For me it's a really weird argument based on how we see the Character Classes.
I see Character classes as an abstraction designed to provide mechanics to fit the character concept a player envisions.
He sees them as something closer to professions and thus locks them into a more rigid place in his campaigns.
From my perspective if someone wants to do something exotic with their character concept I think it's easy to represent that with a combination of Classes, Feats and Archetypes.
EX: a character who's concept is the half mortal child of the Dragon God. I'd do it as a cross blooded Sorcerer with Celestial and Dragon bloodlines. His point of view is more rigid and insist the concept needs additional race templates and other free gifts because a Sorcerer is just a Sorcerer it doesn't make the character half celestial.
I believe that Character and Player wants and needs can be different and that it is possible for a Character to advance in a Class against his wishes cursing his fate (EX: Blade bound Magus tied to a Cursed sword), because that is how the player of that character feels he should advance. His perspective is that the character chose to be that class (since they are like professions) and that there is now way for him to progress in it against his wishes.
Like I said it's a weird and frankly dumb argument but the clashing points of view have gotten in the way of my character concept for his games more than once.
I see Character classes as an abstraction designed to provide mechanics to fit the character concept a player envisions.
He sees them as something closer to professions and thus locks them into a more rigid place in his campaigns.
That's a tough one, because either option is entirely legitimate but you can't really do both at once. I personally prefer the first option, but you really could go either way.
I believe that Character and Player wants and needs can be different and that it is possible for a Character to advance in a Class against his wishes cursing his fate (EX: Blade bound Magus tied to a Cursed sword), because that is how the player of that character feels he should advance.
As do I. In fact it's one of the things I admire a lot about pathfinder. The number of times they've taken things presented as negatives within the campaign world (oracle curses for example) and portrayed them as positive class features. I'm very impressed with how they've done it.
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I would not know what my breaking point would be.
I have never walked out on a game or on a GM.
I figure if you embrace the story that you are given and adapt your character concept to the story rather than attempting to force a GM to adapt his story to your character then you cannot go wrong. So far this seems to have worked perfectly for more than three decades.
Yeah. I won't say theres any ruling that I ignore.
As a gm thats as interested in teaching the skills and developing the hobby, when our table runs into GM's that do things that cause problems, we address them up front. We want the would-be gms to understand what the larger unintended effects of their arbitrary rulings would have on the game....
I'm with Krypic on this one. I may never 'leave' a table... But I'll become an insufferable bastard at a table at the point where my character's choices are no longer my own without the use of a charm spell. When the campaign requires that my character do things he would never ever do or have good reason for doing then he won't do them. I'd rather take a character death than have my character making decisions that I feel are 'against his concept'...
'Just trust me' has, in my experience, always turned out to be bad advice.
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I have been in a few games where the GM is far to pliable... and allows any player that asks incessantly to bypass prerequisites or take things that are not normally allowed.
As a player with a fair degree of system mastery and one who never tries to step around rules, I find this a bit obnoxious. You do not need to 'cheat' the system to make a strong character.. and balance is there for a reason. I do not like feeling marginalized because I was not the squeakiest wheel.
OTOH I do much appreciate when a GM is willing to allow for improvisation in actions during the course of play, even if I dislike rewriting the balancing factors that are built in to keep certain classes and powers in check.
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He runs PFS as a venture lieutenant and that's how paladins are ran there. He uses the same ruling in his home games. Like I said, for a paladin I wouldn't make it an issue. For any other class where such things are purely roleplay I frankly don't care about that rule.
You shouldn't ignore your GM's rules. Don't like them then don't play otherwise go with how they run their game. it's their call not yours.
You shouldn't ignore your GM's rules. Don't like them then don't play otherwise go with how they run their game. it's their call not yours.
Meh? A GM who would call shenanigans over an RP'd nod to a deity that is opposed by alignment isn't one I would play with anyway. If he did that I would, indeed, stop playing.
I'd phrase it the other way around: If you kill people without reason, you aren't good.
I'll enforce alignment in the sense that your alignment will match your actions rather than in the sense that you won't be allowed to do things because your alignment is X.
I don't stop player actions. I warn but never interfere. If that changes their alignment so be it.
One does not have the right, however, to be a defiant little $h!+he@d at someone else's table.
Let the hate flow through you. Give in to your anger. Take your rightful place, and strike me down!
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One of my GMs from a long-ish time ago for 3.5 didn't require casters to prepare spells or have limits on the times per day they could cast. He also let druids cast spell levels equal to their lvl (8th lvl spells at lvl 8).
I was a complete rebel by secretly preparing spells and keeping track of per day limits.
Away from the table with you for your blasphemy!
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When i say in character that my barbarian has no problems hanging out in the city for a while and my gm openly declares one more statement like that and my level 7 barbarian will become a level 7 fighter.
Yeah! Testify, brother!
Anytime a DM tells me that my character doesn't think/feel/desire what I said he did, then I *ahem* 'politely' remind him that he controls the NPCs, we each control our own PC.
It's all we've got!
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Randomely making up house rules on a constant basis. I need consistency to enjoy a game. :)
I've had some very bad experiences like this.
NPCs cannot see who is causing the havoc, therefore the PCs must be invisible, therefore the NPCs can see the PCs?
PCs can't see through invisible walls, because invisibility is an illusion, it doesn't really make things transparent; it just makes you think it does?
Miss chance of 50%? I rolled 75 so you missed. What? I was rolling 51-100% that time!
....Excuse me, I have to go and calm down. Good job I don't have a cat to kick. : /
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On the subject of fumbles, the fumble rule that starts 'when you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll' is already absurd at that point!
It starts with a seemingly innocent, reasonable and fair idea that 'sometimes things go wrong in combat'. Nothing wrong with that. But then this concept is modelled by 'when you roll a nat 1 on an attack roll'....
Think about that for a moment.....
Conceptually, all sorts of stuff can go wrong in combat! You might trip while moving, might accidentally hit an object or ally, might drop the bat guano while casting a spell, might get your pick jammed in the lock, might get distracted at a crucial moment....an infinite variety of possibilities....
....in practice, none of this stuff happens unless you are attacking with a weapon.
And the more times your greater skill allows you to land a telling blow, the more chance of random badness happening to you.
And all of this mundane skill somehow contributes to having bad luck....but messing about with forces Man Was Not Meant To Know and chucking fireballs like there was no tomorrow....won't result in any bad luck from this system at all!
The whole thing starts with absurdity, and goes on from there!
In another thread it was shown that a hasted 20th level TWFer with +5 magic weapons with which he has trained and used for years will roll a nat 1 once every 12.5 seconds....but a 1st level commoner who never picked up a two-bladed sword before will roll a nat 1 once every 2 minutes.
It is absurd that warriors with greater skill will catastrophically mess up more than warriors with less or no skill, and ways to mitigate 'roll a 1 and you fumble' are simply trying to make it slightly less absurd.
You want a fair system, that matches the 'bad stuff happens sometimes' idea? At the start of every creature's turn the DM secretly rolls 1d20; on a nat 1 something unlucky happens during that creatures turn, to be chosen by the DM as appropriate to the situation and the actions the creature is taking. Casting fireball? spell works as normal..., centred on caster. Attacking? Slip and fall prone at targets feet. Pulling random levers? *rubs hands*
I wouldn't like such a game. It takes the success/failure away from the decisions I make and makes my success/failure the result of DM whim and sense of humour. That is not heroic. That is slapstick.
It's still a better system than any which rely on rolling a nat 1 on an attack roll.
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I'm on the "I hate over-railroading" band-wagon. I'm currently playing in a campaign run by a dear friend of mine, and so many things about it just irk me. It's a modern campaign, based off of the Persona series of games. I decided to play an Oracle, since it seemed interesting. Then I realized I could only spell cast in the "Shadow World", which sucks considering over half of my spell list has nothing to do with combat, or is at least more versatile than the standard magic missile.
Then, at one point, he gave us the ability to spell cast. Then immediately took it away by introducing an npc that can tell when we're using Persona Powers (Surprise, that includes spells), and will kill us if we use it anywhere but the "Shadow World". On top of this, any and everytime someone strays from the path he's written, he does something completely ridiculous to punish us for it, then tries to play it off as planned.
Don't even get me started on the plot favoritism towards one of the PC's, or the exceedingly powerful GM PC's that make most of us in the party null and void. Oh well, time to end this rant.
In all, I just really dislike narrow-mindedness and closed-off worlds in campaigns, especially home ones.
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I avoid PFS games and people that run with those rules like the plague. Utterly hate them.
Aside from that, common red flags include:
- DMNPC. This one doesn't bother me too much these days as I've had plenty of DMs in recent history use them with a light touch.
- "Low Magic Games" I know, it's a flavor thing and I'm sure it would be fun. But, most of the Low Magic Games I've been in have been thinly-veiled attempts to screw over the players. Usually from GMs that don't understand how to tinker DnD. Last low magic game I was in, I was a level 9 druid whose best items was a masterwork silver dagger, fighting a purple worm.
- In the same vein of Low Magic Games, any campaign that significantly restricts character creation. Things like "Only Humans" or "Magic Users Universally Hated" really make me wary.
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In the same vein of Low Magic Games, any campaign that significantly restricts character creation. Things like "Only Humans" or "Magic Users Universally Hated" really make me wary.
To me, "Core races only" is a pretty big flag.
Nothing else has quite such a potent ability to make me feel zero confidence in a GM.Indeed. Don't pull the trigger if you aren't committed to the kill.
I'm on the fence on that one. If it is a case of the DM screwing up, then them fixing it doesn't strike me as bad. If it's a case of just bad luck... Well, the dice fell the way they fell. Even heroes succumb to the fickle feelings of Fate.
BBEG? That's definitely a time when death is permanent. This is the final battle, and that guy is actively trying to kill you.
Super obvious railroading typically irks me something fierce. If the GM isn't flexible enough to let the players go off the tracks every now and again then they shouldn't run.
Rules arguments, device distractions, mostly just stuff that takes away from the fun of sitting down with friends and telling a story together.
Really restrictive GM's also fly the flag of red foreshadowing doom. There has to be room for some freedom. I'm a huge fan of Flavor > Rules
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For myself, unless we are talking about a setting based on legendary/mythological real world cultures (e.g. Arabian, African, Asian), it is seeing anything other than core races*. If I see changelings, dragon people (with breath weapons), dhampir, drow, tieflings, etc. as PC races that is my red flag with regards to races.
I don't see the connection between mythological real world cultures and non-core races. There are a few (non-core) races in Pathfinder inspired by non-European cultures, but they weren't among the examples you listed. Changelings, dragon people, dhampir, and tieflings all fall under the "humanoid with non-humanoid ancestry" category, which is relatively setting-agnostic. If hags exist in the setting, it's not a big jump to changelings existing. I'm further confused because you list sylph as an acceptable non-core race when it also falls into the same category.
To me, "Core races only" is a pretty big flag.For myself, unless we are talking about a setting based on legendary/mythological real world cultures (e.g. Arabian, African, Asian), it is seeing anything other than core races*. If I see changelings, dragon people (with breath weapons), dhampir, drow, tieflings, etc. as PC races that is my red flag with regards to races.
* Centaurs, Goblins, Gnolls, Half-Ogres, Kobolds, Lizardmen, Minotaurs, Orcs,and Sylphs are acceptable additions/replacements for PC races provided only one or two are added. Otherwise, a 1 for 1 replacement for other non-human PC races is fine.
If you're talking historical and Europe, not having dhampir would be a pretty massive red flag, since the dhampir are not based on mythology at all but upon people who actually existed.
When the GM says "dont drink the milk in my fridge anymore" thats my rebellion point. Seriously, how can you deny a bro a cool glass of milk?
It's reached the point where the guy who hosts our game often ends up with 4-6 litres of milk in the fridge after every gaming session because after the few times we ran out everyone buys milk every session to bring along just in case.
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In the same vein of Low Magic Games, any campaign that significantly restricts character creation. Things like "Only Humans" or "Magic Users Universally Hated" really make me wary.To me, "Core races only" is a pretty big flag.
To me "we play with everything, and everything is allowed" is a red flag. I like constraints. I like when i have to adapt to something.
Human only games are fun. Especially if you're a ranger.
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To me "we play with everything, and everything is allowed" is a red flag. I like constraints. I like when i have to adapt to something.
There's still constraints. Allowing non-core races doesn't mean allowing players to play an ancient wyrm dragon or a balor. Really, compared to what exists in the world as given by looking through the Bestiaries, it's really limiting to confine players to just PC races.
To me "we play with everything, and everything is allowed" is a red flag. I like constraints. I like when i have to adapt to something.There's still constraints. Allowing non-core races doesn't mean allowing players to play an ancient wyrm dragon or a balor. Really, compared to what exists in the world as given by looking through the Bestiaries, it's really limiting to confine players to just PC races.
About 40 races, (and many times that including subtypes) isn't enuf?!?
About 40 races, (and many times that including subtypes) isn't enuf?!?
It's not a matter of the raw number of available options, it's the variety in options. Having 50 classes isn't a wide number of options if all the classes are slight tweaks on the druid. Compared to the vast variety of creatures in the Bestiaries, the differences between PC races are mostly small.
This is really to see from the perspective of DMing. When DMing a game, I can make NPCs who are aboleths, dragons, liches, genies, etc. These aren't mindless or unintelligent monsters that exist just to have something for the PCs to slaughter. They're fully sentient creatures. I can develop their characters as much as I can for a human or elf NPC. The players don't have nearly as much variety in their options.
My rebellion point would be a combination of some of the following things happening:
- GM ignores the results of the dice.
- GM gets excited when his NPCs score a critical hit on a PC, to the point of saying "I'm so going to kill you on this hit."
- GM ignores a character's backstory.
- GM expects all PCs to be "party players" to the point that when the group starts to fall, they cannot flee and must stay and try to help their friends. For some characters, especially chaotic characters, they're more concerned about saving their own skin.
- GM makes certain NPCs know everything, when they would logically wouldn't have any idea.
- GM doesn't really understand the rules well.
- GM can be persuaded by players to bend the rules in their favor, and try to keep that a secret from the rest of the group.
- GM didn't prepare well enough, and so creative ways of getting off the railroad are rejected.
- GM's world is lacking most major details. No one knows what the government is, is there a king, queen? Run by the village elders? No one knows.
- GM doesn't like skills and so severely hampers them. "I try to convince the barmaid to tell me who that mysterious looking man is in the corner. I rolled a 35 on my diplomacy check." "She doesn't tell you."
I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind.
To me "we play with everything, and everything is allowed" is a red flag. I like constraints. I like when i have to adapt to something.There's still constraints. Allowing non-core races doesn't mean allowing players to play an ancient wyrm dragon or a balor. Really, compared to what exists in the world as given by looking through the Bestiaries, it's really limiting to confine players to just PC races.
This, this, this, this, this. As I've said before a thousand times, it really bugs me that a world is supposed to be so fantastical, so magic-laden, so beyond-the-norm... except all the main focus characters are Human, tall skinny Human, regular Human + tall Human hybrid, short bearded human, shorter Human, shorter Human with funny hair, big tall burly feral Human. That Golarion is supposed to be such a kitchen-sink world and yet, in the words of James Jacobs, "is designed to be humanocentric" is a great pet peeve that has near-completely turned me off to the setting. (Love the company guys, love the APs, love the crunch... don't much care for your worldbuilding policies in some cases. Can't win 'em all, I guess.)
I want my available race options to be as much a part of the fantasy as the world itself. Give me something weird.
Normally if I hit the 'rebellion' point I just walk out.
I'm with Grey Lensman here. It's like going into a restaurant. There may not be anything outwardly wrong but if I get that feeling that this will just not work out well, I'll make an excuse and leave. In my old age I've gotten less tolerant of sitting it out and hoping. If I get a whiff of crazy in the air, it's time to go.
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When a GM is on a power trip and is killing PCs (or otherwise ruining fun)) for no reason other than to assert his "authority" is when I'll outright stop going to their games.
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While I can't say that there are mnay things that would cause me to storm out in a huff, I do have some "red flags":
-critical fumbles, for pretty much all the reasons already discussed
-auto success/failure on skill checks. This leads to rampant absurdity.
Being anti-"core race" in a setting where those are the most common races is a player red flag. It's one thing if you have a setting where weird races are the norm; I love me some Dark Sun, for example. But I've seen too many players that rely on an oddball race as a crutch to make their special snowflake character. The real world has billions of unique humans and many of them have very interesting lives. If you need a special race/class/splat to distinguish your character it's a warning that you might not make chracters who are interesting in their own right. (Not always true, but often) Big red flag if you never play races common to the setting, no matter how oddball. If the world has four armed blue giants, crab men, and pixies as PC races and your first reaction is to play something not listed (e.g. a kobold from an alternate reality) that's a big problem for me.
That having been said, I usually allow core races plus one or two "extras" when running an AP - dhampir and changelings for Carrion Crown, aasimar for Wrath of the Righteous, and so forth.
But then these are my hangups. Many people play with things like this and have fun doing so. I'm just glad I'm not in their groups.
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Except there is a mechanics issue for Paladins. They have an alignment restriction, and their source of divine power has to stay fairly close to that alignment.False. This is nowhere in the class write up. They have a personal code of behavior. There are zero restrictions on where their power can come from. I can see the inherent disconnect for evil gods and the various references to "holy" power and such and even the more corrupt neutral ones but any good god can make use of a LG servant and be consistent with their ethos.
Too bad "Don't be a jerk" is only a rule in PFS, because deliberately not following rules, also known as cheating, is a pretty jerky thing to do to the GM who is sacrificing a lot of time and energy to entertain you for free.Meh. I volunteer to play as he volunteers to run. It's a symbiosis. Neither role is greater than the other.
I realize the thread has moved on, but just out of curiosity, how do you balance your statement about "there are zero restrictions on where [a paladin's] power can come from" and this statement from the PRD:
The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells, and the divine forces of law and good power paladin spells.
This would seem to imply to me that paladins receive their power from a lawful good (or at least closely aligned) power in whole. The other possibility is that they receive their power from whichever deity they worship, but their spells from these same lawful and good divine powers, which creates a disconnect. Why can, for example, Desna grant spells to her clerics, but not to the paladins that she apparently can have?
It goes back to the classic rules versus fluff. The cleric's deity restriction is built into the alignment section of their entry. Paladins simply have to be lawful good. After that, it makes sense that a deity would be fueled mostly by a similarly aligned deity. It shouldn't, though, hamstring a GM where the story makes sense for it or for a PC depending on their background. Furthermore, it makes perfect sense for all good aligned deities to make use of LG charges and be well within their write ups. Not all goals are accomplished with the same tool.
So, why couldn't a CG deity make use of a divinely empowered LG person for a mission that requires some straight forward tact rather than a different follower who may or may not get distracted on the way?
So, if I do something unexpected and get penalized for it just because it screws up the GM's campaign, I won't be happy.
While I can't honestly think of anything in game that a PC could do to totally screw up a campaign (I mean beyond all hope of repair) if such a thing were to happen I wouldn't be exactly thrilled with the player who caused it myself. Designing campaigns is a lot of work and to have a lone player try to screw it up would likely mean exit stage right for said player.
Fragile campaigns are largely the fault of the GM, imo. If you have the PCs meet the king alone and they approach anywhere near his level, unless they're strongly aligned with that king, expect wonky things to happen. Then, you have rogues. They can stealth using mundane means so there's no magical ward to work for you to prevent them from, say, sneaking behind and shanking said royal.
Fragile campaigns are largely the fault of the GM, imo. If you have the PCs meet the king alone and they approach anywhere near his level, unless they're strongly aligned with that king, expect wonky things to happen.
GM's often play a balancing act between fantasy realism and ensuring the players are having a good time. The reason that such a situation as you describe might result in "wonky" things is because the GM would be too afraid to kill off the PCs, as many players would complain that their characters dying wouldn't be fun for them.
Its the classic dragon at lower levels example. GM uses a dragon to inspire fear, show how powerful the forces of evil are, but never expects the PCs to actually charge the dragon and attack. When the PCs do so, the GM is left in the position of either foregoing fantasy realism (the dragon easily kill the PCs), or making up a reason why the dragon decides not to attack, and even flees from the PCs.
Its the classic dragon at lower levels example. GM uses a dragon to inspire fear, show how powerful the forces of evil are, but never expects the PCs to actually charge the dragon and attack. When the PCs do so, the GM is left in the position of either foregoing fantasy realism (the dragon easily kill the PCs), or making up a reason why the dragon decides not to attack, and even flees from the PCs.
I quickly learned to stop using dragons at low levels. No matter how much I warned them they tried to stab it... Except that one time someone dropped a full stone tower on it. That was pretty cool.
When the PCs do so, the GM is left in the position of either foregoing fantasy realism (the dragon easily kill the PCs), or making up a reason why the dragon decides not to attack, and even flees from the PCs.
The dragon can attack and not kill the PCs. For example, a silver dragon could use her paralyzing breath rather than dealing damage. When all the PCs fail their saves, she can take trophies (the paralysis lasts 1d6 + age category rounds) then taunt them and leave. It's hard to build up a reputation if there aren't any survivors to spread tales of your magnificence.