Saint Jimmy
2017-02-27, 01:41 PM
First off, I wanna say that this is a NEW DM so I'm just trying to figure out ways to talk to him about these issues in his game that kinda bother me. Other then the issues presented he's actually a good DM, I'm just not sure how to talk with him about these things. I'm also not quite sure if he even is in the wrong on some of these, so I'm asking for your opinions on that.
So I have been gaming with this guy forever, he is a good player, and somewhat recently I was invited to join his new group, which had already played a few sessions. I roll up a character, and join. A few sessions in, we get this talk about how he made "something awesome". It was a maze, we spent 20 rather frustrating minutes getting lost with the DM just telling us that we need to "just think, it's not that hard!" I was getting kinda frustrated and asked if we could just skip the maze, it seemed like no one was having fun. (I don't know if the others were or not, but it did not appear that they were at all to me, but that could be bias.) The response went something along the lines of "well I like it and I made it, so you are going to do it." Now I get that kind of reasoning, it's only his first time DMing, and people want to do what they like, but it's still frustrating. Other things like this have happened multiple times, but this is the example I remember the best.Any clue how to talk to him about that without being a jerk? (I'm not really an emotional or socially aware person and I tend to accidentally make those who are mad by being completely oblivious until it's too late, and he can get kinda defensive/emotional about this kina stuff).
Secondly, the issue of home brewing extra powers for monsters that don't affect their levels but let them regain what appeared to be a quarter or so of their health. (This one a simple rules-oriented discussion about why that shouldn't happen as it screws up balance should work, but if anyone has better ideas about it I'm defenitely open to hearing them.
Third, the issue that is easily defined by this statement. (Some of this was discussed earlier in this post but the rest of it is down here)
"If didn't plan what you are trying to do, you can't do it. If I don't like it, you can't to it. If it goes off the main storyline, you can't do it."
This was tolerable when it was things like "no you can't go check and see if the city guards are hurting innocents, I get that your character is super protective about the common people, but I didn't plan for anything like this and don't know how to plan for the possible fallout of that." Again, he's new, no one can plan for everything. For stuff like that I just say Ok and move on. However, last session it got waay worse. I dragged my brother along, who hasn't played in awhile, because they were missing a player. When he was given the missing players sheet, he was told that if he died or something it wouldn't affect the actually player. However, the DM had a huge problem with him not being the exact same alignment as the missing player, and it took the rest of the group awhile to convince him to just let it slide so we could play. After we started, my brother started doing crazy stuff like tying a sunrod to his arm and running ahead singing "this little light of mine" or "the battle hymn of the republic". NOW, this was probably a little out of hand, but it was entertaining so no one really cared, until he started running ahead into dangerous territory. Everyone else joked IC that how wounded he was when he retreated would tell us how ready we needed to be, but the DM didn't want to go off his plan, so he just said that my brother couldn't go ahead of the party by defaulting to "invisible barrier that blocks you if you are not traveling with the entire party".
Again, I know he's new, but as the most experienced player there I wanna help him with that stuff. However, I don't wanna be a nitpicking jerk, so I figured that I would ask all you guys for your opinions. If I should talk to him about these things, what are some good ways I can go about that? (Re,ember I'm not the most socially aware and the DM can get defensive and argumentative about this stuff.
Also the normal player will be back next session so we don't have to worry about that, buy I'm concerned that the railroading shown while my brother was there could continue to grow.
Finally, sorry for the awful formatting and general ramblyness, I was intending for this to be a short post, but it kinda just kept developing into more and more words.
So I have been gaming with this guy forever, he is a good player, and somewhat recently I was invited to join his new group, which had already played a few sessions. I roll up a character, and join. A few sessions in, we get this talk about how he made "something awesome". It was a maze, we spent 20 rather frustrating minutes getting lost with the DM just telling us that we need to "just think, it's not that hard!" I was getting kinda frustrated and asked if we could just skip the maze, it seemed like no one was having fun. (I don't know if the others were or not, but it did not appear that they were at all to me, but that could be bias.) The response went something along the lines of "well I like it and I made it, so you are going to do it." Now I get that kind of reasoning, it's only his first time DMing, and people want to do what they like, but it's still frustrating. Other things like this have happened multiple times, but this is the example I remember the best.Any clue how to talk to him about that without being a jerk? (I'm not really an emotional or socially aware person and I tend to accidentally make those who are mad by being completely oblivious until it's too late, and he can get kinda defensive/emotional about this kina stuff).
Secondly, the issue of home brewing extra powers for monsters that don't affect their levels but let them regain what appeared to be a quarter or so of their health. (This one a simple rules-oriented discussion about why that shouldn't happen as it screws up balance should work, but if anyone has better ideas about it I'm defenitely open to hearing them.
Third, the issue that is easily defined by this statement. (Some of this was discussed earlier in this post but the rest of it is down here)
"If didn't plan what you are trying to do, you can't do it. If I don't like it, you can't to it. If it goes off the main storyline, you can't do it."
This was tolerable when it was things like "no you can't go check and see if the city guards are hurting innocents, I get that your character is super protective about the common people, but I didn't plan for anything like this and don't know how to plan for the possible fallout of that." Again, he's new, no one can plan for everything. For stuff like that I just say Ok and move on. However, last session it got waay worse. I dragged my brother along, who hasn't played in awhile, because they were missing a player. When he was given the missing players sheet, he was told that if he died or something it wouldn't affect the actually player. However, the DM had a huge problem with him not being the exact same alignment as the missing player, and it took the rest of the group awhile to convince him to just let it slide so we could play. After we started, my brother started doing crazy stuff like tying a sunrod to his arm and running ahead singing "this little light of mine" or "the battle hymn of the republic". NOW, this was probably a little out of hand, but it was entertaining so no one really cared, until he started running ahead into dangerous territory. Everyone else joked IC that how wounded he was when he retreated would tell us how ready we needed to be, but the DM didn't want to go off his plan, so he just said that my brother couldn't go ahead of the party by defaulting to "invisible barrier that blocks you if you are not traveling with the entire party".
Again, I know he's new, but as the most experienced player there I wanna help him with that stuff. However, I don't wanna be a nitpicking jerk, so I figured that I would ask all you guys for your opinions. If I should talk to him about these things, what are some good ways I can go about that? (Re,ember I'm not the most socially aware and the DM can get defensive and argumentative about this stuff.
Also the normal player will be back next session so we don't have to worry about that, buy I'm concerned that the railroading shown while my brother was there could continue to grow.
Finally, sorry for the awful formatting and general ramblyness, I was intending for this to be a short post, but it kinda just kept developing into more and more words.