King of Nowhere
2021-01-18, 04:59 PM
Ever since I picked up again D&D in my adult life, i've had a single group of good friends with very healty, functional dynamics, and I've been quite lucky. I would periodically read horror stories of bad dm and disfunctional groups in this forum, but it's always been very theoretical. I didn't knew what it was actually like.
Well, now I do. A couple months ago, one of my buddies saw a chance for an online campaign with strangers, and proposed me to play too.
well, i will premise by stating that the dm is not a bad person; he has enthusiasm, and he's actually good at recitation.
however, he triggers pretty much every! single! red flag! commonly discussed in this forum (excepting those related to personal abuse):
- the campaign is a complete railroad, every attempt to try and explore different avenues is randomly stifled
- he put a high level dmpc with us. he's incredibly stronger and better than the party at everything; he won't partecipate in our fights, but he'll do any cool thing that we're not allowed to do.
- lately, as we got (obviously) imprisoned by dm fiat and the dmpc escaped, i thought that maybe we'd be on out own for a while. Instead, all of our attempts at jailbreak were railroaded into failure (a colossal guard monster arrives. you don't get any check to see it or evade it. it uses a breath weapon. no saving throw. you all fall asleep and you wake up back in your cell); and then a second dmpc comes and free us
- pcs aren't allowed to do anything not pertaining the railroads. at the beginning i told the story of how my wizard took a vow of poverty because he wanted magic to advantage the common folk, which it can't do if it's ridiculous expensive; and how he would like to first gather enough money to free his parents who were made debt slaves for financing his studies, and then try to open some free wizarding academia for everyone who wants to learn. and i explicitly asked if such a character was ok in the campaing. despite investing heavily in diplomacy, every attempt i made to pursue my personal plots had been swiftly dismissed.
- we weren't given a single magic item, not even a potion or scroll. every single time we tried to loot defeated enemies, we were forced to flee somehow. Near level 5, the whole of out loot consists in 100 gp each. that were then confiscated when we were railroad-captured. On the plus side, my vow of poverty is paying off big time, i'm the only one to have some kind of boost
- the encounters are completely unbalanced. at level 3 we faced a thing with 200 hp, +20 to hit, dealing 3d8+12 damage. At level 2, we were "ambushed" by a group of level 3 bandits, more numerous than us and with archery support that was basically some autohitting attacks on us every round. when the odds are too desperate, though, the dm suddenly let us win by having the enemies start fighting as total morons. No, he's apparently not trying to rob us of any sense of accomplishment by making it obvious that he's handing us our victories. it seems he genuinely believes we won't realize what he's doing. which makes it even more insulting.
- the worldbuilding is completely fickle and inconsistent. there is this prison that's supposedly the most inescapable ever. yet there is nothing (except the obvious railroads) to prevent anyone from leaving by flight, teleportation, burrowing, or any other vaguely non-mundane mean. And by the way, I was looking for stuff to improvise as material components, and i discovered there isn't a single spider in the whole prison. nope, can't cast web. not that it would have helped me against the railroad guardian monster. the labyrinth has the sun standing still overhead, like it's some kind of flat world with a fixed sun. except the rest of the world has normal day/night cycles. when asked to clarify this, i wasn't given any straight answer.
- another player is taking every chance at downtime to create messes for everyone. as in, every single time we stop at any kind of town, he goes into the tavern and tries to start a brawl. without anything to gain and with everything to lose. then he suddenly quit the game after a few sessions
Judging from all descriptions, it would seem an awful, miserable game, yet i'm still having a fun time.
Oh, of course i dropped any pretence that i would ever have meaningful character arcs, or be able to do anything that wasn't preordained by the dm, or accomplish anything on my own.
i'm now approaching this campaign in the same way that an estimator of b-movies would approach sharknado: let's have some fun at how dumb and poorly conveived is all of this. The whole campaign has basically devolved into an unwitting comedy. it's still a fun way to spend two hours.
I am not looking for advice. besides, i know the advice for similar situations is basically always the same (talk to the dm; if things do not change, quit the group). no, i'm fine as it is, and if nothing else, the whole experience make me appreciate more my main, functional group.
i just wanted to share, and hope it will bring some inspiration to those of you who are in similar situation and aren't taking it as well
Well, now I do. A couple months ago, one of my buddies saw a chance for an online campaign with strangers, and proposed me to play too.
well, i will premise by stating that the dm is not a bad person; he has enthusiasm, and he's actually good at recitation.
however, he triggers pretty much every! single! red flag! commonly discussed in this forum (excepting those related to personal abuse):
- the campaign is a complete railroad, every attempt to try and explore different avenues is randomly stifled
- he put a high level dmpc with us. he's incredibly stronger and better than the party at everything; he won't partecipate in our fights, but he'll do any cool thing that we're not allowed to do.
- lately, as we got (obviously) imprisoned by dm fiat and the dmpc escaped, i thought that maybe we'd be on out own for a while. Instead, all of our attempts at jailbreak were railroaded into failure (a colossal guard monster arrives. you don't get any check to see it or evade it. it uses a breath weapon. no saving throw. you all fall asleep and you wake up back in your cell); and then a second dmpc comes and free us
- pcs aren't allowed to do anything not pertaining the railroads. at the beginning i told the story of how my wizard took a vow of poverty because he wanted magic to advantage the common folk, which it can't do if it's ridiculous expensive; and how he would like to first gather enough money to free his parents who were made debt slaves for financing his studies, and then try to open some free wizarding academia for everyone who wants to learn. and i explicitly asked if such a character was ok in the campaing. despite investing heavily in diplomacy, every attempt i made to pursue my personal plots had been swiftly dismissed.
- we weren't given a single magic item, not even a potion or scroll. every single time we tried to loot defeated enemies, we were forced to flee somehow. Near level 5, the whole of out loot consists in 100 gp each. that were then confiscated when we were railroad-captured. On the plus side, my vow of poverty is paying off big time, i'm the only one to have some kind of boost
- the encounters are completely unbalanced. at level 3 we faced a thing with 200 hp, +20 to hit, dealing 3d8+12 damage. At level 2, we were "ambushed" by a group of level 3 bandits, more numerous than us and with archery support that was basically some autohitting attacks on us every round. when the odds are too desperate, though, the dm suddenly let us win by having the enemies start fighting as total morons. No, he's apparently not trying to rob us of any sense of accomplishment by making it obvious that he's handing us our victories. it seems he genuinely believes we won't realize what he's doing. which makes it even more insulting.
- the worldbuilding is completely fickle and inconsistent. there is this prison that's supposedly the most inescapable ever. yet there is nothing (except the obvious railroads) to prevent anyone from leaving by flight, teleportation, burrowing, or any other vaguely non-mundane mean. And by the way, I was looking for stuff to improvise as material components, and i discovered there isn't a single spider in the whole prison. nope, can't cast web. not that it would have helped me against the railroad guardian monster. the labyrinth has the sun standing still overhead, like it's some kind of flat world with a fixed sun. except the rest of the world has normal day/night cycles. when asked to clarify this, i wasn't given any straight answer.
- another player is taking every chance at downtime to create messes for everyone. as in, every single time we stop at any kind of town, he goes into the tavern and tries to start a brawl. without anything to gain and with everything to lose. then he suddenly quit the game after a few sessions
Judging from all descriptions, it would seem an awful, miserable game, yet i'm still having a fun time.
Oh, of course i dropped any pretence that i would ever have meaningful character arcs, or be able to do anything that wasn't preordained by the dm, or accomplish anything on my own.
i'm now approaching this campaign in the same way that an estimator of b-movies would approach sharknado: let's have some fun at how dumb and poorly conveived is all of this. The whole campaign has basically devolved into an unwitting comedy. it's still a fun way to spend two hours.
I am not looking for advice. besides, i know the advice for similar situations is basically always the same (talk to the dm; if things do not change, quit the group). no, i'm fine as it is, and if nothing else, the whole experience make me appreciate more my main, functional group.
i just wanted to share, and hope it will bring some inspiration to those of you who are in similar situation and aren't taking it as well