I've been playing in a Smuggler's Shiv campaign for about 3 months now, and I'm really questioning whether I can take even one more day of it.
I have no problem with the campaign itself, so far. The problem lies in the GM, who seems to be adamantly opposing the idea of players having fun.
In 3 months of weekly sessions, the party of 4 characters have achieved the following levels: 2(Sorcerer), 2(Scarred Witch Doctor(My Character)), 3(Ninja), 2(Fighter) (Because of some weird way of assigning XP individually.)
This GM has ruled that the ENTIRE island is surrounded by cliffs, this includes the inside waters of the island. Meaning that every time the group wants to investigate a shipwreck (of which there are around a dozen), he has made us do DC 20 Climb checks. Half of these climbs have been interrupted by combat, usually halfway through, resulting in someone falling to their death (Yet somehow surviving, because of a sudden change of rules on how falling works...).
Every time a player has gone underwater, regardless of the situation, a DC 20 Swim check has been required, even to those who do not need to breathe air...
EVERY encounter faced thus-far with one exception, has been venomous snakes, meaning that a vast majority of PCs and NPCs, have been dealing with Ability Score damage of some type, the entire campaign. (A major pet peeve of mine, which I've explained multiple times to the GM that I absolutely hate because it causes me undue stress to change around stats, multipliers, saves, etc in my head, and I'd rather quit than deal with it.) The stress causes headaches and stomach pain, so it literally causes me pain, to deal with this.
At one point, my character was guaranteed to die on my next turn, when poison did its damage, by having my CON reduced to zero. I didn't care anymore about my character at that point, I just didn't want to deal with CON damage anymore, and preferred that my character would die, so I could do something else. The GM then decided to make the roll for me, and somehow miraculously passed it. (Insert absurdly skeptical face here.)
Every encounter thus-far has been on difficult terrain, which the entire party has complained about, and done actions to avoid, yet it does not stop.
The island cannot be more than 20-30 miles across, according to the map, yet our ability to traverse it has been ludicrously limited, sometimes having it take 4 hours to travel 1 mile, at night, with darkvision.
I'm a relatively good player, when it comes to avoiding metagaming and cheating, but I've checked on how to get off the island, and how long it takes, and it is obvious that the GM either does not want the party to get off the island, or simply lacks the basic information required for him to properly GM.
I can safely say that if the next session does not change dramatically, I will no longer continue playing it.
I do not intend on ever revisiting it, as I am literally sick(Yes, even physically) of all of these described factors.
It simply has not been fun for me, and I know that the other players are not enjoying it either.
I just had to rant about this to someone.
Blegh. That sucks. And you've complained to him about all this, and he hasn't stopped?
Multiple times, yes.
I've made it obvious that at least I am not having fun.
I cannot imagine progress being made in this campaign, with this GM. After 3 months of sessions, and 2-3 weeks of ingame time passing, there has been no indication whatsoever of progress of any kind being made, despite player efforts.
Edited the thread name, because Smuggler's Shiv isn't actually the name of the AP.
Snakes. Why is it still snakes?
How do the other players feel about this?
Ha! He's giving you all the s~@@ that sucks about the Shiv and leaving out the fun stuff like Jungle Goats and Shocker Lizards, sorry man that sucks:-(
Snakes. Why is it still snakes?
How do the other players feel about this?
Another player has her own problems with him, she takes very extensive notes in all games she plays, to the point where I could read her notes like a novelization of an entire AP.
The GM takes his own notes, which are not anywhere near as extensive, nor anywhere near as accurate. He has often entirely lost days of player activity, lost prepared spells, lost NPC information, and many other things.
Yet when she corrects him, he immediately gets offended and insists that his notes are perfect, even when the entire player group tells him otherwise.
He often makes sexist comments, implying weakness in the female NPCs results from their sex, despite being told to stop by the entire player group.
He has obsessively defended his own mistakes, especially when he gets the rules of the game wrong, and will house-rule against the favor of the players, whenever anyone calls him on it.
She absolutely hates this behavior, as does our other player.
This GM was a player in one of my other games until recently, and was attempting to play a Hunter/Druid/Ranger combo that had 4 pets(Falcon, Small Cat, Big Cat, Heavy Horse), he ragequit the campaign when I told him that I did not want to allow him that sort of action economy, as it basically ruined combat for other players.
Yeah, personally, I'd talk to the other players and get a read on how they're feeling. Maybe you just need to join or start a new group.
Souls for Smuggler's Shiv would have been more accurate since none of the other books in Serpent's Skull are even vaguely like it.
Why would being able to breathe underwater change the DC of a Swim check?
That said, yeah, that sucks. There's a lot of interesting stuff on Smuggler's Shiv (like a giant flying Chupacabra!). Venomous Snakes are like...1 of 20 different random encounters. Not counting the written ones.
Yeah, personally, I'd talk to the other players and get a read on how they're feeling. Maybe you just need to join or start a new group.
That's very likely. I got this group together because our third player desperately wanted a game to play, and unfortunately got left out of the original one.
We started it for that player, and the GM has turned it into a bad time for all of us.
I'm hoping to maybe bring that player into an Iron Gods campaign, if they're interested. It's a shame this one went so poorly.
Snakes. Why is it still snakes?
How do the other players feel about this?
Another player has her own problems with him, she takes very extensive notes in all games she plays, to the point where I could read her notes like a novelization of an entire AP.
The GM takes his own notes, which are not anywhere near as extensive, nor anywhere near as accurate. He has often entirely lost days of player activity, lost prepared spells, lost NPC information, and many other things.
Yet when she corrects him, he immediately gets offended and insists that his notes are perfect, even when the entire player group tells him otherwise.
He often makes sexist comments, implying weakness in the female NPCs results from their sex, despite being told to stop by the entire player group.
He has obsessively defended his own mistakes, especially when he gets the rules of the game wrong, and will house-rule against the favor of the players, whenever anyone calls him on it.
She absolutely hates this behavior, as does our other player.
This GM was a player in one of my other games until recently, and was attempting to play a Hunter/Druid/Ranger combo that had 4 pets(Falcon, Small Cat, Big Cat, Heavy Horse), he ragequit the campaign when I told him that I did not want to allow him that sort of action economy, as it basically ruined combat for other players.
Well, if you've already talked with him and addressed your concerns, and he is still playing that way, then I suggest you either convince the other players to make the GM leave, and you find someone more appropriate for the job, or you leave the group yourself.
If a game is causing you to no longer enjoy it, then it is no longer a game, and it is therefore no longer worth playing. At least, this form of the game, anyway...
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Have you considered marooning the GM on a remote jungle island?
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If no one else is willing to side with you, leave. Find a new group (hard, I know, depending on where you are). If the other players are just as frustrated, get together and depose the DM if he won't listen to you. Make someone else the DM. If your former DM is super-aggro about it, take the other players and make a new group.
Essentially: do not waste time playing a game you do not enjoy. Life is too short to be doing that.
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PIP! PIP!
Man, I completely overlooked that.
He does realize that one of said female NPCs is affiliated with the Red Mantis, right? So he's not just sexist, he's factually incorrect.
This reminds me of a previous campaign I was in. We were playing Stattered Star and had gotten to the Asylum Stone (3rd book i think...)
The GM had just gotten his hands on the 5th edition box set and had declared that he loved it and this would be his last pathfinder game ever.
The combats were horribly deadly. We had two deaths in the second encouter and several other close calls. The trapped were super dangerous, triggered easily, almost impossible to disarm, and did 1/3 to 2/3 or our max health per hit.
Eventually 2 of the 3 players got so frustrated with the difficultly of the traps and puzzles that they quit. We never did try 5th edition because the GM knew "my heart wasnt in it". Months later, sadly kowing that I would never play that character or campaign again, I looked at a PDF of the dungeon, only to find the the GM had been increasing the damage and DCs in the dungeon. By alot. In one instance a trap was supposed to do 4d6 per round. He was having it do 46 per round. I dont kow if the GM just didnt want to play anymore and was trying to ruin the game or if he was trying to challenge me. Never quite gotten over it.
I loved the Shiv! Absolutely fantastic story. Sounds like your GM doesn't actually understand the things about the storyline that make it fun and interesting.
Between that and the sexism, if it were me I would walk.
Hope you can figure out a way to make it work for you and your group.
Give the meathead GM a Boot to the Head. He needs to go, period.
Heh...Tae Kwon Leap.. snicker...
But I agree with Turin. You guys need to find a new GM. I'm often near desperate to be a player instead of the Eternal GM, but even I would walk away from that game.
I agree with everyone, if the GM is really that bad (no "other side of the story" here so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I'll still include my "if") then it's time to ditch the GM. Maybe he's just in over his head and maybe he'd be a decent player, so just switch to a better GM - maybe that note-taking girl would be an awesome GM.
But, don't blame Serpent's Skull. Your title seems to be shifting the blame from the "horrid GM" to the AP itself. Keep the blame where it lies.
I've been playing in a Smuggler's Shiv campaign for about 3 months now, and I'm really questioning whether I can take even one more day of it.
I have no problem with the campaign itself, so far. The problem lies in the GM, who seems to be adamantly opposing the idea of players having fun.
In 3 months of weekly sessions, the party of 4 characters have achieved the following levels: 2(Sorcerer), 2(Scarred Witch Doctor(My Character)), 3(Ninja), 2(Fighter) (Because of some weird way of assigning XP individually.)
This GM has ruled that the ENTIRE island is surrounded by cliffs, this includes the inside waters of the island. Meaning that every time the group wants to investigate a shipwreck (of which there are around a dozen), he has made us do DC 20 Climb checks. Half of these climbs have been interrupted by combat, usually halfway through, resulting in someone falling to their death (Yet somehow surviving, because of a sudden change of rules on how falling works...).
Every time a player has gone underwater, regardless of the situation, a DC 20 Swim check has been required, even to those who do not need to breathe air...
EVERY encounter faced thus-far with one exception, has been venomous snakes, meaning that a vast majority of PCs and NPCs, have been dealing with Ability Score damage of some type, the entire campaign. (A major pet peeve of mine, which I've explained multiple times to the GM that I absolutely hate because it causes me undue stress to change around stats, multipliers, saves, etc in my head, and I'd rather quit than deal with it.) The stress causes headaches and stomach pain, so it literally causes me pain, to deal with this.
At one point, my character was guaranteed to die on my next turn, when poison did its damage, by having my CON reduced to zero. I didn't care anymore about my character at that point, I just didn't want to deal with CON damage anymore, and preferred that my character would die, so I could do something else. The GM then decided to make the roll for me,...
Is this a nightmare?
Oh, it's a game.
Time to bail from there champ.
The not leveling over months must also be extremely frustrating.
Honestly, it is so bad I would be endlessly making snake jokes to stay sane.
Bail. Live your life. Have fun. Get some distance so you can laugh about this all later in the future.
This reminds me of a previous campaign I was in. We were playing Stattered Star and had gotten to the Asylum Stone (3rd book i think...)
The GM had just gotten his hands on the 5th edition box set and had declared that he loved it and this would be his last pathfinder game ever.
The combats were horribly deadly. We had two deaths in the second encouter and several other close calls. The trapped were super dangerous, triggered easily, almost impossible to disarm, and did 1/3 to 2/3 or our max health per hit.
Eventually 2 of the 3 players got so frustrated with the difficultly of the traps and puzzles that they quit. We never did try 5th edition because the GM knew "my heart wasnt in it". Months later, sadly kowing that I would never play that character or campaign again, I looked at a PDF of the dungeon, only to find the the GM had been increasing the damage and DCs in the dungeon. By alot. In one instance a trap was supposed to do 4d6 per round. He was having it do 46 per round. I dont kow if the GM just didnt want to play anymore and was trying to ruin the game or if he was trying to challenge me. Never quite gotten over it.
Maybe they read it as "fourdy six"?
I agree with everyone, if the GM is really that bad (no "other side of the story" here so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I'll still include my "if") then it's time to ditch the GM. Maybe he's just in over his head and maybe he'd be a decent player, so just switch to a better GM - maybe that note-taking girl would be an awesome GM.
But, don't blame Serpent's Skull. Your title seems to be shifting the blame from the "horrid GM" to the AP itself. Keep the blame where it lies.
She's actually going to be GMing an Iron Gods campaign.
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Vote him off the island.