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Helmet-kun
2017-07-31, 11:15 PM
I type this up now the day after all this happened, so feelings are still pretty rough. I kind of want perspective on this, so I can get some insight on the situation. If people in the game find it, whatever. It’s unlikely we’ll be in touch tbh.

This post is pretty long, and almost rant-y, but here we go.

So I joined a game a couple weeks ago as per my SO’s request. Their last player quit because the GM said no magic crafting or something like that. The game we played is a 5e conversion of some pathfinder module. Off the bat, the GM allowed some feats but not all; Lucky obviously, but also stuff like Polearm Master. No multi-classing either. Point buy system. He banned spells from SCAG (he rescinded this later) but allowed EE and of course PHB. Logically, these are things that are optional, so I didn’t have any problem.

But then he changed the way some things worked. For example, the Dueling Style - which I believe just gives +2 damage if you have a weapon in one hand and no other weapons - was changed so that it gave +2 damage if you have a weapon in one hand and nothing in your other hand. No shield. Nothing. Another was that if you wore armor that gave you disadvantage on Stealth, then you also got disadvantage on movement based rolls. The logic being, one was historically accurate to the Dueling Style, and the other being that it wasn’t realistic for the guy in heavy armor to be able to do things like…climb, I guess.

All fine and dandy for everybody else, but I was a strength based paladin, so… yea. I was starting off a little more hosed than usual. But, whatever. I talked it over with him, I understood his logic, I was willing to pretty much accept it.

So I’m going to kind of gloss over some of the things that happened during the game and give the highlight reel of what happened over the course of three sessions that I found bizarre or frustrating. It is a party of 4, all level three, consisting of Wizard, Bard, Paladin (me), and Rogue.

At the end of my first session, we encountered a boss monster with legendary actions. I was taken down by a DEX save move, knocked prone, and effectively KO’d within the span of it’s turn. People went to go heal me, I’d get up and move, and on it’s turn, it would effectively KO me again. Even though I did pretty well overall in the session, the ending made me feel like complete garbage. I at this point ask him if the encounters are appropriate for our level. He says that he doesn’t use CR at all. He just puts what’s there and is appropriate. The people who made Curse of Strad said they didn’t use CR, and that made sense to him.

In between the first and second sessions, I spoke with the GM about using an item that was effectively like blinding powder. He said that because that there were no rules for blinding powder, I couldn’t use it. I challenged him on this: “so, wait, I can’t throw sand in people’s eyes and blind them?”

“Nope. D&D combat is just an abstraction. You can’t, say, lop someone’s arm off or stab them in the eye.”

“Okay, but if you take it to the extreme of ‘if there are no rules for it, it can’t happen’, you’re saying that nobody except a wizard with access to Blindness/deafness can blind people, which isn’t very realistic.”

“I don’t appreciate my GMing style as being called extreme.”

In the end, he basically just told me to shut up and play my paladin and to not argue with a GM’s ruling and that I shouldn’t be trying to be doing things outside my class and to not compare my class to others which… yea, left me soured.

Second session, in the middle of combat, our wizard cast a flaming sphere, which is a five foot ball of fire. He tried to put in it a five foot wide door and basically block it off. He was told he couldn’t, because it didn’t line up with the grid. Everybody challenged him on this, and he didn’t back down. Also, because it wasn’t stated that it was a solid ball of fires, creatures can attempt to go through it (they take damage), but it could not go through creatures. Not sure how to feel about that one.

Third Session, we tried the new Greyhawk initiative with a few modifications. we fight off against an elderitch knight that was at least 7th level because he could use second level spells, who had both mirror image and another spell up at the start of the fight, and two robot dogs that had resistance to all types of normal weapons. We went into that fight with everybody fully healed except myself, who was missing 3 HP. I had the most HP as well (28 Max) and 18 AC, everybody was still pretty stocked even though they came off two fights.

We died. I got up about twice that fight and died.

For the record, those dogs could do 6d6 fire/lightning damage as a cone every 5-6 rounds. They bit for 3d6 physical damage, and 3d6 lightning damage. If they were within 5 feet of each other, they got +5 to hit. Needless to say, I was tied up with them for the better part of the fight. The elderitch knight misty’d stepped to go fight everybody else.

Bard put up a fight. The knight KO’d him, but the Bard kept making his death saving throws with nat20s and ****. Wizard was stuck trying to fight on two fronts. The rogue became our heal bot because he had this thing that let him heal people. I can’t help them, because I’m dealing with dogs that could oneshot me with a high enough roll, and KO me in two hits with an average roll.

Meanwhile, Greyhawk initiative kept ******* me. Bad rolls all night for me. Always rolled high, which made my moves last, which…yea. Wizard was pretty upset with it too. It really confused the bard and made him argue a lot that session, which dragged the long, agonizing fight longer.

So, yea, we die. The GM tries to say we went back to the compound, but the rogue quits, my SO quits and takes me with him (which I was fine with because I was sticking around for his sake).

Doesn’t end there.

When my SO sends him the message saying he’s quitting, he was rather salty about it (which is a failing on his fault, but I didn’t blame him). The GM goes on to explain how it was our fault we lost.

His first claim was that the party was aware that someone was in the dungeon, but we decided not to employ any means of stealth, divination, or any other methods of scouting. Okay. Scouting/stealth was overall a bad idea because this was a spaceship, with brightly light hallways, with doors that made noise when they opened. Divination wouldn’t have helped us in the fight because the Rogue deduced who it was anyway. Not like any of us had divination to even begin with. And it wasn’t like we didn’t know he had company. It was just that we couldn’t deduce that he had robot dogs because they were robots and even though they were designed to look like dogs we couldn’t deduce from the footsteps that they were at the very least dogs like.

Second, we could have retreated back to town after the first encounter to rest and heal up. Except, if you remember, we were in good fighting shape. In fact, arguably, we were in one of the best fighting shapes to pick a fight.

The problem wasn’t that we had nothing. The problem was that we were all trained to be conscious of our resources. The wizard and I weren’t willing to blow our loads off into a single fight because we just came off a rescue mission were time was crucial and we couldn’t do the whole “ten minute adventure” thing, which the GM expressed he didn’t want to happen. It didn’t help that the enemy could dispose of everybody so quickly that I was the only one comfortable to even get close to the enemy.

The Greyhawk initiative also ****ed us. I kept having to use swap gear die to try and figure out what weapon of mine didn’t have resistance to the dogs (turns out: none.) I kept rolling a bonus action spell die and not using it because the situation changed to being not ideal. Don’t get me wrong, it kept things interesting, but I felt like I was being constantly choked to death and would have been more useful in this system as a fighter or something. Wizard felt the same way, especially with his flaming sphere out.

Another claim he made was that the party threatened the shady figure with no attempt to discuss things, despite being injured and low on resources. We were not low on resources. In fact, we had all the resources that the GM made available to us that we were comfortable with taking without being ***** to the town we were in, which were two healing potions (which we never got around to using because Greyhawk rules) and two healer’s kit (made useful by the one feat that made healer’s kits useful). Like, I dunno man, it’s hard to be a munchkin that’s taking **** from a needy town when ¾ party members are Good Aligned and rational people. And, again, I was the only injured party member.

But even with all that? The party didn’t threaten the shady figure. It was the rogue, who had previous interactions with the shady figure, who threatened him. The rest of the party was extremely confused because the rogue didn’t exactly keep us in the loop, and the GM required knowledge checks to even understand what the guy was yapping about. And, even then, once confronted with the robot dogs, the rogue attempted pretty damn hard to back peddle and kiss the guy’s ass. Nope. Didn’t work.

So to top that nice cake off, my paladin died getting roped into a fight that she
1) Didn’t understand why it was happening
2) Didn’t really understand what the stakes even were
3) Didn’t get a real grasp of what this guy’s reasons even were
4) Was only fighting because the dude was attacking her friends.

Also bluh bluh “you could have fought smarter” but when you can be KO’d in two hits the only smart thing to do is run

Like, I dunno, I need some perspective. We managed to get the dogs down and the guy to down half-health, but he was an Elderitch knight without Healing Surge or some ****, which… okay? The GM claims that he was toned down from the conversions he used but at the same time he still hit like a truck and had pretty high HP which… come on? I just don't know how to really feel about the whole thing tbh. Like, was the party in the wrong?

rs2excelsior
2017-08-01, 12:13 AM
I think y'all were in the right. Giving fights that are highly outside the party's ability to fight is a reasonable way to DM... IF the players are aware of it beforehand. And if there are other ways out of the situation, which from your description sounds like there wasn't. Aside from the rogue being rash, it didn't seem like there was anything you could have done better. Even then, the decision for this guy to kill you rather than, say, rough you all up and toss you out was still on the GM.

Some of the other things set of alarm bells too... it sounds like the GM is very rigid with the rules, even at the expense of common sense. I wouldn't like playing with that kind of GM, but that's me--although I'd argue that being willing and able to use the rules to adjudicate your actions even when they're somewhat outside of the rules is overall a good thing for player immersion and pure fun (I usually let people try crazy stuff when I DM--sometimes it turns out awesome, sometimes it fails hilariously; either way I try and make it fun). Not letting you throw sand at people, or not letting a flaming sphere block a door because the wizard apparently lives in a computer simulation and can only place spells precisely according to a grid system... it is pretty extreme in my book. So yeah. Plus changing feats in a way that nerf particular fighting styles/character types which aren't necessarily powerful to begin with (I don't play 5e, so I don't know if that's true, but sword-and-shield is one of the weaker combat styles in 3.5/PF).

Communicate with this person, see if you can make them understand what problems you as players had--make it a group thing, and don't make it confrontational--and try to sort things out. Or find a new GM.

Helmet-kun
2017-08-01, 12:21 AM
Communicate with this person, see if you can make them understand what problems you as players had--make it a group thing, and don't make it confrontational--and try to sort things out. Or find a new GM.
Unfortunately, the game has been called, so there can't really be a group gathering to talk to him about it. I'm just trying to be as self-aware as possible about everything that happened and other people's perspectives on the matter are helpful in this.

Vitruviansquid
2017-08-01, 01:48 AM
I've seen countless forum posts here that praise some of the moves that the GM does:

- Don't let the players know what their characters wouldn't know.
- Homebrew new and interesting challenges for players, especially in D&D, where there is a lot of theory and optimization on the web.
- Don't care about CR, so the players will have to be clever and paranoid about every encounter they walk into.
- Give players opponents who are out of their league once inawhile, just to show them they are part of a cold, uncaring, but realistic world.

You can tell I don't approve of all these ideas.

But here's the thing. The only reason you need to walk out on a game is that you are not having fun. It doesn't matter if the GM is doing things that are supposed to be fun, as argued on the forums, what matters is if you are having fun.

I mean, what's the GM going to do? Guilt you into staying in a joyless game?

Darth Ultron
2017-08-01, 02:20 AM
This sounds like a lot more of just a clash of styles. The DM likes ''type 3'' games, and you like ''type 4''.

A lot of DM's don't like to homebrew and add things to the game like blinding powder. And most DM's, like maybe yours, knew they could not ''make'' it right.

The fights....well it's really so classic DM moves there. Like half of the DM's in the world do the ''oh sounds good to me to do 6d6damage a round''. DMing, like any other position of power, can and does make people ave no empathy and understanding. Like would the DM want to fight his own monster? Most would not, for ''reasons''.

The ''not playing the game the way the DM wants'' is sadly classic. And really the ''oh the characters should have done more research '' is a classic. And again it's the clash of styles. The DM is thinking a ''fun, heroic adventure '' is like reading a book from a library, the player thinks a ''fun, heroic adventure '' is fighting a monster.

DM's also get the ''blindness''. He might have added something, like say a special word that would turn off the dogs. But it was hidden, and the characters needed to do XYZ to find it. The DM sat back and was happy he made an 'out'. But then the players...not knowing the secret word existed...did not find it. And the DM just goes ''ha, too bad!''. It's the classic clue problem(people need three hints per clue...and one should be a ton of bricks).


I'm a Killer Unfair DM myself, but I give huge signs and warnings, so that when character death does come it really is the players fault. Like for the knight foe, I'd just have him knock out the characters if the did the wild attack. Then they would rest up, and try again with no changes...and this times he'd like knock the characters out, curse them and loot all their stuff. And the third time would be character death.

So you just have a mismatch of styles.

ExLibrisMortis
2017-08-01, 08:33 AM
The way I read it--with the usual disclaimer of "only one side of the story" and all that--most of what caused friction involves the DM making some decision based on their own ideas of what should be happening, and not responding to different opinions from the rest of the table. Not the worst story I've read on these forums, but the GM seems a bit too, shall we say, self-centered, set in their ways, un-self-critical? Railroady, too. His trope goes, no subversions.

ellindsey
2017-08-01, 09:11 AM
"no magic crafting" is itself a huge warning sign for me. I'm not going to quit about that alone, but it's generally a good sign that the GM has major control issues and is going to heavily restrict your access to magic in general during the campaign.

Ninja-Radish
2017-08-01, 09:36 AM
Sounds like the DM was an idiot. It happens sometimes

BRC
2017-08-01, 09:38 AM
"no magic crafting" is itself a huge warning sign for me. I'm not going to quit about that alone, but it's generally a good sign that the GM has major control issues and is going to heavily restrict your access to magic in general during the campaign.

Eh, Magic Crafting systems can be enough of a headache that I wouldn't blink twice at a GM banning them. It's not a core part of D&D, and are often used by players to do crazy cheese.

That said, the rest of this doesn't read especially well for the GM. Those Dogs sound like souped up Hellhounds, which are CR3 enemies. One of those would have been a medium difficulty encounter for your party of 4. Two of them, plus a boss, was kind of crazy.

I suppose I would need the context. "Ignore CR" is usually advice along the line of "Don't spare the PC's from the consequences of their actions" or "The CR system is mostly Guesswork anyway". If they attack 30 royal guardsmen at level 2, don't feel you need to give them a CR-Appropriate encounter". But, assuming that the Eldritch Knight and his dogs were the result of following plot hooks/ the GM hadn't communicated that it was an unwinnable fight, then yes, that's taking the wrong lesson from "Ignore CR".

Geddy2112
2017-08-01, 10:41 AM
You were clearly not the only person unhappy with the game. Your SO quit, and the rogue did as well. So that means 3 of the 4 players(or 2 if your SO was the rogue) were unhappy with the game.

As others have said, it seems to just be a mismatch of play styles and expectations of a game. I have seen some games I consider utterly awful, so bad I almost vomit thinking about them, but in those games were several players and a DM having a ton of fun. It is not the game for me, but clearly the game for somebody. The DM would be a DM a lot of people consider bad, and if they don't like the feedback they got they can find new players that enjoy that kind of game/are of similar mind.

There is nothing wrong with realizing a relationship won't work out, and better to end it sooner than later. I can only wish you best of luck finding a DM that is better for you(and your SO) and that you have some insight on the type of game/DM you are NOT looking for going forward.

When potentially joining a game,I always ask for every house rule in writing from a new DM and I hold them to it. Likewise, I sit in on a session before joining to make sure I will be a good match for the table. I make sure to ask/witness the play style, tone, setting, etc so I know what I am joining or if it won't be right for me.