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Vknight
2020-04-19, 12:53 AM
So... to the players of said Gm, who i do not know if you visit this site just do not read ahead.

The Gm is a good gm he's got an ok plot for a military campaign.
Its dry and plain as we are dragged around from military mission to military mission all for the sake of retaking the continent from the Goblins.

See some 1000 years ago the Goblins allied with Giants, Orcs, Kobolds, Bugbears, Hobgoblins, Sahuagain, and Gnolls(Not minotaurs they are on our side just to note). With the goblins being the top dogs somehow and proceeded to conquer 90% of the continent we are on.
Our Kingdom survived because they have a 200 mile long wall that is 500ft high and like half a mile thick along its norther border(we are at the very south of the continent)

All very boring normal to give us some badguys and more. So whats the plot? Retaking the lands?
NOPE
We spend the first 12 sessions doing busy work.
Our nation has made no progress in retaking anything beyond the wall and our magic items are insane in what they have.
We have a teleportation network to get soldiers across the country in a few minutes.
We have the ability to equip a unit like ours so each member has a wand of fireballs at Level 7(4 man party)
We have instant fortress's
We also just invented guns for what that is worth.

But yeah 1000 years no progress, and 12 sessions of busy work.
Finally session 13 we went beyond the wall and have been out there since... its mostly been doing things to reinforce old outposts from 1000years ago. Also turns out there is a island of dragons that is probably half the size of our country willing to help...


So time to talk issues besides the Busy Work.
1; We are not the biggest fish in the sea. That can be fine but we don't even feel like the biggest fish in a tank.

What do I mean?
We spend the first session doing the most bull thing ever, that being a military training camp which is not fun it wasted an hour of our time and the only person in our group who enjoyed it is the Autocratic player.

There are 40 other units like us that are special forces, and we were not given great equipment only what we salvaged off goblins early on. Yes despite the stuff above and despite being special forces types. We did not get to requisition things until after the invasion began.
During out initial 3 sessions of proving we were competent we had a Level 11+ NPC following us. He was just there to judge us and show how cool he was.

There is a project to make a ship that is some 500ft wide and 2500 long to transport a small army to an archipelago to the west and conquer it. Cool world building except the Gm then had us do busy work for them clearing a lighthouse, oh also instead of cool ship mission to unexplored islands we got to go do more busy work.

There was the most infuriating thing in a cities sewer... yes we are special forces and we went into a sewer.
To clear out a goblin trap said trap is a baby statue that causes goblins to stare at it well Oozes eat them. We then saw the past with said baby and learned the following things. It fought and killed a dozen or so goblins along with its father. And so Kord made this statue to commemorate its awesome...
You know a great way to undermine characters is point out a toddler killed 1 Dozen goblins when we as a party of 4 people who were level 3 had trouble with 6 and a Ogre(or 5 hobgoblins, or 7 archers and 1 mage goblin).

Which leads into problem #2
2; The world doesn't feel alive it feels like a series of cutscenes happening and we are just there it does not connect, apply, or really effect us.
Like we made custom characters got told this is the world any history you made doesn't matter here are the missions and the real plot.

My character just wants to kill the world at this point and or become a god of wine and just leave because F this I'm out.
The Dwarf played by our autocratic player is an obnoxious military secret police guy so you know evil despite claiming he's not.
Our Tiefling is from the feywild(the player swapped out his guy for a character on loan from the feywild. Speaking of the feywild is normal.) so does not care how the war goes
The Druid is well a druid so stopping the gobilns makes sense but nature seems to be fine in a lot of places.


The 1000 years of Goblin invasion and the unification of all the evil guys is just an excuse to include higher CR monsters as fights go on.
It becomes a poor excuse when you realize goblins are the leadership but also the grunts.
The goblins launch raids and make portals to get around the wall.
But haven't been able to take it or make any progress in 1000years despite owning 90% of the continent having numbers and all the aforementioned allies.


Speaking of the wall was constructed to stop the goblins advance some 1000 years ago meaning this giant megalithic structure was built in an uncertain amount of time maybe weeks maybe years.
The problem is the invasion is very inconsistent with a time scale.
I mention this because the continent has a giant bridge that is like 1/10th(maybe even 1/20th) the size of the wall which for some reason we didn't build the wall there but we had time to build it further south and far bigger.
Said bridge connects the Southern 20-or-30% of the continent to the other 70%(or 80%) but instead we built way further south.

Not helped by the fact the dragon island and a mountain fortress of dwarves exist and are repelling the goblins. Both factions are also around said bridge and are still here 1000 years later.
Based on what various characters have said it sounds like our nation abandoned everyone else and started building that wall the moment the goblins became a threat.

Which also makes no sense because for some reason we found a 1000year old Unicorn trapped in one of our nations old buildings beyond the wall.
And encountered ghosts who were fighting goblins probably 1 or 2 weeks from the wall before it was constructed so yeah. And these are ghosts who clearly call it the Green Hoard/Tide.


TLDR?

Goblins got 90% of the continent except not in a few years and yet can't get the rest.
We have had 1000years and done nothing to improve or retake any of the 90%
Any easier choke-point exists and we didn't use it.
We have enacted no change and no impact on the plot except murder a general(we are level 7 going on 8). Our plan to instigate an orc uprising to try and split evil guys nope the orcs that heard it are all gonna be killed. Basically any plans we create to effect change on the setting outside of the plot is nothing.
The history of the invasion is a broken mess that contradicts itself in universe and out of universe.


3; Map is just awful really it is way to many magically splitting rivers, he's slowly fixed that and other issues hard to describe without the full map. And its a minor thing but just bugs me.


Political Problems of the Setting
4; Just gonna be blunt politics.

The Nation has way to many to go over but the most basic.

Mandatory service in the military or slave labor. The Gm retconned this into military service or civilian service.
We have secret military police who watch people and until the retcon had taken my characters parents to serve in slave mines. Now the retcon they are just fine and instead of my character being abandoned they just lost me?

Despite the fact we have bracers that if we fail to complete job in X time teleport us back to command so you cannot go AWOL as they can teleport you back and you can trigger it at any time.
No deserters I suppose.

There is a certain exaltation of the military its been implied that all the leadership are high up military brass or former military. Which we have also seen military brass being given major political positions and power.
People who do civilian service are looked down upon and those that want to not be involved are executed by being thrown to the other side of the wall to the goblins.

Frankly the nobility system makes no sense so I don't know how to address that.


Early on it was very easy to see and call the kingdom we were apart of, evil now its well its evil with pink ribbons saying ignore the doom spikes.


5; As a player I have never been a fan of Military based campaigns and the Gm has kind of dismissed that.
We are stuck to a tether of a shadowy command structure that comes off as evil as the badguys we are opposing.
It was fun at first because the gm's enthusiasm, but the lack of agency and more just drained energy from me and other players. We used to have 6 players and are down to 4 as of currently.


Frankly I am sick of the campaign we are doing the final session for awhile then we have to suffer through 2 or 3 more sessions of the Dwarf players rogue trader campaign before we will go back to something fun.

Knaight
2020-04-19, 04:01 AM
Have you told any of this to your GM? It sounds like bad GMing, but only to the extent of unskilled execution. Skills can be learned, and they're a lot easier to pickup when you're getting actual feedback. Which, in this case, sounds mostly like asking if the GM is willing to pick up the pace a little. It looks like an intentional slow burn gone awry, which is an easy trap to fall into as a GM. I've certainly been there before.

Belac93
2020-04-19, 04:01 AM
Are you asking for advice?

If so, talk to your GM about your issues. Try to work out something you can both enjoy. A game with more collaborative worldbuilding might be better for you, like a PbtA game or FATE.

Anonymouswizard
2020-04-19, 06:31 AM
Mandatory 'talk to your GM about it', but I do understand if this is more about just getting the rant out.


On the setting, I do want to zoom in on a couple of things.

Yeah, the time scale is ridiculous, this sounds more like a setting where it all happened 50-100 years ago and the kingdom is just getting back on it's feet.

But in the exaltation of the military and compulsory service, well, they do both make sense in the setting as written. You can almost certainly find precedent for compulsory military service in peacetime, and the setting sounds like it's in a way footing. Although even then it wouldn't be universal, people with the right track or special skills would be considered too valuable and be funneled into developing those to benefit the nation in a civilian capacity (think of it as a choice between the military or university), and it's possible that a large portion of the population are officially reservists.

Not saying it's a good thing, and with the tech/magic level described unless the goblin hordes are regularly assaulting the walls (not the impression I get) I'd expect the military to be volunteers with the occasional person conscripted for special skills (e.g. all Wizards serving a five year term).

Exaltation of the military also makes absolute sense if the goblins are a cost and present threat. Otherwise there might still be state exaltation, but there will be dissent among the populace.

As for secret military police, I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. They can be done well, but I tend to find that the only reason to use them instead of counter'insurgence agents is to bring them down on the PCs if they start doing what the GM doesn't like.

Really, most of this is along the lines of 'okay idea, bad execution, not what you like', which means that if the other players are enjoying it the best move might be too not play until the next campaign.

Pleh
2020-04-19, 08:15 AM
Actually, I see a lot of hope for salvaging this game, but the DM has to let go of their iron grip on the plot and let the PCs take the spotlight.

The timeline is *conspicuous*. 1000 years of war with no effective change?

Special forces wasting time in sewers and shoring up old outposts rather than reclaiming territory?

The "good" empire is rather obviously corrupt under a thin façade?

There it is. The Empire doesn't want the war to end; it justifies their overbearing authority, allowing them to oppress the people with martial law in the name of security. After 1000 years, it's not a conspiracy anymore: it's a regime enshrined in tradition.

This game has a nugget of potential. For it to end on a high note of fun and adventure, the DM needs to let the PCs turn against their own empire and break the people free.

This is all the more complicated by the fact that they can't leave the empire in turmoil or a power vacuum; the goblins will just take over.

The PCs need to stage a Coup and take control of the war with minimal lag in war effort.

That could be an amazing game, but the DM needs to allow their current plot to die.

comk59
2020-04-19, 10:04 AM
Actually, I see a lot of hope for salvaging this game, but the DM has to let go of their iron grip on the plot and let the PCs take the spotlight.

The timeline is *conspicuous*. 1000 years of war with no effective change?

Special forces wasting time in sewers and shoring up old outposts rather than reclaiming territory?

The "good" empire is rather obviously corrupt under a thin façade?

There it is. The Empire doesn't want the war to end; it justifies their overbearing authority, allowing them to oppress the people with martial law in the name of security. After 1000 years, it's not a conspiracy anymore: it's a regime enshrined in tradition.

This game has a nugget of potential. For it to end on a high note of fun and adventure, the DM needs to let the PCs turn against their own empire and break the people free.

This is all the more complicated by the fact that they can't leave the empire in turmoil or a power vacuum; the goblins will just take over.

The PCs need to stage a Coup and take control of the war with minimal lag in war effort.

That could be an amazing game, but the DM needs to allow their current plot to die.

Ah, the Eastasian gambit. I'll be honest, I was a little suspicious of that when reading the description myself.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the Empire had direct contact with the Goblin leaders.

However, it sounds like even if that IS what's going on, which is a big maybe, the DM needs to be told that his execution isn't especially enjoyable.

False God
2020-04-19, 11:20 AM
This is all the more complicated by the fact that they can't leave the empire in turmoil or a power vacuum; the goblins will just take over.

Point of note: the goblins apparently unified an overwhelming majority of the "monster races" and led a successful military campaign against the entire world. Assuming that their goals are more "conquest" and less "extermination", goblin leadership seems to be doing a right dandy job of things. Obligatory: if all the goblins want is "DEATH TO ALL HUMANS!" then yeah, that ain't gonna work. But clearly this goblin leaders have substantial diplomatic, strategic and logistic skill.


Ah, the Eastasian gambit. I'll be honest, I was a little suspicious of that when reading the description myself.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the Empire had direct contact with the Goblin leaders.
And as pointed out here, Eastasia is always at war with Oceania. It's possible the "leaders" of Humanland are already working for or outright ruled by the Goblins.

Which unfortunately makes this 1984 and means no matter what is done the evil overlord already rules the world and you're not gonna change that.


However, it sounds like even if that IS what's going on, which is a big maybe, the DM needs to be told that his execution isn't especially enjoyable.
But ultimately, if the OP isn't having fun, I hate to repeat what everyone else says, but talk to your DM. Explain you're not having fun, for all the reasons you laid out here.

Vknight
2020-04-19, 02:10 PM
Have you told any of this to your GM? It sounds like bad GMing, but only to the extent of unskilled execution. Skills can be learned, and they're a lot easier to pickup when you're getting actual feedback. Which, in this case, sounds mostly like asking if the GM is willing to pick up the pace a little. It looks like an intentional slow burn gone awry, which is an easy trap to fall into as a GM. I've certainly been there before.

Its bad execution. But it is also the fact that I as a player and the 2 that left were not fans of military campaigns and that dragged our interest down and we didn't know it would be military until the first session. And the tieflings player is also not a military campaign fan.

I've told him all of this. He focused on the enslavement thing and retconned it and has been saying that it is not true/did not happen. Which is mostly annoying because he's missed the other parts.

I believe the slow burn idea as well but also based on what the gm has said.
He made mention it was never to go beyond the wall. Which most certainly did not help, had I know going in would have made a different character or not joined. Course my evil necromancer concept is rejected because that isn't ok you are not evil(even if he is only using goblins for his zombies/skeletons).




Actually, I see a lot of hope for salvaging this game, but the DM has to let go of their iron grip on the plot and let the PCs take the spotlight.

The timeline is *conspicuous*. 1000 years of war with no effective change?

Special forces wasting time in sewers and shoring up old outposts rather than reclaiming territory?

The "good" empire is rather obviously corrupt under a thin façade?

There it is. The Empire doesn't want the war to end; it justifies their overbearing authority, allowing them to oppress the people with martial law in the name of security. After 1000 years, it's not a conspiracy anymore: it's a regime enshrined in tradition.

This game has a nugget of potential. For it to end on a high note of fun and adventure, the DM needs to let the PCs turn against their own empire and break the people free.

This is all the more complicated by the fact that they can't leave the empire in turmoil or a power vacuum; the goblins will just take over.

The PCs need to stage a Coup and take control of the war with minimal lag in war effort.

That could be an amazing game, but the DM needs to allow their current plot to die.

Yeah i think its just to give us a big scale and the Gm didn't think beyond that for the 1000years.
Yup
It feels like it is corrupt yes.
And your concept 100% feels true and accurate based on how it is described just the going past the wall recently puts it into question. I doubt that it feels like the Gm wants us to take the bridge and make that the new wall... and that sounds awful. Cause we are not big fish we cannot destroy either empire.
Yeah probably not gonna happen.



Point of note: the goblins apparently unified an overwhelming majority of the "monster races" and led a successful military campaign against the entire world. Assuming that their goals are more "conquest" and less "extermination", goblin leadership seems to be doing a right dandy job of things. Obligatory: if all the goblins want is "DEATH TO ALL HUMANS!" then yeah, that ain't gonna work. But clearly this goblin leaders have substantial diplomatic, strategic and logistic skill.


And as pointed out here, Eastasia is always at war with Oceania. It's possible the "leaders" of Humanland are already working for or outright ruled by the Goblins.

Which unfortunately makes this 1984 and means no matter what is done the evil overlord already rules the world and you're not gonna change that.


But ultimately, if the OP isn't having fun, I hate to repeat what everyone else says, but talk to your DM. Explain you're not having fun, for all the reasons you laid out here.

Point of note.
Yes the goblins somehow did this unification but its only this continent supposedly there is another or even 2 or 3 other continents the gm has been incredibly unclear how many there are and how many we know about.
Secondly if they wanted conquest they got 90% but they throw portals to raid or even try and get past the wall and exterminate any non-allied race and the gm continues to say its extermination so... it is extermination I would guess.

I 100% could see that but sounds more like the humans and goblins on leadership made a deal.
It already feels like 1984 pointless work for pointless pay.

I have last night i was so tired of it I just went and said that his setting sucks and doesn't hold together.

Vknight
2020-04-19, 02:22 PM
Sorry for the Double Post


Yeah, the time scale is ridiculous, this sounds more like a setting where it all happened 50-100 years ago and the kingdom is just getting back on it's feet.

But in the exaltation of the military and compulsory service, well, they do both make sense in the setting as written. You can almost certainly find precedent for compulsory military service in peacetime, and the setting sounds like it's in a way footing. Although even then it wouldn't be universal, people with the right track or special skills would be considered too valuable and be funneled into developing those to benefit the nation in a civilian capacity (think of it as a choice between the military or university), and it's possible that a large portion of the population are officially reservists.

Not saying it's a good thing, and with the tech/magic level described unless the goblin hordes are regularly assaulting the walls (not the impression I get) I'd expect the military to be volunteers with the occasional person conscripted for special skills (e.g. all Wizards serving a five year term).

Exaltation of the military also makes absolute sense if the goblins are a cost and present threat. Otherwise there might still be state exaltation, but there will be dissent among the populace.

As for secret military police, I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. They can be done well, but I tend to find that the only reason to use them instead of counter'insurgence agents is to bring them down on the PCs if they start doing what the GM doesn't like.

Really, most of this is along the lines of 'okay idea, bad execution, not what you like', which means that if the other players are enjoying it the best move might be too not play until the next campaign.


Thankyou on the time scale.

No I know why it is there in universe it makes sense but it also reads as the Gm's political bias though I do not know his stance on that.
The reservist idea would make sense except after you've served your(5 to 10 years unclear how long service is, you have no obligation except militia duties where you settle. Its longer if you are working civilian duties. And I am leaning to the 10 years. Which honestly is another problem people are not making kids based on how this all reads)
The goblins don't have the same tech or mage level as us all there magic items either only work on X-size or can explode.

The are using giants to hurl stones for artillery. Said giants have bracers that let them throw the stones further/harder but that is super recent development and the magic item doesn't resize to human needs...
Said giants were not being used on the wall. And the goblins were lucky to do an attack once a week(of 20 to 100 goblins.... across a 100+ mile long wall.)

They are claimed to be a threat yet the setting and way npc's handle it says otherwise. Yet they are a threat to us.
Pretty much what it seems like he's trying to say they are just military intelligence.

Jay R
2020-04-22, 11:02 PM
If it’s not fun, don’t play.

You don’t have to decide that the DM is bad, or wrong, or whatever.

If it’s not fun for you, then don’t play.

That’s all.

PopeLinus1
2020-04-22, 11:48 PM
God, I didn't even know it was possible to have busywork in freaking Dungeons & Dragons

Anonymouswizard
2020-04-23, 03:56 AM
God, I didn't even know it was possible to have busywork in freaking Dungeons & Dragons

You've clearly never read this forum's most famous campaign log (http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/08/suethulu-shutting-down-darya.html?m=1). The main difference between this game and the SUE Files seems to be that the worlf isn't subject to constant flux and the players are allowed to level up.


Although I do want to run a Schrodinger's Setting, where the entire setting is undergoing until a players asks about it (at which that aspect becomes whatever is most useful to the group at that time, but it's more observed and therefore constant).

Aedilred
2020-04-23, 06:33 PM
It seems to me like, while there are problems with the setting, they aren't insuperable or even necessarily unusual (implausibly long periods of historical inertia, for instance, are a fantasy staple), and the principal issue is not the setting per se but the intended plot. Most of your complaints seem to be about the way the characters are expected to interact with the setting at least as much as the setting itself.

I don't see a reason why this can't be resolved if your GM is willing to accept some constructive criticism. Speak to him and say that you're finding things very slow and that you'd like to be given some more interesting and meaningful missions. You can also raise concerns about the setting itself but in general I think GMs are (even) more protective of their settings than they are of their plots. If you want to suggest rewrites, do it in a way that spares your GM's blushes and doesn't require too many outright retcons. There will probably need to be some concession on your part towards suspending disbelief in some of the areas of the setting you struggle with (a necessity when dealing with D&D-style settings in any case).

The third option is just to ignore the pre-scripted missions your GM tries to give you and you find boring and proactively create your own. The extent to which this will work will depend on how your GM works and how good/willing they are when it comes to improvisation, versus how keen they are on railroading you.

More important than any of that though is the question of whether there's anything you like about the game at all and whether this is something you're interested in trying to turn around, or whether the scale of the changes in order to create an enjoyable experience would be so fundamental that it's not at all realistic - in which case you're better off just leaving the game.

Vknight
2020-04-26, 04:37 PM
God, I didn't even know it was possible to have busywork in freaking Dungeons & Dragons
It is 100% possible.



You've clearly never read this forum's most famous campaign log (http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/08/suethulu-shutting-down-darya.html?m=1). The main difference between this game and the SUE Files seems to be that the worlf isn't subject to constant flux and the players are allowed to level up.


Although I do want to run a Schrodinger's Setting, where the entire setting is undergoing until a players asks about it (at which that aspect becomes whatever is most useful to the group at that time, but it's more observed and therefore constant).
Yeah god the sue files were a nightmare.
The thing is I talked with the Gm at the end of session 19 which will be the last session until next year.

So got some clarifications after a bull**** fight with a Stone Giant that had double hp.

So the ghosts saying the wall wasn't built was a mistake and he apologized. The wall is 1100+ Years Old. So it was just a crazy bull**** insane king built the wall and then some 100 years later when the goblins started to come he just said had his people hide behind the wall.
The Unicorn despite being at one of our outposts was not captured by us it was pirates supposedly that base was already abandoned 1000years ago.

kyoryu
2020-04-26, 09:21 PM
You've clearly never read this forum's most famous campaign log (http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/08/suethulu-shutting-down-darya.html?m=1). The main difference between this game and the SUE Files seems to be that the worlf isn't subject to constant flux and the players are allowed to level up.


Although I do want to run a Schrodinger's Setting, where the entire setting is undergoing until a players asks about it (at which that aspect becomes whatever is most useful to the group at that time, but it's more observed and therefore constant).

Almost every setting is, realistically, that at some level.

Level of detail of the setting is generally a factor of proximity to the players.

Analytica
2020-04-27, 10:51 PM
It is 100% possible.



Yeah god the sue files were a nightmare.
The thing is I talked with the Gm at the end of session 19 which will be the last session until next year.

So got some clarifications after a bull**** fight with a Stone Giant that had double hp.

So the ghosts saying the wall wasn't built was a mistake and he apologized. The wall is 1100+ Years Old. So it was just a crazy bull**** insane king built the wall and then some 100 years later when the goblins started to come he just said had his people hide behind the wall.
The Unicorn despite being at one of our outposts was not captured by us it was pirates supposedly that base was already abandoned 1000years ago.

Sounds a bit like you are in Attack on Titan?

Vknight
2020-04-28, 08:30 AM
Almost every setting is, realistically, that at some level.

Level of detail of the setting is generally a factor of proximity to the players.

I don't disagree but the problem is the investment of myself has been sapped and hoping to get it back because outside of that garbage and the autocrat player they are all good friends and what not. Also going back to Rogue Trader for May as the captain will be fun.



Sounds a bit like you are in Attack on Titan?

I know and I agree Gm did mention it after the most recent session as being an influence along with 1 or 2 other things.
Frankly i'd take goblin slayer inspired to attack on titan inspired.