Rules Hypocrite DM

[Great cthulhu]

Hello. I am posting this thread asking for advice on how to deal with a certain DM

First allow me to explain the situation:
Our party was sent to slave labour in a fictional world of sandloft working for a sentient and possessing warlord sword named Yonis. Our rogue managed to escape the fight that resulted in our imprisonment and hired mercinaries to rescue us. Unfortunatly, there was one problem: Our gear.
I was not very smart, and built a paladin who primarily relied upon his equipment. I had gotten enough gold to buy a snazzy suit of full plate before the fight and really didn't want to lose it. Luckily, after going through a series of tests by spirits who resided in a secret temple we were excivating, we were able to not only get everything back and teleport away from the work camp, but also got some cool magic items. We also got death runes placed on us until we kill Yonis :smalltongue:
We were given instructions on how to create a paste that could kill yonis (because we fought this guy and he was basically unkillible) We had to retrive moss from a troll's back and get a dragon's tooth. Both sounded pretty advanced for our six 4-level party members. This is where things begin to get a little stressful

On our journey from the desert to the mountains, we were attacked in our sleep by an Arch-devil (yes an arch-devil!) Named he who shifts in the sands. Luckily I had made a deal with him that he had not fufilled, so I requested for him to go get the troll moss. We went to the dragons lair.

Before going to the mountains, I had bought 100 flasks worth of oil to burn the blue dragon down. The DM was lenient enough to tell us it was blue, and we assumed it was probably a young dragon. (we were right) After a long time in the kobold-infested caves, we managed to find the dragon's home, only to find that it had its own DIMENSION called the realm of silver. We used a special portal key to enter the realm and fought three mercinaries as follows: 1. A wizard who could control four magical blades at once, 2. A berzerker who could grow at will with a magical ring, and finally, a rogue with a sword that let him teleport. I must say these mercinaries were extremely difficult to defeat with over 100 hit points each, and multiple characters were knocked unconscious (no deaths ...yet)
After slaying the last one, we were forced to pledge alligence to the dragon and become it's faithful servant, in the end we got the tooth, but now we are in service to the dragon for life. He gave us two weeks off.
We marched to the dwarf settlement where the paste was brewed. We then quickly travelled to sandloft to hire mercinaries. But they had all been bought out for a war against the rebellion. Guess who was leading it: Yonis (of course) Now we had gone and made dealings with devils, dragons, and magic swords that can instakill us all, and soon we started getting a feeling: Why is every NPC in the game a mile stronger than us?
We went to the city of willstone to find yonis there in his castle. Fortunatly he was so strong now he welcomed us as guests. Shortly after, we decided to fight him in his scrying den, and thats where the conflict began:

First allow me to clarify that yonis is surrounded by four trolls at all times. They are all CR 5, and we are all level four. If we didnt have a LOT of oil, we should not have been able to kill them. Even with magic items the fight seemed bleak. Four trolls and an instakiller versus six "CR: 1" characters.
I used the giant ring i had nabbed from one of the mercinaries to grow and splash oil on a troll. The druid set it on fire. It died in a couple rounds. Then the DM did something dumb. He made trolls extremely smart. They all surrounded me, becuase the DM had noticed i was something of a leader to the rest of my party (two members swore to commit suicided should i die" And was very aware of the situations put. He had all four trolls surround me and start attacking me. Luckily, only a few hit me but those that did severly wounded me.
But here's where it took a bad turn. I deciced to use my turn to intimidate the trolls. I knew it was supposed to be opposed, but the DM told me to make a DC 20 check! As if all three trolls Crit! I did not succeed obviously and told him the rules specifically said to make opposed checks he said the trolls were too stupid to understand fear and were enraged by fire. I told him if they were smart enough to understand that I poured the oil and lit them on fire and not the druid that cast produce flame, that they would be smart enough to understand fear.
At last I took the paste and crushed it, walked into the room yonis was in, and prepared to smear the paste into him, which would supposidly kill him in one minute (a LOT of rounds so a LOT of successful checks) I failed the grapple check despite the fact i was bigger than him. Then he became a complete hippocrit and said the since the rules did not provide any bonuses, I in turn did not recive them.
I lost the grapple of course and the sword instakilled me.

We are friends and go to the same school, so I talk to him about it a lot. He says if the game isn't nearly impossible, its too easy. He admitted he made the quest almost impossible to stretch us to the limits. I know there are RP sessions that involve players dying all the time, but this was not the one i signed up for. He had already killed three people, and gave us an impossible task.
First i talked about the troll incident which i am still mad about. He said i made more since to make it a DC check. I sarcastically asked him if that means we dont gain HP during rests anymore. I just cant stand the fact he was a total hypocrite during the grapple section.
I talked to him about how yonis is too strong. Wanna know his response? He said "you didn't have to fight him you know"

He forgot about his own death rune.

He did not have a comeback to my pointing it out. In conclusion I think my DM is becoming too difficult and i think some other players are agreeing. One of the only reasons im staying is because he is my friend. I dont know whether to quit or what to say to him about it being too difficult.

[Lunali]

While it may be true that your DM is too difficult, I don't see where he's a hypocrite. There aren't set rules for intimidation that I'm aware of, setting a DC 20 seems reasonable for trying to intimidate creatures that are higher CR than your level. Being larger doesn't make it easier to grapple a smaller creature, it just allows you to grapple creatures that are larger than you normally can.

[JackPhoenix]

Intimidate isn't opposed check by the rules. It's up to the GM to decide how the interaction will be resolved, and what the DC of an ability check will be, if any.
There are no modifiers for size during grappling. You may be unable to grapple target two or more categories larger than yourself, but that's it.

[Great cthulhu]

I understand. Apologies for the rules misconceptions, but circumstance bonus is a thing, and every game i have played intimidation is opposed

[Tiadoppler]

In conclusion I think my DM is becoming too difficult and i think some other players are agreeing. One of the only reasons im staying is because he is my friend. I dont know whether to quit or what to say to him about it being too difficult.

Your DM is not creating quests that are too difficult or challenging.

Your DM is DMing badly.

He's your friend, and you should give him some polite, honest feedback about his game. If the DM forgets something important, the player characters should not be punished for it. Maybe you should encourage him to stick to the DMG's basic encounter building tools until he's more familiar with the system (he sounds like a new DM to me). Right now, a lot of the various plot elements seems very forced and railroad-y (although I can't really be sure without more information): you went from being slaves, to being forced to complete a quest by magic, to having only one thing in the universe able to kill the bad guy, and you have to go to the one place in the universe where you can find it.

If your DM has a specific linear story he wants to tell, that's an option, but he needs to be up front with the players about it. It sounds to me like your party is chafing at the bit, and would like to do things a bit more independently. You should have a conversation about what your DM wants from the players, and listen to his responses. Perhaps his plan for the campaign is to make hack-and-slash gameplay extraordinarily difficult and he wants the PCs to display more clever tactics and out of the box thinking to mitigate that.

It sounds like there just isn't enough communication between DM and players, and there's a disconnect between the players' expectations and what the campaign is.


Edit: I agree with what others have said about the Intimidation and Grappling stuff, though. Having specific DCs for skill checks and making you roll for grappling isn't bad behavior, although, if that's how the DM intends for you to defeat the bad guys, they should make sure the DCs and skills checks are of appropriate difficulty for the party.

[JackPhoenix]

I understand. Apologies for the rules misconceptions, but circumstance bonus is a thing, and every game i have played intimidation is opposed

Circumstance bonus is not really a thing. The GM may decide to grant you advantage or disadvantage, based on his judgement, though. And rulings (or houserules) from one game has no bearing on the same in different game, or on actual rules.

Note that if the ring allows you to cast Enlarge/Reduce (honestly, the rant is a bit confusing about what was going on), advantage on Str checks (which includes grapple) is part of the spell's effect, and in such case, your GM is wrong. That is a rule specific to the spell, however.

And still, even with grappling, it's unclear how would you stop the enemy from "instakilling" your character anyway. All grapple does is limiting the target's movement.

Even ignoring that, yeah, the whole thing looks like bad GMing. Talk to the GM about your issues with the game, try to reach compromise, and if it's impossible, find a different game with a better GM.

[Great cthulhu]

Your DM is not creating quests that are too difficult or challenging.

Your DM is DMing badly.

He's your friend, and you should give him some polite, honest feedback about his game. If the DM forgets something important, the player characters should not be punished for it. Maybe you should encourage him to stick to the DMG's basic encounter building tools until he's more familiar with the system (he sounds like a new DM to me). Right now, a lot of the various plot elements seems very forced and railroad-y (although I can't really be sure without more information): you went from being slaves, to being forced to complete a quest by magic, to having only one thing in the universe able to kill the bad guy, and you have to go to the one place in the universe where you can find it.

If your DM has a specific linear story he wants to tell, that's an option, but he needs to be up front with the players about it. It sounds to me like your party is chafing at the bit, and would like to do things a bit more independently. You should have a conversation about what your DM wants from the players, and listen to his responses. Perhaps his plan for the campaign is to make hack-and-slash gameplay extraordinarily difficult and he wants the PCs to display more clever tactics and out of the box thinking to mitigate that.

It sounds like there just isn't enough communication between DM and players, and there's a disconnect between the players' expectations and what the campaign is.


Edit: I agree with what others have said about the Intimidation and Grappling stuff, though. Having specific DCs for skill checks and making you roll for grappling isn't bad behavior, although, if that's how the DM intends for you to defeat the bad guys, they should make sure the DCs and skills checks are of appropriate difficulty for the party.

Yeah. I am pretty aware that I dont want to yell at him or get into a big fight that will damage my relationship. What I was thinking of telling him is recommending going back to being a player for a little bit of time. He has been talking about it for a little while, how he misses being one. What do you think?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah. I am pretty aware that I dont want to yell at him or get into a big fight that will damage my relationship. What I was thinking of telling him is recommending going back to being a player for a little bit of time. He has been talking about it for a little while, how he misses being one. What do you think?
If you're not having a great time with the game, and the DM wants to go back to being a player, that's a pretty neat solution.

[Malifice]

You chose to fight 4 trolls and a NPC that was teleplgraphed to you as being very powerful.

At level 4.

The DM even gave you a chance to intimidate trolls who clearly had the upper hand.

Your PCs death is on you mate.

[The Library DM]

Words of experience:
1. Your friendship is way more important than the game. (And it’s terrific that you recognize this!)
2. The game is supposed to be fun. If you’re not having fun, then, yes, changes need to be made.
3. It can be fun if your PC dies, as long as everyone agrees the death came about fairly (at least in terms of the rules). I had my first ever TPK as a DM last summer. But the players (all teens) loved it— because they saw the disaster coming and knew that their actions and choices had produced it, and that I wasn’t killing the party just to kill everyone. (Really, don’t pick up the obviously evil sentient magic item dropped by the Big Bad Necromancer...)

My suggestion is that your group consider instituting a “debrief” bull session when a game is over. This is a chance for everyone to say what they did or didn’t like about the adventure. Use the “praise sandwich” approach— start by saying what you *did* like about it, then discuss the problems you had (NOT “what the other player or DM did wrong”), and then close by restating or mentioning other things that you did like.

As to the campaign, there are things I like about what you describe— setting up a life-long situation with the blue dragon is actually a neat bit of storytelling for your party. (Rather like some of the stuff in OotS!) Also, sometimes an element that your characters must or want to correct doesn’t mean that it’s something they HAVE to correct in the immediate future, or even could do so. Sometimes that element is merely the start of something big that will be handled one day when your characters have amassed many other adventures and are now of a level to address the curse which has plagued them for so long. Luke may want to defeat Vader and the Emperor, but he’s not ready to confront either in Ep V— for which rashness, he loses a hand. But he learns, and comes back when he is ready for the challenge (well, almost— he still needs some help from an unexpected source). And that’s how a good story and a good campaign works— saving big moments for later.

Lastly, do remember that the primary rule of D&D has always been that the DM makes the rules. What’s in the book can be ignored by the DM at any point; for a player, the DM is the rulebook. But DMs have a primary rule, too— “Be Fun and Be Fair.” If you feel your DM was neither, talk about that.

And remember, this experience is a learning experience for both of you— he’s learning how to be a better DM, and so are you. Give some thought to how you’d like to approach a campaign yourself, and offer to do that— but not as a criticism of your friend. Your dislike for the past campaign should not be coupled with your offer to be the DM.

Best of luck!

[Frozenstep]

You chose to fight 4 trolls and a NPC that was teleplgraphed to you as being very powerful.

At level 4.

The DM even gave you a chance to intimidate trolls who clearly had the upper hand.

Your PCs death is on you mate.

Sounds like you forgot about the death rune too.

[sophontteks]

On the intimidation roll. Intimidation is not an opposed check, because its not a contested roll. Most charisma checks are not contested rolls. Their difficulty is determined by a wide array of outside factors not related to the monster's charisma. In this case it'd be largely determined by how much of an advantage they think they have in the fight. It'd be a high DC because they clearly have every advantage here. An opposed check would not represent this fact.

Allowing someone to roll an opposed intimidation check against everyone he/she meets would be easily exploited. A bard with expertise in intimidation and enhance ability (charisma) could practically end all encounters before they begin. The DM was doing the right thing here. It should be a Check against a DC. This is actually backed by the rulebook, and the DM honestly went easy on you with a DC 20. I'd rate intimidating a band of troll who have every advantage in the fight as being either Very Hard or Nearly Impossible. Even a NAT 20 wouldn't work unless the player was particularly intimidating. The DM ruled it as a Hard check which is going easy on you.

Of course, in every other regard the campaign looks extremely busy and he's being way hard on you.

[Mad_Saulot]

I dont really see anything wrong, after reading your whole block ofg text it sounds like an interesting game, imo it was your mistake to attempt to intimidate in the middle of combat, intimidation isnt a magic "get away from me" ability, its a social skill essentially and if a player tried intimidating in combat rather than a more effective tactic like actually hitting something I'd be frowning at them.

The only thing wrong that i noticed was that intimidation is an opposed role, I use intimidation opposed by intimidation, but if a player attempted it in the middle of a heated battle I'd apply disadvantage.

Otherwise the whole "You didnt have to fight them" is perfectly legitimate, I regularly fail to mollycoddle my players, I like the sandbox play, just because you know where the villain is doesnt mean you are ready to face them in battle.

What is this "Death Rune" you speak of?

[Lunali]

I dont really see anything wrong, after reading your whole block ofg text it sounds like an interesting game, imo it was your mistake to attempt to intimidate in the middle of combat, intimidation isnt a magic "get away from me" ability, its a social skill essentially and if a player tried intimidating in combat rather than a more effective tactic like actually hitting something I'd be frowning at them.

The only thing wrong that i noticed was that intimidation is an opposed role, I use intimidation opposed by intimidation, but if a player attempted it in the middle of a heated battle I'd apply disadvantage.

Otherwise the whole "You didnt have to fight them" is perfectly legitimate, I regularly fail to mollycoddle my players, I like the sandbox play, just because you know where the villain is doesnt mean you are ready to face them in battle.

What is this "Death Rune" you speak of?

The problem with using intimidation as opposed checks is that people that know they are likely to win a fight can be intimidated relatively easily.

As for the death runes, I'm assuming it means something along the lines of "if you don't meet the condition, you will die." In this case the condition is killing the nearly unkillable enemy, possibly with a time limit, possibly similar to geas where you'll survive as long as you're working towards the goal.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Sounds like you forgot about the death rune too.

Unless we're misinterpreting, the stipulation OP gave us for the Death Rune was "until we kill Yonis". That's very vague, and it leaves open the assumption that you didn't need to rush head first into a clearly suicidal encounter to kill Yonis right now.

The players clear misunderstanding of the rules involved in applying this paste (I don't really understand how this was meant to succeed myself) also play a large part in this. Grappling doesn't auto succeed with size and it doesn't prevent the grappled target from attacking you, which seems to be an issue if Yonis' sword was powerful enough to instantly kill the player.

On one hand, I can understand the players frustration at having such an arduous task presented to them. It was likely going to be too difficult for the party but it was probably manageable. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed it very much myself.

On the other hand, I'd be surprised if a party whose plan to take out a Dragon was to burn it with 100 flasks of oil actually made it very far into a difficult style of campaign like this.

On topic, your DM here isn't a hypocrite. I would say, however, that his style of DM'ing is probably going to be unappealing to a majority of players he would find. I think that the mentality that "it's too easy if it isn't virtually impossible" is too far off from "appropriately challenge the players and hang the threat of danger above them".

I do have one specific thing to note.

But here's where it took a bad turn. I deciced to use my turn to intimidate the trolls. I knew it was supposed to be opposed, but the DM told me to make a DC 20 check! As if all three trolls Crit! I did not succeed obviously and told him the rules specifically said to make opposed checks he said the trolls were too stupid to understand fear and were enraged by fire. I told him if they were smart enough to understand that I poured the oil and lit them on fire and not the druid that cast produce flame, that they would be smart enough to understand fear.
I think that this was actually quite a fair move from your DM, I likely would have set the DC higher or even considered it impossible. You're attempting to intimidate creatures who you have enraged (it doesn't take a genius to connect a splash of oil to being caught on fire) and who are much more powerful than you.

The encounter was played appropriately on both sides, the players used a strategy to overcome troll's regeneration and the trolls reacted in a believable manner by becoming enraged and dogpiling on the closest thing they could blame for it.

[HolyDraconus]

The problem with using intimidation as opposed checks is that people that know they are likely to win a fight can be intimidated relatively easily.

As for the death runes, I'm assuming it means something along the lines of "if you don't meet the condition, you will die." In this case the condition is killing the nearly unkillable enemy, possibly with a time limit, possibly similar to geas where you'll survive as long as you're working towards the goal.

I dunno. From what I'm reading, if the rune didn't trigger when they went on their quest then they really could have just walked away. I agree with what was said above. Deaths are on him.

[Lunali]

I dunno. From what I'm reading, if the rune didn't trigger when they went on their quest then they really could have just walked away. I agree with what was said above. Deaths are on him.

Their quest was to fulfill the condition of the rune, none of the events described were for any purpose other than killing the target. It's entirely possible that walking away would have caused them all to drop dead.

[JackPhoenix]

Their quest was to fulfill the condition of the rune, none of the events described were for any purpose other than killing the target. It's entirely possible that walking away would have caused them all to drop dead.

And you know that how? OP didn't said anything about what the rune was, or what it was supposed to do. It's entirely your conjecture.

[Frozenstep]

And you know that how? OP didn't said anything about what the rune was, or what it was supposed to do. It's entirely your conjecture.

OP told us that the DM didn't have a comeback when the he pointed out the death rune as the reason why they fought someone they didn't want to fight. If the players were misunderstanding the death rune, he could have easily responded "but you had 60 more days before it activated, like I told you" or something.

Of course OP could easily be lying, or maybe the DM was the one being vague about the death rune and the players were forced to play around being unsure what would make it activate. But it was used to control player actions, and if we believe anything OP is telling us, apparently the DM forgot he was using it. That's kind of dumb.

[Lunali]

And you know that how? OP didn't said anything about what the rune was, or what it was supposed to do. It's entirely your conjecture.

Well, we know the rune was intended to make them try to kill the npc and given the name of it, assuming that it kills people is reasonable. We also know that the events in the OP were directly tied to the quest to kill the npc.

It's possible the group did things that weren't related and it didn't trigger the rune. It's also possible that ignoring the quest wouldn't trigger the rune. Given that the DM had forgotten about the runes, it's likely that nothing they did would have actually triggered them, but that's not something characters should be counting on.

[Envyus]

We need more details on the Death Rune.

If it was not going to activate any time soon, then I largely say this is the players biting on more than they could chew.

[The Library DM]

I too wondered about the “death rune.” I’m more an old school DM and my 5e program at the library doesn’t go higher than 3rd level, so I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the higher level stuff. A quick perusal didn’t find it, but I assumed that maybe I’d missed something.

The question is, did the DM explain what the “death rune” did, as the DM, or did he have the villain make the claims? The former is a statement of flat rules fact. The latter is unreliable and might even be a lie. If the former, the DM messed up. If the latter, the players did in believing the word of an evil overlord!

[KorvinStarmast]

Circumstance bonus is not really a thing. It's called advantage (or disadvantage), and it's in the basic rules.
Page 5:

Sometimes an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw is modified by special situations called advantage and disadvantage. Advantage reflects the positive circumstances surrounding a d20 roll, while disadvantage reflects the opposite.
Page 5

2. Apply circumstantial bonuses and penalties. A class feature, a spell, a particular circumstance, or some other effect might give a bonus or penalty to the check.
Page 60

You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, or spells. Inspiration can also give a character advantage (as explained in chapter 4, “Personality and Background”). The DM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.
And this is for the OP ... this was posted a bit further up thread, and I'd like to pull it out of the post.

imo it was your mistake to attempt to intimidate in the middle of combat, intimidation isnt a magic "get away from me" ability, its a social skill essentially and if a player tried intimidating in combat rather than a more effective tactic like actually hitting something I'd be frowning at them.
Ability checks are not magic spells.

[Waterdeep Merch]

While I'd normally be on the "he's a bad DM" train, I've recently been in a few games with DM's that do things the board and myself would generally consider "bad". Railroading, poorly conceived houserules, unfair difficulty spikes, badly telegraphed encounters, favoritism, and even outright player spite. I've managed to get over it, after some rather tense arguments in some misguided attempts at fixing these games.

My advice- stop loving your characters so much. Take the games more as a personal challenge, not a character challenge. Roleplay the best you can, including to your death. Play the best you can, including to your death. Heap corpses at the foot of your DM, and learn to love that. Feel neither frustration nor sadness when you say "Yep, I'm dead again. Anyone want anything from the fridge?". Face forward and see if the next character gets further. Try to seek out the best deaths that you can.

Because if the DM's going to be arbitrary with death, then you should think of arbitrary death as a feature instead of a bug.

[darknite]

I've had games/DMs like this. One tactic I've used is to have my PC just give up.

"So we need to confront trolls and a dragon to then defeat an intelligent sword that controls an empire? Well, my PC is 4th level so I'm ducking out of this one. Let some more powerful heroes take this one on. I hear there are some orcs plundering a caravan route east of here, that's where I want to go."

This gives a direct message to the DM, who really wants to run their hella-cool super epic story NOW, that you're not willing to be pawns to be ripped apart and humiliated in game play. They're falling into the same old trap of the DM thinking it's MY game rather than OUR game.

[CantigThimble]

They're falling into the same old trap of the DM thinking it's MY game rather than OUR game.

Just remember that this cuts both ways and it's pretty easy to get bored of designing and endless series of level appropriate (which in D&D typically means: PCs definitely win) encounters. The players need to be happy with the level of difficulty but so does the DM.

[Willie the Duck]

Hello. I am posting this thread asking for advice on how to deal with a certain DM

First allow me to explain the situation:
<situation>

Hi! It sounds like your friend who is DMing is very imaginative. That's a good thing! There are lots of pieces of this plot that sound downright fun! From a series of tests from spirits at a temple excavation to getting moss from a trolls back (as opposed to the head of a troll or the like. This you could negotiate for, gather by stealth, etc.), and so forth. There's also a lot of warning signs. A fourth level adventure where a sentient swords, multiple dragons, pocket dimensions, forced to pledge allegiance, hundreds of flasks of oil. Good lord! Everything just sounds a little too epic. I'm not saying that 4th level adventures have to be 'guard the merchant caravan' or 'negotiate peace between the lizardmen and the bullywugs,' but it sure seems like everything in this world has a polish of 90s 'Xtreme!' It makes me wonder if your DM is thinking of this more as a game or as a story. In which case they might not have a good handle on actual balance

However, I, like others, don't really see all that much wrong with the how things played out... excepting the death rune thing (and him forgetting it), which is a complication for which we don't have an answer (since we don't know how it works). Intimidate and grapple do not work how you seem to think they do, and this whole thing makes sense if you were not supposed to engage them in direct combat and you just didn't run away. So it all hinges upon what the death rune was -- if you were allowed to run away and find another way to address the situation, you should have. If not, it was a DM who did not think things through, to your detriment.

Regardless, I think your DM and group needs to have a discussion about what people are looking for in a gaming experience. Regardless of who was right about the specific situation, it seems clear that your not all on the same page about what is supposed to be the norm. It doesn't matter who is at fault; if people aren't going to have fun, this needs to be fixed.
Also, look up the word hypocrite (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hypocrite). It's hard to tell, but in your text you seem to be using it as a generalized insult, or possibly to mean 'jerk,' or 'incompetent,' but regardless it's unclear how the term fits your DM.

[qube]

And here I'm thinking, if it's a hard mode campaign,


why didn't you send the Arch devil to kill Yonis in the first place instead of getting some grass. As well, pointed out, it's an ARCH DEVIL!

and


Oh, hi mister dragon. Remember us? The guys who are now your servants?
yeah, we're gonna die if we don't kill this Yonis guy, but we're not strong enough.
Care to give us a hand? since we're no good to you dead, and this dude probbably got some good treasure.
Not to mention slaves. Have I mentioned slaves?

[Sariel Vailo]

Tell him to do these tips because not everyone signs up for lolth forsaken darksouls gamess.
1a. Always have a session zero talk about how the game is going to go.
1b. If in fact he has read the dmg and the monster manual it does say altering stats is something you can and should do to up the fun.what it also says is challenges and number of fights perday.

2a if he needs to make the world harder impose the realsitic long rest rule in the dmg. I'll just paraphrase here a long rest becomes 8 hours. A short is four hours.
2b. Their is a realistic wound and injury table in the dmg which begin to stack and if you lose more than half your hp you can just die it's a table in the dmg I impose with the realistic rest to make the game harder.

3a make the group fight more than one or two encounters a day. 6medium encounters is the norm.
3b. Take a vote on this sentiment with your friends is he bad yes should we all talk to them about it. Strength in numbers. Side note maybe ask if they wants to take a break dming.its hard to keep track of a lot going on.

4a. This is sad but if everyone else has a problem stop playing if your not having fun being "coerced" workers servants and slaves.no game beats this one.

[Djiini]

Gotta be real with you, long before you got to the part that you feel shows him as a hypocrite, I was thinking this sounds prolifically anti-fun already.


He says if the game isn't nearly impossible, its too easy.

I'm not a Masochist, but is the 'you had to WORK for that victory!!' really rewarding enough to offset the frustration of the other 99-of-100 times you just eat ****?

[StoicLeaf]

The DM sounds like a person that has good ideas but is stuck in the "Me vs Them" mindset that will eventually ruin any campaign.
The player doesn't understand the rules and gets upset when things don't pan out the way he thinks they should.

Both of them can improve, imo.

I'd still like to know more about this death rune.
Initially I thought it was a "you can't die until this happens" deal.

[Sariel Vailo]

So please op keep us posted on how this is turning out.

[NaughtyTiger]

Young players/new players assume the best way to beat a quest is to attack it head on.

Yet, if it were a video game, you would likely see the "red danger icon" and find another way or come back later.

and intimidate in the middle of combat is 10th level berseker ability.

[Lord of Shadows]

Yeah. I am pretty aware that I dont want to yell at him or get into a big fight that will damage my relationship. What I was thinking of telling him is recommending going back to being a player for a little bit of time. He has been talking about it for a little while, how he misses being one. What do you think?

The one question that I kept having while reading The Rant was just how much gaming experience this DM has. It doesn't sound like very much. There are some good ideas there, but their execution is a bit... uneven. This DM may improve over time, or may not. The players can/should/must decide to go along for the ride - perhaps even trying to help right the ship - or not. They might be in for a wild, roller coaster ride.

Also to consider: who else is available to DM?
.

[Wizard_Lizard]

The DM is maybe making it a little hard for you...
Just an obvious observation.