Yet Another Please Help With My Crummy DM thread

[shadow_archmagi]

Wow! I feel really weird writing one of these, usually I'm responding to them with sage wisdom, but apparently sage wisdom is harder when talking to yourself.

Anyway, I recently joined a 4E game, and the players are all friendly enough, but the GM has left me deeply unsatisfied.

A few examples:


I asked what action knowledge checks were. (I thought they might be Minor) The GM says Standard to identify monsters. I said that seemed a little high, isn't it usually minor or free, and he shrugged and said that in his games, they were standard.



I arrived late to the meeting, so he introduced my character in the middle of a fight, placing the character model some distance away from the party. I moved forward and cast a spell, after which he proclaimed that a giant spider jumped on me, knocking me prone and dealing hefty damage (half my health), and then declared that since the spider had readied an action to do this during my turn, it was now the Spider's turn, and it would attack me again, taking me down to 3 hp.



The party fought several shadow-creatures. Later, we entered a tomb, and the GM announced that when we lit a torch, shadows appeared, and placed monster tokens on the map. The Avenger ran forward to attack, and he announced that zombies burst up through the stone floor of the tomb. When my turn rolled around, I cast an Augmented Dimensional Scramble, hoping to move the zombies and the shadow away from our poor Avenger, who was totally surrounded. He then announced that the Shadow wasn't a Shadow at all- It was just a shadow! The party had comically mistaken ordinary darkness for murderous darkness, and he removed the non-zombie enemy tokens from the board, adding another zombie and explaining that instead, of teleporting the enemy that wasn't there, my spell had teleported the stone slab it was on, revealing more zombies. "I knew you were going to try to teleport it!" he said to me, smiling.


I've sent him an email asking about the knowledge thing, because that seems like the clearest-cut example of making a ruling without strong reasoning behind it, but on the whole I'm unsure about how to go about encouraging him to not be both rules-light and adversarial.

He's also running a published adventure, which means that the above examples more or less represent the whole of his creative input to the game, so if this sort of behavior doesn't change, I'll be totally incapable of respecting him. Please help me decide what to do. I'd really rather not leave this game, since it's the only game in town more or less. I'd also rather not go through it becoming increasingly disdainful of the guy running it. On the other hand, I don't really know the GM well enough to feel comfortable openly critiquing his style, and I don't want to give the impression of being an outsider who comes in and tells everyone that they're having fun wrong.

[Barsoom]

I don't want to give the impression of being an outsider who comes in and tells everyone that they're having fun wrong.

Let me ask you this then: Is everyone else having fun?

[SaruSama]

Personally my advice is to bring up the issues you're having, offer suggestions, and if they're not addressed and you're still not having fun quit.

[Waar]

A few examples:




I arrived late to the meeting, so he introduced my character in the middle of a fight, placing the character model some distance away from the party. I moved forward and cast a spell, after which he proclaimed that a giant spider jumped on me, knocking me prone and dealing hefty damage (half my health), and then declared that since the spider had readied an action to do this during my turn, it was now the Spider's turn, and it would attack me again, taking me down to 3 hp.


The party fought several shadow-creatures. Later, we entered a tomb, and the GM announced that when we lit a torch, shadows appeared, and placed monster tokens on the map. The Avenger ran forward to attack, and he announced that zombies burst up through the stone floor of the tomb. When my turn rolled around, I cast an Augmented Dimensional Scramble, hoping to move the zombies and the shadow away from our poor Avenger, who was totally surrounded. He then announced that the Shadow wasn't a Shadow at all- It was just a shadow! The party had comically mistaken ordinary darkness for murderous darkness, and he removed the non-zombie enemy tokens from the board, adding another zombie and explaining that instead, of teleporting the enemy that wasn't there, my spell had teleported the stone slab it was on, revealing more zombies. "I knew you were going to try to teleport it!" he said to me, smiling.



Did you get any perception check in these two examples? If you did your GM still sounds, well antagonistic (presentation is everything :smallwink:) If you didn't he's just mean :smallyuk:, disinformation traps are not a good thing imo (which is similar, but distinct from well hidden traps) partially since they errode trust in the World an GM.

[shadow_archmagi]

Did you get any perception check in these two examples? If you did your GM still sounds, well antagonistic (presentation is everything :smallwink:) If you didn't he's just mean :smallyuk:, disinformation traps are not a good thing imo (which is similar, but distinct from well hidden traps) partially since they errode trust in the World an GM.

Not that I know of. It's possible that he made secret rolls, but it's also very possible that he did not. Certainly, he did not say that secret rolls had been failed.


Let me ask you this then: Is everyone else having fun?

As far as I can tell, yeah. On the other hand, they also all seemed to be friendly, cheerful people, so it's possible that his antagonism just wasn't sufficient to crush their enthusiasm. They also seemed to be fairly new, so they probably didn't have as strong a concept of good and bad DMing and are thus less sensitive to poor decisions. It's also very probable that, due to being the kind of person who overthinks these things, I'm much more sensitive than the average player.

(Note: The GM has been hosting games for the local RPG club for years, so he should be practiced enough to have a strong concept of what cultivates good gameplay and what is arbitrary antagonism)

[Barsoom]

As far as I can tell, yeah. On the other hand, they also all seemed to be friendly, cheerful people, so it's possible that his antagonism just wasn't sufficient to crush their enthusiasm. They also seemed to be fairly new, so they probably didn't have as strong a concept of good and bad DMing and are thus less sensitive to poor decisions. It's also very probable that, due to being the kind of person who overthinks these things, I'm much more sensitive than the average player.
I see. I have been in the exact same situation before. New(ish) players who only played for one DM, and that DM happened to be ... of a very particular mindset. I had to walk, there was basically nothing that could be done. Sorry I can't give you any useful advice.

[Bulhakov]

Try to DM yourself? After playing for several years I reached the conclusion that I couldn't enjoy a poorly run game.

[Rhynn]

(Note: The GM has been hosting games for the local RPG club for years, so he should be practiced enough to have a strong concept of what cultivates good gameplay and what is arbitrary antagonism)

:smallamused: If only that were how experience worked.

Generally, DMs go one of two ways as they put years under their belt: they get better or they get worse. Bad DMs will often get worse, especially if they never have a crisis that forces them into introspection.

Anyway, your examples don't actually look that terribad. If this is constant, I could see it as a problem, but it's just... not really overt antagonism?


I've sent him an email asking about the knowledge thing, because that seems like the clearest-cut example of making a ruling without strong reasoning behind it, but on the whole I'm unsure about how to go about encouraging him to not be both rules-light and adversarial.

I'd say adversarial is not quite proven (he may well be), but is it your job to encourage a DM to not be rules-light? Rules-light is not bad. (The only real measure of good and bad DMing is how the players feel, anyway.)

Basically, if everyone else enjoys the game and you don't, it really might be that seeking another game is the best option. You might change how the DM runs games, but it's a long shot. (The best option there would probably be to get the DM to read articles and forum threads etc. about running games.)

[Waar]

My gut reaction (to how i would have handled similar situations) is, when something like that is about to happen, you let the Players roll some dice (it gives, at the very least a sense of empowerment to the player and makes it feel less arbitary)

Now as you just noticed: should=/= does :smallfrown:

I would have done differently, but then again i know my players and it is (theoretically) possible that he was just nervous, still you should talk to the group, Communication kills are never nice, hope it works out for you :smallsmile:, if not you can always just walk away.

[Water_Bear]

Is he focusing his Bad DM mojo on you specifically, or is this a general style for him? If the former you need to hug it out or have a fistfight or something, while the latter probably is just something you'll need to learn to deal with or find a different DM.

[Fax Celestis]

Guy's a jerk. Find a different group.

[Susano-wo]

As for your examples:
The knowledge check thing is borked. I can see a longer action for studying something, trying to find a weakness, but just recognizing? that's automatic. You just do it.
Its fine if there was a hidden spider, as long as you got a chance to detect it. [secret checks or open]
The shadows thing is wrong if you did not get perception checks[again, secret or open]. Its not fair to arbitrarily decide you mistake shadows for Shadows. hell, in any case, they should have been described as shadowy creatures--there's be no reason to assume they were Shadows (and now that I think about it, the fact that the guy who they were suddenly surrounding didn't detect that they weren't actual critters is just ridiculous
To me, it seems the possible issue isn't so much rules light vs rules heavy, but fairness (though if rules light is inherently unenjoyable to you, then I guess that would be a whole separate issue).

As far as what to do, politely bring up concerns, find out if other players are happy. If they are unhappy, then all of you politely address DM to change, with subsequent courses of action being highly contextually subjective.

If they are happy, then see if there is a way to accommodate your concerns that does not ruin their enjoyment. if not, then, either but up with it(if overall experience is still fun) or quit(if it is not).
That would be my advice

[W3bDragon]

As far as I can tell, yeah. On the other hand, they also all seemed to be friendly, cheerful people, so it's possible that his antagonism just wasn't sufficient to crush their enthusiasm. They also seemed to be fairly new, so they probably didn't have as strong a concept of good and bad DMing and are thus less sensitive to poor decisions. It's also very probable that, due to being the kind of person who overthinks these things, I'm much more sensitive than the average player.

Its not surprising that you can't find an easy answer to this dilemma. That's because there isn't one. This group, DM and players included, are in a different part of their gaming career than you seem to be.

The players are new and know nothing of good or bad DMing. They only know what their DM does for them. They enjoy it. If you attempt to "fix" their game, it can only end badly.

Either they won't care what you think, assume you're an oversensitive guy, that you take your gaming far too seriously, and that you don't respect their DM, or worse yet, you'll succeed in convincing them that their gaming is "wrong", in which case you'd have removed that veil of innocence that's allowing these players to enjoy the game, without giving them an alternative.

As for the DM himself, he seems to think he's clever, and that's very difficult to deal with. If I was in your shoes, I'd mention some of my concerns as politely as possible to the DM after the session. I'd do that no more than once. If he's responsive, great, if not, I'd just leave the game. Its not fun for you to continually be biting your tongue when the DM does something you don't agree with, and if you don't respect your DM, it shows. No matter how polite you try to be, it shows, and its not fair to the rest of the group to have someone in their midst that doesn't respect the way they play the game.

Find some Internet games or any other way to get your gaming fix. This group doesn't seem to work for your kind of gaming.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Problem 1 and 3 kinda cancel each other out, when the DM suddenly announced that the Shadows were in fact shadows then call him out on the fact that your characters somehow identified these as Shadows without taking a standard action to identify them.

To be honest though I've used the Knowledge checks as a Standard action rule but that includes identifying the creature and some of its strengths/weaknesses and communicating them to your allies, and not just going "that is a gnoll"

[Lord Torath]

Also, the teleporting-the-stone thing bothers me. You targeted what you thought was a roughly man-sized creature standing on the ground. You did not target the ground. The only thing that should have been affected by your spell was the air occupying the space you thought was Shadow.

I would say, give it another couple of sessions before making any firm decisions. Get a better feel for his play style, and how much he targets you vs everyone else in the group. Then you can decide if you can stand his games.

[TinyHippo]

This seems like a conflict that needs to be solved OOC by talking to the chap. Ideally face to face as it's easy to seem aggressive and antagonistic when criticizing via email, no matter how politely worded the missive is.

[Trekkin]

Three clinches it for me: this isn't a game you're likely to have fun in if you continue playing.

It looks to me that W3bDragon is correct in his assessment of the DM. He's convinced he's outwitting his players, which is a very hard attitude to convince someone to stop. Then, too, when he's wrong, he falls back on fiat and misinterpreting the actions of the PCs. I don't think Dimensional Scramble can even move floors...

There might be some way to get through to him that what he's doing is not fun for you as a player, but it doesn't sound like that necessarily matters to him. I'd just leave, find an online game, and forget about the whole mess.

[illyrus]

There are two ways to look at this in my mind. It could be that he is unknowingly frustrating you. Having a calm talk with him 1-on-1 after a game could really help resolve the situation.

My guess is he's probably a GM that is more concerned with keeping you off balance then obeying the rules 100%. Which isn't always a bad thing but it can be very frustrating, especially in a crunchy system.

For example 2 I'd ask him if that's how readied actions work in his game. Then sit there and ready every round like the spider did for 2 actions every time. Maybe he'll revise his ruling and maybe not. In either case what works for the NPCs action wise should work for the PCs. Approach it not in a "I'll show you!" but more of "oh that's how it works, well then I guess I can do..." manner.

For example 3 I'd just recommend taking it in stride and I imagine that those situations will happen less and less. Especially if he sees something else frustrates you a bit (maybe something that actually doesn't but you act like it does).

I doubt the GM wants you to have a bad time but I could see him ranking frustrating players as a good thing. I remember seeing that mindset with some GMs that mainly played in the 80s and 90s.

[shadow_archmagi]

To be honest though I've used the Knowledge checks as a Standard action rule but that includes identifying the creature and some of its strengths/weaknesses and communicating them to your allies, and not just going "that is a gnoll"

The thing that bugs me about the standard action ruling is two fold.

Realism-Wise: I really don't feel like "Remembering" should be an action, and definitely not a standard action. If I'm playing a videogame, and I see an enemy, I generally immediately recall exactly what it is and what it does, even if it's been years since I encountered it last. Even for the occasional really obscure thing that's hard to remember, attacking and remembering are not mutually exclusive actions for me.

Mechanically: I really don't feel like remembering should be a standard action. That puts it into conflict with attacking, which means that information is more expensive, which means that the party will be operating with less information a lot of the time. Less information means less tactics, because the party can't make informed decisions without information. Less tactics means less feeling smart and competent, which is the primary way that I have fun. (Besides roleplaying and the general sense of camaraderie that comes with any social event, but those don't need mechanical attention)


Also, the teleporting-the-stone thing bothers me. You targeted what you thought was a roughly man-sized creature standing on the ground. You did not target the ground. The only thing that should have been affected by your spell was the air occupying the space you thought was Shadow.

I would say, give it another couple of sessions before making any firm decisions. Get a better feel for his play style, and how much he targets you vs everyone else in the group. Then you can decide if you can stand his games.

Yeah, I'm going to give it one more session and then make a decision.

[Barsoom]

Yeah, I'm going to give it one more session and then make a decision.Don't forget to let us know how it turns out. Dealing with a difficult DM is a common problem, and we could use some insight from the trenches.

[Alejandro]

Sounds like a GM that thinks they need to beat the players. If they didn't do this to everyone, though, and just to you, maybe there's a larger issue. Like you have already said, one sample isn't enough for a conclusion, you need another game session or two to have sufficient data.

[1337 b4k4]

On #1:

Per here: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/13578/what-type-of-action-is-a-knowledge-check

Knowledge Checks are free/no actions. That said, I can certainly see an interesting trade off that comes from making them standard actions. Your choice if you can't identify the monster from the description is to attack blindly and discover weaknesses as you go or spend a resource (a player turn) on discovering the monsters weaknesses. If that's how the DM wants to run the game, it really wouldn't bother me much as long as it was consistent. That said, since you didn't know and you asked the DM, it seems sort of unfair to be mad that he declared them to be standard. In my games, if no one knows the rule, then the DM's ruling is law until AFTER the game when someone has a chance to look it up. Even then, the DM is allowed to override, but everyone is informed what the original rule is and what the override is.

On #2: Readied actions simply don't work that way (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19686206/Ready_an_Action_FAQ). They're not free actions and they're not double actions. Readied actions move your initiative to immediately before the target's initiative which means once the spider pounced, his turn was over. Talk this one over with your DM. It's possible that he was confusing readied actions with surprise rounds.

On #3: I'm not actually sure why you're disappointed here. As near as I can figure from your story the following happened:

1) Party lit torches
2) "Shadows" appear on the far walls
3) Avenger charges forward (does not attack? not in range?)
4) Zombies spring from the floor (Avenger basically triggered a trap)
5) You cast spell to get rid of "Shadows" and Zombies
6) "Shadows" disappear (as a result of your spell) and are replaced with single Zombie, remaining Zombies are still in play.

Honestly unless the "Shadows" actually attacked and damaged someone, I really have no problem with this at all and it all seems like fair play. Just because it was unexpected doesn't make it unfair. Now if the "Shadows" actually attacked (and I mean rolled attack rolls, not just moved) or did damage, then I can see arguing against ordinary shadows being able to do any damage.

[Barsoom]

On #3: I'm not actually sure why you're disappointed here. As near as I can figure from your story the following happened:

1) Party lit torches
2) "Shadows" appear on the far walls
3) Avenger charges forward (does not attack? not in range?)
4) Zombies spring from the floor (Avenger basically triggered a trap)
5) You cast spell to get rid of "Shadows" and Zombies
6) "Shadows" disappear (as a result of your spell) and are replaced with single Zombie, remaining Zombies are still in play.

Honestly unless the "Shadows" actually attacked and damaged someone, I really have no problem with this at all and it all seems like fair play. Just because it was unexpected doesn't make it unfair. Now if the "Shadows" actually attacked (and I mean rolled attack rolls, not just moved) or did damage, then I can see arguing against ordinary shadows being able to do any damage.I thought the part where the DM actually placed monster tokens on the map, only to later remove them and go "silly player, what you thought was monsters are mundane shadows", was a bit of a jerk move.

[Friv]

On #3: I'm not actually sure why you're disappointed here. As near as I can figure from your story the following happened:

1) Party lit torches
2) "Shadows" appear on the far walls
3) Avenger charges forward (does not attack? not in range?)
4) Zombies spring from the floor (Avenger basically triggered a trap)
5) You cast spell to get rid of "Shadows" and Zombies
6) "Shadows" disappear (as a result of your spell) and are replaced with single Zombie, remaining Zombies are still in play.

Honestly unless the "Shadows" actually attacked and damaged someone, I really have no problem with this at all and it all seems like fair play. Just because it was unexpected doesn't make it unfair. Now if the "Shadows" actually attacked (and I mean rolled attack rolls, not just moved) or did damage, then I can see arguing against ordinary shadows being able to do any damage.

As I understand it, there are three issues that your summary doesn't cover.

#1 - The game was using a battlemap, and the ordinary shadows were placed on the map as being Shadows, i.e. enemy tokens that could be targeted with attacks. They weren't, so their only purpose to be there was to trick players into wasting their attacks and charging into range of the real enemies, the zombies, so that the zombies could hit them first.
#2 - There was no roll allowed to recognize that a totally ordinary shadow on the wall was not, in fact, an autonomous undead entity, but a normal shadow that was being cast by an object. In addition, being in actual close combat with the shadows wasn't enough for the players to realize that they weren't fighting actual monsters, but their own shadows, and again no roll was allowed to recognize this fact.
#3 - When a player used an attack on one of these fake monsters, the GM ruled that he grabbed the floor by mistake, unearthing more monsters. Thus, the action, by succeeding, had a counter-productive effect that could not be avoided or guessed at. This action was followed by the GM informing the player that he had just stepped into his cunning trap.

Now, it's possible that we don't have the whole story - it could be that secret Perception rolls were made, and the players rolled astonishingly badly, and the shadows were actually magical illusions and so on. But as shown, it reeks of extremely adversarial play, to a degree where the rules are being manipulated or ignored in order for the GM to feel superior to the players.

[TinyHippo]

Yeah, I have to say the Shadow/shadow thing bothers me quite a bit as well. Telling your players what they believe, especially when that belief is epically wrong and serves only to screw them over, and without giving them a chance to make the right call, is bad Dming. Barring secret rolls, magical effects they failed to save against etc.

[shadow_archmagi]

In my games, if no one knows the rule, then the DM's ruling is law until AFTER the game when someone has a chance to look it up. Even then, the DM is allowed to override, but everyone is informed what the original rule is and what the override is.


I'm pretty sure that this was a houserule that simply wasn't mentioned beforehand, since he's been GMing for quite some time and has presumably encountered knowledge skills before. Also, as I said in my post above, I feel like the standard action knowledge isn't one that's particularly likely to cause fun.



On #2: Readied actions simply don't work that way (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19686206/Ready_an_Action_FAQ). They're not free actions and they're not double actions. Readied actions move your initiative to immediately before the target's initiative which means once the spider pounced, his turn was over. Talk this one over with your DM. It's possible that he was confusing readied actions with surprise rounds.


Yep.



On #3: I'm not actually sure why you're disappointed here. As near as I can figure from your story the following happened:

1) Party lit torches
2) "Shadows" appear on the far walls
3) Avenger charges forward (does not attack? not in range?)
4) Zombies spring from the floor (Avenger basically triggered a trap)
5) You cast spell to get rid of "Shadows" and Zombies
6) "Shadows" disappear (as a result of your spell) and are replaced with single Zombie, remaining Zombies are still in play.


Clarifications: The avenger, after moving forward and triggering the zombies, decided to attack one of them instead, since he had superior anti-undead options.

I targeted one Shadow, after which all Shadow monster-tokens were removed, because it became clear at that point that they were not and had never been actual threats.



Honestly unless the "Shadows" actually attacked and damaged someone, I really have no problem with this at all and it all seems like fair play. Just because it was unexpected doesn't make it unfair. Now if the "Shadows" actually attacked (and I mean rolled attack rolls, not just moved) or did damage, then I can see arguing against ordinary shadows being able to do any damage.


It's irritating because it relies on ambiguous wording to deliberately mislead. (As soon as he said Shadow, he put monster tokens down, so it was clear that he intended us to believe that these were enemies) From an in-character perspective, the difference between an elemental being of darkness and a shadow should be very apparent; imagine mistaking an puddle for a hostile water elemental! The ruse relies on the player-character separation for the sole purpose of making the character look really stupid.

Imagine if you walked into an office with a table and a desk, so you put your coffee on the table, but then the DM laughed and declared that when he said table, he meant spreadsheet, and you've just poured coffee on your paperwork! Ha ha ha this joke is funny, see, because it makes your character look like an idiot and relies on your own inability as a player to distinguish between multiple meanings of a word, either of which would be completely appropriate in context.

Furthermore, the decision that the stone tile should be targeted in the absence of a Shadow means that Dimensional Scramble was spontaneously houseruled to affect objects, not just creatures.


EDIT: I did ask, immediately after, "Did we just bomb our perception rolls?" and he responded with "No no, see, they appeared when you lit the torch!" and moved on with the game

[Dihan]

Sounds like my old DM. He'd do similar things and then bring in his indestructible NPC of the week to save the day. We have a new DM now.

[Scow2]

I'd really dislike seeing knowledge checks as a Standard action, but could see an argument for them not being instant (Such as requiring a round in which you can act normally to study the creature), since it's probably something you've read about/seen pictures of, not actually faced. If you want to argue the point, you should emphasize how having the identification check take a standard action (Thus depriving you of an attack) doesn't mesh with real-world expectations.

The only problem I see with the 3rd situation was with his gloating about it. And having the Dimensional Scramble teleport the floor away instead of teleporting the 'hidden' zombie to the surface, mechanically the same thing. Although not supported in the main game, there's no rule saying that all illusions must be magical in nature - the design, ambient negative energy, and lighting of the room simply makes the natural shadows look like shadow-creatures. There's nothing wrong with cribbing the rules for magical illusions to adjudicate nonmagical ones as well (Or porting them forward from a previous edition if 4e doesn't handle them in a satisfactory manner). Yes, it's a maneuver to psyche the players out... but a perfectly legal one that makes an encounter more interesting than just "Zombies in a room".

The spider/readied action thing is flat out bull****, though. Yes, readied actions eat turns - that's the tradeoff for being able to interrupt someone at just the right moment.


It's irritating because it relies on ambiguous wording to deliberately mislead. (As soon as he said Shadow, he put monster tokens down, so it was clear that he intended us to believe that these were enemies) From an in-character perspective, the difference between an elemental being of darkness and a shadow should be very apparent; imagine mistaking an puddle for a hostile water elemental! The ruse relies on the player-character separation for the sole purpose of making the character look really stupid. Actually - in a dark dungeon inundated with negative energy, even mundane shadows can look threatening and monstrous. Especially if it's illuminated by the irregular flickering of a flame such as Torchlight or a Lantern. Bad lighting + Dark Dungeon + Negative Energy + Alert adventurers = Jumping at shadows. Especially after already fighting some of such creatures: Once you fight shadow creatures, every shadow is such a creature until proven otherwise. Same goes for Goldbugs.

[Scow2]

Still - given the prior circumstances, there's nothing wrong with having the GM spring a mundane illusion on you. And darkvision's meaningless, because it doesn't affect normal vision. You probably should have asked why you didn't see the monsters before the torchlight hit them (Unless the previous shadowbeasts were also invisbile to Darkvision).

[Waar]

It's irritating because it relies on ambiguous wording to deliberately mislead. (As soon as he said Shadow, he put monster tokens down, so it was clear that he intended us to believe that these were enemies) From an in-character perspective, the difference between an elemental being of darkness and a shadow should be very apparent; imagine mistaking an puddle for a hostile water elemental! The ruse relies on the player-character separation for the sole purpose of making the character look really stupid.

Imagine if you walked into an office with a table and a desk, so you put your coffee on the table, but then the DM laughed and declared that when he said table, he meant spreadsheet, and you've just poured coffee on your paperwork! Ha ha ha this joke is funny, see, because it makes your character look like an idiot and relies on your own inability as a player to distinguish between multiple meanings of a word, either of which would be completely appropriate in context.

This is not good, if (most) RPGs are to work properly you need to be able to trust the information you are given. It might be acceptable if the intention is to encurage or illustrate the fear or paranoia of the PCs, but should otherwise be avoided (seeing monsters in the shadows could be apropriate for sligtly insane PCs in say WoD or Dark heresy)



Furthermore, the decision that the stone tile should be targeted in the absence of a Shadow means that Dimensional Scramble was spontaneously houseruled to affect objects, not just creatures.

Had your character actually been convinced the shadow(on the floor) was an enemy, this could potentially have been an interesting result of your action My logic being that this was obviously a trap and as such the "mastermind" :smallwink: that came up with it would obviously have made that floor tile of organic/living material since this "genious" obviously knew you would cast that spell :smalltongue:, naturally this approach would require a much better prepared trap ingame (not just out of game :smallannoyed:) which could tip clever characters of :smallwink:


EDIT: I did ask, immediately after, "Did we just bomb our perception rolls?" and he responded with "No no, see, they appeared when you lit the torch!" and moved on with the game
This is bad :smallfrown:, you shouldn't lead PCs into a situtaion like this without either dice rolls or serious player buy in (such as: GM has idea for a prison break scenario, ask players, players agree, session starts with the players already captured) since otherwise it makes the PCs seem incompetent and takes away from player choice.
Not letting the PCs discover the GMs trap is also an easy trap to fall into for the GM :smalltongue: A similar incident (ambush, no significant chance to spot it for the PCs) has happened in one of my games as well, it was my fault to :smallredface:, the result where less than stellar :smallfrown:

[Friv]

The only problem I see with the 3rd situation was with his gloating about it. And having the Dimensional Scramble teleport the floor away instead of teleporting the 'hidden' zombie to the surface, mechanically the same thing.

Actually...

Teleporting the zombie would have resulted in a zombie that had been pulled away from the avenger; essentially, there would have been a monster where shadow_archmagi expected one to be, and a space where he wanted one to be. By teleporting the stone, however, the GM ensured that, by trying to free up a space for his comrade, the player actually moved a zombie into that space with his action, helping the enemy directly.


Although not supported in the main game, there's no rule saying that all illusions must be magical in nature - the design, ambient negative energy, and lighting of the room simply makes the natural shadows look like shadow-creatures. There's nothing wrong with cribbing the rules for magical illusions to adjudicate nonmagical ones as well (Or porting them forward from a previous edition if 4e doesn't handle them in a satisfactory manner). Yes, it's a maneuver to psyche the players out... but a perfectly legal one that makes an encounter more interesting than just "Zombies in a room".

Generally speaking, I am highly distrustful of GMs who use traps that have no possible ways to be avoided or mitigated save for blundering straight into them. I acknowledge that they can be useful, but it's a really dicey situation and nothing I've read here suggests that it's being used carefully.

(Incidentally, my gut reaction at this point is that the reason that Knowledge checks require standard actions is specifically to prevent the players from being able to learn useful things about their enemies in combat, thereby keeping all power in the GM's hands.)

[Joe the Rat]

(Incidentally, my gut reaction at this point is that the reason that Knowledge checks require standard actions is specifically to prevent the players from being able to learn useful things about their enemies in combat, thereby keeping all power in the GM's hands.)It's fitting. It sounds a bit like he's got a little bit of choo-choo going, alongside the me vs. players mindset.

The shadow trick was a pretty cool idea, but played poorly. He could at least have lied about making a secret perception check. The taunting was a putz move.

[Lord Torath]

Does he by any chance have a Manifesto?

The one I like (http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/index.htm) is by The Man in the Funny Hat.

This can help clear a lot of things up between the DM and the Players. I showed this to the DM of a new group I was joining before-hand, and I really think it helped. While he didn't sign it, it got the discussion started as to what we both expected from the game.

[1337 b4k4]

#1 - The game was using a battlemap, and the ordinary shadows were placed on the map as being Shadows, i.e. enemy tokens that could be targeted with attacks. They weren't, so their only purpose to be there was to trick players into wasting their attacks and charging into range of the real enemies, the zombies, so that the zombies could hit them first.
#2 - There was no roll allowed to recognize that a totally ordinary shadow on the wall was not, in fact, an autonomous undead entity, but a normal shadow that was being cast by an object. In addition, being in actual close combat with the shadows wasn't enough for the players to realize that they weren't fighting actual monsters, but their own shadows, and again no roll was allowed to recognize this fact.
#3 - When a player used an attack on one of these fake monsters, the GM ruled that he grabbed the floor by mistake, unearthing more monsters. Thus, the action, by succeeding, had a counter-productive effect that could not be avoided or guessed at. This action was followed by the GM informing the player that he had just stepped into his cunning trap.


#1: Of course real monster tokens were placed. How else when you're playing on a battle map would you play out such a scenario? If he didn't place tokens, just said "they're over here ish" the players would have immediately been suspicious. The players were supposed to think that they were seeing real monsters, the only way to handle that is to place real monsters until the illusion is discovered.

#2: No automatic roll was given, but unless the op left it out, no roll was requested either. As for the close combat argument, per the ops clarification further down, only the avenger moved to engage (and then changed targets) and then the op attacked and the illusion was broken.

#3: This is almost a legitimate complaint, except that recall that up until that moment, the players were operating under the assumption of multiethnic shadows. The purpose of the attack was to merely eliminate one shadow and instead removed all of them and replaced it with a zombie. The implication here is that everyone would have been just fine with the DM ambushing the party with a group of shadows backed up by zombies, but because the group of shadows was fake, suddenly this encounter was bad.




Clarifications: The avenger, after moving forward and triggering the zombies, decided to attack one of them instead, since he had superior anti-undead options.

I targeted one Shadow, after which all Shadow monster-tokens were removed, because it became clear at that point that they were not and had never been actual threats.

So as I thought, until you engaged the shadows, no player had attacked or was attacked by the shadow. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.



It's irritating because it relies on ambiguous wording to deliberately mislead. (As soon as he said Shadow, he put monster tokens down, so it was clear that he intended us to believe that these were enemies) From an in-character perspective, the difference between an elemental being of darkness and a shadow should be very apparent; imagine mistaking an puddle for a hostile water elemental! The ruse relies on the player-character separation for the sole purpose of making the character look really stupid.

See my comment above regarding the placing of tokens, and see the other posters comments regarding lighting and caves and previous shadow ambushes. It seems perfectly reasonable that you might have expected to find and be attacked by shadows, and clearly you did too because you didn't think anything of being ambushed by shadows in the cave.


This is not good, if (most) RPGs are to work properly you need to be able to trust the information you are given. It might be acceptable if the intention is to encurage or illustrate the fear or paranoia of the PCs, but should otherwise be avoided (seeing monsters in the shadows could be apropriate for sligtly insane PCs in say WoD or Dark heresy)

...
This is bad :smallfrown:, you shouldn't lead PCs into a situtaion like this without either dice rolls or serious player buy in (such as: GM has idea for a prison break scenario, ask players, players agree, session starts with the players already captured) since otherwise it makes the PCs seem incompetent and takes away from player choice.


No you really don't. You simply have to trust that the DM is going to be fair. But there is no reason at all why the DM has to be (or even should be) 100% truthful with the players. They simply can't be arbitrary. The fact is, the DM played a good trick on the players.

As for player choice, nothing in the scenario took away from player choice. Surprises and twists and turns are not taking away from player choice and honestly nothing about the way the scenario was described jumps out at me as capricious. Even the "gloating" is all about tone, since it sounds exactly like something I would say to one of m players (or they would say to me in the same scenario). Sometimes it's fun to put a trick in front of a player's (or in some cases a DMs) signature move.

Ultimately what this boils down to for me is everyone seems like they would be fine if the ambush had been 5 shadows and 5 zombies. They would have been equally fine if it was 8 zombies alone. But simply because it was a trick and the trick used a (renewable) player resource, the 5 zombies + 1 was a bad encounter. Don't get me wrong, I get the frustration that's felt when you fall for a trick, but tricks and traps are part of exploring and being an adventurer.

[TuggyNE]

#1: Of course real monster tokens were placed. How else when you're playing on a battle map would you play out such a scenario? If he didn't place tokens, just said "they're over here ish" the players would have immediately been suspicious. The players were supposed to think that they were seeing real monsters, the only way to handle that is to place real monsters until the illusion is discovered.

That's partly reasonable, but only if there's either deliberate and highly specific planning on the part of whatever arranged this encounter, or a ridiculously unlikely circumstance. Without knowing more, it's hard to say whether the sophistication of this trap is actually reasonable, but "mundane illusion triggered by torchlight that looks a whole lot more threatening than the rest of the area" is non-trivial to set up.


#2: No automatic roll was given, but unless the op left it out, no roll was requested either. As for the close combat argument, per the ops clarification further down, only the avenger moved to engage (and then changed targets) and then the op attacked and the illusion was broken.

Not sure what you're saying here. That players need to disbelieve everything they see, or else they're likely to be mundane illusions only revealed by interaction? That getting within a few feet of a perfectly ordinary shadow doesn't let you notice there's something strangely unmenacing about it?


#3: This is almost a legitimate complaint, except that recall that up until that moment, the players were operating under the assumption of multiethnic shadows. The purpose of the attack was to merely eliminate one shadow and instead removed all of them and replaced it with a zombie. The implication here is that everyone would have been just fine with the DM ambushing the party with a group of shadows backed up by zombies, but because the group of shadows was fake, suddenly this encounter was bad.

I have no idea how Dimensional Scramble works, but the sound of the augmentation makes it seem as though it was intended to be multi-target.


See my comment above regarding the placing of tokens, and see the other posters comments regarding lighting and caves and previous shadow ambushes. It seems perfectly reasonable that you might have expected to find and be attacked by shadows, and clearly you did too because you didn't think anything of being ambushed by shadows in the cave.

There's a metagame conceit here; normally, DMs do not bother mentioning "oh, that crack on the wall looks like a squirrel's tail, and the way the torchlight wavers on the wall reminds you of oak branches in the wind" unless that's significant in some way. Usually, the significance comes from either wishing to provide colorful descriptions to immerse you in the scene, or plot-/encounter-important details. Obviously, "a bunch of monsters pop out" is encounter-specific, whereas shadows cast by torchlight, even potentially ominous shadows, are ordinarily either unstated, or mentioned for minor fluff reasons. In this case, they should have been either unstated, or minor fluff, since they were not in fact relevant to the encounter or the plot or anything; they were just a way of abusing out-of-game signals. (Generally, it's best to mix minor fluff and plot-significant details in such a way that it's difficult to tell them apart, to minimize metagaming; however, signaling with explicit battle markers forces the metagame consideration of actually, y'know, fighting.)

Not sure if I'm explaining that super-well, but hopefully some of it is coming through.


Ultimately what this boils down to for me is everyone seems like they would be fine if the ambush had been 5 shadows and 5 zombies. They would have been equally fine if it was 8 zombies alone. But simply because it was a trick and the trick used a (renewable) player resource, the 5 zombies + 1 was a bad encounter. Don't get me wrong, I get the frustration that's felt when you fall for a trick, but tricks and traps are part of exploring and being an adventurer.

The problem, as I see it, is that the trickery was purely metagame; there was no in-character mechanic to avoid it, and in fact (seemingly) actual in-character choices were twisted, failed-wish style, to achieve the DM's desired scenario, despite the impossibility of that happening in the stated way.

This actually reminds me a lot of a thread a while ago about a DM who made a very successful Str check trigger a ghoul, when a less successful check would not have. Here, the use of a power to help out an ally was transformed, through OOC trickery and DM fudging, into putting the ally into more danger.

Not everyone likes heavy-handed enforced method acting. :smallannoyed:

[Friv]

#1: Of course real monster tokens were placed. How else when you're playing on a battle map would you play out such a scenario? If he didn't place tokens, just said "they're over here ish" the players would have immediately been suspicious. The players were supposed to think that they were seeing real monsters, the only way to handle that is to place real monsters until the illusion is discovered.

How would I, personally, play out such a scenario in 4e, assuming a low-level party?

Shadow Trap - The interior room is bathed in shadows. If torches are lit near the entrance, the reflections of the zombies hidden in the shadows appear to be actual shadow-monsters present and flickering across the wall.

Have each player make a Perception check. Any player who passes DC 15 is capable of noticing the zombies, but not of connecting them to the shadows. A player who reaches a DC of 20 will notice upon approaching within two squares of any shadow that it is not, in fact, a monster. A player who achieves a DC of 25 will immediately recognize the trap for what it is.


#2: No automatic roll was given, but unless the op left it out, no roll was requested either.

That way lies madness. (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=54)


#3: This is almost a legitimate complaint, except that recall that up until that moment, the players were operating under the assumption of multiethnic shadows. The purpose of the attack was to merely eliminate one shadow and instead removed all of them and replaced it with a zombie. The implication here is that everyone would have been just fine with the DM ambushing the party with a group of shadows backed up by zombies, but because the group of shadows was fake, suddenly this encounter was bad.

tuggyne pretty much covered my points here. The core of it is, when a DM engages in OOC trickery to mess with his players, and doesn't give them any way IC of realizing what's going on, what you have isn't a challenge anymore, it's a DM trying to make his players look stupid and catch them out.

[Scow2]

That's partly reasonable, but only if there's either deliberate and highly specific planning on the part of whatever arranged this encounter, or a ridiculously unlikely circumstance. Without knowing more, it's hard to say whether the sophistication of this trap is actually reasonable, but "mundane illusion triggered by torchlight that looks a whole lot more threatening than the rest of the area" is non-trivial to set up.

Not ridiculously unlikely. In fact, the odd behaviors of some natural shadows in unusual-but-not-extreme circumstances are the reason we even have Shadows as a monster. The shadows cast by the room and zombies were illusions. The characters had no way to determine they weren't what they seemed to be without interacting with them - as soon as the party interacted with the shadows, the non-magical nature of the illusion made the disbelief an auto-pass.

A lot of DMs, especially veterans of the pre-"Player Entitlement" edition of D&D (Also known as 3.5) don't enjoy having their uniquely-designed encounters meant to challenge the party in non-numerical ways be completely trivialized and reduced to "I switch to [optimum tactic] and hit it with my stick" by a single die roll (Or: "Logic puzzle-based trap? *Yawn*I roll Disable Device to disarm the trap"). And no, not having an "Auto-win" die roll against the encounter doesn't make players or their characters look stupid or incompetent. If anything, it improves player agency, by allowing them to experiment and experience the world instead of just knowing what to do automatically all the time.

The more I think of it, the more I actually like the idea of the Knowledge checks being a standard action (Though probably prefer a different type of non-instant system), as long as you don't think of it as "I have the monster manual memorized", and instead "I am knowledgable of the fundamentals of magic and monsters. By taking a moment to study this creature, I can map its appearance, behavior, and any noticed abilities to my vast knowledge and make accurate guesses about its powers and weaknesses."

[Salbazier]

A lot of DMs, especially veterans of the pre-"Player Entitlement" edition of D&D (Also known as 3.5)

Veteran of 'DM Entitlement" era, you mean.


don't enjoy having their uniquely-designed encounters meant to challenge the party in non-numerical ways be completely trivialized and reduced to "I switch to [optimum tactic] and hit it with my stick" by a single die roll (Or: "Logic puzzle-based trap? *Yawn*I roll Disable Device to disarm the trap"). And no, not having an "Auto-win" die roll against the encounter doesn't make players or their characters look stupid or incompetent. If anything, it improves player agency, by allowing them to experiment and experience the world instead of just knowing what to do automatically all the time.


If players is presented with something like a Logic puzzle they can't roll to solve, that's still allright [ignoring the usual issue of forcing player to posses IC skill] because, at least players have the chance to solve the challenge using their own wit. In OP case, did the DM give players any chance to find out if the shadows are real? No, he just said they see monsters.

Its not removing 'auto-win' from players(and since when dice roll become auto-win?), its forcing an 'auto-lose' on the players.

[Scow2]

Veteran of 'DM Entitlement" era, you mean.I've seen it argued that 3rd edition encouraged the DM to say "Yes" to empower players. In practice, what I've seen is DMs that say "No" because their are so many specific rules for adjudicating actions that they are seen as laws instead of Guidelines, players using the rulebooks to tell the GM "No, the rules don't work that way, so my character CAN do X", ignoring one of the fundamental rules of the game because it's not core: "The DM is the final arbiter of the rules, and is free to change them as he sees fit." (Though it does encourage being cautious and circumspect about rules changes)

D&D 3.0 had a lot of emphasis on encouraging the DM to adjudicate and permit actions not covered by the rules that are completely lacking in the revised edition.


If players is presented with something like a Logic puzzle they can't roll to solve, that's still allright [ignoring the usual issue of forcing player to posses IC skill] because, at least players have the chance to solve the challenge using their own wit. In OP case, did the DM give players any chance to find out if the shadows are real? No, he just said they see monsters. Actually, he did give them a chance to find out the shadows weren't real - Namely, by letting the illusion break as soon as the party interacted with them. And from his "gloating", it implies that the GM was aware of and balanced the encounter around the fact that the players would spend at least one standard action figuring out the shadows weren't real.

Now - if the GM had balanced the encounter so that the players faced certian failure against the zombies if they accidentally wasted a daily/encounter power or standard action on the fake shadows, or if the spell didn't reveal the shadows were natural, not monsters (And just having the DM no-sell the attacks without giving them a clue or allowing them to make any sort of method to determine why they weren't effective), THEN there would have been a problem.

[Jbr208]

I've found myself going back and forth on this particular thread, somewhat a rare experience for me. In general, I offer players an opportunity to either logic out mundane traps and puzzles, or I'll have a roll of some sort depending on the nature of the characters (character has some ranks in architecture/engineering? Could probably notice the shadows aren't creatures but is rather a trick of the light).

While I personally wouldn't have handled the situations as described, I think the larger concern is that there wasn't understanding of the fact that these tactics would be used ahead of time. As a DM recruiting players, there is an obligation to fill them in on what to expect to some extent, I would include in that area the need to explain that something's will function differently (I'll bring you issue #2 with the readied action nonsense) and other aspects will actually exist (mundane illusions and related trickery, which are mostly foregone in favor of magic in my experience as a player and DM).

The problem, as I see it, shouldn't be with the conduct but with the context within which it occurred. The reason for that being that expectations appear to have been poorly communicated and the DM appears to have been taking advantage of both the lack of communication and the existence of "normal" RPG conceits (i.e. shadows are only mentioned for significance or in passing as part of fluff) to trick the players into acting in ways they might not had the expectations been properly laid out.

[1337 b4k4]

That's partly reasonable, but only if there's either deliberate and highly specific planning on the part of whatever arranged this encounter, or a ridiculously unlikely circumstance. Without knowing more, it's hard to say whether the sophistication of this trap is actually reasonable, but "mundane illusion triggered by torchlight that looks a whole lot more threatening than the rest of the area" is non-trivial to set up.

Tricks of light are common illusions, all the more so when you're scared and in the dark. Want to know how people could think ghosts and wisps are real, take a ride down a dark wooded road one day after a lot of rain and notice how the light reflects off the puddles and onto the trees. We have the idiom "jumping at shadows" for a reason, certainly in a world where shadows really can kill you, I would imagine more people would jump at them.


Not sure what you're saying here. That players need to disbelieve everything they see, or else they're likely to be mundane illusions only revealed by interaction? That getting within a few feet of a perfectly ordinary shadow doesn't let you notice there's something strangely unmenacing about it?

The avenger didn't get within a few feet and study the shadow. He got within and few feet and then had his attention turned to the zombies that appeared. Absolutely in the heat of battle I can see a character not noticing the enemy they were just chasing after before they turned away wasn't real. The next person however did interact with the shadow, and when they did, the illusion was broken. Players don't need to disbelieve everything they see, they just need to be aware that not everything is always as it seems. This is adventuring 101.


there was no in-character mechanic to avoid it

Other than you know, actually interacting with the illusion. Which then immediately broke the illusion.


How would I, personally, play out such a scenario in 4e, assuming a low-level party?

So like I said, you would tip your hand. Unless you start every battle by having your players roll perception checks, they would become immediately suspicious of why this battle is different. As for the DC checks, so if no one made the DC 25 check, would you or would you not place monster tokens for the shadows? If not, how would you justify telling the players they see monsters without placing monster tokens?

My point here is that we use the battle map and monster tokens to help visualize what the characters see. By definition that means if the characters see monsters (regardless of whether they're real or not) you have to place monster tokens until the illusion is discovered.


That way lies madness.

Cute, but a player that behaves like that is as immature as a DM who would make everything an illusion. We're not talking every time the players got into a battle the monsters were illusionary. It was one battle, in one room in one set of circumstances. Yes, that means it might happen again, but that's just part of adventuring. Not everything you're presented as a player is truth, and the truth of the monsters in front of you should be no more assured than the truth of the wall at the end of the corridor is.


The core of it is, when a DM engages in OOC trickery to mess with his players, and doesn't give them any way IC of realizing what's going on, what you have isn't a challenge anymore, it's a DM trying to make his players look stupid and catch them out.

He gave them an IC way of realizing what was going on. The moment a player actually interacted with a shadow, the illusion was broken.


Its not removing 'auto-win' from players(and since when dice roll become auto-win?), its forcing an 'auto-lose' on the players.

So what did the players lose? Did the shadows attack the players and remove HP or healing surges despite being unreal? Were the players TPKed by enemies they couldn't hit? What "auto-lose" happened here, bearing in mind that being tricked does not count as "auto-lose"?


Now - if the GM had balanced the encounter so that the players faced certian failure against the zombies if they accidentally wasted a daily/encounter power or standard action on the fake shadows, or if the spell didn't reveal the shadows were natural, not monsters (And just having the DM no-sell the attacks without giving them a clue or allowing them to make any sort of method to determine why they weren't effective), THEN there would have been a problem.

This +1000


The reason for that being that expectations appear to have been poorly communicated and the DM appears to have been taking advantage of both the lack of communication and the existence of "normal" RPG conceits (i.e. shadows are only mentioned for significance or in passing as part of fluff) to trick the players into acting in ways they might not had the expectations been properly laid out.

I would argue that the "normal conceit" that everything the DM tells the players about what their characters see is the gospel truth of reality is a relatively recent phenomena, not as regular as you might think, and detrimental to the game experience. That things aren't always what they seem is rule one of almost any adventure and certainly any fantasy.

That said, there does appear to be a failure of communication here, both from the DM to convey the game being played and any modified rules AND from the player for failing to convey to the DM their assumptions.

On the third hand, I think assuming bad intent from your DM simply because in the first game you played there was miscommunication and the DM didn't meet you assumptions is poor form. Then again, I tend to be largely trusting of my DMs, trusting that like the rest of us, they're there to have fun, play an interesting game and have a good time.

[Barsoom]

I'll have a roll of some sort depending on the nature of the characters (character has some ranks in architecture/engineering? Could probably notice the shadows aren't creatures but is rather a trick of the light).
This just begs to be made into a demotivation poster. Something like:


Knowledge: architecture/engineering. Differentiating monstrous Shadows from mundane shadows since 2013.
Or maybe:


Knowledge: architecture/engineering. Not as useless as you think.

Or:

Ace architecture class. Win encounter.

[Salbazier]

I've seen it argued that 3rd edition encouraged the DM to say "Yes" to empower players. In practice, what I've seen is DMs that say "No" because their are so many specific rules for adjudicating actions that they are seen as laws instead of Guidelines, players using the rulebooks to tell the GM "No, the rules don't work that way, so my character CAN do X", ignoring one of the fundamental rules of the game because it's not core: "The DM is the final arbiter of the rules, and is free to change them as he sees fit." (Though it does encourage being cautious and circumspect about rules changes)

D&D 3.0 had a lot of emphasis on encouraging the DM to adjudicate and permit actions not covered by the rules that are completely lacking in the revised edition.

Admittedly, I never play before 3.5. I just feel calling 3.5 'player entitlement era' is demeaning, and if its fair then calling the previous era is as 'DM entitlement era' is just as fair.

Obviously, players rules-lawyering is not a good thing. But, DM being antagonistic or making rules without care to the players want is not a good thing or rejecting players out of hand is not a good thing either. I have heard how in the past editions 'autocratic DM' and 'DM versus players' mentality is more prevalent in the past. Chance what was seen as 'player empowerment' rise as a reaction to counter those mentality.



Actually, he did give them a chance to find out the shadows weren't real - Namely, by letting the illusion break as soon as the party interacted with them. And from his "gloating", it implies that the GM was aware of and balanced the encounter around the fact that the players would spend at least one standard action figuring out the shadows weren't real.

Now - if the GM had balanced the encounter so that the players faced certian failure against the zombies if they accidentally wasted a daily/encounter power or standard action on the fake shadows, or if the spell didn't reveal the shadows were natural, not monsters (And just having the DM no-sell the attacks without giving them a clue or allowing them to make any sort of method to determine why they weren't effective), THEN there would have been a problem.

Fair enough. Conceded with minor reservation: auto-failing perception check/making the illusion automatically believed come close to 'dictating what the characters think' and that may be part of what causing the resentment. Plus, the gloating.

@1337 b4k4
The 'auto-lose' I mean is 'automatically fail at not being tricked'

I agree though, that calling the DM as bad here is too early. Maybe that was paranoia born of to much hearing bad DM stories that started from event like this. OP, I understand it can be difficult (I would hesitate myself) but I suggest you talk it out with the DM or at least with you fellow players first. Maybe he is actually a good DM with minor flaws/mistakes/difference in view with you (and some of us in this board). That's not perfect, but may be workable.

[shadow_archmagi]

Scow2, you've made some good points, and I think that under other circumstances, I might've been okay with the sequence of events.

If, say, the overall atmosphere of the campaign had built up to this sort of thing (IE: If we were playing Call of Cthulhu, where paranoia and the paranormal are rampant, then I wouldn't complain at all about negative energy making mundane shadows look like genuine threats.) that would've mitigated the sting a bit. And while it's true that we've been fighting Shadows in Shadowtown, so a shadow-based trick would totally make sense, narratively there'd been no buildup. We'd been fighting Shadows and Shadow-Spiders in exactly the same way we'd normally fight Goblins and Goblin-spiders. If the GM had taken time to say stuff like "The walls creak eerily, and sometimes you hear footsteps that come closer and closer but have no apparent source, and although it was a full moon last night when you enter the town it is pitch-black...." then sure. But he didn't: the reality is that the GM's music track was playing things like Don't Stop Me Now. There was no pretense of horror besides the names of our enemies.

Furthermore, mistaking shadows for Shadows was only part of it. There's also the fact that I didn't just waste a turn dealing with the confusion, the GM also had to decide that Dimensional Scramble didn't work the way it normally did so that he could say that my action specifically helped the enemy (and it did cause problems, because the extra zombie meant the Avenger was flanked).

It's the four hit combination of "You wasted a turn because I gave you bad information, I decided that your spell should act differently this time, which means you hindered your teammate instead of helping, and because everything you had no power over went according to plan, I am laughing at my own joke" that makes this egregious to me.

[Exediron]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the DM is 'crummy', but I do think he made an unfair call here:

(Just for background, I did play before the so-called 'Player Entitlement' era)


We have the idiom "jumping at shadows" for a reason, certainly in a world where shadows really can kill you, I would imagine more people would jump at them.

I accept that completely. And if the character fails a check to notice something off about the shadow, they might very well react that way. The problem is that simply declaring 'these are shadows' and not offering any sort of (even hidden) check makes the character automatically jump at shadows. And I will never support the DM telling a player how their character reacts.

At the least the DM should have said something such as 'as soon as the torch is lit shadows spring from the walls, looming menacingly but not actually moving' or something that gives a clue. Without that it's just an unfair DM trick. There's nothing clever about restricting information so as to result in failure and then congratulating yourself when failure occurs.


He gave them an IC way of realizing what was going on. The moment a player actually interacted with a shadow, the illusion was broken.

That's not reasonable. If the only way to defeat the trick is by wasting your round, that gives the side playing the trick an enormous advantage. It is, in essence, an attack that cannot be countered without wasting a round - you can't just ignore it, because in this scenario there is literally nothing to suggest that the shadow were not real. Just ignoring them and hoping the DM was playing with words would be tactically unsound to the extreme.

The bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that with no way for the characters to have figured out that the shadows were not threats (and I see no evidence of such a way being provided) it's just a dirty trick and nothing more. A clue, a roll, anything of that sort would have made it into an interesting encounter.

You can justify after the fact that it might have been reasonable for the characters to mistake mundane shadows for animated shadows, but that doesn't justify saying that the characters must have made that mistake. For there to be no chance of the characters not mistaking the shadows for monsters they would have to act and look like the real thing in every possible way - and shadows cast by a torch just don't do that! The first time a character moved they should have gotten a check to notice that one of the shadows moved at exactly the same time in the same direction, if nothing else.

----

On the subject of the other two original points: I agree that knowledge checks should not be standard actions, or perhaps that the action type of the check should depend on the DC or something to that effect. Just recognizing a monster takes no time at all; you do or you don't.

For the spider I assume he just said readied action when he meant surprise round; it probably would have gotten a legitimate surprise round (it surprised you, after all) and everything was legal for a surprise round. Aside from the DM using the wrong term there I don't see anything wrong. Ambushes are legitimate, if you failed a perception check - if one wasn't rolled then it wasn't, much like the shadows.

[Barsoom]

There's nothing clever about restricting information so as to result in failure and then congratulating yourself when failure occurs.

XKCD agrees. Communicating badly and acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. (http://xkcd.com/169/)

[1337 b4k4]

you can't just ignore it, because in this scenario there is literally nothing to suggest that the shadow were not real. Just ignoring them and hoping the DM was playing with words would be tactically unsound to the extreme.

Of course there was nothing immediate to suggest the threat wasn't real. That was the whole point. It's like this, say the players are walking down the road when suddenly a robed man steps forward, surrounded by goblins and says "give me all your money". Should the players automatically get a free, unasked for perception check because the robed man is an illusionist and the goblins are his illusions, or should the deception be discovered when the players attack. Do I really need to role fake perception checks at the beginning of every encounter just so that I don't telegraph illusions? Do I need to fill every description with pages of useless fluff so that when I do mention menacing shadows, the players don't get suspicious? Why isn't it simply easier to accept that from time to time,not everything will be as it seems,and that might mean that one player spends one round accidentally breaking an illusion rather than simply attacking one monster?

[Barsoom]

Of course there was nothing immediate to suggest the threat wasn't real. That was the whole point. It's like this, say the players are walking down the road when suddenly a robed man steps forward, surrounded by goblins and says "give me all your money". Should the players automatically get a free, unasked for perception check because the robed man is an illusionist and the goblins are his illusions, or should the deception be discovered when the players attack. Do I really need to role fake perception checks at the beginning of every encounter just so that I don't telegraph illusions? Do I need to fill every description with pages of useless fluff so that when I do mention menacing shadows, the players don't get suspicious? Why isn't it simply easier to accept that from time to time,not everything will be as it seems,and that might mean that one player spends one round accidentally breaking an illusion rather than simply attacking one monster?No, it's not like this. In case of "you see a robed man surrounded by goblins" the communication is clear and unequivocal. This clearly describes to the players what their characters see (and the fact that what their characters see is not the reality is not of importance here).

In case of "as you light a torch, you see.... Shadows!" the DM deliberately creates a misunderstanding by communicating badly, and is then smug about it.

[TuggyNE]

Of course there was nothing immediate to suggest the threat wasn't real. That was the whole point. It's like this, say the players are walking down the road when suddenly a robed man steps forward, surrounded by goblins and says "give me all your money". Should the players automatically get a free, unasked for perception check because the robed man is an illusionist and the goblins are his illusions, or should the deception be discovered when the players attack. Do I really need to role fake perception checks at the beginning of every encounter just so that I don't telegraph illusions? Do I need to fill every description with pages of useless fluff so that when I do mention menacing shadows, the players don't get suspicious? Why isn't it simply easier to accept that from time to time,not everything will be as it seems,and that might mean that one player spends one round accidentally breaking an illusion rather than simply attacking one monster?

Besides what Barsoom said, there's the fact that perfectly ordinary, unintentional "illusions" should not be especially difficult to see through, since even ordinary people (i.e., us) can often do so without much effort or difficulty; therefore, to classify them as just as hard to deal with as magically-imbued and deliberate illusions is simply wrong. Never mind the point that even a deliberate illusion would not be able to accomplish what the torchlit shadows did in the story!

So to sum up: the shadows should not have been labeled monsters to begin with, but if they were it should have been possible to discern this from a modest distance/as the light source moved/whatever; if the characters were all fooled by a trick of the light, the power used should not have been able to target anything valid; even if it could have targeted something it should not have hit an object, especially not a specific object that just so happened to release another enemy. The shadows were so labeled, the characters had no chance (verified OOC) to discern this, and the power not only targeted an object by fiat, it targeted a specific one chosen by the DM to maximize bad results.

[Fallbot]

Of course there was nothing immediate to suggest the threat wasn't real. That was the whole point. It's like this, say the players are walking down the road when suddenly a robed man steps forward, surrounded by goblins and says "give me all your money". Should the players automatically get a free, unasked for perception check because the robed man is an illusionist and the goblins are his illusions, or should the deception be discovered when the players attack. Do I really need to role fake perception checks at the beginning of every encounter just so that I don't telegraph illusions? Do I need to fill every description with pages of useless fluff so that when I do mention menacing shadows, the players don't get suspicious? Why isn't it simply easier to accept that from time to time,not everything will be as it seems,and that might mean that one player spends one round accidentally breaking an illusion rather than simply attacking one monster?

Besides what Barsoom and tuggyne said, 4E gives each character a Passive Perception check to deal with this very issue, so there's no need to roll anything.

[Waar]

No you really don't. You simply have to trust that the DM is going to be fair. But there is no reason at all why the DM has to be (or even should be) 100% truthful with the players. They simply can't be arbitrary. The fact is, the DM played a good trick on the players.

As for player choice, nothing in the scenario took away from player choice. Surprises and twists and turns are not taking away from player choice and honestly nothing about the way the scenario was described jumps out at me as capricious. Even the "gloating" is all about tone, since it sounds exactly like something I would say to one of m players (or they would say to me in the same scenario). Sometimes it's fun to put a trick in front of a player's (or in some cases a DMs) signature move.

There is a skill and a defence score/save against this kind of stuff for a reason you know :smalltongue:, the problem is that the trick is against the Players not the Characters (there is a difference between characters not havin correct information and giving incorrect information to the players that no PC would fall for, see the windy canyon http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0837.html)



Ultimately what this boils down to for me is everyone seems like they would be fine if the ambush had been 5 shadows and 5 zombies. They would have been equally fine if it was 8 zombies alone. But simply because it was a trick and the trick used a (renewable) player resource, the 5 zombies + 1 was a bad encounter. Don't get me wrong, I get the frustration that's felt when you fall for a trick, but tricks and traps are part of exploring and being an adventurer.

Having never encountered these "Shadow monsters" myself how am i going to confuse a ordinary shadow on the ground for a 3d monster :smallconfused: (having a "Shadow" disguise itself as a shadow on the other hand :smallwink:), and from information i got from the OP on the mater is doesn't seem as if they were that similar (and even if they were I'd still expect a chance for the PCs to notice the difference). the lack of experience with these "Shadows" is also the reason for the lack complaints regarding "Shadow" zombie cooperation (for all i know the shadows could have the ability to posses corpses, and if this is part of the "Shadow" reproduction cycle cooperation would be logical.) what do you mean the logic isn't your point :smalltongue:

[the OOD]

I dislike the whole "so smart he is a prophet" based traps, if you want to show that a trap is brilliant, employ it brilliantly. retconing a pit trap wherever the paladin walks is heavyhanded and lame, whereas the BBEG giving the kobold leader "protective potions"(actually oil/pitch) to coat the walls and floor of their main tunnel with is much more memorable for the fireball-happy mage:smallbiggrin:.

just make sure that the leader can be found in the last room babbling about how "the potions didn't work and the blue-skinned man lied to me" so they know that the "blue skinned man" is: a.crafty, b.wants them dead and c.is commanding the kobold tribe.

bit off topic, sorry but i felt it needed to be said.

[Scow2]

Besides what Barsoom said, there's the fact that perfectly ordinary, unintentional "illusions" should not be especially difficult to see through, since even ordinary people (i.e., us) can often do so without much effort or difficulty; therefore, to classify them as just as hard to deal with as magically-imbued and deliberate illusions is simply wrong. Never mind the point that even a deliberate illusion would not be able to accomplish what the torchlit shadows did in the story!

So to sum up: the shadows should not have been labeled monsters to begin with, but if they were it should have been possible to discern this from a modest distance/as the light source moved/whatever; if the characters were all fooled by a trick of the light, the power used should not have been able to target anything valid; even if it could have targeted something it should not have hit an object, especially not a specific object that just so happened to release another enemy. The shadows were so labeled, the characters had no chance (verified OOC) to discern this, and the power not only targeted an object by fiat, it targeted a specific one chosen by the DM to maximize bad results.The only thing right about this post is that the spell shouldn't have affected the object. You are dead wrong about 'unintentional illusions' such as the menacing shadows cast in an area of high ambient negative energy (Due to Zombies) against people who have previously fought beasts made of shadow should be easy to see through. No, no they shouldn't. If people didn't fall for mundane illusions all the time, our world's history and mythology would be a lot more boring.

And deliberate illusions are more than capable of making fully-functional, illusory monsters that can't be beaten with a mere perception check.

In order to avoid metagaming or breaking immersion in tabletop games, fooling the characters also requires fooling the players. Otherwise, the players become suddenly aware of the cognitive disconnect between them and their characters, and it affects their action (Even/especially when they try to avoid doing so.)

The DM placing the tokens when saying "You see shadows" sends a clear, shorthand message that the shadows are, as far as the characters can tell, of the hostile and menacing type (Even though they proved not to be). The only kind of person absolutely incapable of 'seeing through' that sort of deceptive lighting are the blind, because they can't see anything. In the right place, even mere shadows can be terrifying things.



There is a skill and a defence score/save against this kind of stuff for a reason you know :smalltongue:, the problem is that the trick is against the Players not the Characters (there is a difference between characters not havin correct information and giving incorrect information to the players that no PC would fall for, see the windy canyon http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0837.html)Except, by placing the tokens on the map and saying that the party sees shadows, the DM's making it clear that the characters see the shadows as shadow-monsters instead of just mundane shadows cast by light. And the windy/windy canyon information thing isn't player vs. character information. It's Text vs. Pronunciation (Windy is pronounced differently from Windy, but they're spelled the same - yet the characters were confused because they spoke to each other with Speech Balloons).


Having never encountered these "Shadow monsters" myself how am i going to confuse a ordinary shadow on the ground for a 3d monster :smallconfused: (having a "Shadow" disguise itself as a shadow on the other hand :smallwink:), and from information i got from the OP on the mater is doesn't seem as if they were that similar (and even if they were I'd still expect a chance for the PCs to notice the difference). the lack of experience with these "Shadows" is also the reason for the lack complaints regarding "Shadow" zombie cooperation (for all i know the shadows could have the ability to posses corpses, and if this is part of the "Shadow" reproduction cycle cooperation would be logical.) what do you mean the logic isn't your point :smalltongue:The shadows, while mundane, aren't 'ordinary' due to the circumstances of the lighting. They are distorted. And this is a world where unnatural shadows are actually a thing.

[TuggyNE]

The only thing right about this post is that the spell shouldn't have affected the object. You are dead wrong about 'unintentional illusions' such as the menacing shadows cast in an area of high ambient negative energy (Due to Zombies) against people who have previously fought beasts made of shadow should be easy to see through. No, no they shouldn't. If people didn't fall for mundane illusions all the time, our world's history and mythology would be a lot more boring.

So, every time someone (in our world or theirs) sees a perfectly ordinary shadow, they immediately and in all cases ever assume it's a Shadow, a vampire, or whatever else? No matter what, there is no possibility of realizing "oh yeah, that's just a regular shadow"?

No, I'm sorry, that's wrong. I never said it should be trivial to see through, merely that it should be (at least in theory) possible; even ambient negative energy (whatever that is*, and for whatever reason; zombies aren't so absurdly "radioactive" as you seem to think) should not make it impossible to discern the difference with deliberate direction. However, the DM gave no Perception check, passive or otherwise; it was simply fiated as "lol you think those are monsters". This is not plausible in character; moderately experienced adventurers, especially those who have fought genuine monsters of the type they assumed these to be, should be more capable of discerning small details, not less, and should certainly not be completely incapable of telling the difference.

The reason the DM did this, apparently, was to ensure that the players were fooled and made to work against themselves, regardless of whether it made any sense or fit the rules. That's not cool. It's not even justifiable; the DM made a mistake.


Except, by placing the tokens on the map and saying that the party sees shadows, the DM's making it clear that the characters see the shadows as shadow-monsters instead of just mundane shadows cast by light.

So he was. However, he was, in effect, very nearly lying about that, because the characters would not necessarily have seen them that way! The DM had a specific idea in mind for how the players had to react and see things, and to ensure that things turned out that way he hijacked their characters' perceptions (and Perceptions) in a way that didn't make sense in-world.

*I'm actually not aware of any specific rules or fluff justification for either a) zombies giving off large amounts of negative energy or b) elevated levels of negative energy causing specific and (comparatively) detailed semi-mundane illusions. Illusions aren't even the same sort of magical energy! Of course, who knows, maybe 4e introduced something along those lines. Enlighten me.

[Scow2]

So, every time someone (in our world or theirs) sees a perfectly ordinary shadow, they immediately and in all cases ever assume it's a Shadow, a vampire, or whatever else? No matter what, there is no possibility of realizing "oh yeah, that's just a regular shadow"?

No, I'm sorry, that's wrong. I never said it should be trivial to see through, merely that it should be (at least in theory) possible; even ambient negative energy (whatever that is*, and for whatever reason; zombies aren't so absurdly "radioactive" as you seem to think) should not make it impossible to discern the difference with deliberate direction. However, the DM gave no Perception check, passive or otherwise; it was simply fiated as "lol you think those are monsters". This is not plausible in character; moderately experienced adventurers, especially those who have fought genuine monsters of the type they assumed these to be, should be more capable of discerning small details, not less, and should certainly not be completely incapable of telling the difference.

The reason the DM did this, apparently, was to ensure that the players were fooled and made to work against themselves, regardless of whether it made any sense or fit the rules. That's not cool. It's not even justifiable; the DM made a mistake.People know what normal shadows look like, so they're not scared of them. But what they saw didn't look like normal shadows (Even though they actually were). And those that have faced shadow monsters before are more aware, not less, of the existence and possibility that shadows can be insideous and malevolent entities in their own right. And, given the DM's stance on knowledge checks (Which implies a respect for the passage of time more than a respect for the action economy), he probably considers that being able to ID a questionable shadow as mundane or hostile isn't possible in the initiative-rolling split second as soon as the torch is lit and 'reveals' them.


So he was. However, he was, in effect, very nearly lying about that, because the characters would not necessarily have seen them that way! The DM had a specific idea in mind for how the players had to react and see things, and to ensure that things turned out that way he hijacked their characters' perceptions (and Perceptions) in a way that didn't make sense in-world.

*I'm actually not aware of any specific rules or fluff justification for either a) zombies giving off large amounts of negative energy or b) elevated levels of negative energy causing specific and (comparatively) detailed semi-mundane illusions. Illusions aren't even the same sort of magical energy! Of course, who knows, maybe 4e introduced something along those lines. Enlighten me.The DM adjudicates and creates the rules of the world and the setting. He ruled that the shadows cast by the torchlight appeared to be of the monstrous variety, until interacting with them. And, there are optional rules introduced in 3e that can be 'ported forward' explaining, entirely from a fluff perspective, how the presence of evil and negative energy can warp someone's perceptions (Such as the quintessential 'off' and creepy feeling of Haunted Houses)

[TuggyNE]

People know what normal shadows look like, so they're not scared of them.

Except, according to you, when they don't, and create legends about them.


But what they saw didn't look like normal shadows (Even though they actually were). And those that have faced shadow monsters before are more aware, not less, of the existence and possibility that shadows can be insideous and malevolent entities in their own right. And, given the DM's stance on knowledge checks (Which implies a respect for the passage of time more than a respect for the action economy), he probably considers that being able to ID a questionable shadow as mundane or hostile isn't possible in the initiative-rolling split second as soon as the torch is lit and 'reveals' them.

Yeah, that's the problem: "not possible", right there. Not possible to whom? And, quite frankly, given the absurdly good pattern-recognition capacity of human(oid) brains, split-second recognition is pretty reasonable, never mind the additional fractions of a second as initiative ticked down.

Whether or not these characters would, in the event, have actually recognized them is less important than the fact that they were simply not allowed to try. The DM just said (in effect) "no, you can't tell the difference", with no recourse* and no attention paid to how likely that was.

*Besides the DM-planned reveal of "haha you just endangered your comrade instead of making them safer", which doesn't really count.


The DM adjudicates and creates the rules of the world and the setting. He ruled that the shadows cast by the torchlight appeared to be of the monstrous variety, until interacting with them.

So he did. And I am explaining why his ruling was illogical and wrong; I don't believe the DM can simply create truth ex nihilo, but that the DM is, ultimately, fallible, and should be held accountable to reason and consistency.


And, there are optional rules introduced in 3e that can be 'ported forward' explaining, entirely from a fluff perspective, how the presence of evil and negative energy can warp someone's perceptions (Such as the quintessential 'off' and creepy feeling of Haunted Houses)

Hmm, interesting. Exactly how much of an effect do they have, though? Because even in carefully-designed haunted houses it's still possible for a savvy person to recognize things for what they are at least some of the time; a professional adventurer should (quite often) be even more savvy and have a better chance at that.

I seriously doubt they go straight to no-roll illusions.

[shadow_archmagi]

And the windy/windy canyon information thing isn't player vs. character information. It's Text vs. Pronunciation (Windy is pronounced differently from Windy, but they're spelled the same - yet the characters were confused because they spoke to each other with Speech Balloons).

No, see, because were this a text-based D&D campaign then the players would only be reading, so they could confuse the two meanings of the word, while the characters would be speaking and hearing, so they could not.

The joke of the comic relies on the fact that we have to perceive the world through a single, limited medium, where the characters should be perceiving with five senses. First the characters make the same mistake that the reader might, then they highlight the impossibility of their mistake.

[Waar]

and it did cause problems, because the extra zombie meant the Avenger was flanked

:smallsigh: how hard is it for this GM to let Players roll perception checks?



Except, by placing the tokens on the map and saying that the party sees shadows, the DM's making it clear that the characters see the shadows as shadow-monsters instead of just mundane shadows cast by light. And the windy/windy canyon information thing isn't player vs. character information. It's Text vs. Pronunciation (Windy is pronounced differently from Windy, but they're spelled the same - yet the characters were confused because they spoke to each other with Speech Balloons).


Giving false information to the players without letting the PCs have a chance at noticing the disparency (when the PCs should have a chance) is still a trick is against the Players and not the Characters, which is the same as the Windy/Windy situation had it showed up in say a PbP game.



The shadows, while mundane, aren't 'ordinary' due to the circumstances of the lighting. They are distorted. And this is a world where unnatural shadows are actually a thing.

How can a 2d shadow on the ground (~ my shadow, from a run of the mill torch) next to me possibly be confused for a 3d monster :smallconfused: especially automatically with a 100% succes chance against everybody involved? :smallannoyed:

Edit: besides how simmilar are "Shadows" to shadows in this campagin anyhow, such information would certanly clarify the situation (have "Shadows" ever been confused with shadows ingame before?)

[Salbazier]

Edit: besides how simmilar are "Shadows" to shadows in this campagin anyhow, such information would certanly clarify the situation (have "Shadows" ever been confused with shadows ingame before?)

Yeah, dubious premise are probably part of it. If the DM says it was an actual Illusion magic it would be much more bearable.

[Scow2]

How can a 2d shadow on the ground (~ my shadow, from a run of the mill torch) next to me possibly be confused for a 3d monster :smallconfused: especially automatically with a 100% succes chance against everybody involved? :smallannoyed:

Edit: besides how simmilar are "Shadows" to shadows in this campagin anyhow, such information would certanly clarify the situation (have "Shadows" ever been confused with shadows ingame before?)Where do you get the idea that "Shadow Monsters" are actually 3-dimensional projections? (Shadows in previous editions weren't). Yeah, they take up 3 dimensions of space, but they appear to be two-dimensional projections. And even mundane shadows can appear 3-D in eerie circumstances.

And the answer to the similarity is usually "Identical in form, but usually more malevolent or self-animated".


Giving false information to the players without letting the PCs have a chance at noticing the disparency (when the PCs should have a chance) is still a trick is against the Players and not the Characters, which is the same as the Windy/Windy situation had it showed up in say a PbP game.
The way he presented the shadows "Here are shadows, *Puts tokens on battlefield*" is a shorthand way of saying "Your characters see monstrous shadows rise from the torchlight" with a bunch of extraeneous details elaborating that there is no way for the characters to recognize that they are mundane. Saying something like "Your normal shadows look monstrous" encourages metagaming, because the players know the shadows are normal while the characters don't.

[Sith_Happens]

The way he presented the shadows "Here are shadows, *Puts tokens on battlefield*" is a shorthand way of saying "Your characters see monstrous shadows rise from the torchlight" with a bunch of extraeneous details elaborating that there is no way for the characters to recognize that they are mundane.

The bolded is what most people in this thread have a problem with. There should be a way for the characters to recognize them, otherwise the whole thing just becomes the DM exploiting the players' metagame expectations to make their characters do something stupid.

[Scow2]

The bolded is what most people in this thread have a problem with. There should be a way for the characters to recognize them, otherwise the whole thing just becomes the DM exploiting the players' metagame expectations to make their characters do something stupid.

Not stupid. Entirely expected and accounted for from the perspective of the characters given the situation.

[Raineh Daze]

Not stupid. Entirely expected and accounted for from the perspective of the characters given the situation.

Yet, from an OOC perspective and of most of the people in this thread, stupid. Still fits the problem everyone has with it. :smallwink:

[Scow2]

Yet, from an OOC perspective and of most of the people in this thread, stupid. Still fits the problem everyone has with it. :smallwink:
The people in this thread weren't the ones who saw the shadows, and are in no position to judge whether they were "Real" or not.

[Sith_Happens]

The people in this thread weren't the ones who saw the shadows, and are in no position to judge whether they were "Real" or not.

The PCs, however, were in such a position, but were denied the opportunity to make any such judgment. All so that the DM could pat himself on the back for railroading them into a trap.

[Scow2]

The PCs, however, were in such a position, but were denied the opportunity to make any such judgment. All so that the DM could pat himself on the back for railroading them into a trap.The only part that resembles a "railroad" is summoning the other zombie through changing how the spell works, which is indisputably a bad call (If it had pulled the zombie up, and affected it as normal, it would be less so). Given the circumstances of the situation, the characters were not entitled to such an instant judgement.

[Waar]

Where do you get the idea that "Shadow Monsters" are actually 3-dimensional projections? (Shadows in previous editions weren't). Yeah, they take up 3 dimensions of space, but they appear to be two-dimensional projections. And even mundane shadows can appear 3-D in eerie circumstances.

And the answer to the similarity is usually "Identical in form, but usually more malevolent or self-animated".

This explains your position at least :smallsmile:
given that the wast majority of my experience regarding d&d "Shadow" monsters came from NWN2, and "Shadows" were hardly portrayed as looking like 2d projections there, I assuming that they looked 3d is hardly surprising :smallwink:



elaborating that there is no way for the characters to recognize that are mundane
This is the core of the problem, there should have been a chance to recognice the shadows, especially since one of the PCs was right next to one of the shadows :smallannoyed:
claiming that the difficulty is so much higer than the partys will defence and/or perception that it was impossible to realize the difference is quite immersion breaking (and all that other stuff), unless the party was composed of just several :belkar:, in which case it is to be expected :smallwink:

[shadow_archmagi]

So! It's been two weeks, and two sessions, since I last posted.

Session Report:

---
The second session I arrived late to, so I only saw one fight. My character spent most of it grappling a giant tentacle beast, but I can't blame the GM for that one, since I chose to stand alone next to the spooky old well (I was hoping to avoid whatever AoE hit the party, since there were drakes everywhere) There was one incident where an enemy burst through a wooden wall (it wasn't a surprise- some of us were inside and some were outside the house, and he wanted to engage an outside enemy) so that he could flank the Warpriest, which ended up killing him. The GM then allowed him a free resurrection as the dark energy of the house revived him as a Revenant.
---
The third session opened with us returning to town and the town's priest using his last and only Resurrection scroll to revive our warpriest, who turned out to have been retconnned to just dead. We started exploring the mansion, discovered a dagger with the word Nimbdel on it, and figured out that saying "Nimbdel" was the password to bypass pretty much every magical defense. At one point, we hear noises in the fog, and I decide to throw a Dimensional Scramble into the fog and teleport whatever is inside towards us, but all I get is more bricks from the floor.
---
One minor thing: One of the features of the dungeon was that it had warped space-time stuff, so often doors are one way, and you'll enter a room to find a sheer rock wall behind you. Our Warlock managed to wander off by himself, got beaten up by enemies, and then attempted to teleport back behind the wall, not realizing that it wasn't a wall that had slid into place, but that he'd been mystically transported into a completely separate cavern. (Which a quick glance at the rules tells me should've just been vetoed, since Teleport-based movement requires line of sight). The GM ruled that teleporting into solid rock dealt him 20 damage, which kicked him into negatives, and then had him drop back into existence on top of my player, knocking me prone. (I think I've been knocked prone something like 8 times in three sessions). We ultimately manage to stabilize and heal him, so no worries.
---
So since we've already solved this puzzle once, tension is pretty low, so we're all talking at once, fairly off topic, moving our characters along. One character, in the spirit of exploration, deliberately doesn't say Nimbdel, and discovers that this room has the same feature, and is now threatened by a couple zombies. Then this happens:

I move my pog into the next room, saying Nimbdel.
DM moves my pog into the scary room.
Me: "Hey, I said it!"
DM: "I didn't hear you say it..."
Me: "I promise you I said it. I promise you I am not that dumb to forget to say the magic words we've been saying every five minutes for this entire dungeon."
DM: "High or low?"
Me: "No. I'm not doing this."
DM: "High or low?"
Other Player: "A 50-50 is the best chance you're going to get."
Me: "No, this is stupid."
DM: "High or low?"
Me: "Screw rolling a die to see if my character's an idiot. I'll just take the bad room. Give me a zombie."
DM moves my pog back into the normal room.
---
Later, we're chasing an enemy through the forest, and find ourselves surrounded by spooky shadow trees. We parley with them, and they agree to point us towards our quarry if we prove our metal with wit or steel- Effectively, we answer a riddle from each, and if we fail the riddle, we just have to win a fight. I enjoy riddles, and have no real complaints about this portion of the session! We only got two of the six riddles wrong, and the penalty fights weren't particularly punishing. Good gig.
---
The trees tell us our quarry doubled back towards the town after locating his army of the undead and telling them to attack. We arrive at the main gate shortly before they do. I announce that I'm magically digging ditches. DM asks what power I have that can possibly do that, and I reply "Dimensional Scramble! Teleporting works GREAT on the floor. I've been teleporting the ground for like three sessions now." Other players nod and make "he's got you there" noises.

As the battle begins and the zombies approach, the Warlock, Sorcerer, and Psion (myself) are all positioned on the gate walls, while the Warpriest and Avenger are on the ground, behind the ditches. Suddenly, all three of us are knocked off the battlements and fall prone on the ground (ACCURSED PRONE POSITION) as we're hit from behind by skeletal archers disguised as the town militia. (Arrows have pushing powers now, apparently? On the way home, I make a joke to the other group members in the car that they were using Green Arrow's novelty giant fist arrows. All laugh.) The rest of the party manages to kill the archers pretty efficiently though, which left my character to deal with the horde.

It turned out that between the Avenger, Warlock, Sorcerer, and Warpriest, none of them had an AoE. It also turned out the zombie horde was all minions. I spend an action point to throw out two Disheartens (Psychic damage to mindless undead seems weird to my 3.5 accustomed brain, but I figured it was just a 4E quirk. Probably a good design decision anyway.) and drop half the horde in one shot, and then the rest of it in subsequent turns. The party applauds my success at turning a scary fight into a walk on cakes
---


All in all, I think I'm actually kinda happy with the game. I'm getting better acquainted with the rest of the party, and they're all fun people to hang out with, and although our GM is ruthlessly mediocre, he's not so bad as to make it an unpleasant evening. He doesn't rain on our parade; mostly he's just an overcast sky, a light mist at worst. Also, talking to the other players on the way back from the game, I felt crazy vindicated when, with no prompting from myself, someone mentioned how frustrating the GM was and how he "often seems to do things purely out of spite. And we seem to get knocked prone a lot more often than makes sense."

[TuggyNE]

All in all, I think I'm actually kinda happy with the game. I'm getting better acquainted with the rest of the party, and they're all fun people to hang out with, and although our GM is ruthlessly mediocre, he's not so bad as to make it an unpleasant evening. He doesn't rain on our parade; mostly he's just an overcast sky, a light mist at worst.

This is our cue to argue relentlessly for 17 pages about whether no gaming is better than mediocre gaming, or vastly worse, or what.

Good luck, have fun. :smallwink:

[Jay R]

This is our cue to argue relentlessly for 17 pages about whether no gaming is better than mediocre gaming, or vastly worse, or what.

False dichotomy. The issue is whether reading, or watching television, or surfing the net, or playing a computer game, is better than mediocre gaming.

[Friv]

I announce that I'm magically digging ditches. DM asks what power I have that can possibly do that, and I reply "Dimensional Scramble! Teleporting works GREAT on the floor. I've been teleporting the ground for like three sessions now." Other players nod and make "he's got you there" noises.

*snicker* Well played, sir. Well played.

Also, as someone who was being pretty down on your GM, I want to give him full credit for accepting that argument. There are more than a few who would refuse to accept having the trick they used against you turned back on them, and it speaks well of him that he went with it.

As far as the summaries go - yeah, it sounds like your GM is more of a "not so great" GM than a "terrible" one; occasionally frustrating, but not totally aggravating. I've played in games like that, and succeeded in having quite a lot of fun.

[Barsoom]

All in all, I think I'm actually kinda happy with the game. I'm getting better acquainted with the rest of the party, and they're all fun people to hang out with, and although our GM is ruthlessly mediocre, he's not so bad as to make it an unpleasant evening. He doesn't rain on our parade; mostly he's just an overcast sky, a light mist at worst. Also, talking to the other players on the way back from the game, I felt crazy vindicated when, with no prompting from myself, someone mentioned how frustrating the GM was and how he "often seems to do things purely out of spite. And we seem to get knocked prone a lot more often than makes sense."
Well done, man. Glad things are working out for you!