Incompatible Characters

[BiblioRook]

By show of hands, how often when starting a campaign do you tend to get a heads-up on where the direction or focus the game is going to be in before you actually make a character? Likewise, how often do you find yourself making a character that ends up completely useless in game due to being build around aspects that just simply don't come up in play?

Seems this happens to me all the time.
Often it's pretty simple as to why, I don't like combat that much so I prefure to play things like skill-monkeys utility spellcasters but then find myself in a combat heavy game (my old RPG club was partially bad with this as combat heavy games were all they would play). My most resent game I thought I was going to be more suited for as it was a 'RP heavy game in Forgotten Realms', so I put alot of effort into making a deep and elaborate backstory involving Faerun... only to be randomly teleported to Midgard on the first day where we stayed the rest of the game.

Sometimes when this happens it's just unlucky/poor judgement or foresight, but sometimes it's stright up due to malicious DMing, wanting to keep the PCs off kelter (the DM running the Midgard game practically begged me to play a Rogue claiming that he had alot of traps planned with noone to handle them in the party, only to never so much as a locked door).

So, how do you deal with this when it happens?
Do you stick with it and try to make the most of it? Do you try to negotiate with the DM to try to throw something you can do your way? Or do you just simply scrap it and start over with the new-found knowledge you have of the game in mind?

[Daftendirekt]

Yeah, I had this just last week with a one-shot. I made a Red Wizard Enchanter. This is more like Incompatible Everything

And then the DM started us off naked, with all of our gear mysteriously gone, forced to fight a whole room full of undead (and by full I mean FULL. Every square that wasn't occupied by us was occupied by undead. including the walls. It was a 100' tall, 30' wide cylinder).

No spell components meant my spell selection was pretty limited. Enchantment = mind-affecting = undead are immune. I figure "well I can do fireball at least". Oh wait, not without the material component. I get pissed because this combat is taking ****ing forever and I can't do ****, and the DM is like "well, you're Alter Selfed into a raptoran, fly up and pull one off the wall or something".

Yeah, okay, with my 8 strength I'll get right on that. Provoke AoO and have a tiny chance of success.

None of our characters ever learned each others' names. We had 2 rooms that were a direct ripoff of Alice in Wonderland (bottle labeled "Drink Me" next to a tiny door, which opened onto a hallway that narrowed down to a tiny point just big enough for a door.)

Speaking of doors, the Hammer of Moradin in the party decided it was a great idea to kick EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. DOWN. And they were ALL trapped. And filled the whole room with fire. We finally get our gear back, my familiar and the druid's animal companion have literally been roasted and turned into dinner on some random buffet table, and then we have to fight a flaming ooze with darkness cast on the whole area for half the battle.

Then we just sort of ended after that battle so they could watch the Grammies.

Seriously. What the **** was the DM even going for?

[Callista]

Whether I get someone giving me a heads-up or not, I always insist on knowing what kind of game it's going to be and what everybody else is playing. It's especially important to know these things if I'm playing a character with the potential to create conflict (for example, extreme Good, any evil, paladins and some clerics; lawmen; criminals; magic-phobic characters, monster races, characters with unusual backgrounds, etc.).

But even if that's not the case--even if I'm playing a character with the potential to fit into just about any group--I still want to know what party roles need filling and what the game setting is like, and whether I need to take into account anything when I'm doing my backstory--for example, if we're in a setting where disease has been conquered through magic, I can't have a character whose sibling died of a plague, motivating her to become a healer.

So, yeah, don't expect people to volunteer that stuff. Quiz them. Get the information yourself. If you don't, you may regret it.

[Tengu_temp]

Sometimes when this happens it's just unlucky/poor judgement or foresight, but sometimes it's stright up due to malicious DMing, wanting to keep the PCs off kelter (the DM running the Midgard game practically begged me to play a Rogue claiming that he had alot of traps planned with noone to handle them in the party, only to never so much as a locked door).

Talk about jackass. Doing something like that on purpose is the antithesis of good DMing.

I don't remember if I ever had this problem. I played with one other player who felt useless once, but that wasn't the DM's fault as much as the player's for purposefully making an underpowered character and then being passive-aggressive instead of seeking some kind of agreement. He was an unpleasant and arrogant guy in general, and nobody felt bad when he left the group and his character became an NPC.

[Jair Barik]

I once made a chain tripping Swashbuckler character for a game. We predominantly fought creatures that one or both my main abilities were useless against (undead, swarms, monstrous centipedes, purple worm, invisible critters) but I didn't mind as in the encounters where we did fight things I could effect I did really well (Medusa 'boss' was taken down in about 1 round of combat). My problem was that whenever I was allowed to do well the party rogue moaned about how my character was better than his. He didn't care that against the swarms only the wizard could do anything, or that we needed to work together to take down the purple worm. If my character ever did better than his he would moan about it.

[VirOath]

Right now the group I'm with has about six players, three of which are in a DM rotation playing a system of their choice for their own campaign, and it's been this way for a while now. Who runs what is mostly dependent on who ran before and how much campaign material is ready (We have the bad habit of somehow fast tracking and blowing right through what was supposed to last for four or five sessions in a single turbo run seemingly at random).

But this, this is the story of the one DM that I will not play under any longer. I will seriously fire up my Xbox and play something interesting rather than be put through the bullcrap again.

Spoilered for the sick amount of length.

For the first story, I was to be a rogue. The rest of the party was pretty much set in stone and the DM looked to me and said that they were pretty much screwed in anything that wasn't combat, that they were seriously lacking in skills and trap-monkeying to the point that what he had planned wasn't possible, he asked me to play the rogue.

And, I like the class so I was going to play it anyways. So I was the rogue. I spent the time writing up a good and long background for him, gave a lot of character and flare to him, and even had him use more of a smart play trick based combat method that relied on Sneak Attack, as well as investing the skills to be more of a Dashing Thief sort of character. I even kept the DM informed of the process, bouncing ideas off him for feedback to make sure I wasn't outpacing the party.

And what proceeded was literally an entire campaign that my character was completely useless. We didn't run into a single locked door (That could be picked anyways), he consistently threw enemies at us that were 100% immune to sneak attack or methods of getting it, was denied heading back to town or any form of upgrades, leaving only what he picked for treasure in the pile, sucked dry of any RP opportunities (and I was literally punished for trying a reasonable method of getting out of a fight), and the only trap in the entire game was designed to not be disabled (Needed a nat 20 just to disable it, and there was 3 of them stacked on top of each other. THe answer? A spell the DMPC had prepared.)

Yeah, my character got completely shafted. I was denied items that would have been useful while everyone else got gear off of their wish list. What it came down to was explaining retraining in it's various methods, that I would be willing to front the costs to do so, and told "I'll think about it." Which, by the way, was the answer for the months that this campaign was running. Fed up with it, I told him I'll just write up something useful, and told that I was stuck with the character. Either I play him, or I don't play at all.

Why? Because he flat out told me a Rogue shouldn't rely on Sneak Attack for damage, and that they are better using a Bow and should never be in melee.

Yeah, his DMPC God railroaded campaign came to an end soon after that, thank god. But afterward, he asked me to play in his next campaign, that it would be completely different from what he just ran and wouldn't have the problems he saw in himself at the end of the last campaign. And like an idiot, I believed him.

So after getting some completely bogus houserules for monster races passed down and the party taking full advantage of, I played it down a little to maximize class levels. We were told it would be a sandbox world, that the party would be Level 16 just to start, all of use were to be evil in a world that evil had mostly been conquered, yet the party would be one of the more dangerous things in the world. Alright, I can play that, it even sounded like fun.

So I made up a DMM cleric with a necromancy focus, something that would be fun and on level with the rest of the party (And yes, that was on equal footing rather than being cheesy with the group this time). What do I find?

A world that is completely overleveled. I'm serious, not a peasant was below level 16. The massive amount of gold we were given to buy our items and the lists of what we had planned on making or getting? All stripped from us. What followed was over 100k gold in items flavored to the same fashion being passed on, gathered or earned in the first few sessions, which was fine. Oh, except that the simple and cheap nightsticks, a build I cleared by him, an item I told him was the center focus for most of it, was now an ancient artifact set spread across the world, a measly 3 in total, told that "I'd gather them over the course of the campaign, if I could provide incentive for the party to follow". Well, it would suck and hurt my build, and almost everything I've gone for in PrCs and feat is now useless with no option of retraining, but if I just pick up the craft feats needed I could make them and salvage the build. But no, they were impossible to make, ever.

And icing on the cake, he later takes control of one of the other characters and has him kill me. Even though there was literally no RP reason for him to do so, said character was one of the few that saw eye to eye with her, working to the same goals.

Christ, I still need to rant about this?

[Threeshades]

Where do you people keep picking up such douchebag GMs?


A GM should adjust to the players, not the other way around. The GM should make sure that every player gets regular opportunity to make use of their abilities. It's not the job of the player to predict the entire campaign to know what his character must be like in order to have any use at all.

If a GM flat out tells you that you need to play a certain class, you should already know there is something wrong.
If it turns out the class you're supposed to play is entirely useless throughout the campaign theres an entirely different kind of something wrong here. If the GM then doesn't even react to you telling him about it, quit playing.

The only thing a player might want to adjust to is the other players because a game gets pretty boring quickly when the entire party consists of 3 wizards and 2 sorcerers.
Other than that its the GMs job to make sure everyone can play out their advantages regularly.

The only exception to this would be a theme heavy campaign, for example a campaign that would be focused on fighting like an entire nation of undead creatures or something. In such a case the GM should tell everyone what the campaign is going to be about and that some builds and classes might not work very well in the campaign. But the players shouldn't have to ask about it first either.

[Psyren]

The nice thing about T3 and higher characters is that they can fit into any campaign style. Just one more reason to use them. :smallcool:

Barring setting fluff, I'd be hard-pressed to find a situation where being a Binder or a DFA wouldn't be both helpful to the party and fun.

[RebelRogue]

I think it's perfectly ok for the DM to demand specific things of the PCs, like 'no Evil characters' or, 'no Tier 1' or 'you need to have pirate themes, all of you... arrr', or whatever may fit his campaign/ideas of how the game is supposed to run. If everything is left open, he'd better work with what he gets (assuming he/she is reasonably experienced at DMing - beginners mistakes are of course forgiveable to a large degree).

Stripping people of equipment (including spell components) for extended periods of time is usually bad style, IMO. However, with a system like 3.5 where it is not particularly hard to make a character that is useless in some situations, this is also to be expected once in a while (enchanter or plain rogue vs. undead are two of those). It's a risk you'll have to be willing to run when you play such characters/the particular system (again, assuming you're not a beginner). That said, a good DM should try to adapt his game, so there's something to do for everyone so all players have fun.

[Triaxx]

I haven't had problems with mechanically incompatible characters. And I do try and warn my players if we'll be heading into a 'Zone of lessened effect'.

That said, having the dwarf hating gnome barbarian constantly attacking the dwarven cleric an lead to some complications. Especially when he's doing it while they're FIGHTING THE LAST BOSS IN THE DUNGEON.

Rocks fell, but only he died.

[Psyren]

I haven't had problems with mechanically incompatible characters. And I do try and warn my players if we'll be heading into a 'Zone of lessened effect'.

That said, having the dwarf hating gnome barbarian constantly attacking the dwarven cleric an lead to some complications. Especially when he's doing it while they're FIGHTING THE LAST BOSS IN THE DUNGEON.

Rocks fell, but only he died.

That's the best time to turn on a hated foe who's stronger than you. It's just like Right-Eye, Xykon and Dorukan in SoD.

Though of course it should be something worked out between the players beforehand.

[Yora]

When starting a new game, I always have the players decide what kind of campaign they want to play and have them comming up with a reason why their characters are in a group, and then have them come up with their actual characters.
Almost always the only reply I get is "we don't care, we play everything you want", and I make these descisions. But even then the characters have a common background and shared motivation, solving the problem of incompatible characters.

[Vizzerdrix]

Hmm... I can't say I've ever had this problem. Closest I've ever come was not having a reason for my character to stick around

[true_shinken]

A GM should adjust to the players, not the other way around.
Sorry, you're wrong. The GM is not your mom and he is not some guy you're paying to run a game for you. He is a guy just like you, trying to have fun. He shouldn't adjust to you when you bring Pun-Pun to the table, when you decide to play a troll barbarian in a political intrigue campaign, when you don't know what abilities your character have or anything like that. Player and GMs both equally need to adjust so everyone can have fun. Don't drop the bomb only on the GM's lap.
That said, if he doesn't check characters sheets before the game and doesn't explain what the game is about, expect trouble.

[molten_dragon]

I've had this happen several times now, so my groups have started sitting down before a new campaign kicks off to discuss who wants to play what. No one wants to play in another campaign with the paladin and the evil dread necromancer.

[dsmiles]

As a player, I try to stick it out, hoping I become relevant. After 3 sessions or so, I'll ask the DM what's up.

As a DM, I always give a clear vision of the campaign starting point, and what type of campaign I would like it to be. Also, I always make players roll their characters up in the first session, so that there is compatibility within the group, as far as roles go. I don't let most players bring a character with them. I only have that level of trust with a few players.

[Threeshades]

Sorry, you're wrong. The GM is not your mom and he is not some guy you're paying to run a game for you. He is a guy just like you, trying to have fun. He shouldn't adjust to you when you bring Pun-Pun to the table, when you decide to play a troll barbarian in a political intrigue campaign, when you don't know what abilities your character have or anything like that. Player and GMs both equally need to adjust so everyone can have fun. Don't drop the bomb only on the GM's lap.
That said, if he doesn't check characters sheets before the game and doesn't explain what the game is about, expect trouble.

That's what my last paragraph is about.

[The Big Dice]

Sorry, you're wrong. The GM is not your mom and he is not some guy you're paying to run a game for you. He is a guy just like you, trying to have fun. He shouldn't adjust to you when you bring Pun-Pun to the table, when you decide to play a troll barbarian in a political intrigue campaign, when you don't know what abilities your character have or anything like that. Player and GMs both equally need to adjust so everyone can have fun. Don't drop the bomb only on the GM's lap.
That said, if he doesn't check characters sheets before the game and doesn't explain what the game is about, expect trouble.

This.

The GM isn't some lackey of the players, the game is a group effort and everyone involved has to adjust to everyone else. In fact, I've often noticed that when the people at the table don't get along, characters that are theoretically extremely compatible end up falling to squabbling and petty bickering. But if everyone does get along well, the most incompatible characters all get along fine.

One thing I like to do at the start of a campaign is to prepare a "Campaign Breif" for the players. It could be a list of things including the setting, political and religious organisations, races of the general area and a map. Or it could be a letter that's found pinned to every tree within ten miles of the castle.

The idea being, it's something to set the tone and flavour of the campaign. Hopefully. It doesn't always work, because some guys just have to make a female sorceror for every game they play...

[Quietus]

I think there's a lot of generalities being tossed about here which, while valid in the intent they were used it, are being taken somewhat out of context - like Threeshades' "A GM should adjust to the players, not the other way around."

It's true - part of a GM's role is to ensure everyone at his table has fun, and gets a share of the spotlight. If they throw nothing but undead the whole campaign when they've got an Enchantment specialist wizard, a Beguiler, and a Rogue... well, that's going to end up with a lot of frustrated players.

On the other hand, if the DM threw it out upfront that "Hey guys, this campaign is going to be heavy in Undead and other things that are immune to mind-affecting and precision damage", then it's the players own fault. I understand that people have character ideas they Really Want To Try, but if that idea is a sneaky stabbity rogue and you were just told that hey, that won't work in this campaign... well, that's your own fault if you insist on trying to make it work anyway.

Personally, when I run games, I either have a theme I want to run the game around, such as "We're going to be freeing the world from the tyrannical rule of ogre mages", or I'll throw the setting out along with a few noteworthy places within it, and then develop the plot around what the players give me. By doing that, I can see what the players have in mind, and if they give me the aforementioned enchantment/precision specialist party, then I can play something more city-focused, maybe with a political bent, and twist that great "Necromancer ruling the world" idea I had into a corrupted noble, Necro-wizard with a focus on debuffs and curses, making a power grab for the top of the social chain. I get what I want, the players don't feel useless, and it results in a better game all around.

[Amnestic]

Christ, I still need to rant about this?

I'm now immensely curious as to what you've done following this, with regards to the GM and the group in general.

Also, does your GM just hate you personally or something? :smallconfused:

[Jay R]

Yes, of course I find out everything I can about the game before designing the character. I also try to find out what kinds of characters the DM likes and what kind he doesn't. I will always play a stalwart hero when Nolen is DMing, and I will always play an intelligent genre-savvy character when Rob is DMing, and I will always play a paranoid character when Dirk is DMing.

Years ago, a rolled a character with fairly high DEX and INT, but extremely low WIS and CON. I was about to drop him and re-roll when David (the DM) looked at the rolls and said, "That's a 9-year old kid." David was an Air Force brat who loved childhood and loved telling stories about what he got away with as a child, so I played the character as a 9-year-old thief. He was incredibly successful, doing things no other thief could. But I would never have done it with any other DM.

I tend to ask the DM lots of questions during the character creation phase. The parts he's not interested in are not likely to be important to the game.

There is a legal maxim: "Any lawyer knows the law. A good lawyer knows the exceptions. A great lawyer knows the judge."

Any player knows the rules. A good player knows the exceptions. A great player knows the DM.

But regardless of what kind of character or game you're in, the most common life-threatening event will be combat. What will your character do in the fight. He or she must have solid combat skills.

[Sine]

Seems this happens to me all the time.
Often it's pretty simple as to why, I don't like combat that much so I prefure to play things like skill-monkeys utility spellcasters but then find myself in a combat heavy game (my old RPG club was partially bad with this as combat heavy games were all they would play). My most resent game I thought I was going to be more suited for as it was a 'RP heavy game in Forgotten Realms', so I put alot of effort into making a deep and elaborate backstory involving Faerun... only to be randomly teleported to Midgard on the first day where we stayed the rest of the game.
Freudian slip often? :smallwink:

In other news, yes, your DM's a tool. I've had players who were disappointed in my game style, but I've never intentionally misled anyone about my combat-centric games. Never been ninjaed by another DM's game style, either.

[grimbold]

unaware that the campaign would be combat low i made a comabt optimized orc barbarian whos highest mental stat was 10
still puzzles are fun to do because my strength kind of breaks a lot of them

[true_shinken]

Any player knows the rules.
The world would be a better place if this sentence was true.

[BiblioRook]

Whether I get someone giving me a heads-up or not, I always insist on knowing what kind of game it's going to be and what everybody else is playing. It's especially important to know these things if I'm playing a character with the potential to create conflict (for example, extreme Good, any evil, paladins and some clerics; lawmen; criminals; magic-phobic characters, monster races, characters with unusual backgrounds, etc.).

Coordinating party classes is usually the closest we get to for 'preparing' for the game ahead of time, other then being told the setting the game will be in and sometimes being told it will be a Hack-n-Slash/Social Campaign/Dungeon Crawl, but most key elements are withheld even if we ask.
I don't know why, but apparently most all the DMs I run into apparently think that the campaign will only be fun and interesting if it's kept as a 'surprise'

Don't get me wrong, sometimes this works out really good. I once had a DM that started the game out with a total Party Wipeout only to turn us all into various undead and opened up a sandbox to allow us to go about coping with the change. Came right out of the blue and none of us could have foresaw it, but you know you are going something right when even the character expecting to be playing a paladin continues to enjoy himself.

Oh god, this was always so frustrating though because I used to play alot of Rangers, but the DM would never be willing to tell me what kinds of creatures we could be expected to go against! He/They always would insisted that, with literally no knowledge of the game ahead of us, just simply guess blind.
Surprise surprise when those monsters would never show up.


A GM should adjust to the players, not the other way around.

I kinda agree with this while also agreeing with the counterpoints.
I've always saw adaptability to be one of the key points of a good DM. Expesially if you don't give your players any indication of what you expect them to be class-wise you can probably expect to some degree someone is going to try being something that didn't fit into your preconceived vision of the party dynamics.
But also A DM shouldn't end up bending the entire game around character provided concepts, unless that was the actual intention. This is a problem I'm actually running into in the Midgard game as my party is comically diverse and really spread out character wise as much as probably possible, but the DM tried a bit to hard to be 'inclusive' which lead to much of the campaign feeling really rather shallow.


Christ, I still need to rant about this?

Man, I'm actually surprised and a little dismayed that there isn't an established D&D Vent Thread here. There is sooo much stupid stuff that I feel I need to bitch about with my current game that I don't really want to spew here... :smallsigh:

[Saint GoH]

I've read a lot of stuff about the terribad GM's here, but I see little in regards to other players...

I have almost NO issues with any DM I have ever had. I mean, there were some who didn't hand out wealth and made their DMPC's Godmode the campaign for us, which was frustrating, but nothing so horrendous as these tales.

My greatest frustration comes in the form of other players.

Spoilered for moar text then I thought there would be...
I have two in mind that are "incompatible" with my play style. The first, lets call her Emily, prefers to "roll" her stats even though we all have a preferred method of generating stats. She shows up to the session with, mysteriously, 4 18's and 2 16's. :smallsigh: Also, she has 10k gp at level 1 because her backstory included being the daughter of a rich nobleman. :smallconfused:: Not only this, but she uses D&Dwiki to its fullest extent, citing the homebrew page as official WotC material. :smallfurious: We tried to reason with her, and the DM even asked to see her sheet beforehand so he could control her antics and eventually she just stopped playing with us because she felt we were "limiting her roleplay experience" because we said she couldn't have those things. /facepalm

The next, lets call him Pete, is a serious munchkin. However he is of the worst sort. He has played for a long time (longer then some of us have been alive actually :smalleek:) and as such has quite the binder of characters. Many of them are Epic. A few are level 1-6, but have Stats such as 42, 28, 32, 20, 2, 24. When asked how he acquired such stats he says, "oh, they were epic level but decided to give up all their power and become level 1's again. Because of their selfless sacrifice they get to keep all former stats, feats and templates. But they only have the class abilities of a level (X)." Naturally, only his characters have reached epic level and therefore only his characters are allowed to do that. I have called BS on this more then once, and the other players at the table say, "Saint, you are just jealous because Pete's builds beat yours. Just wait till you are epic then you can ascend too." :smallfurious: Its not a matter of jealousy, its a matter of "HOW CAN YOU GUYS NOT CARE HE IS BLATANTLY CHEATING?"

I refuse to game with him at the table anymore, simply because he raises his eyebrow at my charger builds, citing them as "major cheese" and "breaking the rules" while his DMPC Monk sits over there ignoring Flurry rules and sitting with a 45 AC at level 7 :smallsigh:

[WarKitty]

I think I managed a new all-time low with this. I built a campaign around the God of Portals. One of my players came in with a character with an irrational fear of doors. I hadn't told them about the God of Portals thing beforehand because I didn't think it would come up.

[Show]

I have this problem all the time, as a member of our game group loves to play paladins ALL THE TIME. I have a penchant for darker characters, but I can't ever play them without starting in character conflicts.

Meh.

Otherwise, I also have the problem as many other people have of trying to play subtle rogue types and strategy focused spellcasters in hack and slash campaigns...

[Triaxx]

A good GM must be able to adapt to the players, rather than blatantly expecting them to stay in line with his wishes.

As to the above scenario, they had discussed it with each other. Just not me. But I did not fall the rocks. One of the cleric spells I'd introduced caused cave-ins. The dwarf in question happened to have it prepared.

[Dalek-K]

My favorite game ..

CG Paladin of Freedom
LE Dread Necromancer
LG Fighter

Yeah those characters... It would have been wrong for them not to get along... Although they did have the same goal... Well sort of... They wanted to get rid of the current rulers of the earth (a U.N type government system)...

Paladin: The true ruler should be set in their place (some random king/prince/queen/princess i forget)

Fighter: DEMOCRACY!!!

Dread N: I should rule them all >:)

They went to school together as children but were seperated but stayed in touch by letters...

That was a fun game XD

[Gnome Alone]

I think I managed a new all-time low with this. I built a campaign around the God of Portals. One of my players came in with a character with an irrational fear of doors. I hadn't told them about the God of Portals thing beforehand because I didn't think it would come up.

All-time low? Fah! That seems like it has some serious potential. To wit:

Voiceover: "Meet the unlikely hero... who must overcome his crippling fear of, uh, doors, to achieve a heart-warming triumph of the humanoid spirit... in the feel-good adventure of the year."

[WarKitty]

All-time low? Fah! That seems like it has some serious potential. To wit:

Voiceover: "Meet the unlikely hero... who must overcome his crippling fear of, uh, doors, to achieve a heart-warming triumph of the humanoid spirit... in the feel-good adventure of the year."

It might. It's mostly just amusing, in the wow I would never have seen that one coming sense.

[VirOath]

I'm now immensely curious as to what you've done following this, with regards to the GM and the group in general.

Also, does your GM just hate you personally or something? :smallconfused:

The situation is bloody complicated and confusing in it's own right. We're actually friends and work very well together normally. It's why I stuck around through the **** and gave him a second chance. Just seems to be the exception to the rule.

Heck, I even helped out with some problems and ideas he had early on in the campaign. It just seems like he gets a bloody retarded mindset when running, that he can do no wrong and anything of his will be interesting.

Thing is, he started up a third campaign and that turned out bad. This time it was the entire rest of the party that felt they were on the wrong side and being punished for playing, so they started planning to sabotage the campaign. Lucky enough I was sitting on both sides of this conflict, working with the DM as well as the players, so I told him that if his campaign comes up again I'm going to go and do something else, that it was turning into a bitch fest on both sides and was just annoying to listen to.

Told the players that I told him to can the campaign and we won't be playing it again.

We all still play, he just doesn't run, and we enjoy ourselves. Just sitting through that still hangs in my mind at times, just like how I now know better than to try a sneak attack character with another one of the DMs, because at the time he felt that it was completely Overpowered to be able to get on something as easy as flanking, citing that he could just kill a party member a round with two stealthed rogues. That story isn't nearly as bad, just really stupid, but that DM has also grown in the intervening time.

Maybe excessive stupidity just cuts deep?