First impression: the DM is a bit too generous

[Trandir]

Well I played just twice with him so this is litterally a first impression but here they are:


It is set on "hard to fail" difficulty. The fights seems ok, not too challenging but at lv 2 there is so much you can do without risking a TPK. We had 2 fights, enemy kingdom scouts and some spore servants and a myconid both these last two have severe fire vulnerability, then short rest in a magic location that restores 1d6 without expending hit dice, found a tree of "fire oranges" that work as alchemist fire, another fight against 6 myconoids (one escaped) no one got down, another short rest with a font of murky water that again restores 1d6 hp (probably has some nefarious effect someone is exposed too much), then the escaped myconid that allarmed all the smaller ones (40+ shroom people) but they wouldn't enter the boss arena, then boss fight with a relic that allowed him to cast some druid spells(the wizard got down but everyone else made it) that before his death ordered all of the other myconids to enter the sanctum and kill us. Then the cliffhanger: the wizard tryed to use the relic to stop the horde but instead made the mushroom, where we were figthing, inti titanical size breaking the dungeon and growing into the surface, now the mushroom is in front of an a squad (from the same kingdom as the scouts) of around 20 soldiers and the captain has a red dragon hachling, the 50 myconid almost got us but they will be attacked as well and we got the relic.
He is also willing to let us lv up before the next session if we want to get that extra boost from the subclasses (our party is lv 2 and we have a rogue, a wizard, a fighter, a ranger and a barbarian).



It is fun, we (the party) are a bit inexperienced in 5e and the DM doesn't put the rules above all so it's a bit inconsistent. We can do all sort of things as long as they are possibles. The barbarian tryed a spin attack to hit multiple enemies (it failed but could have worked), the ranger likes to "take 20" when attacking enemies that are not engaged in combat to ger free crit (little houserule the base weapon dice is/are mazimized), the rogue and all sort of things with oil, the fire oranges and ropes.
We also got extra circumstance bonuses or advantage is the DM felt like it (I got advantage on my 4th consecutive failed attack because the enemy was staggered by the fire damage), the help action can be performed as a reaction and some other things along those lines.



Whe haven't had out loot yet, technically, but if we survive the next encounter we should be able to get quite a lot of gold and other nice stuff.
The quest was to investigate a door in the middle of a forest and bring back informations about an ancestral artifact, on the same level of power of your usual "BBEG doomsday device", the payment was 300 gp each, 100 upfront, plus a bonus if we are able to provide more than vague informations, we can also keep anything unrelated to the artifact that we might find.
The ranger stole form the local shop 100 gp worth of coins, 5 potions that heal 2d8+2, an alchemist fire, some antitoxin and a ring of jumping (he might get arrested when we return). Into the dungeon we found a stache of all the adventurers gears, lot of backpacks coins, gems, some exotic weapons and a pair gloves of missile snaring (the ranger got those too) and the boss had the relic that can command plants and similar (tho our wizard is unable to use it properly).



That's it. I feel like he is a little bit too generous but it might just be my first impression. What's yours after reading this?

[Yunru]

It is fun

That's all that matters.

[Trandir]

That's all that matters.

Indeed that is the most important part of D&D but I am not asking if he is a good DM. Just if so far he's too gentle

[16bearswutIdo]

Yeah, seems like it was a pretty gentle session. He probably threw the fire oranges in there in case no one had fire damage, so he wanted you to be able to exploit the fire vulnerability.

The worst part is what he's done for the ranger. Giving a free confirmed crit on an unaware target is literally just what the assassination rogue is supposed to do, and they still have to roll for it rather than "take a 20." This is definitely a bit too generous. Also, unless the ranger gets punished for his theft in this session he's creating a murderhobo. Ranger got two magic items, 5 healing potions, and a bunch of gold.

I'm not a big fan of "leveling without downtime" but it isn't really bad per-se. Just not how I envision a level up.


Sounds like it was all around a pretty fun session with a decently designed dungeon, but I'd be careful about how he treats the ranger.

[Trandir]

Also, unless the ranger gets punished for his theft in this session he's creating a murderhobo. Ranger got two magic items, 5 healing potions, and a bunch of gold.

Well truth be told he gave one potion to each party member so everyone can ress in case on need since we got no healer.

I also fear that the ranger might go on a killer spree if he has the occasion and a reason to but that's for another thread.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Well truth be told he gave one potion to each party member so everyone can ress in case on need since we got no healer.

I also fear that the ranger might go on a killer spree if he has the occasion and a reason to but that's for another thread.

You could do A LOT worse for a DM so don't do like I do, count the blessings you have. Maybe after the party gets some hit dice in them and he quits worrying about TPK's he'll toughen up?

Most importantly is the fun aspect like mentioned earlier.

[Trandir]

You could do A LOT worse for a DM so don't do like I do, count the blessings you have. Maybe after the party gets some hit dice in them and he quits worrying about TPK's he'll toughen up?

Most importantly is the fun aspect like mentioned earlier.

So you think that he set this in "baby mode" to make sure that we could make it througth and will switch to hard later on, and we should all enjoy the ride while it last?

We will enjoy every moment of play for sure in either good or bad situations but part of a game is also the challenge right?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

So you think that he set this in "baby mode" to make sure that we could make it througth and will switch to hard later on, and we should all enjoy the ride while it last?

We will enjoy every moment of play for sure in either good or bad situations but part of a game is also the challenge right?

You are 100% correct.

Ever have one of them situations where no one is entirely right or wrong?

I say the thing to do is check with the other players and see if they want a more deadly campaign or a easy going fun fest or what. Chances are you'll get several similar but not identical answers and have to decide if the DM is making the best choices.

A group I'm a player in right now seems to be alternating between a session of 90% role playing or investigating and then 5 hours in initiative. I look forward to every session.

If everyone looks like they're having fun I might still ask casually.

[Tanarii]

A few sessions ago I knocked two 1st level PC and one 2nd level Pc into death saves. The 1st levels were abandoned for (perma)death while the last PC (2nd level Druid) shifted into a wolf for extra HPs, grabbed the other 2nd level PC & dragged him out.

The second levels recruited two new 1st level party members and went back. This time everyone survived and leveled.

He's taking it a little easy. But that's not a necessarily a bad thing. Not everyone enjoys the kinds of games I run, where especially T1 is a little bit of a grinder. Sometimes folks think they will enjoy it, and turns out they don't. What matters is if you're having fun. If you're worried about it just have a conversation. Of course, telling the DM "I feel like your campaign is a little bit easy mode" can backfire ... :smallamused:

[Waterdeep Merch]

A few sessions ago I knocked two 1st level PC and one 2nd level Pc into death saves. The 1st levels were abandoned for (perma)death while the last PC (2nd level Druid) shifted into a wolf for extra HPs, grabbed the other 2nd level PC & dragged him out.

The second levels recruited two new 1st level party members and went back. This time everyone survived and leveled.

He's taking it a little easy. But that's not a necessarily a bad thing. Not everyone enjoys the kinds of games I run, where especially T1 is a little bit of a grinder. Sometimes folks think they will enjoy it, and turns out they don't. What matters is if you're having fun. If you're worried about it just have a conversation. Of course, telling the DM "I feel like your campaign is a little bit easy mode" can backfire ... :smallamused:

Listen to this guy. I've never met the DM that doesn't hear "this game is too easy" and doesn't ratchet the difficulty up to horrifyingly lethal. Even if you say it in the middle of a session.

Heck, especially if you say it in the middle of a session. There's going to be twice as many monsters using much more heinous tactics, all out for blood, and the boss is going to hit twice as hard with three times the HP.

[Trandir]

A few sessions ago I knocked two 1st level PC and one 2nd level Pc into death saves. The 1st levels were abandoned for (perma)death while the last PC (2nd level Druid) shifted into a wolf for extra HPs, grabbed the other 2nd level PC & dragged him out.

The second levels recruited two new 1st level party members and went back. This time everyone survived and leveled.

He's taking it a little easy. But that's not a necessarily a bad thing. Not everyone enjoys the kinds of games I run, where especially T1 is a little bit of a grinder. Sometimes folks think they will enjoy it, and turns out they don't. What matters is if you're having fun. If you're worried about it just have a conversation. Of course, telling the DM "I feel like your campaign is a little bit easy mode" can backfire ... :smallamused:


Listen to this guy. I've never met the DM that doesn't hear "this game is too easy" and doesn't ratchet the difficulty up to horrifyingly lethal. Even if you say it in the middle of a session.

Heck, especially if you say it in the middle of a session. There's going to be twice as many monsters using much more heinous tactics, all out for blood, and the boss is going to hit twice as hard with three times the HP.

I mean that's not exactly what I asked for but such kind of advice is always welcome. Thanks you.

Also the DM after each of the two sessions asks feedback of any sort.

I brought up the combat a bit sloppy and he aggreed that it will sove itself after a couple of combats.

He hunderstands that "take 20" is a crazy powerful thing to get as a circumstance bonus and as such he will allow it under far more restrictive circumstances.

I also asked is he maybe 2 healing fountains and a granade tree were a bit too much and his answer was (not exact words): "The favorable dungeon is because you guys don't have a cleric so healing is a problem (I'm not sure how much healing a lv 2 cleric can provide but still) and y all already had incendiary weapons (in the initial town I got myself some oil urns, the ranger had some incendiary arrows and some medieval molothovs, the barbarian had his jus of tar) so it wouldn't change much exept for how light your backpacks will be at the end of the day."

[Yunru]

You are a bit light on healing classes (the Ranger's okay but not great), so he's not wrong there, even if he did overcompensate.

[Chugger]

Not every fight needs to be or should be a near-death nail-biter grind from hell. That gets exhausting. Some fights are designed to be resource drains. To beat the fight you don't kill the monsters: you kill the monsters using minimum resources, saving those for the harder fights soon to come. Now sure, some players are all about combat and little else - some are bored silly by RP. If they want ultra-grindy every fight is a near-TPK, okay - they can have that. Other players don't need the levers set that high.

What is missing, for me, in what you described, is a _story_. If I'm playing in that, why do I care about enemy kingdom scouts? Do I hate this enemy kingdom - is it bad? Why am I fighting mushroom men? Why do I care? What is the point of finding info on this artifact? Does it help someone I like or what? These things are so often missing in DnD adventures, and to me - when they are missing - it makes the whole process seem rote, hollow, emotionally void. Maybe this was there and you didn't convey it to us. But if you're asking us to judge someone's DMing, I care about their ability to transport the players to another place, to make them suspend disbelief - to tell a story.

[Trandir]

Not every fight needs to be or should be a near-death nail-biter grind from hell. That gets exhausting. Some fights are designed to be resource drains. To beat the fight you don't kill the monsters: you kill the monsters using minimum resources, saving those for the harder fights soon to come. Now sure, some players are all about combat and little else - some are bored silly by RP. If they want ultra-grindy every fight is a near-TPK, okay - they can have that. Other players don't need the levers set that high.

What is missing, for me, in what you described, is a _story_. If I'm playing in that, why do I care about enemy kingdom scouts? Do I hate this enemy kingdom - is it bad? Why am I fighting mushroom men? Why do I care? What is the point of finding info on this artifact? Does it help someone I like or what? These things are so often missing in DnD adventures, and to me - when they are missing - it makes the whole process seem rote, hollow, emotionally void. Maybe this was there and you didn't convey it to us. But if you're asking us to judge someone's DMing, I care about their ability to transport the players to another place, to make them suspend disbelief - to tell a story.

Ok I get it. The lower levels can be meat grinders even against the weaker monsters. The challenges will come at later levels.

I did't put the story part for 2 reasons: we did the first two sessions of a campain so they have to hook the party up thing that will probably happen after the first quest (for now the reasons aren't apparent since we still have to make the "why are you here talk" in game so I can tell just the metagaming bits: the wizard is there because the quest giver funded her study at wizard school so now she has to pay her back and you can't just say no to a task given by her, the barbarian is there to forget someone he lost by drinking, killing things and stealing their fingers, the rogue is escaping from somewhere or someone, the rogue probably is just a murderhobo and I want to buy a ship and adventuring is the quickest way to accumulate all that gold), second that wasn't the point of the thread, I wasn't asking if this is a good DM but if he was too generous those are two different things.


Now about the story is someone is interested here it is (I will also put it in the OP at this point)

The continent once was separated buy in the last century something moved almost all the land above the sea to converge creating one huge continent, only a couple of islands remain. So now rivals before separated by the seas are now in front of each other, some portual cities are now weeks away from the ocean, the climate though seems to be adjusting far slower so deserts and tundras are still there even if the temperatures and climate should have changed.

Recently kingdom A called adventurers to complete an important task for some good loot, everything in the manifest was as generic as possible. There we arrived at a small military outpost where a royal emissary from kingdom A explained the task to small groups. All of the at least 30 adventurers felt insulted with how low this task was compared to their standards and left. A scout retourned from an exploration after being attacked by things and reported of a door in the middle of nowhere, the door had a symbol encraved in it linked to a legend about your usual world destroying artifact so now they are hiring adventurers to do the research. We 4 accepted since we are poor and the woman made us sign a contrat to accept the job: investigate an old door in the middle of the forest between kingdom A and kingdom B (the two are currently at war with each other), retrive any information about a legendary item and if possible bring back more physical evidence than our words, the payiment is 300 gp 1/3 upfront and if we are to steal or keep informations or evidence of this from kingdom A we will be considered traytors and sentenced to death. As a backup the quest giver allowed the wizard and 5th PC to escort us in out travel.

The we began the preparations by buying/stealing from the local shop, asking informations to the PTSD scout, and discovered that the forest is in the border between kingdom A and B, and consulting the library for informations about the monsters (myconids). The day after adventure time, the ranger approched scouts from B with an arrow in this bow and they attacked us. Some magic forest shenanigans after we reatched the dungeon, we entered and we had our fights, oil fun and we did a pretty good exploring finding also the "fire oranges" tree that was hidden. Elven runes are sattered around the dungeon and they seem to indicate that the creator of this cave had the artifact but brough it elsewhere. Then we encountered 6 anomal myconids and after that rush for the big mooshroom that was the place where their "king" was meditating. One boss fight after we ended up in the mess of a situation in front of B soldiers and chased by all that small myconid colony. End of the secodn session

[Tanarii]

But if you're asking us to judge someone's DMing, I care about their ability to transport the players to another place, to make them suspend disbelief - to tell a story.I like to know that too. It tells me which DMs to avoid like the plague. They're the kind that destroy their own campaign and drive away the players before too long. Seen it happen again and again with story-telling focused DMs.

[ad_hoc]

I like to know that too. It tells me which DMs to avoid like the plague. They're the kind that destroy their own campaign and drive away the players before too long. Seen it happen again and again with story-telling focused DMs.

I think there is a line between setting an immersive scene and storytelling.

People often conflate the two or think that one necessitates the other.

The DM's job is to set each scene, I am cool with them going into detail (as long as they aren't verbose about it).

[Tanarii]

I think there is a line between setting an immersive scene and storytelling.Agreed. It's story-telling DMs specifically I personally have experience with ultimately causing their game to implode due to player dissatisfaction with their style. Quite a lot in the 80s and 90s, when story-telling was all the rage. And it was commonly given as advice to new DMs by designers (often crammed into their own books) on 'How To Be A Good DM'.

[zinycor]

Well, there is nothing wrong with an easy game, but even on more normal tables the first few levels should be balanced on the easy side, since it so easy to kill players on bad luck.