a GM, once upon a time, require the Master of Many Forms in the group to view the animals they wished to turn into for a whole day before they could use their form (acceptable).

The MoMF stealthily approached a group of lions (acceptable) and then the lions noticed them and intimidated the MoMF off (acceptable). Then, when they'd reached a safe distance, the MoMF used their shifting power to turn into a bird and flew back.

The lions all saw the bird and hid in the high grass. Even the ones near the trees broke for the grass and rolled stealth. The MoMF couldn't perceive any of them. They had to go home and the lions came out when they were gone.

This encounter, in game, took nearly five hours. I have not left out a single detail. It was the only thing anyone at the table did that session except for roleplay intra-party banter.

Later on, when scouting a hobgoblin infested pass in bird form, the MoMF was fired upon by hobgoblin scouts for no reason at all. It's not like their bird species was out of place or the goblins would even know that, they were not doing it out of boredom and the DM admitted as much. The choice of having a bunch of archers open fire full-force on a random bird for no reason was only overturned primarily because I started making WoW jokes about 'getting too close' and 'aggro radius' and how they should 'just kite them back to us-- if they don't rubberband we'll just CC and kill'.

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