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Raijinken
2020-05-04, 03:06 AM
Yeah, you probably all seen this or heard of woes like this. I bet we have all been there, DMs subtly/intentionally railroading players, and players had no choice but to ride it. What was your (either) worst, craziest, funniest, weirdest, most senseless, most boring ride you ever had, or had the players do?

Mine was just recently:

It was in our DM's place during his birthday party. We discovered that he apparently DMs 2 other groups (D&D 3.5e, same campaign, same settings/timelines, different locations in the "world map"), and in this all-night party, he had all 3 groups join in for one big (probably one-shot) "alliance". The mission is to thwart a manifesting and rising undead army in ravaging a nearby small kingdom, we (my group) were contracted by the Duke for the mission, who happens to contract the other groups as well. When we arrived at the heart of the "unholy land" (fighting off a horde of undead (skeletons, ghouls, zombies, ect....), there was a glowing spellbook on a podium under a hexagram. The "reversal spell" on the book must be performed which takes 15mins to do, and the one performing must: 1. Once started it cannot be stopped/interrupted, 2. Not fail even one syllable, 3. Must not carry nor equipped with anything (or else it will disintegrate). If failed, it will wake up the undead army (which is WAY too big for even a big kingdom to face). It was a no-brainer that my character (human wizard), surprisingly being the ONLY spellcaster around, must perform it. Bottomline, all I did that night was do concentration checks from time to time (and at one point, a save to endure the cold ....which I failed), as everyone else gets the fun in fighting the numerous oncoming threat to prevent the spell from being completed. I cannot dodge attacks because that would cause me leave the circle, and I cannot fight back nor assist anyone because that will interrupt the spell. AND I had to do all that completely naked!

By the way, did I forget to mention that my character is the only female in the group, and has the body/appearance of a 7 year old? (backstory reasons)

Lvl 2 Expert
2020-05-04, 04:11 AM
Yeah, you probably all seen this or heard of woes like this. I bet we have all been there, DMs subtly/intentionally railroading players, and players had no choice but to ride it. What was your (either) worst, craziest, funniest, weirdest, most senseless, most boring ride you ever had, or had the players do?

Mine was just recently:

It was in our DM's place during his birthday party. We discovered that he apparently DMs 2 other groups (D&D 3.5e, same campaign, same settings/timelines, different locations in the "world map"), and in this all-night party, he had all 3 groups join in for one big (probably one-shot) "alliance".
Okay, that sounds epic. You have a great DM!


The mission is to thwart a manifesting and rising undead army in ravaging a nearby small kingdom, we (my group) were contracted by the Duke for the mission, who happens to contract the other groups as well. When we arrived at the heart of the "unholy land" (fighting off a horde of undead (skeletons, ghouls, zombies, ect....), there was a glowing spellbook on a podium under a hexagram. The "reversal spell" on the book must be performed which takes 15mins to do, and the one performing must: 1. Once started it cannot be stopped/interrupted, 2. Not fail even one syllable, 3. Must not carry nor equipped with anything (or else it will disintegrate). If failed, it will wake up the undead army (which is WAY too big for even a big kingdom to face).
Still sound pretty epic, a big final stand.


It was a no-brainer that my character (human wizard), surprisingly being the ONLY spellcaster around, must perform it. Bottomline, all I did that night was do concentration checks from time to time (and at one point, a save to endure the cold ....which I failed), as everyone else gets the fun in fighting the numerous oncoming threat to prevent the spell from being completed. I cannot dodge attacks because that would cause me leave the circle, and I cannot fight back nor assist anyone because that will interrupt the spell.
Okay, I didn't consider that. Mmh. Might have been better to have it be a device you're protecting, or an NPC. But every good DM misses something every now and then.


AND I had to do all that completely naked!
Not even in regular clothing? Couldn't there have been an exception for that? Is this some sort of fantasy? Should definitely have been an NPC. You have a pretty bad DM.


By the way, did I forget to mention that my character is the only female in the group, and has the body/appearance of a 7 year old? (backstory reasons)
Wait, what? You have a horrible DM! How is this the same person all throughout the story? (Also, why do you have the body of a 7 year old to begin with?)

Quertus
2020-05-04, 01:39 PM
Well, obviously, "you don't get to play the game" is dumb / bad. I'm leaning towards "bad". Maybe he thought getting to tell the epic story of singlehandedly stopping an undead hoard would be cool? But he's at least an idiot, probably straight up bad.

The naked 7-year-old… I'm torn. It's a cultural thing. IMO, that's… you know, like "a naked doll" or "a naked pet". But not everyone agrees. (EDIT: I guess I *might* feel sightly differently if "the woman i loved" was transformed into a 7-year-old? Or a doll or a wolf (darn lycanthropy)?) (EDIT point is, I don't know how your GM felt about this scene)

But… what about emotionally? Was the character a mature woman in an immature body? How did *she* feel about this?

kyoryu
2020-05-04, 01:41 PM
Well, obviously, "you don't get to play the game" is dumb / bad. I'm leaning towards "bad". Maybe he thought getting to tell the epic story of singlehandedly stopping an undead hoard would be cool? But he's at least an idiot, probably straight up bad.

A lot of GMs don't get that "rolling dice" isn't really playing the game. "Making decisions" is playing the game.

Quertus
2020-05-04, 03:03 PM
A lot of GMs don't get that "rolling dice" isn't really playing the game. "Making decisions" is playing the game.

Although I am inclined to strongly agree, games like war and Hi Ho Cherry-o have been capturing the hearts of children for ages.

Lord Torath
2020-05-04, 03:20 PM
A lot of GMs don't get that "rolling dice" isn't really playing the game. "Making decisions" is playing the game.That is a very important distinction that should get more attention. Very well said!

As Quertus mentioned, very young kids like rolling the dice. But very early they get the idea that decisions with consequences are much more interesting.

Lvl 2 Expert
2020-05-04, 03:52 PM
Although I am inclined to strongly agree, games like war and Hi Ho Cherry-o have been capturing the hearts of children for ages.

Not to mention Monopoly.

But I'd expect a GM with 3 groups running in one of the more famously simulationist systems to not be thinking his players would rather be playing Monopoly.

kyoryu
2020-05-04, 04:04 PM
Not to mention Monopoly.

But I'd expect a GM with 3 groups running in one of the more famously simulationist systems to not be thinking his players would rather be playing Monopoly.

The real gameplay in Monopoly is making decisions about what properties to buy and how much to pay for them, etc.

Segev
2020-05-04, 04:52 PM
The real gameplay in Monopoly is making decisions about what properties to buy and how much to pay for them, etc.

And, if you're playing by the full rules (which, admittedly, many people don't even know, let alone play by), deciding whether to risk putting it up for auction and somebody else getting it.

Edit: And I forgot to add in mine.


This wasn't ENTIRELY the DM's fault. We were playing Iron Kingdoms, back when it was a d20 setting/supplement. He ran the Witchblade Trilogy, or at least tried to. We all quit before we got past the first book of it.

See, the issue with this trilogy is that the module writers wanted to write a novel about a misunderstood princess who gains great power and comes back to show them all, and maybe is the hero of the people because she also throws back a separate invasion.

You meet her, at first, as a "nobody" who is obviously important and you're supposed to like her. The missions you get are...fairly standard stuff initially, but it quickly becomes clear that there's no actual reward for success beyond getting better seats to watch the real plot progress, as the girl runs away, finds stuff, gets you to help her with something if you did one part right...

A climactic point - but by far not the only or worst one - involves the party having a choice between helping an Iron Lich (definitely evil, but not antagonistic) or this girl (questionably evil, but more likely to turn evil if she follows the path she's on). And the party gets ahold of The Witchblade, which is this powerful necromantic artifact. And both these NPCs are present. The party is presented with a choice: give it to the Iron Lich, who supposedly will take it away and dispose of it safely (or at least isn't planning to use it to screw over the city the PCs might care about), or give it to this powerful teenaged magical prodigy with a chip on her shoulder but whom they're supposed to like. If they give it to the Iron Lich, they know the girl will be mad at them, but probably still won't hurt them...directly or on purpose. If they give it to the girl, they know she'll be happy with them and see them as friends and allies as she plots her revenge against and takeover of the city the PCs maybe care about.

In practice, if they give it to her, the Iron Lich leaves, annoyed, but doesn't come back. If they give it to the Iron Lich, there's a cut scene where she gets angry and kills the Iron Lich to take it from him. There is no option to keep it for themselves, of course; if they try, both NPCs turn on them to forcibly take it, and she wins.

Leading up to this and afterwards, all the party's choices really just decide whether they are in the box seats with the NPC making all the choices, watching her choices win her the module, or are fighting a losing battle in the front lines against her, until she wins anyway. Or possibly just not even anywhere near the plot events, if they don't do a good enough job winning the mandatory dungeon segments that have little to do with the plot other than being between the PCs and the cut scenes.

kyoryu
2020-05-04, 08:23 PM
This wasn't ENTIRELY the DM's fault. We were playing Iron Kingdoms, back when it was a d20 setting/supplement. He ran the Witchblade Trilogy, or at least tried to. We all quit before we got past the first book of it.

... and this is precisely why I don't like generic, plot-based, pre-written adventures.

Lvl 2 Expert
2020-05-05, 01:27 AM
The real gameplay in Monopoly is making decisions about what properties to buy and how much to pay for them, etc.

Maybe if you play with a bunch of rules nobody uses, like "free parking doesn't give you money", but in practice you just buy everything you can, for the asking price. Total meaningful decisions made over the course of the game: maybe five or so.

Or maybe I'm just really bad at Monopoly. I'm fine with that.

kyoryu
2020-05-05, 09:49 AM
Maybe if you play with a bunch of rules nobody uses, like "free parking doesn't give you money", but in practice you just buy everything you can, for the asking price. Total meaningful decisions made over the course of the game: maybe five or so.

Or maybe I'm just really bad at Monopoly. I'm fine with that.

Yeah, people don't play with, you know, the actual rules and the game gets worse. Like the fact that every property you land on goes up for auction if you don't buy it at that price. And the "free parking gives you money" house rule is an awful rule and the #1 reason that Monopoly games drag out (it removes all the money sinks in the game).

jayem
2020-05-05, 02:57 PM
Yeah, people don't play with, you know, the actual rules and the game gets worse. Like the fact that every property you land on goes up for auction if you don't buy it at that price. And the "free parking gives you money" house rule is an awful rule and the #1 reason that Monopoly games drag out (it removes all the money sinks in the game).
4 Players can comfortably buy every property to begin with.
3 Players need to go round the board 4 times (but probably are doing that anyway to land on the properties)

I don't think I've ever encountered a real position where I can afford to buy a property but would be best not too (after all there's always re-mortgage, so really it's only costing half it's nominal price anyway)
And before you got to the position where it was bad for them to pay full price in the auction, you'd have given a lot of tempo (or already be winning).

Segev
2020-05-05, 04:07 PM
4 Players can comfortably buy every property to begin with.
3 Players need to go round the board 4 times (but probably are doing that anyway to land on the properties)

I don't think I've ever encountered a real position where I can afford to buy a property but would be best not too (after all there's always re-mortgage, so really it's only costing half it's nominal price anyway)
And before you got to the position where it was bad for them to pay full price in the auction, you'd have given a lot of tempo (or already be winning).

The choice is actually more often over whether to send it to auction in hopes you can get it cheaper than its asking price. The risk being that somebody else buys it, but then you also can force them to spend more by bidding up.

Some properties are cheap enough that buying them is affordable even when you're down low enough that buying them then mortgaging them can still leave you short when you land on somebody else's, say, railroad, too.

Raijinken
2020-05-06, 01:36 AM
I suppose I owe an explanation here...

Yes, a 7 year old. In reality, my character is a mature woman who escaped death by taking over another body (which happens to be currently the only and easiest one available; got to find a "host" fast). Kind of like Medusa Gorgon of Soul Eater.


Not even in regular clothing? Couldn't there have been an exception for that? Is this some sort of fantasy? Should definitely have been an NPC. You have a pretty bad DM.

Yes, not even regular clothing. It was your typical podium with a book under a hexagram with a glowing light going up, creating like a cylindrical tube barrier of light. When a party member put his hand in it, his glove (a common one) bursted into flames turning it to dust (but he was unhurt). I threw a coin, then a rock in it, which too got dusted. From the start I already knew where this is going, and since I still want to keep my stuff (and underwear), well....


But… what about emotionally? Was the character a mature woman in an immature body? How did *she* feel about this?

Of course, it did felt awkward and uneasy (both me and my character). Since the other players (can't help it, and I play her that way which is part of the guise) tends to treat my character as a child (plus, they do not know what I really am), they promised "not to look". We also have a Halfling Druid who happens to be rather lecherous (from my group, a friend of mine since gradeschool, and is rather lecherous also in real life), but everyone in the group is there to keep him in check.

MoiMagnus
2020-05-06, 05:57 AM
As for fun "riding the rails" moment, I'd like to share how our DM manage to make the strongly scenarised moments interesting to us as players: by giving us NPCs to play.

During our campaign, I remember 4 moments where the DM felt like to tell the events he wanted to tell, he needed for the PCs to not interact with it. (Or at least not yet).

1) The great secret plan from the evil team. He needed to find a way to info-dump to us what was gonna happen, and put some emotional attachment with a team of nemesis for our PCs. The "standard way" would have been a scenarised encounter with them where they conveniently escape after leaking most of their plan. Instead, he started the session by giving to each of us the background sheet of our respective nemesis with some RP objectives, and then asked us to RP the secret meeting where we were all plotting against the hero on how to defeat the kingdom's armies.

2) The rescue mission. After a (quite obvious at posteriori) trap in which our team fall and was captured, our DM wanted a Deus Ex Machina to save us (or at least some of us). So he asked us to create some background for a "team B" that come to our rescue (consisting of our trustful advisors, some local heros, ...). This section was yet again RP-only where we described how we managed to go through all the obstacles he described to us, and at what cost (heroic sacrifices?) the rescue mission would happen.

3) The invasion of the army of evil. Another info-dump needed, because we failed to anticipate an invasion. This time, we would create background for generals and mayors of the province that would suffer the attack, and powerlessly try to counter it before trying to run away for their life (or die heroically) and manage to warn the PCs.

4) The impostor. One of us had been secretly replaced by a powerful shapeshifter, in order to infiltrate the Council of God summoned after our latest actions, and then essentially make a terrorist attack. Time for team B to save the day again ! (Though some members of team B changed, because deaths happened during the rescue mission from earlier). Team B found after an a priori unrelated investigation the captured PC, and now they needed to find a way to warn the main team of the impostor, and for that essentially break through the "nobody shall ever disturbs a God's councils" defences.

There was also multiple other points in the campaign where he asked in secret to a player to act a certain way (mind control & co). All of those rails and semi-rails had one common point: while that "what will happen" was determined, the "how" was essentially under our control, and the long term consequences beyond what was planed very dependent of our ideas and RP choices.

King of Nowhere
2020-05-06, 06:57 AM
Yes, not even regular clothing. It was your typical podium with a book under a hexagram with a glowing light going up, creating like a cylindrical tube barrier of light. When a party member put his hand in it, his glove (a common one) bursted into flames turning it to dust (but he was unhurt). I threw a coin, then a rock in it, which too got dusted. From the start I already knew where this is going, and since I still want to keep my stuff (and underwear), well....



Of course, it did felt awkward and uneasy (both me and my character). Since the other players (can't help it, and I play her that way which is part of the guise) tends to treat my character as a child (plus, they do not know what I really am), they promised "not to look". We also have a Halfling Druid who happens to be rather lecherous (from my group, a friend of mine since gradeschool, and is rather lecherous also in real life), but everyone in the group is there to keep him in check.

i don't know your cultural context, but in italy public child nudity is not a big deal. i mean, you don't see naked children on the street, but it's not uncommon for children to go naked at the beach, and nobody thinks anything of it. or at least it was so until 10 years ago, it may have shifted somewhat.
also, in finland people go naked in the sauna, the adults are split by gender (unless they are family or close friends), but children can just go everywhere.

in fact, to me your character having the body of a child makes the scene acceptable and not creepy.
though, as always, that depends 90% on how the scene is described and how the rest of the table is reacting.

by the way, you could have dressed yourself up in an illusion. unless the circle also dispelled.

Aotrs Commander
2020-05-06, 07:11 AM
It was a no-brainer that my character (human wizard), surprisingly being the ONLY spellcaster around, must perform it.

The only caster in THREE parties? (That's only one caster in, what, 12 I would imagine minimum characters and could be way more than that.) That's odd.

(I mean, ym parties average 6-8 characters, not having more than a single caster in three of them would begger belief!)




... and this is precisely why I don't like generic, plot-based, pre-written adventures.

To be fair, this sounds like probably the worst example of such I can think of hearing about, off the top of my head.



I think the only time I can particularly note it was when the DM was running a module he'd gotten off the net, wherein the party got cursed by something that forced to go in one particular direction to... Somewhere across the Realms.

We? As a group don't really care too much about rail-roading (I mean good job, since I functionally run nothing but APs and modules, even if I write them myself!), so we just took it in stride and just made jokes about how we wanted to get to the Bay of Dancing Dolphins. (Note: none of us have a CLUE about what it actually is at the Bay of Dancing Dolphins. It could be some hell-hole full of demons for all we know.) And we cracked just as many jokes about this random bag of blue stones we were first assigned to take to someone before we ran into whatever cursed us - we kept trying to sell it off to people.

I mean really, though, that campaign's writers, you could have just told us "take this things here, that's the adventure," and we'd have still done it without complaint.



(Fun fact: though we never actually completed that campaign - the DM is still with the group, but is probably not yup for the kind of effort sorting out was getting, once we hit like 12th level - a random side-comment about us being the "Watedeep Orc Extermination Company" whilw we fighting some orcs, which lead to one of the players doing an essentially "many years later" party based around taking that comment and making it a whole Thing, which we still play to this day!)

daryen
2020-05-06, 10:40 AM
Yes, a 7 year old. In reality, my character is a mature woman who escaped death by taking over another body (which happens to be currently the only and easiest one available; got to find a "host" fast).

So, we're going to be worried about a temporarily naked adult in the body of a 7 year old while simultaneously ignoring that the adult mentally *murdered* a 7 year old child to seize the child's body? That doesn't strike anyone else as misplaced priorities? Or, I don't know, maybe wrong?

No?

OK, then ...

Segev
2020-05-06, 11:13 AM
So, we're going to be worried about a temporarily naked adult in the body of a 7 year old while simultaneously ignoring that the adult mentally *murdered* a 7 year old child to seize the child's body? That doesn't strike anyone else as misplaced priorities? Or, I don't know, maybe wrong?

No?

OK, then ...

I think the take-away here is that moral ambiguity is in play, at best. :P

Though if the Medusa Gorgon analogy is fully faithful, she hasn't murdered her, merely possessed her. So it's more child endangerment and kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment than murder. Totally more acceptable! >_> <_<

(I'm just assuming the character isn't good-aligned, and may or may not be evil-aligned.)

daryen
2020-05-06, 11:26 AM
Though if the Medusa Gorgon analogy is fully faithful, she hasn't murdered her, merely possessed her. So it's more child endangerment and kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment than murder. Totally more acceptable! >_> <_<

(I'm just assuming the character isn't good-aligned, and may or may not be evil-aligned.)

My point is still that worrying about having your character stand around naked for 15 minutes would seem to be *way* less of sticking point than whatever mental atrocities that character has already committed on a character that actually is 7 years old. That the 15 minutes of nudity is worthy of concern and discussion while the (at best) indefinite and continual mental assault, subjugation, and domination of a 7 year old isn't just strikes me as ... oddly placed priorities. One is 15 minutes of embarrassment; the other is either outright murder or indefinite extreme mental violation. The mind boggles.

MoiMagnus
2020-05-06, 11:43 AM
My point is still that worrying about having your character stand around naked for 15 minutes would seem to be *way* less of sticking point than whatever mental atrocities that character has already committed on a character that actually is 7 years old. That the 15 minutes of nudity is worthy of concern and discussion while the (at best) indefinite and continual mental assault, subjugation, and domination of a 7 year old isn't just strikes me as ... oddly placed priorities. One is 15 minutes of embarrassment; the other is either outright murder or indefinite extreme mental violation. The mind boggles.

The level of realism / proximity is quite important here.
That's for the same reason than scene of torture are usually considered far more triggering than saying that having a scenario where countless innocent souls might be eternally tortured in hell because of some mistakes of the PCs.

[Additionally, having a child/teenager possessed by the spirit of an ancient mage/pharaoh/... for some epic and dangerous battles because that's the way this spirit got to immortality, is strangely common and accepted in fiction. Contrary to having 7yo children naked in the middle of a battlefield for 15min...]