Thealtruistorc
2018-03-17, 10:33 AM
I have been a part of a campaign for well over a year now, and while I have had enough reason to stay up until this point the experience has become more and more egregious as time has passed. There are a lot of things I like about it (hence why I have stayed this long), but they have been bogged down by an incompetent and incredibly obstinate GM.
What has kept me going in the campaign has been the great characters and lore that the party has created. The setting itself (a mixture of Starcraft, Babylon 5, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) was a collaborative effort, and many group members poured some of their best ideas into making it work. Our characters are mostly fun and interesting with creative and thought-provoking backstories, to the point where I have considered writing a book or tv series about some of them. The villain group is also really fun and unique, being one of my favorite pieces of lore writing that I’ve ever done. What’s more, I’ve statted numerous cool and original monsters and NPCs for use in the setting.
The problems lie with the GM and his gross, gross mishandling of all we’ve made. The first issue with the campaign lies with the fact that after more than a year of weekly meetings we are only about a fifth of the way through the story, which only one party member seems to care about anymore. A slow story would be okay if it were kept interesting (and with all we’ve provided it should not be that hard), but the GM has refused to implement ideas or grant creative problems to the point where it almost feels malicious. The amazing locales and characters we made are hardly even mentioned and never visited, with the GM actively railroading us away from the stuff the majority of players are actively invested in. At the same time, he dangles these great things like carrots on a stick, implying that if we cooperate with his story long enough we might get a chance to see the stuff that keeps us playing.
Now, what exactly has been taking the place of all the cool stuff? A never-ending repeat of the same plotline which indulges a gratingly bland Mary Sue PC by constantly feeding into his backstory and skill set). We go to a planet, talk to some people, and delve into the ancient ruins of this one race said Mary Sue is researching. To my memory, this trend has been subverted only once, and that break (which several party members agree has been the best part of the adventure) had a duration of only 3-4 sessions. Even the individual encounters have been uninspired and incredibly repetitive, basically amounting to wave after wave of minions the GM throws while we all take cover behind something and shoot until they die.
I have tried for eight months now to help the GM make the adventure more engaging and diverse, constantly slipping him notes like “now would be a good time to try and integrate xxxxx’s backstory or introduce awesome NPC xxxxxx”. I sent him article after article on top of monster statblock after monster statblock to try and make the encounters more inventive and interesting. The GM, either due to his need to keep control over his game or due to his own incompetence, at worst ignores every suggestion or coaching tip I give and at best botches their execution so horribly that I’m beginning to suspect that screwing them up is his way of saying “stop giving me stuff”. Now, I would leave the campaign and try to keep the world, running a new adventure in this setting that many of us really like. I have tried this in the past. The issue is that the GM (a old friend of mine) seems to be very possessive of the setting, and gets angry whenever I even suggest trying to run another game in that world.
I’m well aware of the “No gaming is better than bad gaming” adage, but some twisted part of me still thinks that this could be salvaged if the GM would have the good sense to recognize the issues he is causing for the game and try to improve himself. Is this a hopeless case, and should I just ditch the game?
What has kept me going in the campaign has been the great characters and lore that the party has created. The setting itself (a mixture of Starcraft, Babylon 5, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) was a collaborative effort, and many group members poured some of their best ideas into making it work. Our characters are mostly fun and interesting with creative and thought-provoking backstories, to the point where I have considered writing a book or tv series about some of them. The villain group is also really fun and unique, being one of my favorite pieces of lore writing that I’ve ever done. What’s more, I’ve statted numerous cool and original monsters and NPCs for use in the setting.
The problems lie with the GM and his gross, gross mishandling of all we’ve made. The first issue with the campaign lies with the fact that after more than a year of weekly meetings we are only about a fifth of the way through the story, which only one party member seems to care about anymore. A slow story would be okay if it were kept interesting (and with all we’ve provided it should not be that hard), but the GM has refused to implement ideas or grant creative problems to the point where it almost feels malicious. The amazing locales and characters we made are hardly even mentioned and never visited, with the GM actively railroading us away from the stuff the majority of players are actively invested in. At the same time, he dangles these great things like carrots on a stick, implying that if we cooperate with his story long enough we might get a chance to see the stuff that keeps us playing.
Now, what exactly has been taking the place of all the cool stuff? A never-ending repeat of the same plotline which indulges a gratingly bland Mary Sue PC by constantly feeding into his backstory and skill set). We go to a planet, talk to some people, and delve into the ancient ruins of this one race said Mary Sue is researching. To my memory, this trend has been subverted only once, and that break (which several party members agree has been the best part of the adventure) had a duration of only 3-4 sessions. Even the individual encounters have been uninspired and incredibly repetitive, basically amounting to wave after wave of minions the GM throws while we all take cover behind something and shoot until they die.
I have tried for eight months now to help the GM make the adventure more engaging and diverse, constantly slipping him notes like “now would be a good time to try and integrate xxxxx’s backstory or introduce awesome NPC xxxxxx”. I sent him article after article on top of monster statblock after monster statblock to try and make the encounters more inventive and interesting. The GM, either due to his need to keep control over his game or due to his own incompetence, at worst ignores every suggestion or coaching tip I give and at best botches their execution so horribly that I’m beginning to suspect that screwing them up is his way of saying “stop giving me stuff”. Now, I would leave the campaign and try to keep the world, running a new adventure in this setting that many of us really like. I have tried this in the past. The issue is that the GM (a old friend of mine) seems to be very possessive of the setting, and gets angry whenever I even suggest trying to run another game in that world.
I’m well aware of the “No gaming is better than bad gaming” adage, but some twisted part of me still thinks that this could be salvaged if the GM would have the good sense to recognize the issues he is causing for the game and try to improve himself. Is this a hopeless case, and should I just ditch the game?