DM troubles

[Knight of Ice]

Hey everyone nice to meet you all.

So the reason I'm here, and hope to stay, is because i have been having issues with my DM and I'm sure i can get some good advice from everyone here.

Let's start from the start...

I have been in this group for about 4 years now with everyone switching of DMing every once and a while. We started as a group of 3 then we grew into a group of 10 people. So two DM's 8 players bla bla bla...

Anyways I DM'ed at one point which resulted in... well i guess it was just a list of what people didn't like about my DMing style. In my defense is was my first time but i do see what they are saying.

They said common things like...

no railroading the adventures / make it more open or free worldish
Don't have NPC's over power / take the spot light of the hero's
Don't stop people from doing X Y Z....
Allow creativity to problems...

So ya i pretty much sucked as a DM

Well a majority of this "talk" came from one person who is now DMing...

Now just a run down of his "Campaign"

We started at level one with starting wealth.

We got off of some type of prison boat (With the exact script from the start of Skyrim) and was more or less dropped in a town with 0 stores and nothing to buy but produce. No one had a map of the area and right off the boat we met a strange (assuming powerful) cloaked mayor with hundred of bags of Platinum pieces in some type of bank with security along the lines of a planar bank. Are first mission from this man was to clear a dungeon full of goblins. fairly straight forward; if we take out all of the traps that our rouge, with maxed search ranks, we're unable to find after taking 20. After a few deaths, and a few new characters, we cleared the area and got a bag of 800 PP to split between all of us. Normally that would be great; minus the fact that this town had nothing to sell but apples.

Afterwards, he (The mayor) had us deliver a package to another "town". All excited we left (now level 2) to go to this new town. On the way we got attacked by a satyr... who right before beating us to death decided to leave us alone. (now level 3?)

This new "Town" turned out to be a single house in, once again, in the middle of nowhere. We once again received another 800 pp to split between the 8 of us and was told to return to the mayor once again. We, being players, decided to go wander around the forest for a day or two. We marched right in and found.... nothing but a man who appeared to be dominated and told us with glossy eyes to return to the mayor. After a few more game hours in the forest we found nothing of interest so we returned back to the original town.

So after an uneventful return back to town the mayor gave us a map to another "town". Well long story short this town was basically Las Vegas with the main gambling attraction was an arena. So once we walked into town we were teleported (with a save i guess? but we all "Failed" even with my +6 on will saves) into the middle of the arena. Inside we we're greeted by two warforged NPC's who ran the arena. One was assumed to be a warforged juggernaut with adamentium armor and the other a rouge. They had a literal mountain of gold and planar creatures coming to watch the fights. We we're giving a fight with 10:1 odds against us against a party of (3) orcs who where level 3 each. We took them on (bet 50pp) and won. We walked out of that fight with 500 pp each.

Afterwards we we were offered another fight at 15:1 odds against a single ogre. Well we obviously had a plan because our wizard knew grease. So right into the match we greased the area around the ogre. Well the ogre with an 8 dex managed to walk across it with out having to roll due to his "Spiked boots" and began to attack us. Well in the end we won and walked out with a game breaking 50k each. Now we all knew something was going to happen. We can't just walk out with this much cash and once again we where right.

We all had to make Will saves again... and all failed the DC 32 Dominate person spell cast on ALL of us at once. Now we are still level 3 and two of us got natural 20's on our rolls.

This is about where we ended/ caught up to about now where i write this.

So i know we won't be able to keep all the money we got because it is in fact game breaking. I won't deny that.

I just want to ask all of you is how would you resolve this? In-game? out-of-Game?

We're all friends it's just the current DM is known to... well cheat.

This is another example....

We wrote out this contact a while back to get a demon's help and the way the demon broke out of the contract was to steal all of our copies (with sleight of hand, which the demon did not have ranks in, and inside bags of holding) of the contract and rip them all at once and then proceeded to kill us. Well this was this DM's method to... "respond" to our creativity.

Contact copy

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I _______ agree to destroy/ kill all Formian located within 10 miles of the location where I signed this contract within 24 hours. Unless dismissed in accordance with paragraph 3, I will remain within 10 miles of the location where I signed this and will remain solely on the Material Plane. While doing so, I will not injure, kill, hinder, and/or enslave any sentient non-Formian creature nor damage/move the property of any non-Formian creatures. After completing my task, I will be permitted to claim all treasure held by the Formian colony and immediately return to my native plane. I will never injure, kill, damage or move the property of Hoigan, The ArchRegent, Gharhaa, Frozen Warrior, or Jarffrey.
Any spell I cast, creature I summon, or creature I contact will be held to the same standard by me or else I shall be punished with punishment A, B, C, and E immediately upon violating the contract and once each round that I remain noncompliant.
If Hoigan, The ArchRegent, Gharhaa, Frozen Warrior, or Jarffrey utters the words “You are hereby dismissed from the Material Plane 172876” I will leave the Material Plane as soon as I am able to (within 6 seconds) and return to the Abyss, and never return to the Material Plane again. I will also never instruct any other being or in any other way cause any other being to perform any action on the Material Plane on my behalf.
If any portions of this contract are found vague, ambiguous, grammatically incorrect, or incorrect in spelling, they shall be interpreted in the way most inclined towards my own punishment.
Hoigan, The ArchRegent, Gharhaa, Frozen Warrior, and Jarffrey agree not to attack me unless they believe I am not in compliance with the contract. If they do not follow this requirement, I will be dismissed as described in paragraph 3 and will not be required to kill any more Formians.
If I break this contract, I shall be punished with punishment A, I shall be punished with punishment B, I shall be punished with punishment C, and I shall be punished with punishment E immediately upon violating the contract and once each six seconds that I remain noncompliant.
If I touch any copy of the contract besides my own, I shall be punished with punishment E.
If I perform any action which would cause any copy of the contract besides my own to be damaged or destroyed, I shall be punished with punishment E.


A,B,C,D,E are punishments we decided as house rules for contracts. And E is the worse resulting in instant death.

Anyways feel free to use the contract :)
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I'm pretty sure he broke the contact but anyways he pulls this kind of s*** saying contracts aren't property...

So i mean he is know to pull this stuff out.

Anyways thanks for reading all of this and i really need help knowing what the we should do.

Thanks

[CIDE]

Inevitables would've been nice to have around when the contract was signed. As for the rest... You should really have a chat with the DM. There's a lot more details to throw in but I promise that's going to be around 80% of the responses for you.

[John Longarrow]

Talk to the other players.
If they don't like his style:
Don't let him DM
If they DO like his style:
Skip playing when he DMs
END IF.

[Sith_Happens]

Wow, that's like... Just as you're coming to terms with the idea that you're in the worst possible kind of "open world," SUDDENLY RAILROADING.

[Dairuga]

Pretty much, to make a long story short; when you DM'd, all you got was a list of complaints, pretty much all from THAT GUY. And when THAT GUY started DM'ing, he threw everything back at your face, the very same things he had started that was bad in your playing.

Except, given the fact that you are despairing and asking for help, it makes you the better DM by default, even if he clearly won the Contested Charisma roll (Or does the unlikable quality require less Charisma?).

Still, point in case; as already stated, most of your responses are going to be "Go talk to the DM". Which might or might not help, due to various factors. Other people might also be a bit disinclined to raise their voice at the DM that just was, due to being long-time friends, due to not wanting to cause a ruckus, do not want to be branded "The complaining guy", and so on and so forth. Many people can actually be decent people, but turn into nightmares when given the power of a storyteller.

Another way of approaching might be to tell him the exact same things he told you, given that you were given a list of negative qualities to cope with, you could either meet the rest of the team, or create the same list to him, and tell him why he is breaking the "rules", I.G, the same parameters that made your session bad.

A third way would be to rage-quit or make an obscenely powerful character, but that merely leads down a road no one will want to take, so that option is better left alone.

As for the Demon and breaking of the actual contract, the demon was stated that he was "Only to exist -solely- on the material plane". Solely means wholly and only. He reached into extradimensional space, and extradimensional space is not a part of the Material plane by default, thus, that is violating the contract. Also, to countermand his statement that "Contracts" are not property, "Property" is defined as something that which is had by or belongs to/with something. If a contract, the written piece of piece of parchment has been delegated to a character, that character owns the contract as property.

Furthermore, spiked boots does in no way prevent you from slipping on Grease. If he wants to pull "Logic" into how to circumvent magic, then he would not be able to move properly, much less -run- with spiked boots. The premise of spikes that are long enough to carry your Large size by sticking themselves so far into the ground that you cannot -slip-, will by default not let you move or angle your feet at any degree, except straight up and straight down, due to impaling the earth below you. If Running was possible, due to the spikes being far shorter, or the earth pliable to be plowed around by said spikes, it also makes it pliable enough for the grease to take effect, by the same logic. The grease effect is magical, thus, it should work despite his logic.

So, that having been said, it is clear you are dealing with a dice-fudging DM with, most likely, a hint of Control issues. Not to throw slander at a person, but usually, if DM's simply state that things happen without rolling for it, if your plans all mysteriously fail, or if NPC's come around that cannot be hit, that lands all hits, or any attempts at stealing / protecting items / spending time doing what the DM does not want you to do results in failure, it is usually because the DM wants to be in control of everything that happens.

There is no real way to combat this, other than to tell the Dm directly that it is a horrible way to do it, how it has stopped being fun; how there is little sense in doing anything in the world if one person is just going to decide that things work or not outside using the written rules. This, however, is mostly only effective if the majority of the group agrees.

The only thing you -can- do, really, is to counter his arguments with your own, whenever he tries to get away with things, and establish a rule that all dice are rolled openly, and to be left until at least someone else confirms the roll. While rolling secretly adds to the drama, and some rolls need to be done secretly for them to work; open rolling solves 80% of fudging players / Dm's situations.

Also, against blatant cheating, you will simply have to -demand- that you are shown where in the creature's statblock it states that natural 20's do not automatically succeed. Because there is only a very, very few things that can make people fail saves in such circumstances.

That, and the DM is dealing with highly-overpowered mind-control DC's, which is also a contested point of BAD Dm'ing, as they do not offer players a chance in the first place, which have become apparent. While normal encounters play to each class' strenght; some Will saves for those high in will saves, some test of fortitude against those with mettle, etc, etc. This sort of things merely become "You have to do as I say; haha, we are having so much fun now."

Against stealthy rolls, like Sleight of Hand, the only defense is to prepare priorly. Finding something in a filled Bag of holding is a Full-round action, which you cannot -steal- from if I remember the SoH rules correctly, stack everything in multiples, carry around several pouches and keep the vital things in your boots, and suchlike.

Still, I apologize for going into a bit of a rant, and I do hope your problem will be resolved. I have thrown in my 2 platinum pieces on the subject, at least.

Also, given that your DM as of current is sounding extremely much like a THAT GUY, I recommend you looking up THAT GUY Archive on Google. It is a thing. Countless stories of people that act like your DM, and worse. It is a very good read, and gives quite a few fun stories on how people deal with them.

[Yuki Akuma]

He's the worst sort of DM - a cheater. Don't play with him.

[Harlot]

I agree ofcourse with everyone else that this should be solved off game, but maybe you shouldn't be the one talking, as there's already a conflict between you and your DM prior to the current campaign.
So:
Talk to the other players. Are they as fed up as you are with the railroading and the dice fudging and the rule breaking and the overall demotivating gameplay?
If so, ask one of them to talk to the DM on behalf of the whole group. Say that you can't do the talking because there's already a problem with you and the DM due to his criticism of your former campaign. They are probably already aware of this, and if not, it won't hurt to get it out in the open.

After that talk, the group should lay down some basic rules, as stated by Dairuga: Roll in the open etc., be ready to show the basic stats or saves of the monsters upon request, find out whether you may veer from RAW or not. (that being said, dicefudging is a DM's right and privilege and sometimes you do need to level-adjust monsters on-the-go). Don't kill the game because of one bad DM.

AND if the (majority of) the group disagree with you and think everything is absolutely fine, consider sitting this one game out. Simply state that "this style of play is really at odds with what I like, and rather than obstructing your campaign or giving off bad vibes, I'll just pass on this and return to the group when someone else is DM'ing." State the truth which is (hopefully) that it is nothing personal, just different tastes in style.

Good luck!

[Toliudar]

I also have less of an issue with the DM fudging/making up stuff. Improvising around player creativity, and learning to accept repeated defeats with grace, is a learned skill, and not all DM's get it right away. Even some pretty veteran DM's forget that it's usually their job to 'lose'.

So...it's certainly possible, from your description, that the DM in question is simply no good at this. Or it could be that he's clambering up a learning curve, and using some terrible tactics to cover up gaps in his own imagination (mind control, the dominated guy in the woods telling you to go back to the mayor). Most people who are sucking at something they're doing have some inkling THAT they're sucking, but may not have a clue how to turn down the suck. As Harlot said, appointing another player to have a low-stakes chat with the DM about the play style, indicating a preference for a more open process and offering some tips on a more collaborative and responsive storytelling style, might lead to some terrific results. If the group has been together for four years, and you still more or less like each other, you might want to find a way to put up with some awkward and infuriating DM'ing until either his turn comes to an end or he gets better at this.

[Captnq]

Pick All that are useful.

1. Quit.
2. Treat him like an adult and sit down to talk with him.
3. Ask him if he has problems DMing. Help him solve them.
4. Break His Game. No magic? Turn into an alchemy dude and brew up a few buckets of Aboleth Muscus. Save-Or-Die at 20 gp? Broken. Become a mechanic and make the party Weapon Capsules Make Oil Chambers for every weapon armor and shield.
5. Scrounge. Steal everything that isn't nailed down. Did you know that the higher the DC of a lock, the more GP it is worth? Some locks are worth 150 gp. Pry it off the door and sell it at 1/6th the price.
6. Spellcasters should focus on broken ways to use a spell. I direct you to my thread HERE (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4571.0) on ways to mutate spells. I especially wish you to focus on Presditigitation.

If he's going to railroad you, then demonstrate how easy it is to rip the railroad spikes out of the tracks.


Either he needs to learn to work with you, or you should demonstrate that having an adversarial relationship with the PLAYERS can lead to some screwed up situations.