Help with a DM

[Falcos]

Greetings, all! I'm new here, so I apologize in advance if I make any kind of faux pas.

The general gist of what I'd like to ask is, I'm having issues explaining something to my DM.

He is of the adamant belief that any debilitating or enemy-targeted spell that isn't damage should be nerfed to the point of oblivion.

I know he's the DM, and if he wants to think that, that's his business, but I think it's gotten slightly out of hand when casting a non-damaging spell doesn't matter if it's ninth-level or zeroth, he just says they all "partially stun" the enemy for a single round, meaning that it does slightly less damage that round (but is otherwise unaffected).

When questioning him on it, he says that the only spells he wants us to be using are damaging, self-buffing and healing. Again, I know he's the DM and it's his world, but this frankly feels ridiculous.

(Example to show what I mean. In his eyes, casting Dominate Monster, Power Word: Stun, and Grease all have the same effect - the enemy does less damage on the next round.)

I am open to any advice anyone here has, as he strongarmed me into playing a caster rather than a melee, and now he's doing these rulings.

If people's advice is to shut up and play the DM's game, however, I'll gladly do so. I don't know if I'm out of line with all this.

Please help. :)

[Crake]

Greetings, all! I'm new here, so I apologize in advance if I make any kind of faux pas.

The general gist of what I'd like to ask is, I'm having issues explaining something to my DM.

He is of the adamant belief that any debilitating or enemy-targeted spell that isn't damage should be nerfed to the point of oblivion.

I know he's the DM, and if he wants to think that, that's his business, but I think it's gotten slightly out of hand when casting a non-damaging spell doesn't matter if it's ninth-level or zeroth, he just says they all "partially stun" the enemy for a single round, meaning that it does slightly less damage that round (but is otherwise unaffected).

When questioning him on it, he says that the only spells he wants us to be using are damaging, self-buffing and healing. Again, I know he's the DM and it's his world, but this frankly feels ridiculous.

(Example to show what I mean. In his eyes, casting Dominate Monster, Power Word: Stun, and Grease all have the same effect - the enemy does less damage on the next round.)

I am open to any advice anyone here has, as he strongarmed me into playing a caster rather than a melee, and now he's doing these rulings.

If people's advice is to shut up and play the DM's game, however, I'll gladly do so. I don't know if I'm out of line with all this.

Please help. :)

You might want to point him toward 5th edition, because it sounds like it would be perfect for him.

[ThisIsZen]

Allow me to commence with the mantra:

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

The caveat: Is what you're experiencing, to you, bad gaming? If it is, then the obvious answer is that if your DM isn't willing to stop gutting the concept of BFC completely, then walk. There's no reason to sit around dealing with a character you were coerced into playing being made useless at your desired function.

If, on the other hand, you do want to have fun and are willing to deal with this... bizarre reaction to quadratic wizardry, then my advice would be to become the Mailman. Maybe not to the fully-optimized end of the build, but still, look into ways to deliver that damage and then deliver it, through rain, sleet, hail, snow, tornadoes, apocalypses and dead magic zones.

Alternately, focus around party support spells to control the battle instead of disabling enemies. Enlarge Person, Haste, and other force multipliers can make your party ridiculously more effective, but I dunno how many of those are on offer compared to BFC spells in most spell lists, so I can't really speak to how much mileage you'd get out of this.

But again, no gaming is better than bad gaming, so if you don't like this game enough to stay I'd advise you to walk.

[Falcos]

Okay, worth mentioning that he is one of my best friends, and I don't really want to bail on him.

I'll take a look for this "Mailman" build you mention, and see what it's like.

I think he likes 3.5 because of the large amount of support and side material for it.

Does anybody have any further advice? I was ideally hoping to be able to change his mind somehow, but I can't come up with an argument for my case, other than "I want to be able to cast all of my spells, not just a narrow window of them".

(Also worth mentioning that he has made "Kill the target" spells completely ineffective. Implosion, Power Word: Kill, etc just do nothing but waste a turn. I have less of a problem with this, but I suppose it's still worth mentioning.)

[ThisIsZen]

If you go any Mailman variant, you won't have to worry about save-or-dies not working - your Power Word Kill is a twincast Orb of X that deals Enough Damage to Kill Something, ignores SR, and offers no save. Mailmanning is all about stacking up a ton of metamagics on lower-level damage spells until they turn into monstrosities.

That being said, your DM is operating completely outside of the rules. Any rules-based argument is going to fail here because what he's doing has nothing to do with either RAW or RAI. It kinda sounds like he doesn't really understand how to run combat when his PCs have the wealth of tactical options open to them that standard D&D parties have, and therefore is trying to reduce things to a simple question of Which Side Runs Out of Numbers First. I could be wrong - I don't know your friend so I can't say what his motivations might be.

Have you mentioned that it's making the game less fun for you? If he's a close friend of yours then that might be a good point to start a dialogue. Beyond that, have you asked WHY he's doing this? You might be able to construct a decent argument if you know what perceived issue with the game he's trying to fix.

I think beyond that, I might ask why he's letting you still use these abilities if he intends them to be nonfunctional. Why let you prepare and cast Power Word: Kill if it's a waste of a turn? If he doesn't want to play with those sorts of spells then he should just remove them rather than letting his players pick them but Noping them at the point of discharge.

[Falcos]

I've mentioned that it's making it less fun for me, and asked why he's doing it, and he says that "An enemy that can be CC'd is a boring enemy."

...I really don't know what to say to that.

So, on that topic, what Mailman builds would you recommend? I've been taking a look around, and finding some interesting ones, but my preference would be for one with the least multiclassing possible. I'd prefer simplicity over hypereffectiveness.

[Tohsaka Rin]

I would reply with 'An enemy that you just pour damage on until it goes away, is a boring enemy'.

But that's just me. I tend to drop a dozen trees on really big enemies to pin them down, or collapse buildings on small hordes in down. Scroll of 'Wall of X' and pushing it over on packs tends to work well, too.

Basically, if the fight goes 'full attack until it dies, next guy' I find it rather dull.

But that's just me, as I said.

[heavyfuel]

Yeah. Bringing a Theoretical Optimization build capable of killing the any creature in the MM in one round to your apparently non-optmized table isn't doing to solve your problem. The DM will either ban what he'll considers Metamagic abuse or just nerf them like he's nerfed the other spells. Worse yet, he might use your build against you out of spite: the vengeful equivalent of "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" and eternal reminder that "if you can do it, so can the enemy"

If he doesn't like spells that serve as control instead of damage, either don't use these spells or don't play the with him. Like ThisIsZen said, no gaming is better than bad gaming.

Also, try to see thing from his point of view. There's a reason spells like Dominate Monster got axed in the later editions... Because they are cheap. How would you feel if every encounter you had someone throwing Hold Person on you and Coup de Grass-ing them? After all, if you can do it, so can the enemy.

As for Grease, take this example: Currently I'm pitting my players against lockdown builds (melee trippers, ranged entanglers and grease are a big part of it) and it's frustrating as hell for them. If my intention wasn't to frustrate them (because I want them to hate every ounce of this faction) I wouldn't be using these things. If a DM isn't willing to deal with these things, just don't insist on using them.

A better suggestion than Mailman is the God Wizard. It's basically centered around buffing the entire party so that they can perform better. Regardless, try and tone it down to meet the same power-level as the rest of your group

[Crake]

It sounds like he just cant be bothered coming up with creative ways for his enemies to deal with various kinds of BFC, which again leads me to point toward 5th ed, which is highly damage centric. Whats the point of liking 3.5 for it's high amount of support material if you aren't willing to use it. And let him know that turnabout is fair play, enemies can use those same tactics on the players. How does he handle grappling? That may as well be a disable if done by a competent grappler? Just seems like, if you only want to use damage, 3.5 might be the wrong system to be using.

[Milodiah]

I suspect he doesn't want to have to deal with creativity in terms of magic...he's embraced the "magic = shoot deathballs from hands" mantra of video-game RPGs, and closed his mind to anything else.On a related note, have you ever ended a fight with an enemy still alive on the field? If no, and he pretty much has every encounter be "enemies rush you until one side or the other is completely dead, no surrender, retreat, or non-stabby interaction" then I'd suggest .

I have one PC in my campaign who constantly tries to force his enemies to yield (by shrieking "JUSTICE!!!" in a high-pitched shrill voice, since he's a freaking Tiny-size fairy cleric of St. Cuthbert). Dunno what his opinion on mind-altering magic is, but he's forced me to think laterally when the enemies I've virtually designated "to be killed" are captured and interrogated. If he simply can't be arsed to do the same, then obviously he'll be pressuring you in-game and out of game to "just kill 'em all already".


Also, whenever he says that next, I recommend glaring at him and throwing down the most absurdly over-optimized blaster build GITP can give you.

[ThisIsZen]

Er, yeah, I suppose I made the same mistake I've seen others make when suggesting the Mailman: Don't bring the whole thing in. I should've said this at the start.

If your DM is limiting you to buffing and blasting, I suggested the mailman as a sort of vague guide to being good at the blasting half of things. Look at some of the ways it achieves damage on par with/exceeding uberchargers and use those so you don't end up being the Side Event to the martials (who are generally always good at dealing damage). Don't bring it into the game wholesale, but look for it as a guide to how to make a damaging caster.

Even just twincasting an Orb spell or something like that is liable to get you a decent net damage boost. No need to stack ten metamagics with reducers on said Orb spell to instantly one-shot Orcus, really. If you're consistently out-damaging your party then dial it back - if you're running under the damage average then add a few more tricks.

Either way, heavyfuel was totally right for calling me out on that so don't straight-up bring a mailman into the game, for all of those reasons and also because it'd leave the rest of your party without something to do. My bad.

[daremetoidareyo]

imbued summoning, augmented summoning + index cards with stat blocks for summoned creatures. Throw damage at the enemy till it dies, 3 templated truestriked crocodiles at a time. Charge of the rhino celestial eagles? At level 5, 3 mirror imaged wolves will definitely keep you alive for a little bit. This way, you got multiple rounds of damage potential and your self buffs work out nicely.

[Divide by Zero]

I think he likes 3.5 because of the large amount of support and side material for it.

So he likes it for the material, then cuts out a huge chunk of that material? :smallconfused:

[Falcos]

He has a recourse for when we one-shot monsters: He gives them arbitrary large numbers of HP. We recently fought a single undead with 600 HP, and the ability to heal himself (approx 150 over the fight). At level 2.

My ideal solution would be to show him that debilitating spells are probably better for his casters to be casting than plain old damage, as us spamming whatever "Hey you hold still" spell until the enemy fails their saving throw are better than us pouring on insane damage and him just giving the enemies more HP, right?

I've promised him I'll stick around until the end of this campaign at the very least.

Also, he likes 3.5 for the range of classes and spells, and he is maintaining (and is technically telling the truth) in that he hasn't actually *cut* a single thing, except for Spellthieves.

[Milodiah]

He has a recourse for when we one-shot monsters: He gives them arbitrary large numbers of HP. We recently fought a single undead with 600 HP, and the ability to heal himself (approx 150 over the fight). At level 2.

My ideal solution would be to show him that debilitating spells are probably better for his casters to be casting than plain old damage, as us spamming whatever "Hey you hold still" spell until the enemy fails their saving throw are better than us pouring on insane damage and him just giving the enemies more HP, right?

I've promised him I'll stick around until the end of this campaign at the very least.


Ok, that's some bull**** right there.

Either call him on his bull**** or optimize out the roof. We can help with the latter :smallwink:

[Falcos]

Alright. Well, time to optimize me out the roof. He likes his "everything is a boss" mantra. (And if nothing else, it makes for more interesting fights than a room full of thirty zombies, having one zombie with a ton of HP)

[ThisIsZen]

Yeah, gonna have to agree that that feels just... tedious. Did the monster do anything interesting to justify how long a fight against an opponent with 750 effective health would take at level 2? For that matter, did it deal much damage back? If it was dealing typical damage for an ECL 2 fight but had HP not even seen in some cases at CR 20, that's basically patent insanity.

[Falcos]

Yeah, gonna have to agree that that feels just... tedious. Did the monster do anything interesting to justify how long a fight against an opponent with 750 effective health would take at level 2? For that matter, did it deal much damage back? If it was dealing typical damage for an ECL 2 fight but had HP not even seen in some cases at CR 20, that's basically patent insanity.

He gave it a homebrew spell where we had to make Will saves or start taking stacking continual damage.

It was doing pretty low damage, but lots of "save-or-bleed" mechanics, that actually did kill half our party due to stacking damage.

[Divide by Zero]

I can understand not liking save or lose spells, but how can he possibly think direct damage is more interesting than something like Grease? What does he do about offensive spells that don't directly affect an opponent? Walls, fog, etc.

[Falcos]

This is my second campaign with him. In my first, I bought an Eversmoking Bottle. It worked on one enemy, then he gave every enemy Truesight. His reasoning was that if it worked on everything, everything would be non-challenging and boring.

So every "clever" technique will work once.

This guy has the potential to be a great DM, though! I don't just want to cut him down and walk away...

[Divide by Zero]

This is my second campaign with him. In my first, I bought an Eversmoking Bottle. It worked on one enemy, then he gave every enemy Truesight.

Er, he knows that that doesn't do anything for mundane concealment, right?

I honestly have no idea what he's trying to accomplish here, other than make it impossible to use any sort of actual tactics.

[Milodiah]

This is my second campaign with him. In my first, I bought an Eversmoking Bottle. It worked on one enemy, then he gave every enemy Truesight. His reasoning was that if it worked on everything, everything would be non-challenging and boring.

So every "clever" technique will work once.

This guy has the potential to be a great DM, though! I don't just want to cut him down and walk away...

He's never going to be a great DM if he doesn't get real critique.

[Vox Nihili]

Alright. Well, time to optimize me out the roof. He likes his "everything is a boss" mantra. (And if nothing else, it makes for more interesting fights than a room full of thirty zombies, having one zombie with a ton of HP)

I mean, this (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1765181)is pretty much the ultimate Mailman guide. Since you're at a really low level, the Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold skeezy stuff will be your primary source of "murder ****," but you'll get more powerful as time goes on.

[ThisIsZen]

Did it do anything else? That honestly sounds like the basic definition of a 'gear check' boss in an MMO - in the constraints you were fighting under, the only way to win the fight was to have Bigger Numbers than your opponent, and D&D does not favor sustained, DPS-check-style combats because daily resources are limited and assume a certain level of expenditure. (A 2nd level prepared caster only really has enough spell slots to cast one or two spells per encounter over the course of a four-encounter day which probably assumes something like a max of 20 rounds of combat, so not even more than two minutes of fighting in 'real' time.)

Not having Bigger Numbers than your opponent isn't a player failure, since you can't just walk off and farm the nearest instance until you have the right set of gear to beat his bosses. While random crits and such can be an exception, I'm generally of the opinion that a player dying while making no mistakes is bad. =/

EDIT: So he's no-selling any creative actions on the part of the party? That's bad DMing, straight up. He's treating this game like it's him vs you, like he HAS to counter all of your tricks every time once he knows about them, and that's a big mistake. If a player creates a character there's a general expectation that said character should be able to do what it was built to do, at least some of the time. If you're never allowed to use your character's capabilities then you built them for no reason and the game gets boring, and boring is the DM's enemy.

[Falcos]

I think his intent is to make it that I need to use different tactics. He doesn't want me, say, casting the same half-dozen spells in every fight.

I am trying to gather critiques to use on him, rather than just shut him down by walking away without trying to give him feedback.

[Milodiah]

I think his intent is to make it that I need to use different tactics. He doesn't want me, say, casting the same half-dozen spells in every fight.

I am trying to gather critiques to use on him, rather than just shut him down by walking away without trying to give him feedback.

...it sounds to me like the opposite, I feel like he'd be much more comfortable if you just cast Magic Missile till bad guy fall down.

[Divide by Zero]

I think his intent is to make it that I need to use different tactics. He doesn't want me, say, casting the same half-dozen spells in every fight.

I'm not really sure how making all tactics except direct damage nonexistent encourages you to use different tactics.

If he wants to do that, he needs to design encounters that require different tactics. Enemies with different movement modes and defenses, enemies with casting of their own, terrain or environmental conditions that have to be taken into account, etc.

[ThisIsZen]

Mixing up tactics is a fine goal. It's why you don't throw endless hordes of humanoids with no mind-affecting immunity against the resident Enchantment specialist for Every Encounter of an Entire Game. But it's not a reason to, upon KNOWING what your party is made up of, only give them undead to fight. Then the Enchantment specialist gets to do nothing despite his time spent designing his character, for largely arbitrary reasons.

When you build a character, you're deliberately making choices about where to focus your abilities, and in general those choices aren't changeable from encounter to encounter. A grappler isn't going to morph into an intimidate-focused BFC character in the span of one dungeon hallway. The Wizard isn't going to change his forbidden schools every day of the week. A sorc doesn't get to re-choose every spell they have on access. Etc. etc. There's a difference between mixing it up and punishing player creativity, and there are more engaging ways to mix it up than handing out blanket immunities every time your player comes up with something new and neat to do.

[Falcos]

In conversation with him now, he says he's trying to "Encourage us to be clever"

[Marlowe]

Encouraging you to do nothing but throw dice at a problem until he decides it's dead is supposed to be clever?

[Divide by Zero]

In conversation with him now, he says he's trying to "Encourage us to be clever"

Other than throwing damage around and hitting it with a boring debuff, what exactly does he expect you to do?

[Milodiah]

Put him on the phone, we'd like to speak to him.

[Falcos]

He's getting defensive as I speak to him now, he says Truesight works vs eversmoking because "Rule zero". I think I'm gonna drop it with him for now, as he seems to think I'm outright attacking him.

[ThisIsZen]

This is the same problem as the good old "DM threw a sphinx at us" issue, or otherwise known as "why puzzles go wrong so often in dungeons."

Your DM is encouraging you to be clever, he thinks, but it only seems that way 'cause he's behind the screen. HE certainly knows the various things he's pre-determined to fast-track encounters. Maybe there was some trick to the zombie encounter that would've ended it early, for instance, but you guys never kenned to it so obviously it should've been a drag-em-out.

The problem is that in a lot of cases, what's obvious to the DM is very much not so to the players and only letting the players solve problems 'your' way is a really big mistake to make when DMing. Especially when the players have had most of their options taken away already, like others have said. It doesn't really have any logic to it.

Maybe ask him to explain HOW what he's doing is supposed to encourage creativity. It's all fine and well to have that be your mission statement, but maybe having to analyze his methods might clue him in to how counterintuitive everything he's doing actually is.

EDIT: Don't talk about specific rulings. He's got blinders on to the issues with his approach, it sounds like, so taking issue with specific cases is going to seem like an attack. Just ask him to explain his methods, and maybe point out that since he took away any tool you might have that isn't a hammer, it's not really surprising that all problems start looking like nails.

[Divide by Zero]

He's getting defensive as I speak to him now, he says Truesight works vs eversmoking because "Rule zero". I think I'm gonna drop it with him for now, as he seems to think I'm outright attacking him.

Rule Zero is "The DM is always right." While technically true, he seems to be forgetting that a DM is only relevant as long as he has players.

It seems like he just wants to control everything instead of making sure that everyone actually has fun.

[Jermz]

Considering the whole 'creativity' chain of thought here, I want to echo ThisIsZen. Can you ask him for examples of what he means? Tossing around DPS the whole time isn't that creative. Also, what spells does he use against you guys? Does he hold himself to the same standards (obviously it doesn't seem so with the whole Rule Zero funny stuff), but I'm talking about when he's being active and not reactive. When you say self-buffing, does that mean ONLY you, or also your party members?

I'd second the idea that one poster put forward with regards to summoning. Of course he could nerf it, but it seems like it might slide. Well, until you start bringing in all your templated powerhouses and they get Rule Zeroed out of existence.

Normally I'd say that you should get up and go, but it seems like this is a more delicate situation on account of both of you being close friends. Friendship is more important than gaming, and if he's not willing to change his ways and you want to stay friends, it means some bending on your part. At least now you know who NOT to game with.

[Falcos]

He wants us to handle his fights the way he designed them. When we go against that, he gets angry and annoyed. I feel my hands are tied.

EDIT: Having asked for examples of what he means, he says he wants us to damage certain things in fights. Room damage, damage items, etc. It's less that he's complaining that everything is looking like a nail, more that we're not hitting the right nails. (That most of the time, I didn't know were nails)

[tadkins]

I have one PC in my campaign who constantly tries to force his enemies to yield (by shrieking "JUSTICE!!!" in a high-pitched shrill voice, since he's a freaking Tiny-size fairy cleric of St. Cuthbert).

Yes. Hell yes.

[Falcos]

I have one PC in my campaign who constantly tries to force his enemies to yield (by shrieking "JUSTICE!!!" in a high-pitched shrill voice, since he's a freaking Tiny-size fairy cleric of St. Cuthbert).

I know it's my first day on these forums, but can I sig that?

[Milodiah]

I haven't even mentioned the time he decided to find out if the poison peddler was telling the truth about the bottles of poison he was peddling by tasting the poison he was peddling.

CON of 6, by the way. Doesn't help he happens to be the same size as its intended target, rats.

Also, huzzah! I finally get to be sigged!

[Manly Man]

I know it's my first day on these forums, but can I sig that?

If they don't let you sig that, I will be very disappointed.

[Morphie]

Hi!
I'm sorry man, but I think the fact that you're best friends with the DM is clouding your judgment about him. In my honest opinion he just doesn't understand D&D 3.5 and he's changing the rules so he doesn't lose.
Maybe he should've explained the whole rules of his world/game in the beginning so you could've known what you were getting into and prepare accordingly, because saying he's "encouraging you to be clever" by completely ignoring/nerfing a big part of spellcasting because of "Rule Zero" is just plain BS.
Blasting dps as a caster isn't being creative, for that he could just made all the party play mundanes and be done with it. By the way, being coerced into playing a class and not being able to use its powers doesn't encourage anyone to be creative, it only creates a bad gaming experience. He may have the potential to be a good DM, but maybe he should understand that he's running a group game and not his own ego-trip that everyone should abide to without questioning.

Escalating the thing by creating a over-optimized char will just disguise the real problem in this and probably will create even more tension between you two, so I wouldn't advise that.

You don't really need to walk away from the game, but maybe he's just not ready to be a real DM yet and someone has to let him know and help him out.
If I may ask, what does the rest of the party think about this?

[Falcos]

The rest of the party are a bard, a paladin, and a beguiler. The bard and paladin don't mind in the slightest, whereas the beguiler is just as outraged as me, if not more.

A large part of what I'm trying to do is trying to broker a peace between him and the beguiler. I'm willing to just cope for the duration of the campaign, but she's... Less so.

[Morphie]

Well, that makes some sense, since the beguiler is a class based on illusions and other non-damage dealing spells. A dictator DM without a party willing to play his stories is just a lone dictator with zero power.

It is really cool of you to try to play the mediator role, hope you guys can reach some sort of common ground that will make your gaming experience better. I would just talk to him and tell him that the way things are working out I'm not having any fun and then I would ask him to clarify the full extent of his rulings and nerfs so I could prepare accordingly a char that I want to play.

[georgie_leech]

In terms of what to do about combat, I guess it's time to just cave in and start asking the DM if you see anything breakable or if there's a particular spot that looks vulnerable or something like that. Frankly, it seems like he's done a poor job of communicating that his fights are supposed to be puzzles, especially if you haven't even seen all the pieces most of the time.

In terms of the whole-sale nerfing of non-damage stuff... It seems like he really does have a single solution in mind for any given fight, and deviating from that is a Bad Thing(tm) that he needs to kibosh. I'm not sure there's anything you can do to get him to stop interfering with the Beguiler, as that class is all about finding innovative solutions to problems. Maybe he could give the Beguiler more direct damage spells (mind blasts? Illusory pain? I dunno, whatever fits), but I don't think that's a long-term solution, as direct damage is rarely the reason you want a Beguiler. You might have better luck convincing the Beguiler's player to be patient with the DM. But honestly, it seems more like they have incompatible play styles. Remember that friends don't have to do literally everything together. Maybe she can be involved with a different style of campaign (or more likely a different DM if she has her heart set on debilitating conditions and CC), but it doesn't seem a fit for this adventure at all.

[LTwerewolf]

Take a few days, consider your argument carefully, then check back here to see if your post has disappeared off the front page, and tell him to post here about his dm style. When he gets 30-40 people telling him that his current style isn't and won't work, he'll do one of two things. 1)get mad and make it worse or 2) reconsider his position that maybe his thoughts aren't really working and make it better.

[Inevitability]

If nothing else, bear with him. Then, when the campaign ends, offer to DM the next game. Try to set an example (so basically just have things work as they should).

By the way, what do the other players think of this?

[KillianHawkeye]

This guy has the potential to be a great DM

This doesn't sound like a true statement, at least based on what you've posted here. I would suggest posting about him in the "Worst DMs" thread, in fact.

Personally, the game you're describing is not one that I would want to be a part of with all the ridiculous ad hoc nerfs going on, even if my bestest friends in the entire world were involved in it. Actually, you couldn't PAY me to waste my time with this kind of game. I would quit on general principle.

I think it's time you realized that you can have more than one group of friends. Some friends are good for playing D&D or other RPGs, while others should be limited to video games and watching movies and stuff like that.

[Falcos]

This doesn't sound like a true statement, at least based on what you've posted here. I would suggest posting about him in the "Worst DMs" thread, in fact.

Personally, the game you're describing is not one that I would want to be a part of with all the ridiculous ad hoc nerfs going on, even if my bestest friends in the entire world were involved in it. Actually, you couldn't PAY me to waste my time with this kind of game. I would quit on general principle.

I think it's time you realized that you can have more than one group of friends. Some friends are good for playing D&D or other RPGs, while others should be limited to video games and watching movies and stuff like that.

Okay, I do have to quantify that statement. He's very good at building a world, and he is very descriptive and able to "paint a picture with words", as the saying goes. He's very imaginative, and very good at reacting to unforeseen RP circumstances on the fly. Reacting to combat, less so, however.

[Tohsaka Rin]

He wants us to handle his fights the way he designed them. When we go against that, he gets angry and annoyed. I feel my hands are tied.

EDIT: Having asked for examples of what he means, he says he wants us to damage certain things in fights. Room damage, damage items, etc. It's less that he's complaining that everything is looking like a nail, more that we're not hitting the right nails. (That most of the time, I didn't know were nails)

From now on, start each new combat by making spot, intelligence, and wisdom checks.

"What's the layout look like? What looks fragile? What looks like an old trap? What looks like it could be an overly-obvious boss-room trap?"

If he complains, explain to him that you cannot see inside his head, due to not being a mind-reader.

If he insists on setting up things like a videogame, he needs to start metaphorically panning the camera over to reveal/hint at the special room triggers.

This is almost, without fail, one of the biggest pitfalls new DMs trip into. "I see this cool stuff, but my mental image doesn't make it out of my mouth intact."

If he has to, get him to do a quick doodle of the room. Nothing needs to be to scale, just enough to give you a general idea of 'oh, that's a giant guillotine' or 'so those are exploding barrels' and so on.

This is, early on, one of the hardest hurdles to overcome. Frustration will be the biggest enemy in your fight to help him beat this bugbear of an issue.

Best of luck.

[Yahzi]

Okay, I do have to quantify that statement. He's very good at building a world, and he is very descriptive and able to "paint a picture with words", as the saying goes. He's very imaginative, and very good at reacting to unforeseen RP circumstances on the fly. Reacting to combat, less so, however.
Then adapt.

If, in his world, only damage spells work, and everything else just does half-round stuns, then obviously the only spells you bother to memorize are damage spells. Erase everything else from your spell book. His big mistake was going halfway; he should have told you upfront, "the only spells that work as written are damage spells." So just pretend he actually said that up front, and adjust your character/play style to match (same for the beguiler). If he said, "I want to run a world where magic only works as blasting," you would have shrugged and said, "eh, OK, it's worth a try."

You might find yourself looking for creative ways to use that damage - knocking down the roof on the enemy, making holes in the the floor, etc. Or you just might throw damage at the beasties. If he is good at RP, then focus on the RP, and only do the battles when you have to. Use your RP to figure out how he expects the battles to go: interview NPCs, study old libraries, etc., specifically searching for the strategies and tactics necessary for the next set of foes. If you have to fight them without doing that, run away.

P.S. He might be a great storyteller but he's not actually a good DM.

[Falcos]

The reason I feel he is great as a DM is because he is great at adapting to hearing his players say "Instead of taking the zombie's sword, I give it to his allies while he was alive, as a memento/memorial" and reacting to it.

He has now read this thread and concedes the point. I'm hoping to direct him now to formats other than 3.5 to explore his ideas in.

[georgie_leech]

The reason I feel he is great as a DM is because he is great at adapting to hearing his players say "Instead of taking the zombie's sword, I give it to his allies while he was alive, as a memento/memorial" and reacting to it.

He has now read this thread and concedes the point. I'm hoping to direct him now to formats other than 3.5 to explore his ideas in.

You're right, he does have potential. That seems like a vanishingly rare outcome from these sorts of threads.:smallbiggrin: Willingness to learn and improve is a marker of a great DM. He might not be there yet, but it's an encouraging sign.

[KillianHawkeye]

The reason I feel he is great as a DM is because he is great at adapting to hearing his players say "Instead of taking the zombie's sword, I give it to his allies while he was alive, as a memento/memorial" and reacting to it.

Not to belabor the point, but this is only one small aspect of DMing. Nobody is saying that he is bad at everything, but being great in one aspect usually does not make up for being terrible in others.

Anyway, I wish you luck in finding a game that better suits your needs and play styles.

[LTwerewolf]

The reason I feel he is great as a DM is because he is great at adapting to hearing his players say "Instead of taking the zombie's sword, I give it to his allies while he was alive, as a memento/memorial" and reacting to it.

He has now read this thread and concedes the point. I'm hoping to direct him now to formats other than 3.5 to explore his ideas in.

It's a rare thing to have DMs actually admit their mistakes, but it's very satisfying when they do. If he needs help (like say he's having trouble building meaningful encounters) have him ask here and put in the title for you not to look. We'll help him. Some spells are hard to deal with, others seem like they are and aren't really a big deal.

[Arbane]

In conversation with him now, he says he's trying to "Encourage us to be clever"

See if you can get the fighter-types to grapple enemies and tie them up. Throw caltrops. Use scenery.

He thinks he wants 'clever'? GIVE HIM CLEVER.

(And that's what I get for not reading the whole thread before replying. Good luck with whatever game he ends up running.)

[Faily]

My suggestion would be that you take the mantle of GMing for a short time, and try to give a different perspective to everyone in the group of what can be done. If you're not very good at coming up with short but entertaining adventures, take a published campaign, like Red Hand of Doom and run with that. It's a fairly popular module and I recommend it myself as being challenging in both the aspects of dealing damage, being clever as well as RP opportunities.

[ZamielVanWeber]

He's getting defensive as I speak to him now, he says Truesight works vs eversmoking because "Rule zero". I think I'm gonna drop it with him for now, as he seems to think I'm outright attacking him.

I am going to rant here, but that is NOT what Rule Zero is for. The point of Rule Zero is to help clear up rules issues when they occur mid play, or perhaps making some house rules to make play more fun. When a DM uses Rule Zero to just shut down players it is just a case of the DM being abusive and is a case of a bad DM. Period.

[Milodiah]

Here's what you need to do, as an exercise for him.

Go into a fight with the intent to take as many prisoners as possible. Prepare as many different methods of doing so as you can think of, even the simple ones like "bring a net". It'll poke holes in his damage obsession. Try to get an in-character reason to do so, it could be as simple as "let's take a bounty that says 'wanted alive'", so he doesn't have an in-game reason to ruin you.


I don't think this fellow sounds like a Ban-Antimony-Dolphins-and-Neutrons type of DM, just needs to accept that sometimes the mature thing to do is avoid banning anything that isn't totally game-breaking. Sure, there are a few spells out there that are almost universally disliked, and every DM has his or her own pet peeve, but "I don't like them" isn't an okay reason to ban them. Also, D&D is mostly a balanced game. There are a lot of discussions about class tiers and magic exploitation, but at its core a lot of work has been put into ensuring that there's no perfect approach that a DM has to ban or else his players would just press the IWIN button every encounter. Even a moderate to severe munchkin may tire of his toy eventually and not use it all the time just because that gets boring, and a terminal munchkin who really would always use such a hypothetical toy should be quietly dropped from the gaming group for obvious reasons.

I rather sympathize with you because one of my players is a freaking fairy cleric of St. Cuthbert who uses non-damage-dealing magic of varying levels of absurdity, ranging from "Dancing Lights illusory flying fairy assault wing distraction" to his take of the Contagion freaking Destruction domain spell, dubbed "Combat Dysentery" by my players and I. He's not built to deal damage physically, he can barely go over a d6 of it physically (because, you know, Tiny weapons) and has a CON of six. He'd be dead in your game, and he's my best player.

[Fel Temp]

The reason I feel he is great as a DM is because he is great at adapting to hearing his players say "Instead of taking the zombie's sword, I give it to his allies while he was alive, as a memento/memorial" and reacting to it.

He has now read this thread and concedes the point. I'm hoping to direct him now to formats other than 3.5 to explore his ideas in.

Given his strengths and weaknesses, it sounds like Dungeon World might be a much better match for you guys. It's focused much more on improvisation, but inside of fights and out.

[The Glyphstone]

It's good to see one of these threads end with a relatively happy ending, I guess?

Good DMs make mistakes. Great DMs learn from their mistakes. Hopefully we have created a Type 2.