Arguing With My DM: How Are Characters Supposed to Fit Into A Story?

[aadder]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

[Kane0]

My father and I were the same but the other way around for one particular game, we sort of got around it by his character having a massive ego and refusing to accept that he wasnt as competent as he thought he was.

Probably doesnt help you all that much though

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is something that does not have a fixed answer. Each campaign must decide whether you're starting as "established people who go on an adventure" or "nobodies who stumble into something grand."

That said, a few observations.

D&D has very strong character growth (in power terms at least) baked in. So if you want a more narrow growth (growing from ~level 5 to ~level 8), you're strongly restricting the campaigns you can run. Because basically you can't start earlier or end later than that--the natural growth cycle for a D&D character is much closer to your DM's point of view.

A level 1 character is post-apprentice, but still notably stronger than the "normal average joe." You've got class features and proficiencies and HP most people don't have. But what you don't have is a long history of adventuring or fancy deeds. Or a reputation, really. You're "local heroes" by the end of T1.

IMO, assuming that "well established" people are level 5-8 (or NPC equivalents thereof) causes all sorts of weirdness at the world level. It's the classic "why do they need us, when there's dozens of more powerful people walking around" issue.

What doesn't work is mixing the two attitudes at the same table. Bringing someone with a backstory that indicates they should be level 5'ish to a party of fresh-faced newcomers (backstory wise) causes dislocations. As can the reverse (ie you're level 5...so why haven't you done anything? Even locally?), but there's less of that that I see.

Edit: I had a player who wanted to play "I'm a Far Realms god-like entity, descended to mortal scale to warn everyone of danger" as a GOO warlock. Yeah...that'd be an issue. So I had him edit his backstory to add one sentence: "Or so he thinks." Most people just thought he was crazy and treated him as such.

[OldTrees1]

Interesting problem.

1) What if your character joins the campaign later?

I had an idea for a professional dungeon tour guide. Similar to your characters they had a pre established reputation, professional experience, set of skills, and competence. So I played a different character for levels 1-5 and then my 5th level Dungeon Tour Guide joined the party.

2) What if your character had room to grow beyond the baseline competence for their characterization? Jack Sparrow grew in multiple directions. However you don't need to aim at being master of the universe. Just set yourself a goal that your character considers feasible but currently out of reach. Like Jack Sparrow being a captain again.

[aadder]

D&D has very strong character growth (in power terms at least) baked in. So if you want a more narrow growth (growing from ~level 5 to ~level 8), you're strongly restricting the campaigns you can run. Because basically you can't start earlier or end later than that--the natural growth cycle for a D&D character is much closer to your DM's point of view.

Oh i don't really have a problem going up to level 20, that's not the problem.

It's more the insistence on starting low, and the idea that i HAVE to be on some epic quest to become a bigger, better person.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol

[aadder]

1) What if your character joins the campaign later?

2) What if your character had room to grow beyond the baseline competence for their characterization? Jack Sparrow grew in multiple directions. However you don't need to aim at being master of the universe. Just set yourself a goal that your character considers feasible but currently out of reach. Like Jack Sparrow being a captain again.

For 1) we tried to do that last time a little, i skipped out for one session. He didn't enjoy it.

for 2) I can KIND of see that, but the problem is i kind of write characters with very self-centered goals that don't really gel with whatever the DM is writing. I don't mind having goals, but I do mind when they have to be pulled through the lens of DnD, which tends to make goals fall into "YOU LERN A FRENSHIP!" or "the hibble-poobledy dwarfs of funtly winkler-boo give you a wand from the ass-tree and the universe is saved!" Neither of which lend themselves to self-directed goal. I hate it when someone's personal goal takes over the whole campaign for months. It's not helped by the fact that the character i want to play is pretty morally dubious, somewhere between lawful evil and true neutral.

[Dienekes]

Oh i don't really have a problem going up to level 20, that's not the problem.

It's more the insistence on starting low, and the idea that i HAVE to be on some epic quest to become a bigger, better person.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol

You can! If the game starts at level 5 or so. At level 1, well, trying to perform the actions done by Jack Sparrow will probably get you killed. But, you can still try to implement the parts of Jack Sparrow that are engaging to you. The quick wit, thinking outside the box to solve problems, using fast talk that is essentially nonsense to get some distance from people before running away from danger. Those are all things you can do at level 1.

But ultimately, the GM is the one making the adventure. And if they have written an adventure starting at level 1 then that's what they've done. There's not much you can do to get around it. You can find a new GM. Or you can talk to him that you have this cool Jack Sparrow character you want to play, and is it possible that you can play someone else for a few levels. Then when it is narratively convenient switch out to the one you actually want to play. And you can play the character as you actually envision them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

for 2) I can KIND of see that, but the problem is i kind of write characters with very self-centered goals that don't really gel with whatever the DM is writing. I don't mind having goals, but I do mind when they have to be pulled through the lens of DnD, which tends to make goals fall into "YOU LERN A FRENSHIP!" or "the hibble-poobledy dwarfs of funtly winkler-boo give you a wand from the ass-tree and the universe is saved!" Neither of which lend themselves to self-directed goal. I hate it when someone's personal goal takes over the whole campaign for months. It's not helped by the fact that the character i want to play is pretty morally dubious, somewhere between lawful evil and true neutral.

I think this is the real problem. Characters need to fit the campaign (one way or the other). Mismatch here causes severe tonal issues.

[Merudo]

I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones.

Maybe the DM and you could compromise? Start the game at level 3 maybe? At that level, you already have your subclass and are no longer a total nobody.

[Mastikator]

Many of the preset backgrounds explicitly contain a pre-established reputation. Folk Hero come to mind here.

However it's the DMs world and if you don't like it you can play it your way when you DM. The reason I side with the DM is because it takes an order of magnitude more time and effort to DM. Most likely he has an adventure thought out that works best if you start from level 1.

[OldTrees1]

For 1) we tried to do that last time a little, i skipped out for one session. He didn't enjoy it.

Um, of course he didn't enjoy it. You were not there. But what if you played a temporary character until the party was high enough level for your actual character?

I played a "Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight" Thief Rogue for levels 1-5 before swapping to my Dungeon Tour Guide character for levels 5-15.


for 2) I can KIND of see that, but the problem is i kind of write characters with very self-centered goals that don't really gel with whatever the DM is writing. I don't mind having goals, but I do mind when they have to be pulled through the lens of DnD, which tends to make goals fall into "YOU LERN A FRENSHIP!" or "the hibble-poobledy dwarfs of funtly winkler-boo give you a wand from the ass-tree and the universe is saved!" Neither of which lend themselves to self-directed goal. I hate it when someone's personal goal takes over the whole campaign for months. It's not helped by the fact that the character i want to play is pretty morally dubious, somewhere between lawful evil and true neutral.

Different campaigns, and styles of campaign can work better for different character goals.

My Dungeon Tour guide had 3 goals:
1 - Learn about dungeons. Especially famous ones like the _______ that they were hired to be a tour guide for.
2 - Survive famous dungeons.
3 - Keep tourists alive during the tour.

That worked very well for the campaign about going into a specific famous dungeon.

However if my character's goal was to build a thieves guild network around the world, that goal would not have meshed with the campaign. But might have worked better in a campaign with lots of travel.

There are also some motivations that work better in a player driven story (like a sandbox) rather than a DM driven story (like a module).


Also your view of "D&D goals" is rather skewed. Just because you receive a reward does not mean that was your goal. If I have a character building a global thieves guild network, they would accept the dwarf "wand" because it means the dwarves might be open to helping find a suitable building.

Remember, Power is Power. Even a reward like "Mr Gibbs's Friendship" can be used to pursue your goal (for example being the Captain of the Black Pearl again).

All you need is a goal, that can be pursued where the story takes place, and the other PCs won't object to.

[Sorinth]

Instead of skipping out the early sessions can you not play a character whose adventuring goal aligns with the early adventures and when that's done that character retires? In a realistic world there would be adventurers who after 1-2 adventures take the money they made, buy a tavern and retire, especially if they had a family.


On the other hand you mention not wanting too do "kill the goblins" type missions, but really in 5e with bounded accuracy goblins can be a threat for a long time so long as they have numerical superiority. So why are they beneath you?


It's also worth noting that if you are a Rogue or Human/Custom Origin with Skill Expert you can very much play the character that is good enough to have a reputation while still being level 1.

[J-H]

There are plenty of ways to grow as a person while also being competent from the start. My favorite character growth arc is the combined arcs of Londo Mollari and G'kar from Babylon 5.

Both started "low level" in terms of power in the universe and end up changing as people while also growing to influence their entire respective species' future.


One starts out as a semi-competent diplomat who's a bit of a lush and a joke hearkening back to the glory days, and ends up as the regretful emperor of the Centauri, getting a divorce, killing his best friend, and being responsible for a genocidal planetary bombardment on the way.

G'Kar starts out as an ominous militaristic figure out for revenge on the Centauri, spends time in jail, gets tortured, loses an eye, helps kill an emperor, and ends up becoming a prophetic figure who writes a major religious text while also helping liberate his people from the Centauri.

And of course there's Vir Cotto, the harmless timid aide... who ends up killing an emperor, predicts Morden's future, and eventually becoming emperor himself...

[neonchameleon]

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

My suggestion would be to watch Pirates of the Caribbean again (and not just because it's a very good movie). Jack isn't so much awesome because he's competent but because he can make anything he does, even the failures, look awesome. I mean look at his introduction, sailing his ship to shore. That's actually a pretty miserable failure (his boat sank under him, and that's surprisingly hard because wood floats) - he just made it look awesome and is the king of "I meant to do that".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uJTekyvMlk&ab_channel=IllustratedFiction

And for your characters again look at Captain Sparrow. He as mentioned isn't actually much more competent than Will. Sure he was - but he's a washed up, half drunken sot who's lost his crew, his reputation, and some of his skill. Jack Sparrow, Captain of the Black Pearl would be higher level - but Jack as he is now isn't.

Which should give you the obvious question as to what happened? Why is your character not who they once were? This adds layers to characterisation that a mere heroic background doesn't. Some suggestions are:

They retired. They're now twenty years older, out of practice and out of shape but there's been the call to arms.
They tried to retire, and spent the last five years farming. It drove them up the wall and they no longer have their absurd speed. They're still fast and agile, but now a ranger not a rogue.
They retired and have spent the last ten years burning through their loot on carousing. Now the money's run out - and they're in the sort of shape you'd expect from someone who spent the last ten years carousing.
They were the only survivor of a TPK. Their confidence shot they said "never again" - but there really isn't anyone else.
They were the only survivor of a TPK and that because their enemy made an example of them. The only way they had to start on the road to revenge was to become a Warlock.
They were a cleric, lost their faith and turned their back on their god. And are basically starting over with another class.
They've spent the past ten years petrified/polymorphed and just returned to human form.
They realised that they were one of the bad guys and have burned their books and started over as e.g. a Life Cleric or druid, swearing oaths not to use their former tools.


This gives you the depth of background and reputation that a callow youth wouldn't have if it's that aspect you're missing and lets you fluff the first few levels as knocking the rust off.

[Theodoxus]

i had a player who's first level character was a charlatan of sorts. He was "The Crimson Avenger!" the greatest wrestler who ever wrestled. We had great fun teasing him. As he slowly grew in power along with the rest of the team, he never failed to suggest he was already the greatest. Near the end of the campaign, he ended up with a Wish spell, and so he wished that he was known throughout the world and that a 300' tall statue of him was straddling the bay of Waterdeep. I allowed the wish - there were many times during the campaign where he could have used it to much greater (well, campaign worthy) effect, but chose not to. However, I did rule it was beyond the scope of a normal Wish and he was immediately stricken with a 3 strength. The player retired the character at that point, bringing in a new character - but the Crimson Avenger! showed up from time to time, usually in a carriage, surrounded by adoring fans.

The point is, it is definitely possible to have a character believe they are more powerful than they really are - and for the DM to play up the illusion of power without it being gamebreaking. The rest of the table was fine with it - his in-character boasts didn't actually bring additional abilities, and the commoners he was playing to didn't know the relative power of the adventurers. Only that the Crimson Avenger! was there in person.

As an aside, the CA! only wore blue velvet. Because of course he did.

[Pex]

Presuming you want to play, the DM is set on starting at level 1. Work with him on your Background for a compromise. You won't have Cool Powers, but you can have roleplay flavor text.

Being a Noble can mean you are prominent in politics. You're not the King or Duke, but you are the child of some Noble of Rank - Count, Baron, Earl. The Commoners call you Lord. You can get an audience with people of authority, and they will listen to you seriously. You will get a Major Title later in the campaign. You might already have a low rank title like Earl.

Being a Soldier gives you rank. You are newly promoted above Private. Corporal or Sergeant, you have shown talent and potential to your superiors to be assigned a Special Agent status as opposed to being a member of a Regiment. You have full Honors, Respect, and Responsibilities as regular Army. You will receive promotions as the campaign progresses.

Sailor is the same as Soldier but in the Navy.

Folk Hero is just that. You saved the day. You did what other people couldn't because you're 1st level. You didn't slay the dragon or troll, but work with your DM on what you did relevant to your Class. The People know you.

Entertainer means you're already well known if not on the A-list yet. You start off with a small fandom. When you travel to a city or town you've never been to before there will exist people have who have heard of you or seen you. If you go the pit fighter route you have a stage name that's recognized.

Generally speaking you don't want your character to be a Nobody. You don't need Cool Powers for that. If the DM cannot accept it then you're incompatible. If you cannot accept starting at 1st level then you're incompatible.

[aadder]

The point is, it is definitely possible to have a character believe they are more powerful than they really are - and for the DM to play up the illusion of power without it being gamebreaking.

No.

I am not an idiot, nor is my character.

I don't know why people keep suggesting this.

[aadder]

I don't know why everyone keeps suggesting that I am an idiot who wants to play idiots.

I have no desire to be the jackass of the group swanning about in Don Quixote-esque bouts of comic attempts at competence.

I really don't understand the insistence at this.

Why is it so weird that I want to play a character that's good at things?

Am I really that socially unaware that I'm not grasping that this is a central tenet of DnD, to NOT be good at things?

[ProsecutorGodot]

No.

I am not an idiot, nor is my character.

I don't know why people keep suggesting this.

That's not what is being suggested and I think it's quite uncharitable of you to take it that way.

The fact of the matter here, if I'm reading this right, is that for your DM's idea of a character arc involves characters who start as "mostly average" or as close to it as you can as an Adventurer, your background is still a defining feature of your abilities rather than your class. Your wants are to skip that "struggling phase" and go straight into being seasoned enough to be recognized as an Adventurer through your class abilities (overwhelming martial prowess or powerful spellcasting) but still have room to grow ever stronger and develop outside of those abilities.

These are not mutually exclusive character arcs, you just don't like the beginning bit. You can make compromises in that beginning bit to still be recognized as competent despite not having fantastic abilities or a realm spanning reputation to back it up. Pex's suggestions are quite good here.

If you're unwilling to make any compromises, I can't help but be blunt and say you would be the unreasonable one from my point of view. The only difference I can see is that you get to become that competent hero with the party, that's why I personally enjoy start at early levels, though I much prefer 2 or 3 so that any two characters have meaningful differences as their class features are already showing up.

Somewhat of a tangent that I'm including at the end: In retrospect, most of the characters I've created in 5E are just as Theodoxus describes. They come from backgrounds that require a high degree of competence and they act like being an adventurer (mercenary, hero, do-gooder) would be a natural and easy stepping stone. Every single time, they've walked out of an early encounter learning otherwise and changed drastically because of it. My most experienced character is a Paladin at 18th level. This Paladin is also the first character I'd ever made for 5E and we tpk'd at level 2. The DM for this campaign, who was a player in the previously mentioned one, was happy to let me recycle him for this and I was happy to take lessons from being killed for being an overly ambitious hotshot noble with a tiny bit of martial training. Fast forward to the far end of a True Resurrections time limit and his family had written history around him being a hero who sacrificed his life to end the battle he died in (Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Greenest) and he was devastated to learn that his name was a written and recorded part of history for a deed he never had any part in.

The character believed he was competent, others believed he was competent, yet he still had (and has) room to grow.

[Rukelnikov]

I don't know why everyone keeps suggesting that I am an idiot who wants to play idiots.

I have no desire to be the jackass of the group swanning about in Don Quixote-esque bouts of comic attempts at competence.

I really don't understand the insistence at this.

Why is it so weird that I want to play a character that's good at things?

Am I really that socially unaware that I'm not grasping that this is a central tenet of DnD, to NOT be good at things?

What you are failing to grasp is that roleplaying games are a cooperative activity, even when the PCs may be rivals or enemies (not very suited for dnd, but in some other systems it works), the players and DM are all there to have a good time thru some group storytelling. And what are saying is pretty much "I wanna play this character, regardless of the story the DM and the table are planning to play".

The worst part is that your complaints are unfounded. You can be cool at any level, you don't need to roll at +8 for that.

[MaxWilson]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

I feel like you described the problem so well the answer is fairly obvious: you don't want to play the same game, so why not play different games? If he wants to play Life and you want to play Jenga, you can either take turns playing what the other likes (if your personal relationship is important to you both) or just go play different games with other people, for now.

What's stopping you? Lack of opportunities to find other DMs? (Consider also: becoming a DM and running some games for people with similar tastes.)

P.S. Essentially what I hear you saying is that, in terms of the Eight Kinds of Fun In RPGs (https://theangrygm.com/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/), Narrative and Challenge are not important to you but Fantasy and Abnegation are, but your DM doesn't want to run an escapist, Abnegation-oriented game, he wants Narrative. (I don't really blame him, Abnegation doesn't give the DM much to do, works better with DM-less play like solo play or when players take turns introducing monsters and giving out rewards. Having a permanent DM in an Abnegation-oriented game is maybe a bit too much like asking someone to DM your game of Ping Pong without participating in it: only certain kinds of people will enjoy it enough to keep doing it.)

[Vegan Squirrel]

I feel like you described the problem so well the answer is fairly obvious: you don't want to play the same game, so why not play different games? If he wants to play Life and you want to play Jenga, you can either take turns playing what the other likes (if your personal relationship is important to you both) or just go play different games with other people, for now.

What's stopping you? Lack of opportunities to find other DMs? (Consider also: becoming a DM and running some games for people with similar tastes.)

Mostly what I was going to say. If two people have opposite game preferences that really aren't compatible, that doesn't mean one of them is being unreasonable (it could mean that, but it doesn't have to). Just like some 5e players are salivating at the prospect of each new book and some still prefer to stick to PHB-only for their campaigns, people have different tastes. Neither one's wrong. A DM needs to make sure their game fits their preferences well enough that they'll stay motivated to keep preparing content for the whole campaign. If that means it's not an enjoyable activity to play in their campaign, you don't have to play in their campaign. Ideally, there's room for compromise where you can both enjoy the game, but it's not a personal failing if your tastes are too far apart for a satisfying middle ground.

As for becoming a DM, if you choose to DM, you get to play lots of characters in the world. They're not the protagonists, but you can slip into a lot of interesting characters who are established, competent, and fully realized as complete characters. Some of them will recur, and some will even become beloved friends of the party (or hated villains). You might really enjoy that aspect of DMing! And you can be every bit as accommodating to the players as you feel a good DM should be.

[loki_ragnarock]

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

Run a game. Be the DM.

Problem solved.

[Dark.Revenant]

I'm going to be blunt:

Suck it up and make the kind of character your DM wants you to make. Enjoy yourself.

Alternatively, get up and leave. There's a whole planet full of DMs out there; you might find one you like better. I wish you luck, though, finding a DM that will tolerate your my-way-or-the-highway attitude, but somewhere, out there, there's a game for you.

[Lunali]

I'd suggest stopping for a minute, throwing out any discussion of levels and instead discuss the sort of narrative arc you want to see for your character. It's entirely possible to play 1-20 as a character that started out competent, and got a little bit better but never did any world saving adventures. It's also possible to start as a complete novice and save the world by level 5. It's all about how the world reacts to the characters.

[JonBeowulf]

I'm going to be blunt:

Suck it up and make the kind of character your DM wants you to make. Enjoy yourself.

Alternatively, get up and leave. There's a whole planet full of DMs out there; you might find one you like better. I wish you luck, though, finding a DM that will tolerate your my-way-or-the-highway attitude, but somewhere, out there, there's a game for you.
It may sound crappy, but I agree with this. Life is too short to compromise the times that are supposed to be enjoyable. Your unhappiness will reflect in your gaming... which will impact everyone else's enjoyment, so choose carefully and stick to your decision.

And it's not a my-way-or-the-highway attitude. It's about understanding what you enjoy and not compromising it for the sake of someone else's enjoyment. This isn't (typically) a till-death-do-us-part relationship.

I prefer starting campaigns around level 4 but I'll start lower if the players want to or if they're new to the game. I'll also start higher if the players know what they're doing and have multiclass concepts that take a while to come online. But that's me at my table. Everyone is free to run their own table the way they want... and everyone is free to choose not to play at it.

[aadder]

Alternatively, get up and leave. There's a whole planet full of DMs out there; you might find one you like better. I wish you luck, though, finding a DM that will tolerate your my-way-or-the-highway attitude, but somewhere, out there, there's a game for you.

I mean my DM is also being very irascible, it's not just me. i was explaining my movie concepts of characters and he shut the conversation down and said he's not devoting any more brain power to arguing about it, and i was being diplomatic.

[aadder]

What's stopping you? Lack of opportunities to find other DMs? (Consider also: becoming a DM and running some games for people with similar tastes.)


i actually really like playing with this group, and i don't want to leave. i don't make friends easily, ESPECIALLY in nerd communities which tend to be very dudes-bordering-on-sexual-assault-committers-dominated. i like these guys. we were friends in college and i miss them a lot. we don't talk anymore so this is the only way to connect to them.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Your character's home land was destroyed or overrun or conquered or similar, and your character came to this land as a refugee. Back in his homeland he was somebody, thus fulfilling your need for that, but where the adventure begins he's an unknown nobody, thus fulfilling your DM's desires.

[Dark.Revenant]

I mean my DM is also being very irascible, it's not just me. i was explaining my movie concepts of characters and he shut the conversation down and said he's not devoting any more brain power to arguing about it, and i was being diplomatic.

Leave him alone for a while so that you can refresh the conversation, then try to make a compromise. If after that he still sticks to his guns, then, really, there's nothing you can do except make a character that fits the tone of campaign he wants.

[Veldrenor]

It sounds like your DM wants to run a linear story type game, and you want to play a sandbox-y self-driven game. Given that you really like this group and don't want to leave it, your best bets are probably to:
1) Make a character who fits what the DM wants and try to have fun anyway. You've played with this DM and group before and had a good time, you can probably do it again even if the early levels are a little rough for you. And by-the-by level 1 doesn't mean you're incompetent. Honestly, Jack Sparrow is probably a level 1 Rogue with Expertise in Persuasion and Deception. Maybe level 2 given how much running away he does. The player piloting Jack is just really clever and makes great use of his environment.
2) Offer to DM a game yourself that's to your tastes. Maybe the group will like the change of pace and the DM will like the break from DMing.
3) Suggest a different activity. You said you like this group and miss them and this is how you connect with them. You can connect with them over other activities - have a board game night, make some popcorn and watch a movie (if distant, watch the same movie at the same time and skype the conversation), etc. You don't have to play D&D to hang out together.

On a side note, have you explained this all to the DM? Not just talking movie concepts and character ideas, but explaining why it's so important to you that the D&D experience be a power fantasy instead of "from humble beginnings"?



for 2) I can KIND of see that, but the problem is i kind of write characters with very self-centered goals that don't really gel with whatever the DM is writing.



I hate it when someone's personal goal takes over the whole campaign for months.

This strikes me as curious. You like to play characters who have self-centered goals (which, by nature of being self-centered would take over the campaign for a time if pursued), but you hate it when the game focuses on pursuing someone else's self-centered goal? Maybe it's not so much a mismatch between your preferences and your DM's, but a mismatch between your preferences and the game as a whole. D&D generally requires that you take turns in the spotlight, and it sounds like you want to play a solo badass. You want to play Jack Sparrow, forgetting that he would've been hanged in the first act if Will hadn't busted him out of his cell. You need to have a character who cares about the other characters and their goals, even if it's just to use them: "I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy?"

[Nidgit]

This was mentioned in a few places, but it feels like the answer is to play a character that was formerly good at stuff but isn't now for some reason. You're washed up, or cursed, or maybe you're destitute and learning to rely on your own skills rather than just your former gear. Maybe your character has lots of experience in some other domain but is new to adventuring band still learning to adapt. There are plenty of ways for your character to have experience, skills, and reputation while still not being able to execute them very well.

You could also try and talk to your DM about picking up a few extra skill proficiencies or an expertise in exchange for some other drawback, if you want to feel more specialized. 5e always leaves large gaps in what your character is capable of so don't expect to be always badass, even at stuff you're supposed to be good at. Try to embrace the failures when they happen.

[Cheesegear]

They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

Can't say I disagree. Normally, I'd have my players start at Level 1. But through compromise, we usually start at Level 2. If only so that the guy who spent 2 hours on his backstory doesn't die to a Goblin doing a crit on the first round. It happens. That's why I tend to tell my players not to worry too much about backstory at the lower levels 'cause if you die early that's a lot of wasted effort.

I've also found at all three of my tables, the players with the most in-depth backstories about why they're so cool and awesome...Can't play that character. In their backstory, where they control the entire narrative, and they control how the other characters act, their character is the most awesome dude to ever have been awesome. Then, during play, NPCs will lie to them, an obstacle will be in their path...Or they just fail a crucial roll. Suddenly, the best character who was ever the bestest - trust me, its in my backstory - no longer works as a character, because the player, can't play that, improvisationally.


My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence

Your Background gives you 'competence.'
If you're Proficient, in anything, at Level 1, you're competent.
If you have an ability score that's more than 10, you're competent.

Your class - even at Level 1 - gives you a set of skills and proficiencies.

Take any Level 1 player character, and compare it to a Commoner.


I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

So your view of D&D is playing a character in a novel. Rather than a character in a game.

D&D is a game, in which the story and mechanics are intertwined. Not separate.


I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment...

Simple question; Why?


To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

D&D isn't a movie.
It's a game.
You want to play Skyrim. But with the entire opening modded out, and starting at Level 8. That's certainly something you can do. But it's not for everyone.

Skyrim, is a single-player game. You do you.
D&D, is a cooperative game. You can't just do what you want. You can't mod out the parts you don't like. Even if that's technically what 'Fantasy RPG', means.


The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I think that's the bigger issue.

'Alright boys, I think next I want to run Icewind Dale. It's very cold. So obviously Silver and White Dragonborn, and Goliaths are strongly recommended. There'll be Dwarves, Goblins, Kobolds, a Land-Without-Sun, Giants and Wizards. And, probably not even a spoiler, but obviously Auril is heavily involved. Get cracking on your characters. If all else fails, imagine a colder version of Skyrim that sucks. There's also a lot of wilderness travel involved, so head's up on that. Goodberry will be OP.'

**** that. I'm gonna play a Pirate on the High Seas!

'I don't...Well I mean sure. There's a way to bring pirates into Icewind Dale, it's not pretty, but if you really want to we can come up with something. Like I said, there's already pirates involved...King of.'

No. I mean I don't want to fight Goblins, Kobolds and Frost Giants. I want to be on a boat. I already have the character I want to play, and the story I want to play, in.

'Yeah, no. I don't have anything like that ready to go. Like I said, Icewind Dale has a cool aesthetic.'

The DM has got an adventure prepped and ready to go. They've told you a little bit about the story and what you can expect.
Your job, is a player, is to creatively think of something - anything - that you would like to play, that can fit within that narrative and within the group of players at the table.
The DM then works with you, about how you can integrate the idea you have, into the story, in such a way that it makes sense and works.

Alternatively, you have a situation that I'm currently in.
My players want to play something like One Piece. I have no idea what that is, and at this point there's a bajillion episodes so why would I bother. So now I have the unenviable job of creating an Island campaign, because that's what my players asked for. I can do that. That's fine. But only because we already finished the other adventure and now I'm prepping the next one. 'My adventure' has already been done. I don't have another adventure...What do my players want to do?

...And I'll be starting my Island Adventure...At Level 1.

Alternatively, 'Island campaign!? That's dumb. Dear internet, I don't want to run an Island Campaign and my players are poopyheads. What do I do?'


but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

The problem is jamming a pre-existing character in your head, into the DM's pre-existing world, in his head.

The character you want to play, doesn't fit in the world.
The world your DM wants to run, has no room for your character.
Neither of you are wrong.
Neither of you are correct.

'If both of us are reasonable adults. If both of us use our brains. We'll be okay.'
It's something I've said to my players many times.

[Lacco]

Unpopular opinion 1:

Many movie templates are rather unplayable at table.

Why? Because they tend to produce characters that act like... well, movie heroes. It's the same as why romantic movies would not work in RL - let's consider Jack Sparrow. When you base your character on the movie, your character is not a team player. He is not pleasant to be around. He is irritating at best.

Now consider his actions: would you like a team mate in an RPG who acted like that?

Unpopular opinion 2:

Many players can't pull off "cool character" from the start.

Why? Well, especially when we consider that you don't make friends easily and your attempts at diplomacy get conversations ended (your words; and let me state this: when you go into diplomatic mode, it should make conversations work, not frustrate your opponent), you can easily fall into "arrogant braggart that acts like a-hole" while going for something completely different.

And from experience, these characters are not welcome at most tables. Dunno why.

Just joking. Mainly because if you want to pull a jerk-with-heart-of-gold character, your GM and other players need to know and need to play together with you. There is certain trust threshold that needs to be established and clear communication. It can work, but it requires you to walk the tight line between JWHOG and A-Hool.

Do you think you are capable of this?

Also: If you make a character that does not fit the game, why do you want to be in the game?

TL;DR: Don't make an a-hole character, don't be an a-hole. If you really want to play in a game like you say, try discussing it with the GM - or run your own game.

[Pandamonium]

Oh i don't really have a problem going up to level 20, that's not the problem.

It's more the insistence on starting low, and the idea that i HAVE to be on some epic quest to become a bigger, better person.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol

The short answer is "Because the DM doesn't want to run the game that way".

If he wants humble beginnings starting at level 1 adapt to the story and play something other for a while and then you can play the character you want.
Or you can play a character who used to be great, retired/got injured etc, and now has to regain their former "power".

You can be cool and have an interesting story without a lot of powers and reputation.


I don't know why everyone keeps suggesting that I am an idiot who wants to play idiots.

I have no desire to be the jackass of the group swanning about in Don Quixote-esque bouts of comic attempts at competence.

I really don't understand the insistence at this.

Why is it so weird that I want to play a character that's good at things?

Am I really that socially unaware that I'm not grasping that this is a central tenet of DnD, to NOT be good at things?

You have been given plenty of solutions to your problem and the problem is that you want to be stronger/cooler than the character can be if the campaign starts at level 1.

For example, the mercenary known throughout the world as a bad-ass killer who can take on whole parties of lesser mooks is not level 1 and wouldn't get floored by an ogre in one hit, if you still want to have that character the only way I (we?) can think of to make that fit is that the character thinks more of himself than is true.
The optimal way forward would be that he/she/it will grow into that character through play.
Neither of which you seem to want.

Personally I create a character that can be part of the campaign the DM wants to run, sometimes that means growing towards and into the character I want to play.
So sometimes I will become the badass through play or I will play some other character until I feel that I can create the badass and take him into play.

But also, no character can be good at all things, most characters even at level 1 are WASTLY better than commoners at least in a few skills.

The solution is simple, get with the game or find another since the DM has already made it clear what his stance is.

[Segev]

What is it you want to play? Give an example of the starting background, reputation, etc. and why that is incompatible with what your DM is looking for, please. I would like to approach this from the standpoint of seeing if this can be beaten into a shape he'd like, and if not, why not.

[Cheesegear]

Many movie templates are rather unplayable at table.

More accurately, a D&D game is a 'movie' (I hate the comparison, but that's what we're going with apparently) written by many different people, each with their own ideas, and not all of them gel.

You know what happens when a movie script has multiple writers, and no rewrites or do-overs?
Yeah. That.

The more rigid a DM or player, is, the worse D&D becomes. Because D&D shouldn't be scripted. Yes. There is a script. But it gets chucked out as soon as it becomes annoying.

- A player does something that the DM - or module - did not or has not planned for. What does the DM do?
- A player just simply fails a crucial dice roll, 'Uh oh. That wasn't supposed to happen...' Well it did. How does the player react? Can the player recover or is their character just dead?


your character is not a team player.

If your character can't - or wont - work as part of a team, roll a new character.


Many players can't pull off "cool character" from the start.

Most players default to themselves in difficult situations - including fictional ones.
Most players aren't cool characters.

[MoiMagnus]

What are the position of both of you on the "origin story" format:

The first session(s) is the "origin story" of your group, the characters start as nobodies, for a first adventure where they get to know each others. Then, there is a big timeskip (like 10-20 years in game), and the true campaign starts as the characters meet again, having lived few adventures in solo or by pair in the meantime.

[kazaryu]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.


No.

I am not an idiot, nor is my character.

I don't know why people keep suggesting this.
here's the thing. there are dozens of ways for a character to be less competent than they think without it devolving to pink panther levels of stupidity. take, for example, the prodigy high school jock that first steps onto a college football field. up until now they've been miles ahead of the competition. they've spent 4 years proving how good they are. and then they go to their first college scrimmage and spend the first quarter on deck because they didn't realize how huge a jump in skill they made. alternative: kid from a small town with little competition moves to a larger school. all of a sudden they're not top 5 in the class. they're top 5% (i.e top 100). they're still pretty smart, but they never had an opportunity to realize that there are *alot* of people that are as smart as they are.

noone is suggesting that you play an idiot. they're suggesting you play someone that has an overestimated sense of how good they are. its all about relativity. this is something the 'folk hero' background is meant for. back home, you were a hero, best warrior in the town. but then you step up and now you're competing with the best warriors from huge cities. and you're fighting against a caliber of foe you likely didn't encounter back home. there's no shame in that, it doesn't diminish your competence in any way. in fact, it needn't diminish the characters confidence. especially a character that isn't an idiot. they'd easily understand that there's always room to grow. just because you're struggling in fights, doesn't mean you're incompetent. look at Jack. for all his swagger, it was rarely *actually* easy for him. he saved Ms. Swann only to get captured. then by pure luck his captors gave him easy access to an important person to use as a hostage. don't need to be lvl 8 to take advantage of that opportunity. he then runs away, showing a bit of ingenuity doing a makeshift zipline only to get cornered and ultimately re-captured by some commoner. Later both of his attempts at escape fail and it ends up falling to that same commoner that got him captured to rescue him. sure, he may have come up with a way to escape later, but that isn't what happened.

the story goes on but the point remains, Jack sparrows story isn't one of perfect competence. he struggles, a lot. because he's playing the game against people of equal (or sometimes higher) level. and yet he is still seen as highly competent. because he is, but even the most competent person isn't perfect, they're going to struggle sometimes. sometimes they're going to encounter someone that rolls a bit better on the dice, or is slightly more competent, or gets lucky.


so uhh...yeah, thats my advice....perhaps i should summarize. The point is...well really i have 2.
1. its possible to make a character that overestimates their abilities without making them actually incompetent. you just need to set their backstory in a slightly easier environment than where the story begins. That way its clear *why* they're not performing as well as they used to. the challenges are legitimately harder.

2. just because someone 'fails' or 'struggles' doesn't make them incompetent. in any conflict scenario (the vast majority of DnD encounters) failure is as much a function of the opponents competence as your own. there's nothing wrong with that. its how people learn.

i'd suggest pitching a character that has a background like this. you come from a small town isolated somewhere. back there you were well known for your skill. for some reason you moved, and are now where the adventure begins. your character knows things are going to get harder, they know that failure is likely. but they're confident in their own ability to recover from failure, learn from it, and move on. this way you can play a character that is low level, likely has little renown outside of his hometown (which should satisfy the DM) but you're also playing a competent character, that knows their own strength, and how to use it. (which should satisfy you).




of course, if you're just wanting to play a game where you don't struggle at all, and you just breeze through combats then...well that i can't really help with.

[aadder]

This strikes me as curious. You like to play characters who have self-centered goals (which, by nature of being self-centered would take over the campaign for a time if pursued), but you hate it when the game focuses on pursuing someone else's self-centered goal? Maybe it's not so much a mismatch between your preferences and your DM's, but a mismatch between your preferences and the game as a whole. D&D generally requires that you take turns in the spotlight, and it sounds like you want to play a solo badass. You want to play Jack Sparrow, forgetting that he would've been hanged in the first act if Will hadn't busted him out of his cell. You need to have a character who cares about the other characters and their goals, even if it's just to use them: "I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy?"

I don't mind when other players' goals are important, or take up a few sessions, that's fine.

What i mean is I tend to make my characters' goals things that don't demand the whole-ass campaign gets derailed to make it happen.

One of my first characters' goal was to sus-out what he thought was a demonic possession of one of the highest officials in Neverwinter. He wanted to make a ritual circle to expel the demon, but he knew he couldn't just get the guy to hold still, and that nobody else would believe him. So what i did was have him work on it in his downtime. Every downtime between sessions, he would research how to make and run ritual circles in a practical sense. He would research the incantations of his particular god on how to do an exorcism ritual on a large scale. and then he started to go around town subtly altering stones to create a giant, giant ritual circle within the city, a giant trap that the demon wouldn't know was there until it was too late.

One of my friends' characters had a goal to start a church to their god. That was like, their driving force. So when they acquired money or influence, they would use that piece by piece to work on that. And once it was up and running, they would use their influence and money to expand it, or work on it.

These are really specific goals, obviously. Not everyone has to do that kind of thing. I'm just against stories in which i am made to feel like a side character, rather than a main character. And i gather that that's not normal, and people generally basically take turns being the single main character.

This also may be because i have an allergy to dark, trauma-heavy stories. I have seen a lot of characters both as a player and as a DM and i don't really know how to be part of their stories. And those are the kind of characters that tend to have the super-heavy, campaign-swinging goals with them. I had a player that had a stated goal of finding and murdering the guy who forced himself on her mom to conceive her, and i was at a total loss as to how to incorporate this goal, and the character.

[JellyPooga]

For example, the mercenary known throughout the world as a bad-ass killer who can take on whole parties of lesser mooks is not level 1 and wouldn't get floored by an ogre in one hit, if you still want to have that character the only way I (we?) can think of to make that fit is that the character thinks more of himself than is true.

One way to approach it is to view the character stats not as absolute capability, but narrative capability. Let's look at a movie/popular fiction character; Aragorn.

In The Fellowship of the Ring he might be Aragorn, son of Arathorn, direct descendant of Isildur and heir to the throne of Gondor. BUT, what we (and many of the characters in the book) see and read about is Strider, the vagabond, the ranger. He might lead the Fellowship after Gandalf falls to his doom and eventually come quite literally into his birthright, but until then he's mostly just some guy who's got a broken sword, reckons some garden weed has magical healing powers (psh!), can speak Elven lingo and knows how to get to Rivendell without a map. In short, Aragorn does not display his full potential until much later in the story than when we're first introduced to him. This is not the Hero's Journey in the traditional sense; he does not gain abilities he did not previously have (except having his sword fixed and eventually getting a shiny hat, I guess, but that's just gear) over the course of the narrative, but he doesn't use them until they're required of him.

How does this relate to D&D? Well the first consideration is the familiar one that HP is explicitly not (just) meat. No-one is getting literally shot in the face and surviving; that's stupid. HP effectively represents the ability to continue contributing to the narrative (to paraphrase). Extending this conceit to other factors, like level, proficiency bonus, etc. we can consider those too, to not be merely the ability to do something, but a limitation on the characters narrative agency rather than the characters personal capability.

By way of example, let's look at another LotR character; Boromir might be able to kill dozens of Orcs on a good day, had done in the defence and retaking of Osgiliath, but when he's having to look out for a couple of newb Hobbits after having a bad day at the office getting mind controlled by an ancient artefact of incredible evil...well, then he might have to make a heroic death of it instead. By traditional DnD standards, Boromir chumped out dying while fighting a mook squad. He didn't even get to the first real boss, let alone the BBEG.
Yeah, I said it; Boromir chumped. out.
Does that mean Boromir just got bad rolls that day? OR does it mean he was lower level than you might have expected from the prowess displayed in his backstory/potential because the expected capability is not the same as his narrative capability at that time in the story? When you really look at what he's accomplished in the active narrative up until that point, his achievements aren't exactly those of the general and consummate fighter we are told he is.

More importantly and more pertinent to the OP, does having lower narrative agency (i.e. character level) in that regard truly impact the image of that character in a negative light? Did Boromir really chump out against a bunch of mooks he'd fought a hundred times before or did he die a heroic death in the face of insurmountable odds? Was Aragorn any less mysterious, regal and honourable for slumming it as Strider, or did being "lower level" add to the growth of his character as perceived through the eyes of the observer? As a Player, we are as much an observer as anyone; our own characters actions are ours to control, but the narrative that transpires is written/told by everyone at the table, with a little bit (or a lot) of luck thrown into the mix. You can play your level 1 character as a buffoon and an incompetent who should never have left their home and run to the Green Dragon after a bunch of dwarves, forgetting your handkerchiefs behind, or you can play your level 1 character as the heir to a royal bloodline, competent and confident of their own capabilities but subject to the whims of fate, fighting the hard fight regardless of the odds stacked against them.

tl;dr - Your character is who you say they are, not some numbers on a sheet.

[Glorthindel]

I might be able to help you see where your DM is coming from, because I have a bit of a similar attitude.

My key rule of player backstories is "the most important events of your characters life must occur at the table".

Now, thats not to say that character defining things can't occur before the game starts (dead family members, lost heirlooms, etc), but more that the "main story" of the character should be the events at the table. To go with a film analogy, your character is going to be one of the lead characters in the film (and only film) about your character, the game should not be a later film in a long string of films in a saga about your character. To go with Jack Sparrow; you are getting ready to play Curse of the Black Pearl, not On Stranger Tides, and your characters backstory should reflect that.

Competance doesn't even really come into it. Levels is an abstraction; a lv1 character is far more skilled that your average peasant, and given the way 5th ed characters are built, a lv1 character is actually far more likely to pass a check in something they are skilled in, due to higher starting bonuses (if you start with an 18 stat and proficiency, odds are you will pass any checks in that skill at the difficulty levels the DM should be setting). 5th ed characters start competant, so you don't even need to pretend you are more capable than you are. Sure, if you want to play Dave the Dragonslayer, you wont be killing any Dragons 1st level (or Ogres and Trolls for that matter), but if that's the problem, maybe you are disguising one desire (wanting to be bad-ass in combat) behind a false arguement (one of competance).

[Cheesegear]

My key rule of player backstories is "the most important events of your characters life must occur at the table".

Now, thats not to say that character defining things can't occur before the game starts (dead family members, lost heirlooms, etc), but more that the "main story" of the character should be the events at the table.

I agree completely.
One of my groups playing Dragon of Icespire Peak, every single member of the party died, except for her (in the back, a Draconic Sorcerer). Her 'backstory' is effectively that she met up with a group of adventurers, and everyone died in a dragon attack, except for her. But she also happened to slay the Dragon in the end, and unlock even more of her Draconic lineage by drinking its blood.

That's the backstory for her character, Level 6 onwards. We all saw it happen.

And that's why I said in a previous post that at my tables, your backstory really doesn't matter. Your Background (Bond, Personality, Flaws and Ideals; Essentially your call to adventure and nothing else) is more than enough to get you started on your adventure. In fact, you could have nothing except your one-sentence Bond as your backstory, and I would accept it at my tables. Your personality, Flaws and Ideals can be made up as you go along, as the situation(s) demand and what you come up with during encounters. Especially if I started the game at Level 1 - which I like to do. Particularly in homebrew adventures and pre-written modules. Where - just like this thread - players' characters don't necessarily line up with the module, or what the DM has pre-written. And what happens in Levels 1, 2, 3 and even 4, determine the rest of your character's arc, to the point where if you do it right, any character, can fit into any adventure, simply because of what happens in the early levels.


Competance doesn't even really come into it. Levels is an abstraction; a lv1 character is far more skilled that your average peasant

I already said this earlier, and I agree to reinforce the point. A Level 1 character is competent...At Level 1 tasks. Which are more complicated than Level/CR 0 tasks, which do exist.


Sure, if you want to play Dave the Dragonslayer, you wont be killing any Dragons 1st level (or Ogres and Trolls for that matter)

In my many years of playing 5e, I've DM'd a few Level 1 parties slay a Wyrmling (:smallwink:) or Ogre.
...Not a troll though. Regeneration too stronk.

[Xervous]

The tricky thing about apparent competence in 5e is that true competence has no readily accessible definition. As much or as little as you might lament there is no DC:10 climb tree suggestion. If your character feels incompetent at level 1,5, or 10 it’s because of choices the GM made. But you can’t fault them on all of it. If you find low levels boring that’s because the content the GM is making is boring when measured against your expectations.

So I’ll ask you this, what is your expected scope of early campaign activities? What is it about goblins that makes them not worth your time?

Tangential question: I see ‘grand narrative’ and feel a knee jerk twinge of railroad, is this warranted?

[Unoriginal]

i actually really like playing with this group, and i don't want to leave. i don't make friends easily, ESPECIALLY in nerd communities which tend to be very dudes-bordering-on-sexual-assault-committers-dominated. i like these guys. we were friends in college and i miss them a lot. we don't talk anymore so this is the only way to connect to them.

You really like playing with this group, but the DM is an irascible person who tells you to shut up and won't allow you to play what you like?

No offense, but it sounds more like the sunken cost fallacy than friendship. Or if everyone else is nice except the DM, then you all could leave and do your own group without said DM.

[JellyPooga]

My key rule of player backstories is "the most important events of your characters life must occur at the table".


I agree completely.

I don't. Neccesarily.

"Important" is subjective. A player character might be in a given adventure as the single most significant life changing events of their mortal span...or it might be something they're doing on their way to, or indeed from greater things.

To stick with my earlier example of the Lord of the Rings, the events of The Hobbit were no doubt Bilbos greatest adventure; there and back again. For Gandalf (assuming he's not an NPC), they're merely a footnote of history, a prelude to greater and more world-changing events.

There's nothing wrong in playing a character to whom the plot is of little concern in the grand scheme of their own machinations, where the most important things to them have either happened already, happen off-screen or indeed are yet to come.

Limiting players to characters that are all on the same page of a collective book, all considering the events of the day their greatest trial, or the most important time of their life can actually lead to conflict as they all try to make it about them...look at Game of Thrones for what might happen when that's taken to an extreme!

Playing characters on the decline or just warming up to greater things creates variety, allows for mentor figures as PCs, dramatic backstories and epic epilogues. In my opinion, a GM holding the conceit that the game they're running is the be all of the players' characters lives needs to re-evaluate some things.

[The_Jette]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

Have you considered, instead of trying to play Jack Sparrow, try playing Strider? Also known as Aragon, Strider already had a lifetime of achievement behind him, was known throughout the lands, and was powerful. The only increase in power he received was getting his sword fixed, and actually taking advantage of the fact that there was an army of undead who owed him fealty. But, he traveled the lands with Frodo, Sam, and all the rest, just like a commoner. There were few things that challenged him early on, because he'd already seen it all. And, he was guiding the new heroes along their path, only to eventually find the ability to grow as a person during their travels. You may be starting off at a lower level, but from a storytelling point you can write that off as your character never really "getting serious" about the fights you're in.

Do you think that might help?

[Amnestic]

Have you considered, instead of trying to play Jack Sparrow, try playing Strider? Also known as Aragon, Strider already had a lifetime of achievement behind him, was known throughout the lands, and was powerful. The only increase in power he received was getting his sword fixed, and actually taking advantage of the fact that there was an army of undead who owed him fealty. But, he traveled the lands with Frodo, Sam, and all the rest, just like a commoner. There were few things that challenged him early on, because he'd already seen it all. And, he was guiding the new heroes along their path, only to eventually find the ability to grow as a person during their travels. You may be starting off at a lower level, but from a storytelling point you can write that off as your character never really "getting serious" about the fights you're in.

Do you think that might help?

This is a poor analogy since Strider-Aragorn was always more experienced, stronger, etc. than the hobbits were. Aragon also split off from them and went on a fun romp with Gimili+Legolas, who were both also experienced warriors more his 'level'.

You can have an older more experienced adventurer join up with newbies for sure, but "I was holding back :smallcool:" the entire time doesn't make much sense when you're in life or death situations.

[JellyPooga]

Have you considered, instead of trying to play Jack Sparrow, try playing Strider?


One way to approach it is to view the character stats not as absolute capability, but narrative capability. Let's look at a movie/popular fiction character; Aragorn.

I was sure I said something similar upthread...:smallwink:

@Amnestic: I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on my earlier post (quoted) regarding stats as a narrative construct as opposed to absolute delineations of ability/competence.

[The_Jette]

This is a poor analogy since Strider-Aragorn was always more experienced, stronger, etc. than the hobbits were. Aragon also split off from them and went on a fun romp with Gimili+Legolas, who were both also experienced warriors more his 'level'.

You can have an older more experienced adventurer join up with newbies for sure, but "I was holding back :smallcool:" the entire time doesn't make much sense when you're in life or death situations.

There is a slight difference between "I was holding back" and "I wasn't really trying." In one instance, the person is intentionally not hitting as hard, in an effort to not cause too much damage, overshadow someone, etc. In the other, the person just doesn't care enough to try their hardest. Whether that's because they're overestimating their own abilities, underestimating their enemy, or have just lost the desire to really put effort into anything, they just don't care. They may even be looking for "one last adventure," going out to fight a war they don't care about with the intent of not coming back.

[Sigreid]

One of you has to give, or both of you have to give a little.

Personally, when I play, I play the campaign the GM is willing to run. That tends to be a bit more story focused among my group. When I DM I like to ask the players to have some goals or interests and while they don't necessarily get what their character is looking for, their character's desires are used to form my hooks. They're also free to act in any way or on any information or impulse that they chose and I'll adapt.

On the other side of that, I like characters to start at level 1 while the others like levels 3-5. So, when I DM we start at level one, when they DM level 3-5.

The best answer for you might be to offer to DM. Not only can you run the kind of campaign you want to see, but you get to play all the characters with the cool backgrounds, reputations and histories.

[stoutstien]

In the end does it matter? Assuming a non static game environment the PC/player paradigm can believe they are the ultimate master of the universe but the DM decides the challenges and general reaction of the world to the PCs decisions.

The DM usual has the final say in the starting point and the range of levels the players see because they have the responsibly to provide most of the elements needed for an enjoyable game experience. If they are adamant about the range they want to run the game in you really don't have a reasonable bases of challenging that decision. If a player decides they don't want to play a certain campaign you are missing one player bit if the DM decides they don't want to run the game, you don't have a game.

Honestly if your character is as competent as you want it to be they should have no problem playing from level one. A competent character has nothing to do with mechanical numbers and options that you can find on your character sheet.

[KorvinStarmast]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.
Your DM is right, and you are wrong. That's the structure of the game. (Unless the PC's background is Noble). And, that is how he wants to run the game. That matters.
Those are my first two cents off the top line.

Starting at a higher level is an option, sure, but it's not how the game was ever built (in any edition). It's an option if the table agrees to it, and, importantly, it's a way to make play at tournements and cons interesting. Or, it's a way for experienced players to explore adventure in a particular tier of play if the DM is open to that style of play.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow That makes your attitude / approach the problem for the table.

Try fitting in with the rest of the party, by which I mean, with the rest of the other players.

The premise of how D&D 5e is built is that the most interesting, dangerous, and productive events of the PCs lives happen during play.
My recommendation: embrace it.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol
FWIW: there are a host of RPGs where leveling up isn't part of how the game play goes. Maybe try one of those. There are some Superhero RPGs that might fit you to a tee.

[Corsair14]

You can look at my sig to feel my opinion on it. The campaign is the DM's campaign and if he wants to start it at level 1 then your options are to start at level one and build up this character concept you want or go find another group. That's pretty much the crux of things. I always start my campaigns at level one and aim for the fun levels of 5-8 and usually cap out the campaign around 10 or so.

[MaxWilson]

In my many years of playing 5e, I've DM'd a few Level 1 parties slay a Wyrmling (:smallwink:) or Ogre.
...Not a troll though. Regeneration too stronk.

I've played level 1 characters in fights where it wouldn't have mattered if the DM had been using Trolls instead of were-creatures. Expeditious Retreat + Chill Touch trumps Trollish regeneration.

[Frogreaver]

I’ve never met a player who was so adamant that not just the DM but the other players must play the game he wants and are wrong not to do so.

IMO If one can’t find a character they want to play at whatever starting level the campaign is going to start at then IMO the problem is them and not the DM or the table

A few other thoughts:
1. DND is a group activity so always play a character the rest of the group will enjoy.

2. There’s such a thing is too durn picky.

[Amnestic]

There is a slight difference between "I was holding back" and "I wasn't really trying." In one instance, the person is intentionally not hitting as hard, in an effort to not cause too much damage, overshadow someone, etc. In the other, the person just doesn't care enough to try their hardest.

This seems like a lot of splitting hairs, both "I chose not to try" and "I don't care to try" are poor attitudes in a life or death situation.

While I think playing a fresh faced newbie is better for the OP given what their DM is after, if I wanted to play someone with lots of experience it'd be someone who was retired (due to injury, illness or age) and is trying to get back into the game for whatever reason. They find their grasp of the fundamentals has slipped. Spells they once knew intimately are long forgotten. Twenty years writing their memoirs has left their sword arm feeling a bit weaker than it used to be, and so they join up with a group of new adventurers to share their wisdom (some of which could/should be long outdated - no one brings 10' poles anywhere anymore grandpa, that's what the mage hand cantrip is for! No you old coot we don't have to worry about the paladin falling constantly!) and maybe rekindle some old joy.

So it's not that they're not caring or not trying, it's that they simply can't do what they did before. But maybe one day, with a bit of effort, they'll shake out the ol' cobwebs and get back to where they used to be.

[Dienekes]

No.

I am not an idiot, nor is my character.

I don't know why people keep suggesting this.

I think there is a world of difference between being an idiot (which admittedly some are suggestion) and just not being at one's best.

How young are you, by the way? Because I know I'm well past my prime and I have situations where I think "I could've done this a year or two ago" with annoying regularity. Though a quarantine year without my gym or weights was partially responsible for this decline, age is also a major factor. And speaking for myself, playing a formerly great character that had to work back up to being great was one of my favorite characters I've ever played.

Regardless, as of now, your character as you envision does not fit the game the GM has designed. And well, it takes far more work to design a campaign than it does to design a character. When this impasse happens the polite thing to do is to force less work on the one already doing the most work to make this game function.

But you do have options.

1) Design an entirely new character. Probably the easiest, but least satisfying. We can skip it.
2) Think of a reason why your character would be a bit off his game at the moment. Spent a year stuck in Davy Jones' locker. Currently going through a depressive drunk phase. Spent months on a deserted island that left him half-mad and his instincts from that are not yet aligned with what he's currently doing. Plenty to work with there.
3) Try and play a young Jack Sparrow, so you can grow in competence to eventually because the character you want.
4) The switch. Make some Joe Schmoe and plan to kill him off/ditch him level 5 and switch to Jack. Getting to level 5 is not that long. It let's you sit in and play with everyone else when the game gets started, and when it becomes thematically and mechanically appropriate, your Jack can swoop in like a drunk tornado and do your thing.

But if you just came on the board to try and get us to give you a bunch of arguments why the GM should rewrite an entire campaign, just for you. I'm sorry I really can't do that. I know how much bloody work goes into designing a campaign.

If you just came here to vent your frustrations. Then that's fine. But this is a discussion board filled with mechanics aligned nerds. Most folk will try to find a way to solve an issue rather than commiserate in misery.

[The_Jette]

This seems like a lot of splitting hairs, both "I chose not to try" and "I don't care to try" are poor attitudes in a life or death situation.

While I think playing a fresh faced newbie is better for the OP given what their DM is after, if I wanted to play someone with lots of experience it'd be someone who was retired (due to injury, illness or age) and is trying to get back into the game for whatever reason. They find their grasp of the fundamentals has slipped. Spells they once knew intimately are long forgotten. Twenty years writing their memoirs has left their sword arm feeling a bit weaker than it used to be, and so they join up with a group of new adventurers to share their wisdom (some of which could/should be long outdated - no one brings 10' poles anywhere anymore grandpa, that's what the mage hand cantrip is for! No you old coot we don't have to worry about the paladin falling constantly!) and maybe rekindle some old joy.

So it's not that they're not caring or not trying, it's that they simply can't do what they did before. But maybe one day, with a bit of effort, they'll shake out the ol' cobwebs and get back to where they used to be.

If that's how you want to play your character, nobody is stopping you. But, you're saying that the options that I'm putting out aren't even feasible, because you prefer something else. I find that counterproductive to a good conversation, and just a bit rude. What I was suggesting was a few ways that a more experienced and powerful character could join a group. Your options are also viable, and (I think) fit perfectly well alongside mine.

[ZRN]

Oh i don't really have a problem going up to level 20, that's not the problem.

It's more the insistence on starting low, and the idea that i HAVE to be on some epic quest to become a bigger, better person.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol

I don't mind the rags-to-riches arc myself, but I've sometimes wanted to play more of an grizzled/mentor character for RP purposes (Obi Wan or at least Han Solo rather than Luke).

One way to do this: your level 1 character is actually more experienced, but he's out of practice or has some long-term injury. He gets back into practice or heals up at about the same rate the rest of the party is leveling up.

Another bonus here is that it actually dovetails with the narrative your DM wants to tell: your character is at a real low point. He may have been a great war hero, but he got thrashed within an inch of his life and left to die, he couldn't get magical healing quickly enough to prevent long-term injury, and now he's limping into some pissant town trying to scrape together enough copper to pay for a room.

Or alternatively: your elven bard has traveled the world, cast powerful magics, loved and lost a hundred times... and he's grown bored and listless, spent his days and nights drinking and pining for the past, until now he barely remembers his best spells. It'll come back to him, with enough time and inspiration.

If you take the character sheet super literally, this often doesn't work - why does my grizzled veteran only have a +2 proficiency bonus? - but if you just pay attention to the way the game plays out it can work.

At some point, ideally, the party "catches up" to the character's previous level of expertise and surpasses it, and you get to kind of "play the Worf" (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect)and say stuff like "I've never seen magic like this before" or whatever, making the party's peril seem even worse.

[Amnestic]

If that's how you want to play your character, nobody is stopping you. But, you're saying that the options that I'm putting out aren't even feasible, because you prefer something else. I find that counterproductive to a good conversation, and just a bit rude. What I was suggesting was a few ways that a more experienced and powerful character could join a group. Your options are also viable, and (I think) fit perfectly well alongside mine.

I disagree - I find the idea of a character who doesn't care/doesn't try (for whatever reason) antithetical to a party working together. Put yourself in a character's shoes - they're fighting tooth and nail for their life only for Bigshot Jim to say "yeah whatever, I didn't really try with that fight" like...what? How would that work if someone does die? Hell, how would it work if Bigshot Jim dies? It's not like they can suddenly start trying at level 1 and get a boost in power because Scabs-Critsalot just took out the wizard.

[Keltest]

Personally, when i hear somebody says their character wasnt taking it seriously, my first in-character reaction is going to be "then start taking it seriously or leave the party. Doing otherwise makes you a liability." Being overly cautious or aggressive? Fine, youre making an earnest effort to help and thats a skill that can be learned. Actively letting the enemy do better than they should be doing is wildly inappropriate though. Its not quite on the level of overt PVP, but i generally consider it to be a similar level of hostility to the team. Youre basically causing extra problems on purpose, and thats just completely uncool for a cooperative effort.

[The_Jette]

I disagree - I find the idea of a character who doesn't care/doesn't try (for whatever reason) antithetical to a party working together. Put yourself in a character's shoes - they're fighting tooth and nail for their life only for Bigshot Jim to say "yeah whatever, I didn't really try with that fight" like...what? How would that work if someone does die? Hell, how would it work if Bigshot Jim dies? It's not like they can suddenly start trying at level 1 and get a boost in power because Scabs-Critsalot just took out the wizard.

That's great. Here's an idea, if you hear about a character concept that you don't like: don't play it.

On the other hand, someone dying genuinely could be what it takes for the person to realize that they've been hurting the people around them by not taking things seriously...

[ZRN]

Personally, when i hear somebody says their character wasnt taking it seriously, my first in-character reaction is going to be "then start taking it seriously or leave the party. Doing otherwise makes you a liability." Being overly cautious or aggressive? Fine, youre making an earnest effort to help and thats a skill that can be learned. Actively letting the enemy do better than they should be doing is wildly inappropriate though. Its not quite on the level of overt PVP, but i generally consider it to be a similar level of hostility to the team. Youre basically causing extra problems on purpose, and thats just completely uncool for a cooperative effort.

To be clear, the player can still be taking the combat seriously and trying to win - it’s his character who isn’t, as a narrative explanation for why he’s not more effective than his low level game mechanics allow.

So you as a player don’t really have a place to complain. Your character certainly does.

[Keltest]

To be clear, the player can still be taking the combat seriously and trying to win - it’s his character who isn’t, as a narrative explanation for why he’s not more effective than his low level game mechanics allow.

So you as a player don’t really have a place to complain. Your character certainly does.

It doesnt really make a difference to me. Im never going to play a character who is OK with somebody else not taking a life or death matter seriously, especially when its his life on the line. Its up there with "im going to steal from party members" in terms of "things that will never be OK with me."

[Man_Over_Game]

Games mean different things to different people. Some people like Bioshock for the plot, some folks like it because of the gameplay, others like it for the thematic art style. None of them are wrong, no matter how much they'll all say each other are.

The problem comes from the fact that you need all of these people to want similar things for something like DnD, since the DM is incapable of saying more than one thing at any one time. The time he spends playing your game, he's not playing mine, unless our games are the same (This is the same reason you don't ever split the party if you can help it, just from another perspective).

So maybe he's not the right DM for your table, or you guys aren't the right players for the DM. Either way, it's a problem that needed to be solved before characters were rolled up.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Arguing with a DM is contrary to a core rule.

I understand you. What you want is not to start at 1st level.

I understand your DM. They have devoted far more time than you did creating your character concept when they made the game/world they pitched/will pitch to you session zero that starts at first, and they don't want to throw that all away just because you have wants they weren't aware of. Play their game or not, but there is no way you will get what you want here. Not this time.

Me? I've run games where we started at 3rd or 5th to accomplish your goal of already being more than a bit of a thing at tier 2. The party was a collection of champions teaming up in those games, or it was CoS and I didn't want to run Death House again.

At my table I give my players point buy or standard array with a free feat or an ASI. You insist on rolling? You get none of that. You bring me rolled stats that include 18s? I tell you sure, take ALL 18s. But every single opponent is going to have the maximum HP. And then you take standard or point buy, or we don't play.

My players characters at 1st level are that much more capable and customized than a regular 1st level. If that's not enough for you, then get a different game. Unless the game I'm running has you start at 3rd or 5th.

[Amnestic]

On the other hand, someone dying genuinely could be what it takes for the person to realize that they've been hurting the people around them by not taking things seriously...

Okay. They're still level 1 though. How are they any different now that they're "taking it seriously"? We hit a mechanical disconnect. They can't take it serious "all of a sudden" unless they happen to level up at the exact same time, and even then it might not satisfy.

[fbelanger]

I see this often, players that write a background that don’t fit a first level character. one solution is to write up the reasons why such a character would be ask to start over again at level 1.
Various reasons can be used, sickness, curse, emprisonnent, defeat, business or political projet, humiliation, banishment.

It won’t allow you to start higher level, but will make the path more enjoyable.

[Segev]

Perhaps they are The Brave Little Tailor, with their reputation for killing seven at one blow?

[Composer99]

Three pages in and the thread's derailing. That's not the worst record, at least. Still tiresome to see.


As for the actual topic at hand:


So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.


Oh i don't really have a problem going up to level 20, that's not the problem.

It's more the insistence on starting low, and the idea that i HAVE to be on some epic quest to become a bigger, better person.

Why can't i just BE a cool person from the start lol


I don't know why everyone keeps suggesting that I am an idiot who wants to play idiots.

I have no desire to be the jackass of the group swanning about in Don Quixote-esque bouts of comic attempts at competence.

I really don't understand the insistence at this.

Why is it so weird that I want to play a character that's good at things?

Am I really that socially unaware that I'm not grasping that this is a central tenet of DnD, to NOT be good at things?

It seems to me as if you are operating under a misapprehension. The mechanics of the game say a 1st-level character is good at things, plain and simple. It just doesn't look that way because:
(1) You just don't interact much with the vast majority of other characters in a fantasy gaming world very often because most D&D games aren't farming/labourer life simulations, nor are they "grow up in a kobold/goblin warren" simulations. If you did, the relative competence of 1st-level characters would be much more apparent.
(2) Player characters go out of their way to do things that are inherently more difficult, perhaps even much more difficult - you know, things like waltzing into monster-and-trap-infested holes in the ground. This tends to make 1st-level characters seem less competent than they are, but, well, hard things are hard, and having creatures trying to stop you from doing those things makes them even harder.

A 1st-level character could come from humble beginnings, sure. Or they could have accomplishments under their belt and some name recognition. But either way, they're just better than most of the people around them.

With that stated, it seems to me that there are two major points of disagreement between you and your DM: the tone of the game, and gameplay preferences. Neither of you is wrong for having the preferences you have regarding tone or gameplay. But that leaves the solutions being either a negotiated compromise such as an accommodation with respect to your character's backstory, either you or the DM putting up with a tone or gameplay style you don't care for, or one of you leaving the table. I don't think that this forum can really help you come up with a satisfactory solution - you just have to discuss with the other players and DM and decide what you can live with and still have fun during the game. I agree with others that it's worth considering that the DM is doing the lion's share of work putting the game together, so they just have more leeway to set the tone of the game, especially as long as there are players happy with it.

(I would be concerned if the DM is reinforcing the tone of the game through numbers inflation - the soldiers are all veterans, the DCs are frequently 15+, that sort of thing - but that's a concern about implementation, not a problem with the tone.)

[Sigreid]

In old AD&D there was level drain and a run in with one of several kinds of undead could have explained it easily enough.

[Kurt Kurageous]

This problem is only going to get bigger as more and more players get bad advice about backstories and invest more and more time into them. Backstory explains motivation, nothing more. You can tell me your motive in one sentence or a short phrase.

How about playing to find out what happens, and playing to find out who they really are? Just a thought.

[Xervous]

This problem is only going to get bigger as more and more players get bad advice about backstories and invest more and more time into them. Backstory explains motivation, nothing more. You can tell me your motive in one sentence or a short phrase.

How about playing to find out what happens, and playing to find out who they really are? Just a thought.

Let’s not jump to wrongbadfun so quickly now. We’re still waiting on an explanation of why this GM’s starting level content is boring for the OP.

[OldTrees1]

Let’s not jump to wrongbadfun so quickly now. We’re still waiting on an explanation of why this GM’s starting level content is boring for the OP.

They explain the difference in perspective fairly well in the opening post.
The DM is looking for a hero's journey from nothing to demigod.
The OP is looking for

I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones.

Which kinda sounds like they are just arguing about what to do before 5th level.

[Tvtyrant]

Three pages in and the thread's derailing. That's not the worst record, at least. Still tiresome to see.


As for the actual topic at hand:







It seems to me as if you are operating under a misapprehension. The mechanics of the game say a 1st-level character is good at things, plain and simple. It just doesn't look that way because:
(1) You just don't interact much with the vast majority of other characters in a fantasy gaming world very often because most D&D games aren't farming/labourer life simulations, nor are they "grow up in a kobold/goblin warren" simulations. If you did, the relative competence of 1st-level characters would be much more apparent.
(2) Player characters go out of their way to do things that are inherently more difficult, perhaps even much more difficult - you know, things like waltzing into monster-and-trap-infested holes in the ground. This tends to make 1st-level characters seem less competent than they are, but, well, hard things are hard, and having creatures trying to stop you from doing those things makes them even harder.

A 1st-level character could come from humble beginnings, sure. Or they could have accomplishments under their belt and some name recognition. But either way, they're just better than most of the people around them.

With that stated, it seems to me that there are two major points of disagreement between you and your DM: the tone of the game, and gameplay preferences. Neither of you is wrong for having the preferences you have regarding tone or gameplay. But that leaves the solutions being either a negotiated compromise such as an accommodation with respect to your character's backstory, either you or the DM putting up with a tone or gameplay style you don't care for, or one of you leaving the table. I don't think that this forum can really help you come up with a satisfactory solution - you just have to discuss with the other players and DM and decide what you can live with and still have fun during the game. I agree with others that it's worth considering that the DM is doing the lion's share of work putting the game together, so they just have more leeway to set the tone of the game, especially as long as there are players happy with it.

(I would be concerned if the DM is reinforcing the tone of the game through numbers inflation - the soldiers are all veterans, the DCs are frequently 15+, that sort of thing - but that's a concern about implementation, not a problem with the tone.)

I agree with this. A level 1 character is already exceptional for their race, capable of killing groups of people at a time and sneaking past guards easily. A level 5 character is essentially a once in a lifetime jack bauer style hero, by the mid levels they are mythic individuals who can murder armies as a small group, and by high levels they are demigods capable of ending the world.

Basically your DMs version of zero to hero starts at "special forces" and yours starts at "Batman."

[Man_Over_Game]

I mean, it doesn't have to be that way.

When you play a one-shot, do you care about your character's personal growth? What if you were expected to only play a campaign for a week?

The fact is, we're talking about two spectrums that don't interact: "How much complexity do you want in your game", and "How much do you want your character to grow?" Those don't have to be the same.

Yes, there are powers that kinda define things hard-stop (Dimension Door, Polymorph, etc), but even those don't mean anything in a high-magic game.

So who's to say that "new adventurers" are level 1? The DM could just put them at a slightly higher level than expected (so that the players get what they want with their powers), ramp up the world around them (so that danger and magic is common in their world) and ask that all the characters make up someone who's new to adventuring (at level 4). That's just one possible solution when you break up the idea that Levels = Personal Growth.


My personal solution is that I ask them "What do you envision your character doing as a hero? Alright, now that you have an idea of what you want your heroic version to be, how long do you want to take to get to that person? That is the person you're making right now." And it might be "Well, I want to start out as a hero right now" and other folks might want otherwise, so you compromise real quick on an average. Then figure out how complex your game to be for a level estimate and then merge both into a rough level/plot timeline.

[Xervous]

They explain the difference in perspective fairly well in the opening post.
The DM is looking for a hero's journey from nothing to demigod.
The OP is looking for


Which kinda sounds like they are just arguing about what to do before 5th level.

And I’m saying it really depends on how the GM presents stuff. L1 standard array is leaps and bounds above a straight 10s + race commoner but this may not be delivered in the GMs handling of the game. Are they frequently asking for checks that have players feeling their characters are incompetent, or otherwise delivering scenes that demonstrate the relative numeric inferiority of the PCs?

What fundamentally changes between levels 1 and 5 that makes the 1 feel incompetent and the 5 feel like the game is getting started (for the OP)? Is it class features, numbers, the flavor text attached to the bags of meat they swing at in combat, or just how the GM treats characters based on their level alone?

[ZRN]

This problem is only going to get bigger as more and more players get bad advice about backstories and invest more and more time into them. Backstory explains motivation, nothing more. You can tell me your motive in one sentence or a short phrase.

How about playing to find out what happens, and playing to find out who they really are? Just a thought.

I get how reading the OP could give you flashbacks to a player reading you their 52-page backstory about their past heroic exploits, but the OP's question doesn't really imply any of that.

"My motive is that I'm a veteran soldier who's been at the front lines of a hundred conflicts, and I'm sick of risking my neck for some noble who doesn't care about me at all; I'm looking out for myself, now, and if adventuring is a quicker way to set yourself up than joining a mercenary company, as long as you've got the skills for it - which I do."

There, one sentence, but that character probably shouldn't be level 1. Level 5, or even 3? Sure. But if I'm in a party next to Willy the Hog-Farming Peasant Boy Who Just Found Out He Can Do Magic, and he's just as effective as me, that kind of screws with the narrative.

[loki_ragnarock]

Am I allowed to even mention Old Man Henderson in this forum?

[Sorinth]

I get how reading the OP could give you flashbacks to a player reading you their 52-page backstory about their past heroic exploits, but the OP's question doesn't really imply any of that.

"My motive is that I'm a veteran soldier who's been at the front lines of a hundred conflicts, and I'm sick of risking my neck for some noble who doesn't care about me at all; I'm looking out for myself, now, and if adventuring is a quicker way to set yourself up than joining a mercenary company, as long as you've got the skills for it - which I do."

There, one sentence, but that character probably shouldn't be level 1. Level 5, or even 3? Sure. But if I'm in a party next to Willy the Hog-Farming Peasant Boy Who Just Found Out He Can Do Magic, and he's just as effective as me, that kind of screws with the narrative.

You're not wrong but given that those early levels go by so quickly it's pretty easy for the veteran to toss it up to a lucky streak.

[Lacco]

Am I allowed to even mention Old Man Henderson in this forum?

User Hastur is currently not present, so feel free to.

[Sigreid]

Maybe you could talk to your DM about introducing you a few sessions in where you could be introduced as what you want to be skipping the prologue?

[MaxWilson]

Am I allowed to even mention Old Man Henderson in this forum?

It will be the second time his name has been invoked this month. Just make sure there's not a third repetition or bad things happen, at least according to the Necronomicon Appendix IV.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I get how reading the OP could give you flashbacks to a player reading you their 52-page backstory about their past heroic exploits, but the OP's question doesn't really imply any of that.

"My motive is that I'm a veteran soldier who's been at the front lines of a hundred conflicts, and I'm sick of risking my neck for some noble who doesn't care about me at all; I'm looking out for myself, now, and if adventuring is a quicker way to set yourself up than joining a mercenary company, as long as you've got the skills for it - which I do."

There, one sentence, but that character probably shouldn't be level 1. Level 5, or even 3? Sure. But if I'm in a party next to Willy the Hog-Farming Peasant Boy Who Just Found Out He Can Do Magic, and he's just as effective as me, that kind of screws with the narrative.

And that's the thing, how can a 1st level be a veteran? Maybe the child of a veteran...who learned of nobles who act ignoble while hiding under the tables at the tavern. Yeah, Ol' Willie the sorcerer is going to show you up.

WotC fans these flames in the personality traits of soldier and folk hero in almost every one of the personality aspects.

[Sigreid]

And that's the thing, how can a 1st level be a veteran? Maybe the child of a veteran...who learned of nobles who act ignoble while hiding under the tables at the tavern. Yeah, Ol' Willie the sorcerer is going to show you up.

WotC fans these flames in the personality traits of soldier and folk hero in almost every one of the personality aspects.

Actually, in OD&D they were listed as veterans on the title list if I remember right. The idea was that you had to have genuine battlefield experience to get to the point were you were able to be a 1st level character. A first level character was kind of expected to be something akin to a warrior after his first tour was over. And adventuring let him become more than is possible for the career soldier.

[MaxWilson]

And that's the thing, how can a 1st level be a veteran? Maybe the child of a veteran...who learned of nobles who act ignoble while hiding under the tables at the tavern. Yeah, Ol' Willie the sorcerer is going to show you up.

WotC fans these flames in the personality traits of soldier and folk hero in almost every one of the personality aspects.

Having participated in three or four major engagements qualifies you as a veteran, and justifies 1st level. But it's not like you had to win the engagement single-handedly. There were other troops in your army, and you didn't gain five levels just from being in three or four battles. But you've seen the elephant and you know what it is to face down death. You're a veteran now.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Having participated in three or four major engagements qualifies you as a veteran, and justifies 1st level. But it's not like you had to win the engagement single-handedly. There were other troops in your army, and you didn't gain five levels just from being in three or four battles. But you've seen the elephant and you know what it is to face down death. You're a veteran now.

Being a veteran means you no longer have any illusions or misconceptions about war and its effects.

[TyGuy]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.

We basically don't have a good way of putting these two things together. To put it in movie terms, I want to play a Jack Sparrow, and he wants everyone to play something more like Sam and Frodo, or at the most Will Turner.

The problem doubles when the rest of the party shows up with Sam and Frodo and I bring someone written more like Jack Sparrow, and I feel like my character has better things to do than be there on a low-level hunt-the-goblins module when in my head, he should be out there jumping from ship mast to ship mast, rolling massive Intimidate checks, and just generally being awesome.

I know this is basically asking this forum to solve the enduring split between players and DM's, but has anyone had any luck straddling this problem? I feel like this has to be pretty common and someone might have some insight into it.

Sit out until the party reaches level 5, problem solved.

[Unoriginal]

Having participated in three or four major engagements qualifies you as a veteran, and justifies 1st level. But it's not like you had to win the engagement single-handedly. There were other troops in your army, and you didn't gain five levels just from being in three or four battles. But you've seen the elephant and you know what it is to face down death. You're a veteran now.

Indeed.

Even a the typical Guard statblock can represent a veteran of several engagements, and a lvl 1 PC is stronger than those.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Being a veteran means you no longer have any illusions or misconceptions about war and its effects.

Terrific, you've got a character trait there that greatly influences how your character interacts with the world.

What exactly does this have to do with their competence?

[Unoriginal]

Being a veteran means you no longer have any illusions or misconceptions about war and its effects.

Untrue. Being a veteran means you've fought in a conflict and survived.

Plenty of veterans have illusions and misconceptions about war and its effects. History books are filled with military leaders who fought in a war and then proceeded to spectacularly mess up as higher-rank officiers in another.

[BRC]

And that's the thing, how can a 1st level be a veteran? Maybe the child of a veteran...who learned of nobles who act ignoble while hiding under the tables at the tavern. Yeah, Ol' Willie the sorcerer is going to show you up.

WotC fans these flames in the personality traits of soldier and folk hero in almost every one of the personality aspects.

I once had a character who played a Storied Veteran at low-levels.

(I usually let PC's start the campaign at levels 1, 2, or 3 based n their backstory, and everybody below level 3 rapidly levels up to level 3, but)


The idea was that the character in question was pretty old, and had recovered from a grievous injury, and was in semi-retirement before the events of the campaign pulled him back into the frontlines.

He started at 2nd level because he was out of practice and out of shape. As he leveled up, his old skills returned, and by campaign's end he was a more dangerous fighter than he'd ever been at his prime.


Going back to OP's question.

A 1st level fighter can be anything from a farmboy who grew up practicing with his grandfather's sword to a novice Knight to a veteran soldier (One of the PHB backstories is explicitly "you are a veteran soldier"). There is enough abstraction in D&D that you can be a veteran soldier whose fought in a dozen campaigns while being a 1st level character, it's just that your 13 HP is scar tissue and gristle, while the Farmboy's is luck and the vigor of youth.


But, if you're goal is to show up as A Storied Hero Of Legend, the 1st level statblock doesn't really work without you doing something like I suggest above and having a reason why your current performance may not live up to your reputation.



Really, there is no Correct Answer for how characters are supposed to fit into a story, just different perspectives. Some people have a Hero in mind that they want to port into the game, others want to build their hero over the course of the game.

[MoiMagnus]

Sit out until the party reaches level 5, problem solved.

I think they already tried something similar:


For 1) we tried to do that last time a little, i skipped out for one session. He didn't enjoy it.

I'd argue that skipping only one session was probably a bad call (it's awkward to do an introduction to the campaign two sessions in a row), and that he should have skipped more than that. But I'm assuming from his post that the GM would have complained even more if he had.

The core seems to be that the GM actively wants to tell a "hero's journey" / "zero to hero story", and that he actively want to skip the first part of this journey and smuggle it into his backstory rather than having to play it (possibly because he enjoys backstories that are not really playable as part of a D&D campaign).

Which make me think the GM is also the kind to not allow players to switch PC at the middle of the campaign. But if that's possible, that would also be a compromise: start as a LV1 character that has a personal objective that will eventually leads him to quit the group, and switch it out later for another character.

[aadder]

I agree with this. A level 1 character is already exceptional for their race, capable of killing groups of people at a time and sneaking past guards easily. A level 5 character is essentially a once in a lifetime jack bauer style hero, by the mid levels they are mythic individuals who can murder armies as a small group, and by high levels they are demigods capable of ending the world.

Basically your DMs version of zero to hero starts at "special forces" and yours starts at "Batman."

Okay so i've seen this expressed a lot, and i have NEVER been told this, and never experienced it.

Someone mentioned the 8 types of fun, and my DM being about narrative and challenge, and that really appears to be true.

I almost NEVER feel like my characters are super-awesome heroes, not at least until they reach like level 15. We are pretty much always put in situations in which we compete with and are surrounded by characters of our status or higher. DC checks for skills tend to be fairly high. Not so high we can't do them, but high enough that if you want to succeed on a regular basis, you need to power-game. As a result, i tend to power-game any skills i have. We RARELY get the experience of getting to brush past some mooks; everyone tends to be more or less at our competency level. Hence, i feel like any character that can't power-combo a whole bunch of mechanics is weak or unaccomplished.



The moment that really stuck out to me is when i was playing a druid who was a livestock druid. Her whole deal was raising big huge farm animals and developing new strains of mushrooms. When we were supposed to go talk to an official, and the guards wouldn't let us through, i had my familiar, a particularly large steer, rear-up and plants its front hooves on either side of his face and push its big, horned head into the guard's little human face, and roll intimidate.

The DM said "this guy's fought dragons; he's not scared of your cow".

And it's like.

Wow.

Ok.

Sorry for having a cool character moment i guess. my bad.

BTW that guard was literally un unnamed, nondescript NPC that only existed for that scene. It's not like he was Drizzt or someone who could reasonably say that. It was just... some guy.




Bear in mind, that doesnt' happen often. But I DO really, REALLY feel like we never get to express that we're cool, and good at things. We're always being talked-down to by demons, harassed by witches, Djinn call us chumps, and whatnot.

I always feel like I suck, and have to power-game.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I didn't intend to at the time, but I did something very simple to both allow me to play every session at a game as well as play as a character with a rich backstory that would've required a higher level than we began at- I switched characters around level 8.

Ask your DM if you can play something more normal for now, and then give them permission to kill you dramatically later so that you can introduce whoever this new character is when it would be appropriate. You get to play early in the way the DM would prefer, you get a cool death scene that could help transition the plot into a more serious second act, and you get to play the character you actually want when they would work.

(my first character didn't die, but became an NPC that pursued personal goals for several sessions behind the scenes. I switched out my second character for a third character around level 12 to play a kind of weakened demigod after the second had reason to go on a different path than the party, and then ended the campaign going back to my original character for the finale)

[aadder]

One way to approach it is to view the character stats not as absolute capability, but narrative capability. Let's look at a movie/popular fiction character; Aragorn.


Have you considered, instead of trying to play Jack Sparrow, try playing Strider?


This is a poor analogy since Strider-Aragorn was always more experienced, stronger, etc. than the hobbits were. Aragon also split off from them and went on a fun romp with Gimili+Legolas, who were both also experienced warriors more his 'level'.

You can have an older more experienced adventurer join up with newbies for sure, but "I was holding back :smallcool:" the entire time doesn't make much sense when you're in life or death situations.


OH MY GOD!

This is too perfect because I used Aragorn to try to explain this to my DM.

I said basically that Merry and Pippin are characters that are what he likes; they go on epic quests of self-discovery and become entirely new people, whereas Aragorn is already a fully-formed person who learns to see his responsibilies in a new way and interact with the world again, while still retaining his old humility and coming in with a skillset.


That's when he shut me down and basically said that they have the same kind of arc because he goes from being afraid of being the king of gondor to being the kind of gondor.

[ProsecutorGodot]

The moment that really stuck out to me is when i was playing a druid who was a livestock druid. Her whole deal was raising big huge farm animals and developing new strains of mushrooms. When we were supposed to go talk to an official, and the guards wouldn't let us through, i had my familiar, a particularly large steer, rear-up and plants its front hooves on either side of his face and push its big, horned head into the guard's little human face, and roll intimidate.

The DM said "this guy's fought dragons; he's not scared of your cow".

And it's like.

Wow.

Ok.

Sorry for having a cool character moment i guess. my bad.

Did you roll well on the intimidation? That's a bit of an important factor in whether things go as you intended. Or was it that the DM didn't allow you to, that would be a different story.

Honestly there's a lot with this described scenario that makes me think the DM was being generous, you have a large cow as a familiar? That's cool. The guard didn't straight up kill it as a perceived threat? That's cool too.

Bear in mind, that doesnt' happen often. But I DO really, REALLY feel like we never get to express that we're cool, and good at things. We're always being talked-down to by demons, harassed by witches, Djinn call us chumps, and whatnot
You're not really supposed to like those types of enemies, I think the idea is that you get strong and prove them wrong. These are your enemies, they're supposed to antagonize you. Very common fantasy trope.

[Unoriginal]

Okay so i've seen this expressed a lot, and i have NEVER been told this, and never experienced it.

Have you read the MM? A lvl 1 character can fight a tiger in an arena and win. Obviously not something most people can do.



The moment that really stuck out to me is when i was playing a druid who was a livestock druid. Her whole deal was raising big huge farm animals and developing new strains of mushrooms. When we were supposed to go talk to an official, and the guards wouldn't let us through, i had my familiar, a particularly large steer, rear-up and plants its front hooves on either side of his face and push its big, horned head into the guard's little human face, and roll intimidate.

The DM said "this guy's fought dragons; he's not scared of your cow".

And it's like.

Wow.

Ok.

Sorry for having a cool character moment i guess. my bad.

BTW that guard was literally un unnamed, nondescript NPC that only existed for that scene. It's not like he was Drizzt or someone who could reasonably say that. It was just... some guy.

It MAY be that your DM has decided the world was not impressed by you. Many bad DMs are like that, if the PCs are recognized as important then it's harder to make them follow the railroad the DM has decided the adventure will be.

That being said as a DM if you had done that at my table, I would likely have made the guard be scared for his life, and so would have called everyone in charge of protecting the door to his help to subdue and arrest you and your associates. Threatening violence is not an universal solution, especially when you're talking with someone in charge of protecting a place and the people in it.

But first I would have told you this would be the likely result and asked you if you really wanted to do it.

Since you've used the Aragorn comparison earlier: even Aragorn agreed to leave Anduril at the door when they went to talk with Theoden.



Bear in mind, that doesnt' happen often. But I DO really, REALLY feel like we never get to express that we're cool, and good at things. We're always being talked-down to by demons, harassed by witches, Djinn call us chumps, and whatnot.

I always feel like I suck, and have to power-game.

That's your DM deciding the world looks down on you for some reason. Not that supernatural beings can't condescend at mortals, of course, but you usually don't *only* encounter those people.


Did you roll well on the intimidation? That's a bit of an important factor in whether things go as you intended. Or was it that the DM didn't allow you to, that would be a different story.

True.



Honestly there's a lot with this described scenario that makes me think the DM was being generous, you have a large cow as a familiar? That's cool. The guard didn't straight up kill it as a perceived threat? That's cool too.

Could be being cool, could be being controlling and not wanting things to deviate from their plans.



You're not really supposed to like those types of enemies, I think the idea is that you get strong and prove them wrong. These are your enemies, they're supposed to antagonize you. Very common fantasy trope.

There's a big difference between a literal immortal thinking your PC is nothing/the occasional arrogant enemy thinking you'll be easily defeated, and everyone disrespecting you, true.

[Composer99]

What I said earlier:



(I would be concerned if the DM is reinforcing the tone of the game through numbers inflation - the soldiers are all veterans, the DCs are frequently 15+, that sort of thing - but that's a concern about implementation, not a problem with the tone.)

Based on this -


Okay so i've seen this expressed a lot, and i have NEVER been told this, and never experienced it.

Someone mentioned the 8 types of fun, and my DM being about narrative and challenge, and that really appears to be true.

I almost NEVER feel like my characters are super-awesome heroes, not at least until they reach like level 15. We are pretty much always put in situations in which we compete with and are surrounded by characters of our status or higher. DC checks for skills tend to be fairly high. Not so high we can't do them, but high enough that if you want to succeed on a regular basis, you need to power-game. As a result, i tend to power-game any skills i have. We RARELY get the experience of getting to brush past some mooks; everyone tends to be more or less at our competency level. Hence, i feel like any character that can't power-combo a whole bunch of mechanics is weak or unaccomplished.



The moment that really stuck out to me is when i was playing a druid who was a livestock druid. Her whole deal was raising big huge farm animals and developing new strains of mushrooms. When we were supposed to go talk to an official, and the guards wouldn't let us through, i had my familiar, a particularly large steer, rear-up and plants its front hooves on either side of his face and push its big, horned head into the guard's little human face, and roll intimidate.

The DM said "this guy's fought dragons; he's not scared of your cow".

And it's like.

Wow.

Ok.

Sorry for having a cool character moment i guess. my bad.

BTW that guard was literally un unnamed, nondescript NPC that only existed for that scene. It's not like he was Drizzt or someone who could reasonably say that. It was just... some guy.




Bear in mind, that doesnt' happen often. But I DO really, REALLY feel like we never get to express that we're cool, and good at things. We're always being talked-down to by demons, harassed by witches, Djinn call us chumps, and whatnot.

I always feel like I suck, and have to power-game.

- I have to say that now I am concerned.

While I agree with the sentiment that a guard who is supposed to protect people is not about to let in someone who threatens him, or tries to threaten him, I can't agree with the DM's assessment of why that would be the case. Why is someone who has fought a dragon and lived (*) standing around as a simple guard?

(*) As long as the living is down to anything other than dumb luck - it doesn't count if the reason you're alive is because the dragon breathed fire over there first and just happened to die before getting to you.

A D&D game is necessarily going to involve escalating challenge - you go from fighting ogres to fighting dragons, and from going from town to town to traversing planes of existence - so even in 5e it can feel like a challenge treadmill. But it really ought not to look or feel like this (http://www.d20monkey.com/comic/hand-me-frowns/) - the escalation of challenge should be happening precisely because the player characters are competent adventurers ("you slew the dragon for us, brave and mighty heroes, perhaps you can travel to the Abyss and stop the Doom Cult of Doom from calling Demogorgon into this world!"), and not because they must constantly be made to feel like n00bs.

[aadder]

What I said earlier:


While I agree with the sentiment that a guard who is supposed to protect people is not about to let in someone who threatens him, or tries to threaten him, I can't agree with the DM's assessment of why that would be the case. Why is someone who has fought a dragon and lived (*) standing around as a simple guard?



Well that's exactly it; why on earth am i ever HERE if there's some dragon-slayer hanging out outside? Have HIM do the thing! Why is he just a nameless, description-less guard?

[aadder]

Honestly there's a lot with this described scenario that makes me think the DM was being generous, you have a large cow as a familiar? That's cool. The guard didn't straight up kill it as a perceived threat? That's cool too.



Well forgive me that thinking a 3,000 lb bull with 18" horns would be hard for an average dude in chainmaille to kill lol

[Unoriginal]

Well forgive me that thinking a 3,000 lb bull with 18" horns would be hard for an average dude in chainmaille to kill lol

It's a familiar, it cannot even attack someone.

But even if the dude in chainmail think that the bull is a threat to his life, why do you think threatening said dude would result in anything but your character getting treated like any criminal trying that?

[aadder]

It's a familiar, it cannot even attack someone.

But even if the dude in chainmail think that the bull is a threat to his life, why do you think threatening said dude would result in anything but your character getting treated like any criminal trying that?

Hey you know what i would have been fine with that too! I just wanted something to happen. Whatever would happen in real life if a giant steer just tried to scare the **** out of some average dude. Instead i got... nothing.

[aadder]

You're not really supposed to like those types of enemies, I think the idea is that you get strong and prove them wrong. These are your enemies, they're supposed to antagonize you. Very common fantasy trope.

No i understand that, but we often go long stretches, like months, where we interact with nothing but characters like that.

And it's really, REALLY hard to feel like my character is getting to be his cool, awesome self when i am constantly being compared to big huge characters that are bigger, better, and stronger than me. I have no sense of perspective. I might as well be playing a peasant for all the good it does me.

[Unoriginal]

No i understand that, but we often go long stretches, like months, where we interact with nothing but characters like that.

And it's really, REALLY hard to feel like my character is getting to be his cool, awesome self when i am constantly being compared to big huge characters that are bigger, better, and stronger than me. I have no sense of perspective. I might as well be playing a peasant for all the good it does me.

Does your DM make your group travel or fight alongside those bigger/stronger people?

[Kane0]

Perhaps try playing an actual peasant to drive the point home?

[aadder]

Does your DM make your group travel or fight alongside those bigger/stronger people?

No it's more like those are the only characters we interact with.

We tend to go from quest-giver to encounter to villain to quest-giver to encounter to villain, and every quest-giver, enemy, or villain is a big monster or super-powerful demon or the best swordsman/king/what-have-you ever. We rarely spend any time around just people, so i always feel like i'm just another dude.

[Cheesegear]

Well that's exactly it; why on earth am i ever HERE if there's some dragon-slayer hanging out outside? Have HIM do the thing! Why is he just a nameless, description-less guard?

Assuming that he is a guard, and not a guard-with-whatever-statblock-the-DM-said-he-has.

1. A Dragon has attacked the area before, and He Was There.
2. The Dragon, as some point used Frightful Presence.
3. The Dragon, then began laying waste to hundreds of people.
4. Some adventurers at the time, were dealing with dragon...One the complications of the encounter was that Frightful Presence completely ****ed with every single NPC in the entire area, making combat difficult. NPC deaths were also used as a combat gauge to determine success of the encounter. It's not about killing the Dragon, it's about how many NPCs (and/or PCs) get killed whilst doing so.
5. The guard didn't slay a dragon. But he did fight one, and he lived. Since Sidekick Levels hadn't been invented yet, he didn't get any XP.
6. The NPC guard, a few years later, recalls that he's fought a Dragon, and non-magical Intimidation is unlikely to work, the DCs are higher than normal. Anything less than Frightful Presence just isn't the same thing.

The player, then rolls poorly on his Intimidation check. 'The dice tell the story, not you.' Mechanics and narrative are intertwined.
...But, in my notes, if I didn't already have...
'Complication: This particular guard - and a few others - have 'resistance' to non-magical means of Intimidation. Here's why, if it comes up.'
...Then I wouldn't make it up on the spot.

Altnernatively, cows/bulls are regularly slaughtered by people with weapons. If you rolled poorly, no matter how cool you think the image is, the guard shouldn't be afraid.
However, as others have pointed out, what you did, wasn't intimidation. It was an overt act of aggression. Combat should have started then and there. Unless the DM just didn't want to deal with it, and decided to just block you instead.

However, if the dice roll was just poor, he would have to think of a reason on the spot why a cow didn't work - the image of it is cool enough, right? So why didn't it work? His improvisation was just...Poor. The integration of narrative mechanics was just terrible. What he said doesn't really make sense if you think about it more than not-at-all.

'A Dragon has attacked town in recent memory, and the town didn't die.'
That's an entirely new backstory for the entire town and a whole lotta NPCs in it. Now I have to write that town. I know for a fact that if I accidentally said that 'random nameless guard' said he's fought a Dragon, and is still alive...My players would latch onto that immediately as a major event, and demand to know more about the guard, and the entire town, and how that went down...Potentially changing my storyline.

[ProsecutorGodot]

No it's more like those are the only characters we interact with.

We tend to go from quest-giver to encounter to villain to quest-giver to encounter to villain, and every quest-giver, enemy, or villain is a big monster or super-powerful demon or the best swordsman/king/what-have-you ever. We rarely spend any time around just people, so i always feel like i'm just another dude.

Unless every single time they go on a long winded rant at how they're far too important and busy to deal with the problem and have no choice but to send the inexperienced and clearly unqualified "you" on the hopes of fixing the problem...

Doesn't that just mean that you are regularly interacting with powerful people and creatures and fixing problems for them? Doesn't that mean you are also a powerful person, fixing problems?

Is it always a negative encounter? Are they sending you on "chores" or trusting you with a task they think is important?

If the encounter is always "I'm Mr. Important Guy, do this job I'm too busy for" then I'm right there with you thinking that's a bit demeaning, but that would be a different issue than you and the DM disagreeing on what exactly a heroic story is, it would be an issue of exactly what type of game you and the DM prefer altogether.

[aadder]

Doesn't that just mean that you are regularly interacting with powerful people and creatures and fixing problems for them? Doesn't that mean you are also a powerful person, fixing problems?


Well basically, someone mentioned the word "treadmill" before, and i think that's what i feel.

I feel like nothing gets easier, and i'm always at the same comparative power level to people around me, which is to say below them. I don't get to feel like i'm good at things, i don't get to feel like i'm living up to the idea of my character in my head, because every NPC continues to be better than me. If everyone on earth were a superhero at the same power level, would anyone ever feel like a superhero?

[Pixel_Kitsune]

I'm sure it's been brought up. But aside from just the reality that levels don't directly translate, several Backgrounds and stories have it so you COULD be a famed hero already in a small scale.

Easiest one is Folk Hero. It's very clear that you already did something amazing and heroic, at least for that village. Maybe it was a bandit leader, maybe invading orcs, maybe a rogue demon, who knows, but you fought it and saved the village.

Maybe it was trickery, clever planning, etc. But it's also possible you were just good enough to stand up to whatever it was and stop it.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Well basically, someone mentioned the word "treadmill" before, and i think that's what i feel.

I feel like nothing gets easier, and i'm always at the same comparative power level to people around me, which is to say below them. I don't get to feel like i'm good at things, i don't get to feel like i'm living up to the idea of my character in my head, because every NPC continues to be better than me. If everyone on earth were a superhero at the same power level, would anyone ever feel like a superhero?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but things aren't really supposed to get easier. As you grow in power, the things you fight should also grow in power as you gain better tools to fight them with.

A fight you had with a band of Kobolds might have been just as harrowing at the time as a fight with a couple of Glabrezu was now, that doesn't mean you've made no progress because the you who fought the Kobolds stood zero chance against the Glabrezu.

What is the scale of the characters you've been playing? Is this an issue that has persisted through tiers of play? How many levels has it been where any recurring NPC has consistently shown you up?

The issue at this point, with the information we have, could be a number of things. You might be levelling to slowly so you spend a lot of time where there will be people who are reasonably more capable than you, it might actually be the DM keeping you caged in with more powerful NPC's until he feels it's "appropriate" for your narrative to move past them as obstacles, or it could be that you've simply been unlucky and the dice haven't favored you in showing off your characters abilities.

The one thing I am sure about though is that this isn't a simple problem, it's possible that there's a fundamental disconnect here that means you won't mesh with this group.

[Cheesegear]

I feel like nothing gets easier, and i'm always at the same comparative power level to people around me...

That should be true, yes.

Depending on optimisation - or lack thereof - the game assumes that:
- At level 1, you can 1v1 a CR 1/4.
- At level 5, you can 1v1 a CR 2.

Do you want to be Level 5, and push around CR 1/4 (or less) hostiles and NPCs and succeed all the time against DC 5 checks? Is that a fun game for you?
Do you want to be Level 10, fighting Ogres?

Your party should also level with you. You should feel equally - more or less - as powerful as any other character at the table. You aren't special. There are three, four, five other people with you who are just as good as you.

No seriously. The dice rolls. Sometimes a CR 1/4 will roll a 21 on his Grapple vs. whatever lower number you have. You're Grappled. The CR 1/4 guard has Grappled a Level 5 character. That happened.
Sometimes, a Level 5 character will roll a '2' on his Persuasion. Even with a +7 modifier (+4 AS, +3 Prof), that's only a '9'. Not even enough to pass a DC 10 - let alone 15. You failed at bribing the Lawful Neutral guard. "But I'm Level 5!? He's a nameless guard!?" ...Yep. You sure failed.

Finally...


i'm always at the same comparative power level to people around me...

...You've said other things similar to this that make me feel like you might need something other than D&D.

[Kane0]

It would be real handy to have the DM pitch in on this conversation.



Do you want to be Level 5, and push around CR 1/4 (or less) hostiles and NPCs and succeed all the time against DC 5 checks? Is that a fun game for you?
Do you want to be Level 10, fighting Ogres?


5e was deliberately designed so this could be possible, bounded accuracy and all.

[aadder]

Your party should also level with you. You should feel equally - more or less - as powerful as any other character at the table. You aren't special. There are three, four, five other people with you who are just as good as you.



Characters as in NPC's, not as in player characters. I understand that the game is about more than my player character.

[aadder]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but things aren't really supposed to get easier. As you grow in power, the things you fight should also grow in power as you gain better tools to fight them with.

A fight you had with a band of Kobolds might have been just as harrowing at the time as a fight with a couple of Glabrezu was now, that doesn't mean you've made no progress because the you who fought the Kobolds stood zero chance against the Glabrezu.

Right, but if all i encounter at low levels are Kobolds, and all I encounter at higher levels are Glabrezu, then i feel the same at every level. Nothing has changed, and i still don't get to feel like a cool badass character. Just a chump that constantly fears for his life.

[Stabbey]

Right, but if all i encounter at low levels are Kobolds, and all I encounter at higher levels are Glabrezu, then i feel the same at every level. Nothing has changed, and i still don't get to feel like a cool badass character. Just a chump that constantly fears for his life.

It sounds like the DM wants a narrative campaign of growth, you want a power fantasy where you effortlessly blow through every battle. Those are incompatible.

I would suggest looking for a different DM running a game more suited to your taste.

[aadder]

It would be real handy to have the DM pitch in on this conversation.



Well what i can tell you is he would basically say that i am a very high-maintenance player that pouts if i'm not the best character, and i constantly need validation. He would say that i keep asking for us to start campaigns at higher levels, and nobody else seems to have a problem with that. And he would say that i have a weird obsession with making characters that nobody else would think of, and that i used to have a seriously problem with making ones that are so non-serious they bothered everyone at the table.

And all of that would would be true.

But i would also say that the thing about needing attention and pouting seems to be a result, at least partly, of the DM not portraying characters as being better than average people. I would feel a lot more secure about my characters if i got to ever pit them against regular dudes, and be validated that i am, in fact, playing a cool guy who does cool things.

[aadder]

It sounds like the DM wants a narrative campaign of growth, you want a power fantasy where you effortlessly blow through every battle. Those are incompatible.


No.

I just want occasions in which i get to feel like i am in fact more powerful and cool than the average person. We almost never interact with average people, so i am constantly insecure and feeling like i have to try incredibly hard.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Right, but if all i encounter at low levels are Kobolds, and all I encounter at higher levels are Glabrezu, then i feel the same at every level. Nothing has changed, and i still don't get to feel like a cool badass character. Just a chump that constantly fears for his life.

What do you mean nothing has changed? You weren't killing a Glabrezu at level 2 and a band of Kobolds twice the size of the one that you fought at that level is a speed bump or even complete non issue now.

The issue is either in how the DM is presenting this change or how you're perceiving it.

As an example, once again citing my Mad Mage Paladin character:
When we first encountered the Goblin encampment on Floor 2, challenging all of these goblins just because of a personal disagreement with their leader would have been suicidal and they treated us negatively because they knew.

The deeper we went, however, and the farther word spread about us, the less issue they gave us until eventually our passage through their encampment was more or less glossed over as a non-issue. We had grown so powerful that they feared retribution at potentially offending us, we made it clear once that we meant no harm (at this point they were just people living life in our eyes) and after that it just became a part of the "so we go back down to the floor 6 arch gate" process.

Then the same with then Drow Camps, and even recently the Githyanki camps. Do I feel like I've stagnated because I'm "winning" the same thing over and over? No, because the fact that my Party strikes fear into Githyanki is incredible.

I wouldn't find much entertainment in being forced to play out any and all encounters with monsters in those low levels of Undermountain either, I want to be challenged because overcoming those stronger enemies is the proof that I have progressed. Bullying a bunch of Goblins who made fun of my bald head isn't the kind of thing I need to prove I'm strong and capable.

[MaxWilson]

No.

I just want occasions in which i get to feel like i am in fact more powerful and cool than the average person. We almost never interact with average people, so i am constantly insecure and feeling like i have to try incredibly hard.

Oh, boy. This seems like a DMing problem. Do you feel like you're on a treadmill, where getting more powerful just makes everything around you get even more powerful?

I am all about challenge and Deadly+ combats, but even I try to let the players choose what they want to take on, and make sure they get to interact with a wide range of things, from criminals whom the players can casually crush (to the point where I may not even ask for a die roll, I just declare the criminal(s) dead when you decide to kill him/them) all the way up to forty million-year-old Stellar Dragons that could probably crush your entire planet into rubble if you made them mad enough to take the thousand years necessary to do it.

From what you've said, you don't really like this guy's DMing style, and you don't really want to switch groups. Maybe your best option is to ask the group to do some occasional DM-less play, like running a Battle Royale/Mortal Kombat where everyone either makes a 20th level PC or picks a demon lord from Mordenkainen's, and then you spend the night picking three player names at a time out of a hat and having their characters fight until only one of them is left standing, and then put the winner back in the hat and do it again until there's only one grand champion. You really don't need a DM at all if all the players have agreed on terms and all of the combatants are being run by players.


Do I feel like I've stagnated because I'm "winning" the same thing over and over? No, because the fact that my Party strikes fear into Githyanki is incredible.

BTW @ProsecutorGodot, I laughed at your Elisha joke ("go up, thou bald head").

The problem is, though, that whereas your character strikes fear into the heart of the Githyanki, apparently aadder's DM (from aadder's perspective) doesn't ever give them the emotional payoff of striking fear into the hearts of anyone--instead of seeing the Githyanki cower and cringe, the PCs just scale up to the next set of enemies (Shadar Kai?) who, again, are not afraid of the PCs because they are more powerful.

I'm just guessing of course, but it seems like maybe the DM is escalating too early, without giving PCs a chance to receive their emotional rewards and vindication first.

If you like, compare it to an NPC who is always asking you for big favors and quests, but when you accomplish them, doesn't act happy or impressed or grateful of amazed--he just calmly nods and then gives you the next quest. Some players won't care, because they're there for other reasons; some players will be extremely frustrated because NPC reactions are what they play the game for!

[BRC]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but things aren't really supposed to get easier. As you grow in power, the things you fight should also grow in power as you gain better tools to fight them with.

A fight you had with a band of Kobolds might have been just as harrowing at the time as a fight with a couple of Glabrezu was now, that doesn't mean you've made no progress because the you who fought the Kobolds stood zero chance against the Glabrezu.

What is the scale of the characters you've been playing? Is this an issue that has persisted through tiers of play? How many levels has it been where any recurring NPC has consistently shown you up?

The issue at this point, with the information we have, could be a number of things. You might be levelling to slowly so you spend a lot of time where there will be people who are reasonably more capable than you, it might actually be the DM keeping you caged in with more powerful NPC's until he feels it's "appropriate" for your narrative to move past them as obstacles, or it could be that you've simply been unlucky and the dice haven't favored you in showing off your characters abilities.

The one thing I am sure about though is that this isn't a simple problem, it's possible that there's a fundamental disconnect here that means you won't mesh with this group.

I feel like the complaint is less "I don't feel more powerful in comparison to the challenges I'm facing" than it is "I don't feel more powerful in comparison to the world I'm in".

A low-level character might be fighting Goblins, a high-level character is fighting Dragons.

But when the armies of darkness crest the horizon, the goblin-smashers might take up a spot in the common infantry line, while the Dragonslayers are given a special mission by the General.

A high-level character interacts with the world around them differently than a low-level character, in ways that have nothing to do with the numbers they have on their character sheet. If, like OP, you specifically want to feel like you're playing one of the greatest heroes in the land, it can be frustrating to be constantly treated like every other two-bit sellsword, even though you're fighting Dragons and Liches.

This is a place where D&D, with it's numbers and scaling power level, deviates from it's inspirations in literature and film. If your standard footsoldier is roughly 1st level, classic fantasy literature usually doesn't have an equivalent to a 12th level character. For that level of power difference, you're usually looking more at Superhero stories or Shonen manga than something like Conan the Barbarian.

This usually isn't a problem, but OP wants (And it's a perfectly valid thing to want) to stride through the world like a top-tier badass, which isn't an experience the GM is providing.


Now, as for advice to OP, it sounds like you've done about a good a job as you can about communicating your desires to your GM, so there isn't really that much to do otherwise except maybe find another group. What you're asking for isn't unreasonable, but it clashes with the GM's style, and if the rest of the group seems to like things they way they are, it's hard to have much of a leg to stand on demanding things.

The best advice I can give is use this thread to work out some good language that describes what you want, and see if the GM finds that acceptable? I'll type of the next section as some advice you could pass along to your GM for bringing across the feeling of playing high-level characters.


1) NPC interactions. As your PC's go up in level, NPCs in positions of authority should change their attitudes. At level 3, the duke's chamberlain tells you to go fight some goblins. At level 6, The Duke is personally entrusting you with a mission to go retrieve the Runestone from the ghost pirates. At level 9, The Duke is barely giving you orders, he's bringing you into his confidence, describing the problem, and asking you to help.

Now, this can be a problem if the Players decide to be jerks and flex their muscles, bullying shopkeepers because they can overpower the town guard and such. You can give them plenty of consequences for such things, but usually it's best to just "hey, do you WANT this to be a story about you going to war with the Duke because you wanted to power-trip on some merchants, because that's where this ends, and that's not the story I want to play though".

2) Combats. I've had a lot of success with using swarms of low-level enemies following "Mob Rules" (Which I think are in the DMG), where any overflow damage on an enemy can be applied against an adjacent foe. If you don't mind tracking that many enemies on the map (I use Roll20 so it's easy), it's a good way to bring across that feel of the Hero cutting through swathes of enemies without turning combat into a slog.

3) Foes and Quests. As the PC's level up, you should do more work selling the foes and quests they're fighting. Don't go from "This mine is full of Goblins, clear it out" to "This mine is full of Demons, clear it out". As PC's level up, they should get more involved with the overarching story of the campaign. You should go from "You go to a place and happen to find a level appropriate encounter" to "You are going somewhere specifically BECAUSE there is a problem there that you need to solve". As PC's level up, they stop randomly running into problems worthy of their skillsets, and start pursuing agendas. There's a paradigm shift that occurs, and a bit of sleight-of-hand as well.
At low level, it's just some cultists. At high level, it's Devar Kell, The Butcher of Belsvar and his Slaughtersworn Knights, if they are not stopped they will slaughter thousands as a sacrifice to their dark gods and unleash an army of demons on the land.



Edit: of course, none of this solves the core problem which is that the type of game you want to play really starts at level 6, and you're not going to be satisfied with anything lower level.

[aadder]

Then the same with then Drow Camps, and even recently the Githyanki camps. Do I feel like I've stagnated because I'm "winning" the same thing over and over? No, because the fact that my Party strikes fear into Githyanki is incredible.

I wouldn't find much entertainment in being forced to play out any and all encounters with monsters in those low levels of Undermountain either, I want to be challenged because overcoming those stronger enemies is the proof that I have progressed. Bullying a bunch of Goblins who made fun of my bald head isn't the kind of thing I need to prove I'm strong and capable.

Well i guess my perspective is different because i'm not a DnD fan. I -like- playing DnD, but i don't know much about the worlds or monsters or whatnot.

So when someone tells me that they strike fear into Githyanki, that doesn't mean a lot to me. I -think- they're like elves? But like, weird elves from the astral sea or something? I think, could be wrong.

I feel like within the context of each adventure, i'm just not capable of ascertaining that kind of information. If I encounter an enemy only when it's at a level that it's a challenge to me, that's all the context i have for it, unless it's something really easy to understand. I can understand that a dragon is a big threat. But if i just go from demon to demon to witch to liche to Djinn and they all kind of seem the same threat level, then nothing really indicates to me the direness of each threat.

Ergo, i don't have a sense of progression.

[MaxWilson]

Well i guess my perspective is different because i'm not a DnD fan. I -like- playing DnD, but i don't know much about the worlds or monsters or whatnot.

So when someone tells me that they strike fear into Githyanki, that doesn't mean a lot to me. I -think- they're like elves? But like, weird elves from the astral sea or something? I think, could be wrong.

I feel like within the context of each adventure, i'm just not capable of ascertaining that kind of information. If I encounter an enemy only when it's at a level that it's a challenge to me, that's all the context i have for it, unless it's something really easy to understand. I can understand that a dragon is a big threat. But if i just go from demon to demon to witch to liche to Djinn and they all kind of seem the same threat level, then nothing really indicates to me the direness of each threat.

Ergo, i don't have a sense of progression.

Is the DM actually giving you the emotional payoff part where the Githyanki finally cringe and cower, before the DM moves you on to the next set of even-more-powerful bad guys? Do you ever see Githyanki again after that in the future, and know that you could beat them? Or is it just a never-ending number treadmill always escalating upwards? Because that last is blech.

[aadder]

I feel like the complaint is less "I don't feel more powerful in comparison to the challenges I'm facing" than it is "I don't feel more powerful in comparison to the world I'm in".

[...]

This is a place where D&D, with it's numbers and scaling power level, deviates from it's inspirations in literature and film. If your standard footsoldier is roughly 1st level, classic fantasy literature usually doesn't have an equivalent to a 12th level character. For that level of power difference, you're usually looking more at Superhero stories or Shonen manga than something like Conan the Barbarian.


This. This exactly. I feel like i'm always at the same level of competence in the universe.


Secondly, i have NEVER felt that way about being level 12, or any level. Every level just feels like "okay your fighter is a fighter still. now the mayor has another quest for you."

[Composer99]

It sounds as if maybe one last thing you could do to try to convince the DM to make some changes is, if you can't talk them into running a campaign more to your liking, is to at least give you some emotional and in-world payoff. At least let you feel like a Big Damn Hero.

[Cheesegear]

I don't get to feel like i'm good at things, i don't get to feel like i'm living up to the idea of my character in my head...


I would feel a lot more secure about my characters if i got to ever pit them against regular dudes, and be validated that i am, in fact, playing a cool guy who does cool things.


I just want occasions in which i get to feel like i am in fact more powerful and cool than the average person.

At this point I'm worried about you.
I'll say again. Maybe D&D isn't what you need? That's the politest way I can put that.


I feel like within the context of each adventure, i'm just not capable of ascertaining that kind of information.


Every level just feels like "okay your fighter is a fighter still. now the mayor has another quest for you."

...Your DM is telling stories wrong.

[Unoriginal]

So just to make sure I understand correctly: your DM talks a lot about the characters progressing from regular joes to heroes, but never shows it and everyone in the world gets stronger at the same rate you do?

[MaxWilson]

At this point I'm worried about you.
I'll say again. Maybe D&D isn't what you need? That's the politest way I can put that.

Huh? Conan killing hordes of mooks is totally a D&D thing. Sounds like the problem is more that the DM makes sure he never fights mooks, only elite guards.

[Kane0]

Yeah sounds like your DM just doesn't place NPCs in the world that you are clearly superior to, at any level. Though why they do that is a bit more mysterious.

[aadder]

So just to make sure I understand correctly: your DM talks a lot about the characters progressing from regular joes to heroes, but never shows it and everyone in the world gets stronger at the same rate you do?

Yeah it's kind of like people have said, you're supposed to infer that from the fact that you're fighting demons now or what-have-you.

You're now doing quests for a more important demon lord, you're now fighting stronger things, and so on.

But because the scenery is always changing and the enemies feel like the same strength, and because i don't have a particular connection to DnD lore, i don't feel it. People accomplish their goals, things happen plot-wise, sure. But I never feel like i've gotten any stronger, and i never feel like i AM strong or cool.

People go from "regular joes to heroes" by slaying a person who imprisoned them when they were a kid, or by avenging the death of their kid, or founding a church, or whatever their personal goal is. But a lot of it is tell-don't-show, because usually those goals happen as a culmination, at the end of a campaign, and they tend not to impact the actual play of the game.

For someone like me, whose goals tend to simply be "getting to be a cool guy what does cool things", this kind of goal doesnt' satisfy me. I want my accomplishments to roll into the game, and we tend to have a lot of "okay that goals is done, onto the next thing" stuff that makes me feel like nothing sticks. Like we will -in theory- become famous or something, but we never interact with regular people, and we never fight mooks that would have posed a challenge to us previously. It's always the same challenge.

[Keltest]

Yeah sounds like your DM just doesn't place NPCs in the world that you are clearly superior to, at any level. Though why they do that is a bit more mysterious.

I mean, i never include goblins or whatever in high level encounters except as flavor for another fight, because having an encounter with just goblins is a waste of everybody's time.

[tKUUNK]

What are the odds you can convince the group to let someone else DM for a bit, while your now-DM plays a character? It may be helpful for this DM to see how the game flows with someone else running it. I get the sense it's been a while since this DM has simply had fun as a player, because they usually (or always) run the game.

or,

What can you change about your own perspective or expectations?

What IS fun about the game as it stands? What do you look forward to? Focus on building that until it has 100% of your attention.

[Theodoxus]

Well, now that there are 5 pages of extrapolation, I can see why you thought I thought you were an idiot :smallwink:. And just so you know, I didn't, and don't think you're an idiot. A frustrated player who couldn't explain exactly what was frustrating them in a way that I grokked maybe, but not an idiot.

That out of the way, I think your DM has played a little bit too much Diablo III and doesn't actually understand what Zero to Hero actually means. And sadly, it wouldn't matter if you started at a higher level, or even 20th level - you'd still be facing things more powerful than your group and dealing with jerk NPCs who are too lazy to defeat said monsters or solve quests because... well, your party exists.

The only unique suggestion I can offer is to treat your D&D sessions like your DM does: Diablo III. You're gaining power and trinkets and new abilities to thwart higher challenges without ever going back to easier levels to 'blow off steam.' Your DM likes the churn. Sorry. If he's unwilling to bend, there's nothing you can do that hasn't been recommended before. Its on you to bend or snap, and that sucks. I wish you the very best, but I honestly don't see a good solution for you if he can't change his style.

[MaxWilson]

Like we will -in theory- become famous or something, but we never interact with regular people, and we never fight mooks that would have posed a challenge to us previously. It's always the same challenge.

This is a huge missed opportunity on the DM's part.


I mean, i never include goblins or whatever in high level encounters except as flavor for another fight, because having an encounter with just goblins is a waste of everybody's time.

There should still be Goblins in the game world, including some pushy Goblins who fail to identify the PCs as a serious threat and yet treating them like Joe Random Peasants and abusing them. You need not spend a lot of table time on keeping track of their HP and rolling attacks for them, and you may even want to skip the die rolling entirely and let the 13th level fighter just narrate the goblin's fate (if he says "I strangle the goblin with his own intestines," well, there's no real doubt he can do just that without taking more than minor damage, if there are no other goblins nearby) so you can move on to the next scene.

But they should still exist, for the sake of necromancers and illusionists and people who have invested in Persuasion and Disguise and for people who want to feel like there's an actual world there and not just a series of combat challenges.


If he's unwilling to bend, there's nothing you can do that hasn't been recommended before. Its on you to bend or snap, and that sucks. I wish you the very best, but I honestly don't see a good solution for you if he can't change his style.

You can try DMless play like a Battle Royale or shared gameworld, or see if someone wants to run a horde of orcs and mind flayers for the rest of you to chop through. The 5E DMG has some related suggestions, like a rotating DM seat variant.

You are not stuck with just one DM.

[Cheesegear]

and because i don't have a particular connection to DnD lore, i don't feel it.

That actually is a DM problem. You should know the whos, whats and whys of your adventure.


Like we will -in theory- become famous or something, but we never interact with regular people...

1. This is a narrative problem:
- You killed the Goblin Clan. Trade routes are now safer and [town] is now better supplied. Even wandering NPCs visit the town now that it's safe to do so. More NPCs is a chance for more interactions and storytelling.

- You killed the Gnoll Ravagers. Not a small army. Just you. Four/Five dudes took out an entire band of Gnolls by themselves. They were being led by a demon and everything... You want a house? A few employees? Shut up and take the rewards. People in the village are encouraging their sons and daughters to hook up with the main party.
You can live a 'comfortable' lifestyle for a year on ~350gp...The Tier 2 adventurers tripped on 300gp the other day...
...Those adventurers can apparently afford to just leave 1237 cp on the floor of the cave they were in. 'It's copper,' they said. 'It's too heavy for its value,' they said.

You should know what you're fighting, and why, and the consequences of your actions - or inaction - should be known to the world.

You - and the DM - should know the value of a gold piece.
1 pound of gold = 50gp. Adventurers trip over 50gp before lunch time.
It takes 1500 gp to get Plate Armour. Yes. It shatters the local economy. If a Blacksmith sells you a suit of Plate at book value, he can do nothing and carouse like a minor lord for an entire year before he has to go back to work.

A Greatsword is 50gp, and you can actually start the game with one.
1 lb. of wheat is 1 cp. Do you know how many loaves of bread you can get for a single Greatsword? You can buy an entire pig for 3 gp. Three.
You, having a Greatsword...Is your backstory. Level 1 PCs are already heroes compared to Commoners.

[Theodoxus]

You can try DMless play like a Battle Royale or shared gameworld, or see if someone wants to run a horde of orcs and mind flayers for the rest of you to chop through. The 5E DMG has some related suggestions, like a rotating DM seat variant.

You are not stuck with just one DM.

In most instances, yes. From aadder's exposition, it doesn't seem like this is a possibility. But otoh, it does roll up with "what's been recommended before". /shrug.

[Kane0]

I mean, i never include goblins or whatever in high level encounters except as flavor for another fight, because having an encounter with just goblins is a waste of everybody's time.

My party is level 8 and last night I literally had a nest of 3.5-converted Kythons including CR ~1/2 broodlings, CR ~3 juveniles and CR ~6 adults.

I can understand that some players and DMs might not like to use minions/mooks/redshirt NPCs for fear of wasting time, ruining game feel, etc but in this case I think that is exactly the sort of thing that is ruining aadder's fun. He feels like he literally cannot just roflstomp anything at any time, it's all 'challenge appropriate' for his level and thus he doesn't feel like his character is considered competent, capable or even respected at Tier 1 nor 3.

Though correct me if i'm wrong.

[KorvinStarmast]

Well what i can tell you is he would basically say that i am a very high-maintenance player that pouts if i'm not the best character, and i constantly need validation.
Your Original Post supports that view.

I would feel a lot more secure about my characters if i got to ever pit them against regular dudes, and be validated that i am, in fact, playing a cool guy who does cool things. The easy button is over there, in a different campaign.


Maybe D&D isn't what you need? That's the politest way I can put that. There are lots of other fun games, yes.


He feels like he literally cannot just roflstomp anything at any time, it's all 'challenge appropriate' for his level and thus he doesn't feel like his character is considered competent, capable or even respected at Tier 1 nor 3. yeah. That's what it comes off as.

I play video games too. Sometimes, roflstomping is fun, yes. But the DM is the one who turns the dials on difficulty.

[Keltest]

My party is level 8 and last night I literally had a nest of 3.5-converted Kythons including CR ~1/2 broodlings, CR ~3 juveniles and CR ~6 adults.

I can understand that some players and DMs might not like to use minions/mooks/redshirt NPCs for fear of wasting time, ruining game feel, etc but in this case I think that is exactly the sort of thing that is ruining aadder's fun. He feels like he literally cannot just roflstomp anything at any time, it's all 'challenge appropriate' for his level and thus he doesn't feel like his character is considered competent, capable or even respected at Tier 1 nor 3.

Though correct me if i'm wrong.

I'll use goblins as a speedbump in, like, a giant's lair to help manipulate the fighters from just marching up to the rock throwing giant and kneecapping him to death, but the only time an actual camp of just goblins without anything bigger and more threatening to boss them around is when its a level appropriate encounter on its own. When theres no real danger, no real resource expenditure and no real reward, there isnt a lot of reason for them to actually show up anymore by themselves.

[aadder]

The easy button is over there, in a different campaign.


Telling my friends to go to hell is not an easy button.

[Keltest]

Telling my friends to go to hell is not an easy button.

It doesnt have to be a rude thing. "Sorry guys, im after more of a power trip rather than an epic adventure filled with nothing but adversity. I'm just not having a lot of fun without a few victory laps in the game."

[KorvinStarmast]

Telling my friends to go to hell is not an easy button. It's the easiest way to ensure that you need to go out and find new friends. :smallwink:

Tell me, aadder, what's more important to you?
Your friendship, or you roflstomping (some of the) encounters in the game?

I've experienced the pain of watching a game's dissolution damage, and on a couple of occasions destroy, friendships. (Some years ago, to be sure, but it's still a thing I have seen and been involved with as a part of that peer group).

I'd recommend against damaging the friendship.

You are of course free to do what ever your heart, or your gut, or both lead you to do.

[Kane0]

"Sorry man, I just can't get any fun out of repeatedly facing the next challenge without being able to stop every now and again to appreciate what I've already overcome. Is it cool if I just come to socialize or play cameo NPCs or something?"

[Veldrenor]

I feel like within the context of each adventure, i'm just not capable of ascertaining that kind of information. If I encounter an enemy only when it's at a level that it's a challenge to me, that's all the context i have for it, unless it's something really easy to understand. I can understand that a dragon is a big threat. But if i just go from demon to demon to witch to liche to Djinn and they all kind of seem the same threat level, then nothing really indicates to me the direness of each threat.

Ergo, i don't have a sense of progression.

If your DM is unwilling to bend on characters, this sounds like something they could compromise over without changing their planned "rise from nothing" epic. They just have to be willing to re-use previous challenges rather than retiring them as soon as the party outgrows them. If 1st level was clearing out goblins harassing a farm, then at 5th level an identical group of goblins could attack while you're camped on your way toward the actual goal. It's a random encounter, it doesn't have to matter to the plot, it's just a chance to crack a few skulls. Or if the DM refuses to give you anything other than "level appropriate" encounters, it's possible to make such encounters out of previous threats. If you had a nearly-fatal encounter with a bearded devil at 1st level, then at 10th level the DM could hit you with a glabrezu with four bearded devil servants. Bam, level-appropriate challenge, but you get to see just how far you've come by taking on a group of creatures that used to be lethal solo.

[Azuresun]

No.

I just want occasions in which i get to feel like i am in fact more powerful and cool than the average person. We almost never interact with average people, so i am constantly insecure and feeling like i have to try incredibly hard.


I know what you mean, and one thing I try and do regularly when I GM is to have people be impressed by the PC's, and have situations where it's not a serious challenge, they can just totally dominate the enemies to let them appreciate how they've grown.

A couple of weeks ago, the characters saved a pair of priests from the enemies hunting them, and when the fight was done, I described how it looked from the point of view of the gobsmacked civilians they'd just saved; these three gods of war decimating the armed cultists and three unstoppable-to-them demons in a few seconds. It went down really well.

[Glorthindel]

This feels like a completely different problem to what we thought we were dealing with on the first page. Ultimately, starting at level 5 over level 1 wouldn't help you in any way if the world is scaled up to always "just better than you". Your problem isn't at the start of the campaign, it is throughout its entirety.

The DM should be showing your increase in strength, power, and prestige. Normal folks (and even people in power) should show you increasing respect as your deeds and accomplishments stack. Sure, there will always be the odd arrogant Noble or Wizard who will treat you as beneath them, but that should be the exception, not the rule. What you really need to be asking the DM is to show you all more of the world, and maybe slow down the train at times so you have time to feel your increases in power at each level of difficulty, rather than just jumping you straight into the next problem, without time to breath.

Every encounter and interaction doesn't need to be a challenge. Sometimes a one-sided kerb stomp, or an enemy capitulating without a fight in fear of the party has it's own narrative value, as it highlights the step up to the next level of enemies. If you blow through some opponents that you know were difficult 3-4 sessions ago, it helps highlight how tough the ones you are finding difficult now must be.

[Xervous]

Having read a sampling of horror stories this was the sort of thing I felt a twinge over when I heard the whole “zero to hero, only in game stuff can matter for your character”. It’s a railroad tour of the GM’s setting and story with Skyrim grade quests, bandits popping up in glass armor once you progress, and NPCs trivially surviving dragon attacks before dumping the dragon slaying job on you saying there’s nobody else qualified. Stop me when I’m wrong.

You reach demigod status and the enlightened quest giver points to the horizon “see those mountains? Slay 5 of them” just the same as the farmer said about the giant rats.

Level 1, 5, or 15 combat and plots play out the same just with bigger numbers and new skins on the opposing bags of meat.

You might have a better chance at starting a conversation with your GM if you point out that the experience being promised is not the experience being delivered.

[quindraco]

This. This exactly. I feel like i'm always at the same level of competence in the universe.


Secondly, i have NEVER felt that way about being level 12, or any level. Every level just feels like "okay your fighter is a fighter still. now the mayor has another quest for you."

Why is your party doing whatever quest the mayor currently has for you? Especially at level twelve, when the party should be credibly capable of taking over the town (as in fact happens in some adventure modules). Most of your complaints - on this page of the thread, at least - amount to complaining of boredom, and unless your party is unanimously strongly motivated to be the mayor's lapdogs, this sounds intrinsically boring.

If you don't have a good answer for me, do what parties have been doing since time immemorial: exercise player agency and send the campaign in an exciting new direction the DM probably wasn't expecting.

[KorvinStarmast]

Why is your party doing whatever quest the mayor currently has for you? Especially at level twelve, when the party should be credibly capable of taking over the town (as in fact happens in some adventure modules). Most of your complaints - on this page of the thread, at least - amount to complaining of boredom, and unless your party is unanimously strongly motivated to be the mayor's lapdogs, this sounds intrinsically boring.

If you don't have a good answer for me, do what parties have been doing since time immemorial: exercise player agency and send the campaign in an exciting new direction the DM probably wasn't expecting. Something like this?


Step 1. Kill the Mayor (or, keep him prisoner in his own home/city hall)
Step 2. Hire a few dozen armed thugs
Step 3. Establish a protection racket
Step 4. Profit.

Congratulations, party, you are now the BBEG for the next group of adventurers. :smallbiggrin:

[Xervous]

Why is your party doing whatever quest the mayor currently has for you? Especially at level twelve, when the party should be credibly capable of taking over the town (as in fact happens in some adventure modules). Most of your complaints - on this page of the thread, at least - amount to complaining of boredom, and unless your party is unanimously strongly motivated to be the mayor's lapdogs, this sounds intrinsically boring.

If you don't have a good answer for me, do what parties have been doing since time immemorial: exercise player agency and send the campaign in an exciting new direction the DM probably wasn't expecting.

From what OP has detailed the mayor is potentially a dynamic party level +5 NPC with party level +3 guards who have each choked a bison/elephant/dragon/Solar unconscious. Attempts to go off rails may bump into Deadly xN NPC encounters regardless of situation.

[KorvinStarmast]

Attempts to go off rails may bump into Deadly xN NPC encounters regardless of situation. No guts, not glory. Plus, those NPCs are worth XP!
(And it potentially gets rid of that annoying mayor). :smallbiggrin:

[OACSNY97]

So my DM and I are at an impasse about characters in DnD.

He strongly feels that the point of characters in DnD is for them to grow as people. They are supposed to earn glory, change as people, and go up levels, from 1 to 20 ideally, but starting as low as possible and getting as high as possible. He likes DMing long adventures where people come from nothing, humble beginnings, or points of failure, and ascending to kingship, riches, or demi-god status. It's high fantasy, super-powered Hero's Journey Joseph Campbell story-telling, and it's baked into the rules of the game.

My feelings are that I don't want to play my characters that way. I like being able to play someone that comes into the game with a pre-established reputation, a set of skills, and competence; this tends to work best if you start at level 5 to 6 so you have some meat on your bones. Someone that can bring a lot to the table, but has room to grow by meeting people and interacting with the world. Or, maybe not even grow, just enjoy the time they have. I see DnD as an experience and a way to drive my characters around like fantasy-esque mechs to enjoy being cool people in cool settings. It's experiential and escapist, about writing a fully-fledged character and just getting to slide into their skin and take-in a universe.

We're about to start a new campaign, and we're unable to find a way for my character(s) to fit in. I really dislike having to set my character in a position of lack of accomplishment, and strike to become master of the universe. He really dislikes that I don't want to be part of a big, grand narrative and see some epic storytelling.


Hi, late to the party, but I've been wanting to ask the OP what a character needs to feel competent. Does the slow roll-out of class features during early levels add to the frustration that you just don't have the necessary tools? What skills, abilities, or class features does a PC need so you can have fun?

I have an ongoing debate with someone in my IRL D&D group regarding what being competent at first level means. He's of the opinion that people should be able to play their character concept (with a few carve-outs for obviously not low-level ideas) from the very beginning in first level. I'd rather have level one be the explicit tutorial level that's stripped to the bare bones of the class to make learning the rules and building a first character easier with most experienced players start at level 2 when the rest of the class features come online.

Would speaking to your GM about frustrations at not getting basic class functionality at first level bear fruit?

However...


This feels like a completely different problem to what we thought we were dealing with on the first page. Ultimately, starting at level 5 over level 1 wouldn't help you in any way if the world is scaled up to always "just better than you". Your problem isn't at the start of the campaign, it is throughout its entirety.

The DM should be showing your increase in strength, power, and prestige. Normal folks (and even people in power) should show you increasing respect as your deeds and accomplishments stack. Sure, there will always be the odd arrogant Noble or Wizard who will treat you as beneath them, but that should be the exception, not the rule. What you really need to be asking the DM is to show you all more of the world, and maybe slow down the train at times so you have time to feel your increases in power at each level of difficulty, rather than just jumping you straight into the next problem, without time to breath.

Every encounter and interaction doesn't need to be a challenge. Sometimes a one-sided kerb stomp, or an enemy capitulating without a fight in fear of the party has it's own narrative value, as it highlights the step up to the next level of enemies. If you blow through some opponents that you know were difficult 3-4 sessions ago, it helps highlight how tough the ones you are finding difficult now must be.

Maybe this not just a purely mechanical issue of delayed class features. Is the DM is hoping to portray a world of where everyone's assumed to "got this" or is the world scaling with you just the DM trying to provide level appropriate encounters?

As a matter of personal taste, I want competent NPCs that exist as more than chess pieces and to play a very "American" folk hero kind of character- someone who a broad range of skills and competencies who steps up and does what's needful, but is essentially nobody special.

OP- would you be happy playing a support character, one who close associates acknowledge and assume to always "can do", but little/no public fame (i.e., Alfred from Batman)? Could you play the person who simply picks up the pieces with no fuss, no muss and carries on? Is the recognition or the ability more important?

[Mastikator]

Okay so i've seen this expressed a lot, and i have NEVER been told this, and never experienced it.

Someone mentioned the 8 types of fun, and my DM being about narrative and challenge, and that really appears to be true.

I almost NEVER feel like my characters are super-awesome heroes, not at least until they reach like level 15. We are pretty much always put in situations in which we compete with and are surrounded by characters of our status or higher. DC checks for skills tend to be fairly high. Not so high we can't do them, but high enough that if you want to succeed on a regular basis, you need to power-game. As a result, i tend to power-game any skills i have. We RARELY get the experience of getting to brush past some mooks; everyone tends to be more or less at our competency level. Hence, i feel like any character that can't power-combo a whole bunch of mechanics is weak or unaccomplished.



The moment that really stuck out to me is when i was playing a druid who was a livestock druid. Her whole deal was raising big huge farm animals and developing new strains of mushrooms. When we were supposed to go talk to an official, and the guards wouldn't let us through, i had my familiar, a particularly large steer, rear-up and plants its front hooves on either side of his face and push its big, horned head into the guard's little human face, and roll intimidate.

The DM said "this guy's fought dragons; he's not scared of your cow".

And it's like.

Wow.

Ok.

Sorry for having a cool character moment i guess. my bad.

BTW that guard was literally un unnamed, nondescript NPC that only existed for that scene. It's not like he was Drizzt or someone who could reasonably say that. It was just... some guy.




Bear in mind, that doesnt' happen often. But I DO really, REALLY feel like we never get to express that we're cool, and good at things. We're always being talked-down to by demons, harassed by witches, Djinn call us chumps, and whatnot.

I always feel like I suck, and have to power-game.
TBH it sounds like your DM is power tripping and might have a DM vs Player mentality. DND 5e is a Heroic Power Fantasy game and an unnamed guard dude should not have fought dragons, he might be inexperience and doesn't want you to have even a small victory.

He's definitely doing DMing wrong.

I'm not relenting on my principle that the DM is always right about their campaign, but in this case his campaign might just suck. If you can't convince him that he's stupid and wrong for putting a DC at 15 for a mundane task then I'd suggest that you should just take over as DM. At the very least pick up a DMG and read it, it agrees with me about this point.
Because the thing is that a 1st level character should absolutely be competent.

Either way you have my sympathies dude.

[MaxWilson]

Fundamentally I think this is a case of a DM who is overconfident in his own abilities, maybe hasn't had many open complaints before, and has stopped or never started thinking about how to get better and better at DMing.

This has led to a situation where the DM is calibrating adventures to be challenging based on his knowledge of monster stats, without thinking about how players can or would acquire similar knowledge, such as through smaller intro fights when introducing a new and tougher monster, and retrospective fights against an "obsolete" monster to showcase change--retrospective fights can but don't have to be large enough to still be challenging.

The DM is also failing to give players the emotional payoff of having NPCs respect them, which combined with frequent requests for PCs to do difficult tasks leaves the players feeling burned out on the whole relationship with the game world. Like a relationship with a planet of narcissists.

In DramaSystem terms this is a "fraught relationship". Player is emotionally petitioning the DM to show some respect, appreciation, or gratitude. DM can't easily do this because DM isn't self-aware enough to know that this is a issue. Voila, drama ensues!

Sometimes even little things can help, let having a guard take a careful and respectful step away from a 3000 lb. steer before calming repeating his refusal, and then NOT telling the player that the guard is a dragonslayer who's totally unimpressed by him. "This guy has fought dragons, he's not impressed with your cow": that little insult wasn't even in character, that was just the DM directly denying the player's emotional petition to have someone in the setting acknowledge his PC as consequential (even if it meant getting arrested as dangerous!).

The issue is fixable but not without the DM's awareness of the need for some minor changes, and willingness to make them.

[aadder]

From what OP has detailed the mayor is potentially a dynamic party level +5 NPC with party level +3 guards who have each choked a bison/elephant/dragon/Solar unconscious. Attempts to go off rails may bump into Deadly xN NPC encounters regardless of situation.

This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

[aadder]

Hi, late to the party, but I've been wanting to ask the OP what a character needs to feel competent. Does the slow roll-out of class features during early levels add to the frustration that you just don't have the necessary tools? What skills, abilities, or class features does a PC need so you can have fun?



Well so, one of my big things is that if i'm playing a melee class, and i tend to, i feel very insecure playing below having Extra Attack. Being able to swing twice makes me able to at least hit once with consistency. I can DO a thing. One attack is very liable to miss, in which case my cool guy dude man character just... did nothing that round.

But more broadly speaking, i just want to be able to accomplish the tasks i'm supposed to be good at with regularity. Not every time, but with a reasonable expectation of success; I am a silver-tongued paladin of some god of trickery, i should be able to, more often than not, succeed at lying to people. And usually, to make that happen, i need the class features that build on those competencies.

[Mastikator]

This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

Why do you want to kill NPCs? Don't be murderhobos.

[aadder]

Why do you want to kill NPCs? Don't be murderhobos.

I don't want to kill NPC's. But, the total inability to do so is bad because it contributes to the overall feeling that our characters are not, in fact, all that powerful or relevant.

[MaxWilson]

This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

So... what happens next? Do you feel any better now that you know what the problem is? Do you talk to any of the other players to see if they have similar feelings about NPC non-reactions and number treadmills (vs. wanting to occasionally see "old" monsters recur to show progress)? The DM may listen to a group concern if it is truly a group concern.

[aadder]

So... what happens next? Do you feel any better now that you know what the problem is? Do you talk to any of the other players to see if they have similar feelings about NPC non-reactions and number treadmills (vs. wanting to occasionally see "old" monsters recur to show progress)? The DM may listen to a group concern if it is truly a group concern.

i don't know. i have a character i want to play but i probably won't, just because he probably won't be competitive at higher levels and also i don't know how to make him go from "zero to hero" when he's already 60 and going from just some weak loser to demi-god in 6 months makes no sense to me.

The other players really like his DM style so i probably won't bring it up.

[neonchameleon]

My instinct at this point is to try offering to run a game. It sounds as if your DM is generally doing a lot well and one thing that I'd find very obnoxious. The scaling everything to you rather than having the challenges increase so at level 1 you're fighting an orc or a couple of goblins and at level 3 it's a couple of orcs with four goblin minions is aggravating. But he's not going to change unless he's a reason to or can see it done better. So offer to run - and demonstrate. (Don't be ham fisted, just do it).

[MaxWilson]

i don't know. i have a character i want to play but i probably won't, just because he probably won't be competitive at higher levels and also i don't know how to make him go from "zero to hero" when he's already 60 and going from just some weak loser to demi-god in 6 months makes no sense to me.

The other players really like his DM style so i probably won't bring it up.

If you do want to keep playing with the group, one option is to just shrug and stick to playing overpowered combos. In this case you're getting your jollies from ROFLstomping whatever the DM sends at the party, instead of ROFLstomping average mooks. Trying to directly compete with the DM this way is kind of an acquired taste but if you do want this kind of thing let me be the first to suggest you read up on Shepherd Druids (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?588987-Circle-of-the-Shepherd-Druid-Guide-to-Fuzzy-Fury) and/or peruse LudicSavants thread on character ideas (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds).

Personally I feel that no gaming is better than bad gaming so in your place I would just quit, but if you're determined to remain you might as well play an overpowered PC.

[aadder]

If you do want to keep playing with the group, one option is to just shrug and stick to playing overpowered combos. In this case you're getting your jollies from ROFLstomping whatever the DM sends at the party, instead of ROFLstomping average mooks. Trying to directly compete with the DM this way is kind of an acquired taste but if you do want this kind of thing let me be the first to suggest you read up on Shepherd Druids (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?588987-Circle-of-the-Shepherd-Druid-Guide-to-Fuzzy-Fury) and/or peruse LudicSavants thread on character ideas (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds).

well unfortunately the build i -wanted- to run was a dual-wielding Beast barbarian but i have zero faith in that being competitive beyond level 6 or so

[Unoriginal]

well unfortunately the build i -wanted- to run was a dual-wielding Beast barbarian but i have zero faith in that being competitive beyond level 6 or so

Why do you believe that?

[aadder]

Why do you believe that?

Because generally speaking, the best builds are spellcasters, ideally multiclassing to bring in combinations of buffs. I just got done playing a Fighter/Wizard multiclass and using shadow blade with 3+ attacks a turn is way more powerful than anything a barbarian can do. Paladins, especially paladin/sorcerer multiclasses, will blow barbarians out of the water too. And both of those generally have higher AC values.

[MaxWilson]

well unfortunately the build i -wanted- to run was a dual-wielding Beast barbarian but i have zero faith in that being competitive beyond level 6 or so


Because generally speaking, the best builds are spellcasters, ideally multiclassing to bring in combinations of buffs. I just got done playing a Fighter/Wizard multiclass and using shadow blade with 3+ attacks a turn is way more powerful than anything a barbarian can do. Paladins, especially paladin/sorcerer multiclasses, will blow barbarians out of the water too. And both of those generally have higher AC values.

100% correct, unfortunately. Dual wielding Beast Barb is exactly as good/bad you think it is.

[aadder]

So i recently talked to my DM, and i wanted to explain to him that my problem with playing lower level characters is that he portrays them as being only a little better at things than an average person, and that that's not normal to DnD.

And he was very adamant that low-level characters are only a little better than average people.

And i am very mad because i thought this was a place we could connect with and fix this. Like, DM, i need you to let low-level characters seem like kind of cool so i don't feel pressured to play high levels. And apparently he's very much not agreeing with this.

[Sigreid]

This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

Hate that. it's just another kind of railroading. Sounds like your DM has played too many video games where the NPCs are marked as essential.

[Unoriginal]

So i recently talked to my DM, and i wanted to explain to him that my problem with playing lower level characters is that he portrays them as being only a little better at things than an average person, and that that's not normal to DnD.

And he was very adamant that low-level characters are only a little better than average people.

And i am very mad because i thought this was a place we could connect with and fix this. Like, DM, i need you to let low-level characters seem like kind of cool so i don't feel pressured to play high levels. And apparently he's very much not agreeing with this.

Have you tried telling him you would be fine with low-level characters being only a little better than average people at the start if it was actually shown you got better as things went on and regular people stopped just considering you a little better than average?


This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

Yeah, that's just railroading. They can go do the adventure themselves if they're immortals.


100% correct, unfortunately.

That's not my experience, but eh.

[MaxWilson]

That's not my experience, but eh.

Maybe we're imagining different contexts then. I'm imagining a context where the DM is keeping relentless pressure on the PCs (because that's what this DM seems to do), and "competitive" means more than just "solid damage," more like "feels powerful even when the rest of the party is throwing around Tier 3 abilities in a Combat As Sport setting with lots of railroading, vs enemies who are few but powerful."

I don't allow Tasha's in play but IME Barbarians are generally pretty weak compared to the alternatives by level 8ish, and on paper I don't see anything in Beast that will change that in a Combat As Sport setting (level 6 has some potential in a CAW setting). The dual wielding damage is solid but unspectacular even with claws (on the order of 30ish damage per round for 4 attacks), and the level 10 rabid bite is fun and decent but ultimately will only result in 2-3 reaction attacks for maybe 30-50 damage per DAY. (Would be better if you could choose which attack it makes.)

Do we disagree about how much a Beast Barb 11ish will achieve, or just about whether that's enough to be fun when the DM is as described?

[aadder]

I don't allow Tasha's in play but IME Barbarians are generally pretty weak compared to the alternatives by level 8ish, and on paper I don't see anything in Beast that will change that in a Combat As Sport setting (level 6 has some potential in a CAW setting). The dual wielding damage is solid but unspectacular even with claws (on the order of 30ish damage per round for 4 attacks), and the level 10 rabid bite is fun and decent but ultimately will only result in 2-3 reaction attacks per DAY.


Yeah that's basically my math. 4 attacks (3 doing D6+6 and 1 doing D6+2) for 34 damage a turn is pretty good at level 6, and you can jump like crazy to set up flanks and get where you want to go.

But ultimately it's going to be really underpowered at higher levels. I DO plan to get 18 CON by level 8 which will make hitting with the rabies way easier and consistent. I see it basically as Smite i can use without spell slots. But still, underpowered.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah that's basically my math. 4 attacks (3 doing D6+6 and 1 doing D6+2) for 34 damage a turn is pretty good at level 6, and you can jump like crazy to set up flanks and get where you want to go.

But ultimately it's going to be really underpowered at higher levels. I DO plan to get 18 CON by level 8 which will make hitting with the rabies way easier and consistent. I see it basically as Smite i can use without spell slots. But still, underpowered.

Yeah, if you're fighting two CR 9 enemies with 150 HP each and resistance to magic weapons, doing 27ish HP of damage so you can contribute "your share" of the damage towards killing one of them every 1.5 rounds probably just won't feel narratively awesome in the same way that e.g. gesturing and banishing one with a word and a Portent will. Damage is just number games unless it reaches a certain threshold where you can finish off a wounded monster in one turn.

It's possible that something like a PAM/GWM Zealot 5+/Rune Knight 3 WOULD hit that decisive threshold when you Action Surge, but I don't see a pure Beast Barb getting there.

[aadder]

Y
It's possible that something like a PAM/GWM Zealot 5+/Rune Knight 3 WOULD hit that decisive threshold when you Action Surge, but I don't see a pure Beast Barb getting there.

Honestly i'm thinking going Rogue multiclass beacuse i'm swinging 2 shortsword attacks a turn that can trigger sneak attack damage. 4 attacks + sneak attack + intermittent rabies isnt' the -best- but it's not -awful-.

That being said that means i can't get the end-level barbarian stuff which is really unfortunate.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah, if you're fighting two CR 9 enemies with 150 HP each and resistance to magic weapons

Not sure what kind of enemies you're referring to here. What NPCs beside the Demilich are resistant against magic weapons?

[Cheesegear]

And he was very adamant that low-level characters are only a little better than average people.

Use a diagram.
Point to a Commoner stat block. Point to a PC stat block. The job should be halfway done.

Go to page 157 of the PHB, and multiply the values by 30, to get living expenses for the 'average person' per month. Don't worry. I've done it for you.

Wretched; -
Squalid; 30sp per month
Poor; 60sp
Modest; 30gp
Comfortable; 60gp
Wealthy; 120gp
Aristocratic; 300gp minimum, per month

That's what the average person for those wealth class categories has to live off of, per month.

Not convinced that PCs are skyrockets better than normal people?

Artificer; 123 gp of gear
Bard; 112gp
Barbarian; 72gp
Cleric; 153 gp
Druid; 65gp
Fighter; 213gp
Monk; 22gp
Paladin; 207gp
Ranger; 133gp
Rogue; 107gp
Sorcerer; 67gp
Warlock; 110gp
Wizard; 117gp

A Level 1 PC, with literally 0 xp, is sitting on enough wealth to last for a few months...And that's before you factor in additional gear, from your Background. Your Background is meant to make you awesome, compared to a Commoner. A Commoner doesn't have Proficiency in anything. Anyone with a Background, is sitting on at least two Proficiencies. Anyone with Class Levels, is sitting on at least two more. Plus all the gear that comes with it.

Your DM needs to read the Monster's Manual, and specifically Appendix B, which tells you how 'generic average' people actually work. Guards aren't worth ****, unless the DM is cheating or has some kind of fiat (e.g; I once saw a Dragon with Frightful Presence, and I saw my friends and family horrifically slaughtered by the same. Non-magical Intimidation just isn't the same anymore.)

Not convinced? **** it. You trip over a hostile enemy with CR<4...That includes CR0, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2...You get the idea. Some hostiles aren't worth anything. And yet;

30% - ~17cp
30% - ~14sp
10% - ~10ep
25% - ~10gp
5% - ~3pp

You kill a Goblin - one - and there's a 25% chance you pick up 10gp. If you go back to town you can live like [x], for [y] days. The 'average person', could make an actual living, hunting and killing Goblins and Kobolds.

Adventurers, hunt a lot more than Goblins.

When a 'mayor' says "I'll give you 100gp to murder some bandits." you take that ****ing deal. Even in a group of 5 with divided loot; 20gp is *goes checks living expenses per month*...A lot.

100 gp doesn't feel like a lot, because Plate Mail is 1500gp. A regular Longsword is 15gp. Pfft. What's 20gp? I can buy a Longsword have 5gp left over. That's nothing.

Uhh...Meanwhile, Commoners (go back to the statblock) are walking around with Clubs. With no abilities. No Fighting Styles. No spells. Not even any Proficiencies, and they only speak maybe two Languages that they were 'born' with. They don't even have max hit points.

Commoners are ****.
Commoners are the average person. A Level 1 PC is miles ahead of a Commoner. That's why Commoners have CR0. They're not a threat, and they're not cool. A Guard, similarly, isn't worth anything. The best part about a Guard is that they have +1 STR, DEX and CON. Is that it? Yes. Also they have moderate AC, which is their gear - not themselves. Again. No Fighting styles. No spells. Proficient in Perception with no Wisdom bonus...Woo...


Like, DM, i need you to let low-level characters seem like kind of cool...

The problem is that it seems like with 'character growth' nonsense you were talking about earlier, the DM is comparing a Level 1 PC, to a Level 10 PC, and that's why Level 1 seems lame.
When you compare Level 1 PC, to a CR0 NPC, the differences begin to stack up quite quickly.

A Guard (CR 1/8); AC 16, HP 11, with a Spear (one-handed). Doesn't seem too hot.

Any Paladin or Fighter walking into Town at Level 1, in their Chain, Shield and Martial weapon, will kick the **** out of them. Guards should be wary of all PCs - but not hostile - because PCs are a threat. But, that said, unless something horrific has happened, the Guards can't actually do anything unless they're in great numbers (e.g; Outnumbering the PCs 2-1).

[Glorthindel]

Maybe your solution is to point your DM to this thread. You get slammed pretty hard the first couple of pages before the problem became apparent, so he might take the comments on board more readily than with a thread that was more one-sided (and you might convince him better to read it if you mention the thread criticises both of you)

[RSP]

I’d really recommend finding a new group, possibly online or something (d20 or FGU are good virtual tabletops). Play with them for a bit and see what you like or don’t like.

Perhaps this will let you game the way you want and take the pressure off gaming with your college buddies. That is, if you get what you want from the new campaign, maybe you can roll with your friends campaign not being exactly what you want.

[Xervous]

I’ll second the comparison to commoners and guards. This could lead into questions like “how many guards/mayors are this powerful?” but I’d steer clear of questioning the campaign setting too overtly. That stuff can get touchy in a flash.

[MaxWilson]

Not sure what kind of enemies you're referring to here. What NPCs beside the Demilich are resistant against magic weapons?

Sorry, typo. Meant nonmagical. Specifically in my head I was imagining a couple of Glabrezu, but it could just as easily be giants or something. Key point: dual-wielding Beast doesn't do enough damage to take one down solo in less than four or five rounds. Do we disagree about what Beast can accomplish, or just about whether it's enough to feel awesome in this DM's game?

[quindraco]

This.

Every NPC that we're not explicitly supposed to kill is built to be impossibly leveled so we CAN'T kill it.

That's immediate grounds for quitting the campaign and finding a DM who isn't abusive.

Just caught up from that post to this one, and nothing you've said has given me any reason to think otherwise. Player agency is at the core of D&D, and the game is incredibly boring without it. If your DM is going to stick you firmly on rails and your entire level of decision-making is how to get through each fight, bail, and bail hard. Go find a DM who will let your character make choices that matter.

[Cygnia]

The other players really like his DM style so i probably won't bring it up.

Quit the game and group. You're not having fun and if the other players don't want to see there's a problem with this GM, it's not worth the frustration.

[stoutstien]

Quit the game and group. You're not having fun and if the other players don't want to see there's a problem with this GM, it's not worth the frustration.

That's really the clutch of the issue. The DM might be catering to the largest portion of the player group but without actually hearing the DMs reasoning it's all conjecture. Best bet is to find a like minded group.

[Corsair14]

So i recently talked to my DM, and i wanted to explain to him that my problem with playing lower level characters is that he portrays them as being only a little better at things than an average person, and that that's not normal to DnD.

And he was very adamant that low-level characters are only a little better than average people.

And i am very mad because i thought this was a place we could connect with and fix this. Like, DM, i need you to let low-level characters seem like kind of cool so i don't feel pressured to play high levels. And apparently he's very much not agreeing with this.

Low level characters ARE only slightly better than average people. They may have fairly better stats and the will to go do something. But a blacksmith or armor smith IS better than the PCs at early levels at their field. A sage knows more than any PC knows in his field. Town guards are a mix of mostly level 0 and 1s fighters with some higher level sergeants and officers. Your local clergy will run the gamut between 0 level acolytes and high level priests possibly able to cast resurrection.

The difference is that PCs are trying to improve, are willing to go out and do things knowing the chances of survival are fairly low(at least in my games). Town people are just that, NPCs run by the DM who do all the mundane stuff required when the players are looking. You want fame and glory, great, do something worthy of fame and glory that people would notice. Killed a dragon in town square that was destroying things and demanding maidens, the town will have seen that and should react accordingly. Going off to some dank dungeon or remote mountains and win over some earth shattering monster and his minions, who is going to know? Sure you haul a bunch of treasure back, what are you going to spend it on? Sure you can order a full set of plate mail for 1500gp and it will be ready in a year or so, which by then you likely already will have found something better or magical and might be halfway around the world. No such thing as off the shelf plate mail.

One major benefit of 2nd edition was it actually had a purpose for large amounts of gold. Almost every class had benefits for building multi-hundred thousand GP holds and castles and then you had to pay people who lived and worked there. To the point they made an entire book on the subject(which is mostly still usable in 5e) and a great book to pick up. Complete Book of Castles I think. 5E has gotten away from the idea of owning your own fortress and having henchmen and hirelings. You get up to the higher levels, 9 or so for most of these classes(yes 9 was considered higher level in 2nd) and people start to somehow hear about your exploits and most classes start to gather followers. Paladins and fighter might get a small host of troops, priests gain acolytes, I forget wht rangers get, wizards start getting people wanting to be apprentices.

As for challenge though, it did the same thing as 5e though. Your encounters generally were enough to challenge you and possibly kill characters. You are 9th level, why waste your time on goblins, send some minions to go kill them, there are demons over here that need smiting. The idea of fame and fortune is more of a social thing in game provided people have had reason to have heard of you. It would be boring if you wandered into every battle and people just ran away.

[KorvinStarmast]

i don't know. i have a character i want to play but i probably won't ... {snip} The other players really like his DM style so i probably won't bring it up. Well there you go. It isn't all about you. It's about a group of people getting together to have fun. You are not adapting to the group's norms. The suggestion to find another group is a good one, numerous people have made that suggestion.
The alternate sugestion, to learn how to better fit into the group norms, has also been made. Your choice. Pick the one that gives you the chance to enjoy the game.

So i recently talked to my DM {snip} And i am very mad Hmm, the getting along well with others bit does not seem to be your strong suit. You are getting mad, with your friend, about a game?

"Find a different group" looks like your best bet for having fun rather than frustration.

EDIT: just saw stoutstien's post. I think that's a solid read on the situation you are in. :smallcool:

[aadder]

Okay so he asked what would help accommodate me, because we're starting a new campaign, but he's not budging on starting at level 1, he's not budging on portraying PC's as only a little better than the average person, and he's not budging on canonically weak-to-strong narrative. They need to start as young or inexperienced or lacking in knowledge.

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

[aadder]

Maybe your solution is to point your DM to this thread. You get slammed pretty hard the first couple of pages before the problem became apparent, so he might take the comments on board more readily than with a thread that was more one-sided (and you might convince him better to read it if you mention the thread criticises both of you)

I mean i would really prefer not to; i have a lot of gaming dirty laundry that he could easily post that i am very embarrassed about.

[Amnestic]

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

DM yourself instead :D

[Unoriginal]

Okay so he asked what would help accommodate me, because we're starting a new campaign, but he's not budging on starting at level 1, he's not budging on portraying PC's as only a little better than the average person, and he's not budging on canonically weak-to-strong narrative. They need to start as young or inexperienced or lacking in knowledge.

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

Would you be ok with starting only a little better than the average person and then becoming much better while those average persons stay average?

Instead of the "the NPCs will always be stronger than the PCs unless they're meant to be killed" world your DM ran previously?

[aadder]

Would you be ok with starting only a little better than the average person and then becoming much better while those average persons stay average?

Instead of the "the NPCs will always be stronger than the PCs unless they're meant to be killed" world your DM ran previously?

I guess, but i'd have to start over character-wise.

We've talked about this a lot, that I don't have the ability to write characters that aren't good at things.

When i build a character, i go all the way in on it. I imagine them in cinematic sequences, jumping off of ship masts, or shaping giant walls of stone, or summoning a giant, intimidating Stand that rips their enemy's head off.
i assign music to them, i spin on every detail of their build, i practice a voice for them, i pace-out how i want them to talk to people
i can't just make up a few traits and go, that's not possible.

So i COULD go for that, but i'd have to learn how to write characters that aren't cool.

[Unoriginal]

I guess, but i'd have to start over character-wise.

Do you think you would enjoy such a campaign?

[Segev]

It may not help with what seems to be the core problem, here, but if you outline what you want your character to be, maybe we can help come up with how to start him earlier in his story to fit in.

[Xervous]

Okay so he asked what would help accommodate me, because we're starting a new campaign, but he's not budging on starting at level 1, he's not budging on portraying PC's as only a little better than the average person, and he's not budging on canonically weak-to-strong narrative. They need to start as young or inexperienced or lacking in knowledge.

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

Tell him that you’d like to not be constantly surrounded by NPCs who are better than you or otherwise outlandishly competent for their station. Mention any of the awesome NPCs you did like, but highlight how it doesn’t make much sense for Superman to be lounging around with green lanterns telling Green Arrow to go stop a meteor from wiping out a town. They could trivially deal with it, so why is it a problem that requires they call GA?

If you don’t get to revisit static reference points you don’t get to feel how much you’ve progressed. Coming across the same mayor 5-10 levels later the PCs should impress him with their deeds and be capable of wiping the floor with his bodyguards if he proves to be a terrible person.

The journey he promises is ever uphill, but there should be time to stop, relax, and marvel at everything and everyone you’ve climbed past. Otherwise you’re always just rolling a boulder uphill like Sisyphus.

[Composer99]

aadder, if a compromise cannot be reached between your and the DM's gameplay preferences, and if the other players are all happy with the DM's preferences, then it might be time to amiably part ways with this group, with respect to playing D&D, and find other things to do with them if you wish to remain friends and/or in contact with them.

Alternately, if time permits, and presuming that you have ways to have fun at game sessions with this DM and player group in spite of your divergent gameplay preferences, you can find another game to play as well as the gaming table that has been the focus of this thread, whether using D&D or another system, where the other players and DM have gameplay preferences more closely aligned to yours.

Also alternately, if you are starting a new game, you can offer to DM it yourself. While this has been suggested on several occasions; however, you don't seem to have had anything to say on the matter. Have you offered to run a game only to have the rest of the group wish to stick with the current DM? Do you not feel confident in running a game? (Fair enough in either case.)

[MaxWilson]

Okay so he asked what would help accommodate me, because we're starting a new campaign, but he's not budging on starting at level 1, he's not budging on portraying PC's as only a little better than the average person, and he's not budging on canonically weak-to-strong narrative. They need to start as young or inexperienced or lacking in knowledge.

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

Ask for more Conan-style mookfights against lots of mooks. At 5th level, fighting ten times your number in cultists is difficult enough to be challenging, but possible, whereas for a normal person it would be impossible.


I guess, but i'd have to start over character-wise.

We've talked about this a lot, that I don't have the ability to write characters that aren't good at things.

When i build a character, i go all the way in on it. I imagine them in cinematic sequences, jumping off of ship masts, or shaping giant walls of stone, or summoning a giant, intimidating Stand that rips their enemy's head off.
i assign music to them, i spin on every detail of their build, i practice a voice for them, i pace-out how i want them to talk to people
i can't just make up a few traits and go, that's not possible.

So i COULD go for that, but i'd have to learn how to write characters that aren't cool.

Or just learn how to be cool starting very early, possibly at first level.

Variant human starting with Mobile, Crossbow Expert, or Sharpshooter feat has that potential. You're not as cool yet as you someday will be but e.g. (Sharpshooter) you can still shoot the eye out of a sparrow at two hundred yards, more than half the time. Or if Mobile, you are still nigh-impossible to pin down in melee, especially on difficult terrain. You won't have much HP yet but you're already awesome--just don't get OVERCONFIDENT about your awesomeness.

[Unoriginal]

Or just learn how to be cool starting very early, possibly at first level.

Variant human starting with Mobile, Crossbow Expert, or Sharpshooter feat has that potential. You're not as cool yet as you someday will be but e.g. (Sharpshooter) you can still shoot the eye out of a sparrow at two hundred yards, more than half the time. Or if Mobile, you are still nigh-impossible to pin down in melee, especially on difficult terrain. You won't have much HP yet but you're already awesome--just don't get OVERCONFIDENT about your awesomeness.

A cool thing for lvl 1: A first level character with 16 in STR can KO any Commoner with one punch. It's pretty awesome IMO.


I guess, but i'd have to start over character-wise.

We've talked about this a lot, that I don't have the ability to write characters that aren't good at things.

When i build a character, i go all the way in on it. I imagine them in cinematic sequences, jumping off of ship masts, or shaping giant walls of stone, or summoning a giant, intimidating Stand that rips their enemy's head off.
i assign music to them, i spin on every detail of their build, i practice a voice for them, i pace-out how i want them to talk to people
i can't just make up a few traits and go, that's not possible.

So i COULD go for that, but i'd have to learn how to write characters that aren't cool.

Question, aader: does your DM let the players use their character's Background features?

'cause there are quite a few Background features that let you show you're awesome at lvl 1.

For example, the Athlete's Echoes of Victory


Echoes of Victory
You have attracted admiration among spectators, fellow athletes, and trainers in the region that hosted your past athletic victories. When visiting any settlement within 100 miles of where you grew up, there is a 50 percent chance you can find someone there who admires you and is willing to provide information and temporary shelter.

Between adventures, you might compete in athletic events sufficient enough to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, as per the "Practicing a Profession" downtime activity in chapter 8 of the Players Handbook.

[Aett_Thorn]

I guess, but i'd have to start over character-wise.

We've talked about this a lot, that I don't have the ability to write characters that aren't good at things.

When i build a character, i go all the way in on it. I imagine them in cinematic sequences, jumping off of ship masts, or shaping giant walls of stone, or summoning a giant, intimidating Stand that rips their enemy's head off.
i assign music to them, i spin on every detail of their build, i practice a voice for them, i pace-out how i want them to talk to people
i can't just make up a few traits and go, that's not possible.

So i COULD go for that, but i'd have to learn how to write characters that aren't cool.

So when you're developing characters, you are seeing them as already having done these great and wild things, and not seeing them as wanting to be able to do them in the future? Just out of curiosity, but why is it so hard for you to imagine these things as being in your characters future versus their past?

I have a very similar character creation process as you (maybe except for the music), and I really think about how I want these characters to interact with the world going forward based on their past experiences. Sure, that dashing, athletic ne'er-do-well has them as part of his past as well, but also that is how he will present himself in the story as actions that he will attempt to do. An iron-clad melee front liner who just wants to hit people with a stick is going to take different actions in an environment than the nimble rogue who might swing on ropes and dart around the battlefield. But that's all part of how they will play out in the future. Shaped by the past, of course.

It seems to me as if you are taking a character concept, and putting that ALL in the backstory, when instead it should be in both the back- and fore-story. Some of that may be on how the DM shapes the world (and I certainly have problems with that based on what you've said here), but some of it is on you for how firm you are in resisting change to how you see your characters. Tying power to personality can cause problems, as you've noticed.

[OldTrees1]

Okay so he asked what would help accommodate me, because we're starting a new campaign, but he's not budging on starting at level 1, he's not budging on portraying PC's as only a little better than the average person, and he's not budging on canonically weak-to-strong narrative. They need to start as young or inexperienced or lacking in knowledge.

So he wants to hear things, but those are the things i have a problem with, so i don't know what to say.

What about:
1) Could my character join when the party is Nth level? I could play a temporary character until then.
2) Could we continue to see weak characters as our characters grow stronger? That way it does not seem like we are always at the bottom of the totem pole?

[Lord Torath]

Ask: Can you have the NPCs treat us with appropriate respect? It's not fun being constantly talked down to by the quest giver, or treated as though nothing we do is of value. They don't need to bow and scrape, but just having them be friendly and acknowledge the risks we're taking on their behalf would be nice.

[aadder]

It may not help with what seems to be the core problem, here, but if you outline what you want your character to be, maybe we can help come up with how to start him earlier in his story to fit in.

So basically, here's what i got:

He's a semi-retired military officer and noble that is showing up at the agency (our campaign is basically candlekeep with the throughline that our players are all members in an investigative agency) with the intention to invest in it, and tag along. He's generally affable and disarming, with a growling but warm voice. He's a skilled fighter who wears sabers and a buckler on his back, with a belt of throwing knives. He has passing education in history, tactics, magic, and diplomacy.

He will NOT come off as a barbarian, but that's his main class, with Path of the Beast. His nature is not a beast so much as it is a constructed human from magic; i plan to reveal it when he goes into a rage, which i wont' do for a few sessions. His Beast Claws, Rage, and Bestial Soul instead represent just how durable his body is and how strong he is.

His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

But i can guarantee you it's NOT to make friends and grow as a person and uwu vewwy special bonding times wiff the gwoup! which is what we always get railroaded into.

I hate that.

I don't want to "Grow as a person". My characters are all grown as ****, they don't need to grow-up. I like them how they are. And i resent the idea that the DM can write my characters for me, which is what that essentially is.

[Lacco]

Ask: Can you have the NPCs treat us with appropriate respect? It's not fun being constantly talked down to by the quest giver, or treated as though nothing we do is of value. They don't need to bow and scrape, but just having them be friendly and acknowledge the risks we're taking on their behalf would be nice.

One of my first GM experiences had me do something similar to my players - it was a dissonance between player & GM expectations related to roleplay.

As usual, we had this righ, powerful person that had bodyguards and all, and our band of unruly, headstrong, smartmouth "heroes". The players were mostly in their late teens. I was 19 at that time.

What do the players do? Well, they talk in front of the NPC like they do not matter, are insulting, irritating, basically acting like level 20 characters while they were level 2.

Now of course they picked a fight and lost - the guards were level 4 and pulled no punches. "It was unfair!".

Yeah, it was. And it was an OOC issue that I should have addressed: I expected them to act like inexperienced adventurers - to at least act polite or carefully, they expected the world to eat from their hand because they have 2nd level.

Of course, we repeated this dance several times and in the end, we managed to agree to not play the game anymore - we switched to Shadowrun. This time, I explained there are no levels, no "balanced" combat. You pick a fight at a wrong time, you get killed. They were completely different group - they acted almost professional in some cases.

So maybe, if they are being talked down to... maybe they should take a look how they communicate (and no, cows are no argument). I learned my lesson long ago about this.

EDIT: A wise man once said (slightly modified): Man who argues with the DM is like train without wheels. Very soon get nowhere.

If the OP wants advice how to persuade the DM to give the characters some respect, I'll gladly provide pointers - after all, it's all a matter of communication. But we'll first have to take a look at how they communicate.

[cookieface]

Ask: Can you have the NPCs treat us with appropriate respect? It's not fun being constantly talked down to by the quest giver, or treated as though nothing we do is of value. They don't need to bow and scrape, but just having them be friendly and acknowledge the risks we're taking on their behalf would be nice.

Agreed. This should be the bare minimum, in my opinion.

From what I've seen on this thread, it sounds like your DM wants a "rags to riches" style hero's journey, but even when you get past the "rags" part they still never get you to the "riches" (in terms of feeling on top of the world, gaining respect, feeling heroic, etc). That's a major problem.

The NPCs you regularly interact with need to need you. By which I mean, if they are more powerful than you are, they should be the ones going on these quests -- if they are more powerful than your entire party, then the quests that are challenging to you should be easy for them. That should be an easy ask of your DM -- make the world you interact with have at least some verisimilitude. "Common folk" should be common. Your party should be extraordinary, in that they are better than ordinary.

Speak on your DM's terms. They want you to go from low power to high power? Then remind them that those terms are relative. Level one characters going against commoners are high power. Going against goblins, they are equal power. Going against Strahd, they are basically nothing. Meanwhile, if you get to level 10 and the guards are all Champions and the King is CR 15 equivalent, then level 10 PCs are still going to feel low power. Their zero-to-hero story is just zero-to-not-completely-helpless.

(If you play, and they still make these decisions to surround you with overpowered options, just do what your character would do in your place -- not risk their life for someone who can do the job without risk. Tell the King with dozens of OP guards, "You seem better equipped to fight this dragon than us, I see no reason to risk my life for you" and then walk away. Exercise your agency.)

[aadder]

So maybe, if they are being talked down to... maybe they should take a look how they communicate (and no, cows are no argument). I learned my lesson long ago about this.

That's not the issue. It's that all of the NPCs are big huge demon-lords, haughty Djinn, dragons, witches who command whole towns of minions, kings, dukes of cities, etc. We never interact with anyone that DOESN'T talk from a position of authority or give us orders.

So I always feel like i'm being **** on.

[Unoriginal]

So basically, here's what i got:

He's a semi-retired military officer and noble that is showing up at the agency (our campaign is basically candlekeep with the throughline that our players are all members in an investigative agency) with the intention to invest in it, and tag along. He's generally affable and disarming, with a growling but warm voice. He's a skilled fighter who wears sabers and a buckler on his back, with a belt of throwing knives. He has passing education in history, tactics, magic, and diplomacy.

He will NOT come off as a barbarian, but that's his main class, with Path of the Beast. His nature is not a beast so much as it is a constructed human from magic; i plan to reveal it when he goes into a rage, which i wont' do for a few sessions. His Beast Claws, Rage, and Bestial Soul instead represent just how durable his body is and how strong he is.

His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

For some reasons make me think of Sauron from LotR, in particular his Anathar/Lord of Gifts disguise.

Not that the character you're talking about here is very similar, but it can be an interesting path.

[Lacco]

That's not the issue. It's that all of the NPCs are big huge demon-lords, haughty Djinn, dragons, witches who command whole towns of minions, kings, dukes of cities, etc. We never interact with anyone that DOESN'T talk from a position of authority or give us orders.

So I always feel like i'm being **** on.

Okay.

How do you interact with these haughty Djinns, dragons and witches?

[Keltest]

That's not the issue. It's that all of the NPCs are big huge demon-lords, haughty Djinn, dragons, witches who command whole towns of minions, kings, dukes of cities, etc. We never interact with anyone that DOESN'T talk from a position of authority or give us orders.

So I always feel like i'm being **** on.

Frankly, thems the rubs of playing in the big leagues. If you're Crazy Awesome Guy, then you're going to be opposed by threats that Ordinarily Awesome Guy can't handle. Ordinary bandits want nothing to do with you, and you're too important to muddle with the peasantry often.

[Unoriginal]

We never interact with anyone that DOESN'T talk from a position of authority or give us orders.

Not even the minions of the bad guys and lords?


Frankly, thems the rubs of playing in the big leagues. If you're Crazy Awesome Guy, then you're going to be opposed by threats that Ordinarily Awesome Guy can't handle.

According to aader's previous posts, everyone they're talking with is a Super Crazy Awesome Guy that would handle the threats more easily.

[Kane0]

If your DM wants to discuss with you but not hear anything that deviates from how he thinks D&D should he played, perhaps suggest something else. Maybe Mutants & Masterminds would be a better fit for what you want and would have the default assumption of ‘comic book’ rather than ‘lord of the rings’ that your DM appears to be stuck on.

[aadder]

For some reasons make me think of Sauron from LotR, in particular his Anathar/Lord of Gifts disguise.

Not that the character you're talking about here is very similar, but it can be an interesting path.

I'm not familiar with that part of his history; what does that entail?


Okay.

How do you interact with these haughty Djinns, dragons and witches?

Depends on what they say?


Not even the minions of the bad guys and lords?


Yeah we basically never talk to someone that isn't a quest giver, the BBEG, or some tertiary character who is also bigger and badder than us. Unless it's like a shopkeeper that has no dialogue options.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah we basically never talk to someone that isn't a quest giver, the BBEG, or some tertiary character who is also bigger and badder than us. Unless it's like a shopkeeper that has no dialogue options.

So another thing to ask your DM for is a richer world with a wider range of NPCs in it. More "low fantasy" interactions.

Some of this you can do for yourself, by noticing and pursuing anomalies, "Where have all the farmers and their livestock gone?" and asking NPCs personal questions about themselves, trying to get to know them in character. But past a certain point it requires active buy-in from the DM and other players, or it's just a waste of table time.

[Composer99]

So basically, here's what i got:

He's a semi-retired military officer and noble that is showing up at the agency (our campaign is basically candlekeep with the throughline that our players are all members in an investigative agency) with the intention to invest in it, and tag along. He's generally affable and disarming, with a growling but warm voice. He's a skilled fighter who wears sabers and a buckler on his back, with a belt of throwing knives. He has passing education in history, tactics, magic, and diplomacy.

He will NOT come off as a barbarian, but that's his main class, with Path of the Beast. His nature is not a beast so much as it is a constructed human from magic; i plan to reveal it when he goes into a rage, which i wont' do for a few sessions. His Beast Claws, Rage, and Bestial Soul instead represent just how durable his body is and how strong he is.

His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

But i can guarantee you it's NOT to make friends and grow as a person and uwu vewwy special bonding times wiff the gwoup! which is what we always get railroaded into.

I hate that.

I don't want to "Grow as a person". My characters are all grown as ****, they don't need to grow-up. I like them how they are. And i resent the idea that the DM can write my characters for me, which is what that essentially is.

So, for what it's worth, even seasoned and experienced characters can experience character growth. Even granting that such growth usually occurs in the context of typical narrative fiction, which a D&D game isn't, it does not follow that, if your character is already "grown as <ahem>" that they do not have room for further growth. Both the examples of Jack Sparrow and Aragorn discussed previously experienced character growth in their respective arcs, despite being "grown as <ahem>" already.

Such growth need not conform to a pattern laid down by the DM, of course, but coming up with ways for your character to change over time - preferably in a way that sensibly and with due consideration of verisimilitude responds to events in the campaign - is hardly a terrible idea.

You mention "showing up at the agency [...] with the intention of [...] tag[ging] along", along with a "concealed motive". These characteristics might not be problem for your current game's "table culture", but then again, they might. A typical and sensible baseline expectation of player characters is that, when push comes to shove, they are committed to the success of the party as a whole. Playing a character who ends up being insufficiently committed to that success is usually going to be in bad form at the majority of gaming tables, so I do feel compelled to raise a note of caution here.



Frankly, thems the rubs of playing in the big leagues. If you're Crazy Awesome Guy, then you're going to be opposed by threats that Ordinarily Awesome Guy can't handle. Ordinary bandits want nothing to do with you, and you're too important to muddle with the peasantry often.

Even Pippin Took - of all people! - ended up being treated respectfully and with honour by many folk in Minas Tirith in The Return of the King (the novel version), partly on account of the (perhaps not entirely deserved) reputation he ended up having, and partly on account of being invested as a Guard of the Citadel.

Also, "opposed by threats that Ordinarily Awesome Guy can't handle" is not the same thing as rarely, if ever, being treated respectfully (or even with awe) by NPCs.

Also also, each of the categories of being that aadder mentioned in the post you replied to will eventually be outstripped by a typical party of PCs, save for demon-lords and the mightiest of dragons.

At some point, the likes of kings and dukes ought to be treating heroic PCs respectfully and entreating them to come help them with their problems, instead of treating them condescendingly and giving them orders that they expect to be obeyed.

[aadder]

So, for what it's worth, even seasoned and experienced characters can experience character growth. Even granting that such growth usually occurs in the context of typical narrative fiction, which a D&D game isn't, it does not follow that, if your character is already "grown as <ahem>" that they do not have room for further growth. Both the examples of Jack Sparrow and Aragorn discussed previously experienced character growth in their respective arcs, despite being "grown as <ahem>" already.

Such growth need not conform to a pattern laid down by the DM, of course, but coming up with ways for your character to change over time - preferably in a way that sensibly and with due consideration of verisimilitude responds to events in the campaign - is hardly a terrible idea.

You mention "showing up at the agency [...] with the intention of [...] tag[ging] along", along with a "concealed motive". These characteristics might not be problem for your current game's "table culture", but then again, they might. A typical and sensible baseline expectation of player characters is that, when push comes to shove, they are committed to the success of the party as a whole. Playing a character who ends up being insufficiently committed to that success is usually going to be in bad form at the majority of gaming tables, so I do feel compelled to raise a note of caution here.




Well that's why i dont' need to start at level 20; i'm cool with some development and growth. I just hate going from "useless chicken**** loser" to "literal god" in the space of a year. It makes no sense, and i dont' want to do it.

That's why i mentioned Aragorn at the outset; he starts competent, gets slightly more competent, gets personal growth. LotR isnt' the story of little teenage peepants whiner Aragorn becoming king of Gondor in a summer, and I feel like that's what we're expected to play.





Nah our group is cool with that. One of our players spent the entire last campaign with a demon in his head that then leapt out and was the boss of the entire campaign.

[RSP]

Well that's why i dont' need to start at level 20; i'm cool with some development and growth. I just hate going from "useless chicken**** loser" to "literal god" in the space of a year. It makes no sense, and i dont' want to do it.


I’m unsure what else you want from this thread at this point. You’ve stated multiple times you don’t want to play the campaign your DM is running, a style of campaign everyone else at the table apparently enjoys.

If you don’t want to play the campaign, don’t play the campaign: it’s really that simple. There’s plenty of other tables out there, but continuing to complain to this thread that you don’t want to play your DM’s games, isn’t going to change anything.

Why are you so against trying another table (be it virtual, AL or another home game - maybe even one you run)?

It comes down to this: you will never be happy wanting others to change into the people you want them to be; rather than accepting the people they are. This is true whether it’s your DM’s playstyle we’re talking about, or your spouse: it won’t ever happen.

I really suggest finding a group that more fits your playstyle.

[Stabbey]

I don't want to "Grow as a person". My characters are all grown as ****, they don't need to grow-up. I like them how they are. And i resent the idea that the DM can write my characters for me, which is what that essentially is.

Quick question: The PHB backgrounds include tables for "Personality Trait", "Ideal", "Bond", and "Flaw", each one-sentence lines. If you had to fill out one-sentence lines for each of those items for your character, in the "Flaw" item, would you put in "None, I am perfect in every way."

Because that's kinda how your description is coming across.


His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

But i can guarantee you it's NOT to make friends and grow as a person and uwu vewwy special bonding times wiff the gwoup! which is what we always get railroaded into.

D&D is a collaborative storytelling experience. Players cooperate to deal with things. No one can handle every situation on their own. Players are supposed to work together. It's not the story of one character and their solo adventures kicking butt on their own.

You don't have to participate in the social activities of the group outside of dungeons, but if you don't, you'll eventually get bored listening to the rest of the group doing the activities, and the rest of the group in turn will get bored listening to you doing your solo activities.

I'm also confused that your character is driven by a secret concealed motive which is really important to your character... but you don't know what it is. Your character's motivation seems like it should be an important thing to know.

This is a game played for fun. If you aren't having fun at the table, don't play in that game. Similarly, other people can tell when a player isn't having fun, and that can drag the experience down for the rest of them as well.

[aadder]

Quick question: The PHB backgrounds include tables for "Personality Trait", "Ideal", "Bond", and "Flaw", each one-sentence lines. If you had to fill out one-sentence lines for each of those items for your character, in the "Flaw" item, would you put in "None, I am perfect in every way."

Because that's kinda how your description is coming across.


No.

This character's flaws would be being deceitful, being selfish, being absolutely without mercy when pushed, and being bad at forming romantic ties.

There's a difference between being being having no flaws and not being weak and useless.


D&D is a collaborative storytelling experience. Players cooperate to deal with things. No one can handle every situation on their own. Players are supposed to work together. It's not the story of one character and their solo adventures kicking butt on their own.

You don't have to participate in the social activities of the group outside of dungeons, but if you don't, you'll eventually get bored listening to the rest of the group doing the activities, and the rest of the group in turn will get bored listening to you doing your solo activities.

Yeah, i know that. I just don't think every character's goal should be to make friends and become a more loving, social person who grew along the way and is now a pillar in their community, and that's kind of what gets impressed on us every time. Everyone becomes a folk hero, everyone makes all these friends. I don't want that for this guy.

I will play with the other characters, i will socialize, especially because my character has a desire to manipulate others, but he's not here to become the group dad and lead a sing-a-long on a camping trip. He's not that kind of person.

[Kane0]

“For every two NPCs we meet that are equal to or stronger than us, I want us to meet one that is weaker than us”

Bonus points if you go into Battlemaster or Mastermind because then you can assess with a class feature.

[OACSNY97]

Well so, one of my big things is that if i'm playing a melee class, and i tend to, i feel very insecure playing below having Extra Attack. Being able to swing twice makes me able to at least hit once with consistency. I can DO a thing. One attack is very liable to miss, in which case my cool guy dude man character just... did nothing that round.

But more broadly speaking, i just want to be able to accomplish the tasks i'm supposed to be good at with regularity. Not every time, but with a reasonable expectation of success; I am a silver-tongued paladin of some god of trickery, i should be able to, more often than not, succeed at lying to people. And usually, to make that happen, i need the class features that build on those competencies.

I think I understand part of your pain- not doing anything "effective" during a round stinks and missing two rounds out of a four or five round combat is even less fun. How often do you need to succeed for you to feel like you're good at the task? If the game's math is balanced assuming a 55 to 60% chance of success on attack roll, is that enough, or are you looking for greater than 75% chance of success? In other words, in something your character is supposed to be good at, should you do the thing on any roll greater than a 10 or on any roll greater than a 4 or 5?

I've played more 4e than 5e, but a string of poor dice luck in my 1st 4e game left me looking for combat actions ("powers" in 4e parlance) that had miss effects or no attack roll just so I didn't feel like I was wasting my turn. Is there a class you would consider playing that would either natively get you two attacks per round right away (i.e., 4e Ranger with Twin Strike) or permanent Advantage on your melee attack rolls if hitting in combat is a big part of what makes the game enjoyable?

I've seen lots of other posters suggesting that you GM for a while or look for a different group, etc, but has anyone suggested a different system- maybe 4e or 13th Age? I haven't played 13th Age yet, but between good reviews and a thought provoking book, I'm looking forward to doing so. In 4e, a paladin's "fire from the sky" (aka Divine Challenge) was really fun and didn't require a successful prior attack. I don't know if a system with "beat stick" characters with more buttons to push would help, but I also don't know if would hurt if you can sell your group on the idea.

[Cygnia]

Again, QUIT THIS GAME. QUIT THIS GROUP. QUIT THIS GM.

YOU ARE NOT A GOOD FIT.

[Corran]

This campaign sounds like it's going to be a waste of your time. If you dont want to lose touch with this group, ask them if you can still join from time to time as a guest (though dont stick to playing the same reoccuring NPC if that's the case, different one every time). One idea that might work (though most likely not), would be to play the sidekick of the party. Play a commoner at low level, start using the sidekick rules when the pc' have leveled up enough. This might convince your DM to exclude your character when it comes to following the predetermined path of character growth, but at the same time it leaves you with nothing. See if you can negotiate for your character to have something inetersting to do (assuming the DM is willing to let go off the spotlight from time to time). Talk to your DM about it and maybe even give it a few sessions if it sounds like it might work and you are ineterested in it. Meanwhile start looking for a new group or start working on a campaign that you could run for this group. Good luck.

[Unoriginal]

I'm not familiar with that part of his history; what does that entail?


So, in the backstory of the Lord of the Rings, a very swell guy named Annatar, aka the Lord of Gifts, showed up at the Elf-Smiths' forges and taught them how to solve the Elves' problem of their power diminishing. Using what they learned, the Elf-Smiths forged the 19 Rings of Power.

But as it turned out, Annatar was actually the evil demigod Sauron, who took the opportunity to learn all of the Elf-Smiths' secrets. He crafter the One Ring, which would have let him impose his authority on all the other Rings' users (and through them authority on the Ring users' people), except the three Elves who used the Rings then sensed that and removed them just in time and hid them. So Sauron just marched on the forges and got the 16 remaining Rings to distribute to his liking.



Even Pippin Took - of all people! - ended up being treated respectfully and with honour by many folk in Minas Tirith in The Return of the King (the novel version), partly on account of the (perhaps not entirely deserved) reputation he ended up having, and partly on account of being invested as a Guard of the Citadel.

Well he did retroactively deserve it when he solo'd an enormous troll, at the Black Gate.

[Stangler]

I think it can be hard when no one wants to change but generally speaking the dm gets there way for better or worse. Personally I think you have to buy in and get over yourself or find something else. Let go of the idea that there’s only one way to play D&D.

[Rukelnikov]

Yeah we basically never talk to someone that isn't a quest giver, the BBEG, or some tertiary character who is also bigger and badder than us. Unless it's like a shopkeeper that has no dialogue options.

It sounds like you are playing Diablo, are most of the sessions basically Combat with little to no roleplay?

[Amdy_vill]

I personally go with what ever the player wants. If you give me something written up even if it's just bullet point I will run with it if not you just an up incoming adventure one of the few adventurers with level who doesn't have a rep yet.

The books support you view more tho. The phb and dog call out how just having a level make you highly skilled and accomplished. Having a level is like being an Olympic level athlete in your field. The level one fighter over their is better at fighting then most battle field generals and comanders. Clerics are the best example. Clerics even Clerics without level are rare and renowned. You are some faithful, religious and strong gods will talk directly to you. Clerics without level are like living saints, player Clerics are like the pope or messiah of thier faith. Thier are people better then the players but those people are as exceptional as them. Their a reason in most settings everyone with any authority has and adventures background and level.

Thier is a happy medium here tho. You are renowned in your field and area. People who lived around you probably know you and anyone skilled in you fields probably knows of you. The best example of this would be Clerics. Irl do you know who the current leader of every minor religion is let alone who thier high ranking members are. Probably not but some in that religion or someone who studies religion in general probably know a reasonable number of them.

[aadder]

I think I understand part of your pain- not doing anything "effective" during a round stinks and missing two rounds out of a four or five round combat is even less fun. How often do you need to succeed for you to feel like you're good at the task? If the game's math is balanced assuming a 55 to 60% chance of success on attack roll, is that enough, or are you looking for greater than 75% chance of success? In other words, in something your character is supposed to be good at, should you do the thing on any roll greater than a 10 or on any roll greater than a 4 or 5?

Well Extra Attack is great because odds are, you hit at least once. If you're maxxing your To Hit modifiers and mix in Advantage, it's really hard to miss both swings. So there you go.

With skill checks, my feelings are that if my character is canonically "good" at a thing, they should succeed at a check to it most of the time. Not like, every time, but 67-75% of the time. And things you're bad at you fail at 67-75% of the time. I feel like with this DM I succeed on things i'm good at at low levels like 50% of the time. Hence why i always want to play higher. I feel like he doesn't ratchet down checks for low-level play, and he ratchets-up skill checks at high levels. Ie. I roll with something crazy like +15 to a Diplomacy roll but because it's all Demons with a DC 25 i still fail half the time.

[aadder]

It sounds like you are playing Diablo, are most of the sessions basically Combat with little to no roleplay?

It's more like the roleplay doesn't really change the course of the campaign. I feel like our "roleplay" is when we're prompted to respond to a specific point in the game, where we all walk into the spotlight and do a character for everyone to see, and then we put it on the fridge because we did such a good job.

I feel like the plot is planned-out so far in advance that our roleplaying doesnt' really matter other than to the DM's sense of our characters' "zero to hero" progression. This character reveals her years as a prisoner. This character announces she has regained her honor. This character would really like us to know this that or the other about themselves.

[Rukelnikov]

It's more like the roleplay doesn't really change the course of the campaign. I feel like our "roleplay" is when we're prompted to respond to a specific point in the game, where we all walk into the spotlight and do a character for everyone to see, and then we put it on the fridge because we did such a good job.

I feel like the plot is planned-out so far in advance that our roleplaying doesnt' really matter other than to the DM's sense of our characters' "zero to hero" progression. This character reveals her years as a prisoner. This character announces she has regained her honor. This character would really like us to know this that or the other about themselves.

I understand, its a railroad, I've played some of those, and when I realize nothing we do matters because its all part of the script I generally lose interest.

My question was more towards, don't you talk with innkeepers when you stay in a town or something? Are they basically bots that provide a service? That's why it sounded to me like you are playing Diablo, like those are not characters but "game features". Which in turn leads me to believe its more like a video game, there's nothing wrong with playing that way, but not everybody likes it.

[aadder]

My question was more towards, don't you talk with innkeepers when you stay in a town or something? Are they basically bots that provide a service? That's why it sounded to me like you are playing Diablo, like those are not characters but "game features". Which in turn leads me to believe its more like a video game, there's nothing wrong with playing that way, but not everybody likes it.

Well basically we just got done playing a year-long Avernus campaign, and before that it was a modified Saltmarsh campaign, and before that it was a modified campaign of his own design. It's been years since we've have a campaign where we just... encounter regular people. Every NPC is either PLOT CRITICAL QUEST-GIVER, UNKILLABLE DEMON THAT TALKS DOWN TO YOU, or UNNAMED GUY WHO WILL CEASE TO EXIST IN ONE MINUTE.

We never get to talk to just.... regular guys. Everyone is critical to the plot in some way and interacting with them won't really change the plot or reveal any information that isn't scheduled to be revealed, or they're so useless that there's no point in interacting with them.

[kingcheesepants]

So basically, here's what i got:

He's a semi-retired military officer and noble that is showing up at the agency (our campaign is basically candlekeep with the throughline that our players are all members in an investigative agency) with the intention to invest in it, and tag along. He's generally affable and disarming, with a growling but warm voice. He's a skilled fighter who wears sabers and a buckler on his back, with a belt of throwing knives. He has passing education in history, tactics, magic, and diplomacy.

He will NOT come off as a barbarian, but that's his main class, with Path of the Beast. His nature is not a beast so much as it is a constructed human from magic; i plan to reveal it when he goes into a rage, which i wont' do for a few sessions. His Beast Claws, Rage, and Bestial Soul instead represent just how durable his body is and how strong he is.

His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

But i can guarantee you it's NOT to make friends and grow as a person and uwu vewwy special bonding times wiff the gwoup! which is what we always get railroaded into.

I hate that.

I don't want to "Grow as a person". My characters are all grown as ****, they don't need to grow-up. I like them how they are. And i resent the idea that the DM can write my characters for me, which is what that essentially is.

I'm gonna give you some notes about ways that you can use the idea you have and fit it to a level 1 character who has a character arc that sees them grow. But before that I'm gonna echo a lot of other voices here and say it sounds a lot like you don't really gel with your group. You have a lot of very legitimate complaints and I don't think that having a character that fits more into the narrative is going to fix the foundational problems of the DMs style not being a good match for you. Play some other games with your friends (another RPG, video games, sports, watch movies whatever) or find someone else to DM. With that caveat here's my input on your guy.

Your character is a semi-retired officer and noble. Great start. Take the noble background which gives History and Persuasion and the Position of Privilege feature all of these fit with what you've said so far, switch the bonus language to arcana prof and the tool to cartographer's tools (the cartographers tools represent your ability to read a map and such for tactics). Then the important part, for your ideal go with Power. You're physically strong but that wasn't enough to keep your house from near ruin. You need to make connections with important people, acquire money and powerful magical artifacts in order to make your house the greatest in the land. You're joining this agency with the goal of acquiring as much power (political, economic, magical, physical) as you can. You know that this agency deals with all sorts of arcane things and powerful people and this is a great chance to make some connections. In order to save your house of course, and to help all those commoners that you are in charge of.

So what's the character growth and arc? Well you start out as a near impoverished minor noble with a middling military career who barely saw any action. You're having a mid life crisis basically. You feel like you need to prove yourself and improve your standing and that of your house before it's too late. The growth comes from either being able to meet these goals or being able to evolve your own understanding of control and responsibility. Maybe you start off with a pretty simple view of power equals money and strength and eventually you come to realize the value of subtler forms of influence and soft power or come to a greater acceptance that maybe your own position isn't that important in the grand scheme of things and learning to look out for other people rather than himself. As for why you're not that good at fighting, well you're retired and haven't fought in a while, also working as an adventurer and investigator is a lot different than working as an officer. You're relatively inexperienced in this particular field but you're a smart guy with a lot of drive and ambition, you'll figure it out.

[aadder]

Well you start out as a near impoverished minor noble with a middling military career who barely saw any action. You're having a mid life crisis basically. You feel like you need to prove yourself and improve your standing and that of your house before it's too late.

As for why you're not that good at fighting, well you're retired and haven't fought in a while, also working as an adventurer and investigator is a lot different than working as an officer. You're relatively inexperienced in this particular field but you're a smart guy with a lot of drive and ambition, you'll figure it out.

Well the problem i have there is that i basically don't have a class anymore, because Barbarian-via-synthetically-created-human WAS his class. He can't be physically weak, inexperienced, and sucky, but also a macigally-created supersoldier trying to create a synthetic child, which i decided was his goal today.

[kingcheesepants]

Well the problem i have there is that i basically don't have a class anymore, because Barbarian-via-synthetically-created-human WAS his class. He can't be physically weak, inexperienced, and sucky, but also a macigally-created supersoldier trying to create a synthetic child, which i decided was his goal today.

Even at level 1 he won't be physically weak, inexperienced and sucky though. If you're doing point buy with a Str 16 that puts you as significantly higher than any ordinary human (who has 10, and something like a guard has 13), in fact at 16 you'd have the exact same Str as a riding horse. I wouldn't call a guy who's as physically strong as a horse weak by any measure. And if you're rolling for stats you can have even higher numbers. At level 1 you have a prof bonus of 2. Sure that's not a lot but it means you're hitting more often than the average guard or orc even before any class features. Which oh yeah you get a bunch of class features that make you significantly more of a threat than the average solider. You're inexperienced at certain things such as fighting monsters and adventuring. But you still have more experience than your run of the mill guy. You were a solider and you have combat experience and tactical experience but you've been out of the game long enough that some of those things may be rusty and some of those things may not transfer over to being good at adventuring. After all large unit group fighting soldiers do is way different than the kind of shenanigans the usual party gets up to.

[aadder]

Even at level 1 he won't be physically weak, inexperienced and sucky though. If you're doing point buy with a Str 16 that puts you as significantly higher than any ordinary human (who has 10, and something like a guard has 13), in fact at 16 you'd have the exact same Str as a riding horse.

Oh -I- know that.

My DM doesn't, though.

[kingcheesepants]

Oh -I- know that.

My DM doesn't, though.

I don't know man, maybe show him the stat blocks and explain that yes you are inexperienced and weak but that would be compared to dragons and warlords not compared to the masses. Kinda like how a minor league athlete doesn't really compare to a major league player but he'd be far and away the best in the company softball game. You're the minor league athlete and are working your way to get to the big leagues but your local tanner or smith isn't even playing the same game.

But honestly I think I'd probably do something else with your friends and then find another group to get your D&D fix with. It really sounds like you and the DM aren't compatible.

[Segev]

So basically, here's what i got:

He's a semi-retired military officer and noble that is showing up at the agency (our campaign is basically candlekeep with the throughline that our players are all members in an investigative agency) with the intention to invest in it, and tag along. He's generally affable and disarming, with a growling but warm voice. He's a skilled fighter who wears sabers and a buckler on his back, with a belt of throwing knives. He has passing education in history, tactics, magic, and diplomacy.

He will NOT come off as a barbarian, but that's his main class, with Path of the Beast. His nature is not a beast so much as it is a constructed human from magic; i plan to reveal it when he goes into a rage, which i wont' do for a few sessions. His Beast Claws, Rage, and Bestial Soul instead represent just how durable his body is and how strong he is.

His concealed motive is basically to acquire as much magical artifacts and money to.... I don't know. Haven't gotten that far.

But i can guarantee you it's NOT to make friends and grow as a person and uwu vewwy special bonding times wiff the gwoup! which is what we always get railroaded into.

I hate that.

I don't want to "Grow as a person". My characters are all grown as ****, they don't need to grow-up. I like them how they are. And i resent the idea that the DM can write my characters for me, which is what that essentially is.

What about starting at level 1 prevents this concept?

I will note that the "hidden agenda" and "tagging along" notions could be seen as disruptive to party unity. I would, as a DM, also be concerned at an expressed disinterest in bonding with the group. In my experience, PCs that don't have a bond with the group wind up with players feeling ostracized from it, and have a tendency to disrupt play in ways that are not fun for the table as a whole.

I think it also fair to assume that, if one PC is already established and cool, so might the others be. So "tagging along" might come off as condescending, even if that's not how you mean it.

All of that said, I don't see anything inherently impossible as a level 1 character, here. Even "not revealing" the beast transformation powers until later on is fine; you can always technically have them and just "never use them" until level 3 (when the mechanics say you have them).

[aadder]

What about starting at level 1 prevents this concept?


All of that said, I don't see anything inherently impossible as a level 1 character, here. Even "not revealing" the beast transformation powers until later on is fine; you can always technically have them and just "never use them" until level 3 (when the mechanics say you have them).

Because the mechanics of the game are such that low-level characters aren't good at things, at least the way my DM plays. In his conceit, PC's at level 1 are slightly better than your average person; they're like the guy at work that was a student athlete in high school. That's not the equivalent of synthetic-magic-created-supersoldier.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm going to put another hat on the stack of 'keep them as friends if you can/want, but find a new group'. Based on the tone of your posts here and the wording of your replies, you don't simply have a different playstyle/set of interests than the rest of the group, you seem outright contemptuous of how they like to play the game. Assuming you do want to keep them as friends, and also assuming you're not a incredibly good liar, they're likely to pick up on it if they haven't already and it would rapidly poison the relationship. For the sake of your out-of-game interactions, politely part ways and seek out a group that overlaps better.

[aadder]

Based on the tone of your posts here and the wording of your replies, you don't simply have a different playstyle/set of interests than the rest of the group, you seem outright contemptuous of how they like to play the game.

I don't have contempt for them, i just don't agree with it. I talked to my brother about this and the way i phrased it is they have a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction of DnD. High melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc. My playstyle is more influenced by Lord of the Rings and just anime as a genre. Characters can start out cool, low fantasy is fine, politics and interactions are built more on universal human experiences and emotion.

Our first campaign was fine because it was my first campaign and i didn't mind playing like that, because i was playing a comedy character. I was doing the whole hits-on-everyone, party mouth, nonsense dude persona (though i was NOT a bard, because doing that as a bard is overdone to death), and i continued to play characters like that. But 18 months ago my party said that they don't want me playing those kinds of characters anymore because they're tired of showboating, so i said okay.

But, if you want me to take it seriously, i'm gonna take it seriously. I'm gonna build a cool goddamn character with a goddamn history and assigned music and montages and a voice i do and a heroforge design and everything.

I can't take it seriously AND be a suck-ass nerd from suckburg.

[RSP]

I don't have contempt for them, i just don't agree with it. I talked to my brother about this and the way i phrased it is they have a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction of DnD. High melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc. My playstyle is more influenced by Lord of the Rings and just anime as a genre. Characters can start out cool, low fantasy is fine, politics and interactions are built more on universal human experiences and emotion.

Our first campaign was fine because it was my first campaign and i didn't mind playing like that, because i was playing a comedy character. I was doing the whole hits-on-everyone, party mouth, nonsense dude persona (though i was NOT a bard, because doing that as a bard is overdone to death), and i continued to play characters like that. But 18 months ago my party said that they don't want me playing those kinds of characters anymore because they're tired of showboating, so i said okay.

But, if you want me to take it seriously, i'm gonna take it seriously. I'm gonna build a cool goddamn character with a goddamn history and assigned music and montages and a voice i do and a heroforge design and everything.

I can't take it seriously AND be a suck-ass nerd from suckburg.

Yes, I believe this was exactly the contempt the previous poster was referring to. The rest of the group and DM probably will not feel great about you expressing how little you think of their idea of fun.

[Segev]

Because the mechanics of the game are such that low-level characters aren't good at things, at least the way my DM plays. In his conceit, PC's at level 1 are slightly better than your average person; they're like the guy at work that was a student athlete in high school. That's not the equivalent of synthetic-magic-created-supersoldier.

Does he put you against creatures that break bounded accuracy? Or set skill DCs at 20+ regularly? Both are incorrect things to be doing by D&D 5e's design parameters. Or is it just the attitude the NPCs have that's a problem? I fully sympathize with that being an issue, and am not dismissing it; I am just trying to make sure I understand what the problem actually is.

If you make a level 1 barbarian with the usual rules for building a PC and send him into this game with the background you want him to have, what would you like to see him doing that you expect he wouldn't be able to, and what do you expect to happen that would undermine your conception of him as a cool and capable magically-created supersoldier?

[stoutstien]

I don't have contempt for them, i just don't agree with it. I talked to my brother about this and the way i phrased it is they have a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction of DnD. High melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc. My playstyle is more influenced by Lord of the Rings and just anime as a genre. Characters can start out cool, low fantasy is fine, politics and interactions are built more on universal human experiences and emotion.

Our first campaign was fine because it was my first campaign and i didn't mind playing like that, because i was playing a comedy character. I was doing the whole hits-on-everyone, party mouth, nonsense dude persona (though i was NOT a bard, because doing that as a bard is overdone to death), and i continued to play characters like that. But 18 months ago my party said that they don't want me playing those kinds of characters anymore because they're tired of showboating, so i said okay.

But, if you want me to take it seriously, i'm gonna take it seriously. I'm gonna build a cool goddamn character with a goddamn history and assigned music and montages and a voice i do and a heroforge design and everything.

I can't take it seriously AND be a suck-ass nerd from suckburg.

The DM is lacking experience and you sound like an insufferable individual as a player so this will form a continuous cycle of transgressions until someone's hand is forced and the negative results will encompass more than the game.

[Unoriginal]

I talked to my brother about this and the way i phrased it is they have a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction of DnD. High melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc. My playstyle is more influenced by Lord of the Rings and just anime as a genre. Characters can start out cool, low fantasy is fine, politics and interactions are built more on universal human experiences and emotion.

Just to say, but the Lord of the Rings IS a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction with high melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc.

Also anime isn't a genre.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't have contempt for them, i just don't agree with it. I talked to my brother about this and the way i phrased it is they have a very 1980's, high fantasy, Willow-esque construction of DnD. High melodrama, muppety characters, dumb names, a jillion inexplicable magical goings-on, etc. My playstyle is more influenced by Lord of the Rings and just anime as a genre. Characters can start out cool, low fantasy is fine, politics and interactions are built more on universal human experiences and emotion.

Our first campaign was fine because it was my first campaign and i didn't mind playing like that, because i was playing a comedy character. I was doing the whole hits-on-everyone, party mouth, nonsense dude persona (though i was NOT a bard, because doing that as a bard is overdone to death), and i continued to play characters like that. But 18 months ago my party said that they don't want me playing those kinds of characters anymore because they're tired of showboating, so i said okay.

But, if you want me to take it seriously, i'm gonna take it seriously. I'm gonna build a cool goddamn character with a goddamn history and assigned music and montages and a voice i do and a heroforge design and everything.

I can't take it seriously AND be a suck-ass nerd from suckburg.
For the sake of your friendship, go play something else where you don't openly revile other people's sense of fun. IE an entirely different game.

[Unoriginal]

Alternatively you could try finding another group that fits the way you like playing better, without quitting your current group (since you don't want to do that).

Maybe a different experience will show a new perspective.

[aadder]

For the sake of your friendship, go play something else where you don't openly revile other people's sense of fun. IE an entirely different game.

"Openly"? We're talking about it. Am I supposed to not talk about it?

[aadder]

The DM is lacking experience and you sound like an insufferable individual as a player so this will form a continuous cycle of transgressions until someone's hand is forced and the negative results will encompass more than the game.

they asked me to play serious characters so i'm playing serious characters now, i don't know what's insufferable about that.

[Tvtyrant]

"Openly"? We're talking about it. Am I supposed to not talk about it?

You literally called their characters muppety in response to being told that it is unlikely you will be sufficiently tactful as to not insult your co-players. Imagine you read this from their perspective and they were calling you a self obsessed try hard or whatever the reverse of melodramatic muppets with dumb names is to you.

At this point it is clear neither you nor they are going to have fun together playing this game, and there is a good chance you burn bridges trying to force it to work. The old saw "no gaming is better then bad gaming" very much applies.

[ProsecutorGodot]

they asked me to play serious characters so i'm playing serious characters now, i don't know what's insufferable about that.

"serious character" doesn't mean you bring John Wick to a campaign. You said that you previously brought a "comedic character" that was the stereotypical flirt who can't stop boasting and was deemed insufferable by your friends.

You know there's actually an area between those two points that is both "serious" and not "John Wick"? Someone friendly, sociable but willing to put their life on the line when the chips are down and isn't already a murder machine before they've met any of those people? I think that's what they meant by "serious" here. They were asking you to take the game seriously, not create a character who's defined by how serious they are about being a capable killer.

[cookieface]

they asked me to play serious characters so i'm playing serious characters now, i don't know what's insufferable about that.

There is an ocean between "comedic, jokey character that tries to hit on everyone" and "brooding supersoldier who is not interested in relationships with the party".

At this point, you have options:
1) You can suck it up, be an adult, and play the game how everyone else at the table wants to. This could go hand-in-hand with an agreement to try your style next time.
2) You could leave this table, be an adult, tell them your play styles just don't mesh, but keep them as friends, and just do non-DND things with them. There's literally limitless possibilities there.
3) You could be an adult and explain to the group what aspects you want more of, and then offer to DM and/or play a different game that more fits what you are looking for. DND already doesn't offer a ton of options for "magically enhanced supersoldier" at level one -- or really ever -- so look to other systems.

So pick one. Stop trying to get strangers on the internet to help you force your friends to bend to your whims when it seems like everyone else has fun except you. This board has given you tons of good advice and you figure out reasons to reject it every time. We can't make your friends want to play your game, but that doesn't mean you don't have solutions.

[Jay R]

A DM is not a restaurant, offering a variety of meals that you choose from a menu. A DM is a dinner party, serving a single, specific meal to all guests.

When there is one game available for you to play in, the question isn't "What is my ideal game?" The question is "Will I enjoy the game being offered to me?"


It is not true that all players can play in all games seamlessly.

If you want to play football, and there's no football game, you either have to play baseball or not play at all.

If you want to play bridge, and there's no bridge game, you either have to play poker or not play at all.

If you want to play a superhero, and there's no superhero rpg, you either have to play D&D or not play at all.

And if you want to only play a character after he develops more power and there's no game starting that high, you either have to start play as a 1st level or not play at all.

The more restrictive your requirements for a game, the fewer games you will eventually play in over the years.


Somebody once said, "Mozart was a genius. But what a loss to music if all we had was Mozart!"

I could describe my absolute favorite style of game. It would be a Musketeers-era dueling and politics game. In 46 years of rpgs, I have played in such a game exactly once, for about six months, with the PC Jean-Louis.

If I had only played in that game, I would have missed wonderful games playing Darkstar, Endora, Eiddileg, Morgan, Robin Banks, Nabonidus, Cornelius, Leprechaun, Ultra, Thomas Redhawk, Hyperion, Paragon, Sprite, Pinball, Dr. MacAbre, Professor Power, Shadowmonk, Gwydion, Ornrandir, Gustav, Pteppic, Gwystyl, Telerion, Holman Burrows, Phoebus, and several others.

Playing Jean-Louis was wonderful. But what a loss to my gaming life if all I played was Jean-Louis!


There's nothing wrong with having preferences, expressing them, and looking for that perfect game. But I strongly urge you to also develop the willingness and ability to enjoy playing more kinds of games.

If you do, you will play in, and enjoy, far more games over the years.

[aadder]

You literally called their characters muppety in response to being told that it is unlikely you will be sufficiently tactful as to not insult your co-players.

But you all are not my friends. I would not insult characters to peoples' faces. I am capable of even the smallest level of compliment to not hurt peoples' feelings.


"serious character" doesn't mean you bring John Wick to a campaign. You said that you previously brought a "comedic character" that was the stereotypical flirt who can't stop boasting and was deemed insufferable by your friends.

You know there's actually an area between those two points that is both "serious" and not "John Wick"? Someone friendly, sociable but willing to put their life on the line when the chips are down and isn't already a murder machine before they've met any of those people? I think that's what they meant by "serious" here. They were asking you to take the game seriously, not create a character who's defined by how serious they are about being a capable killer.

Correct, and that was the last character I played; i played a fighter/wizard multiclass who was a professor of magic and bodybuilder with a focus in pugilism. It has been 18 months, I have played characters in-between being wacky weirdos, and he was one of them.

The serious here is in reference to capability, not tone. I can play a non-comedy character that isn't grimdark. I am less capable of playing a non-comedy character that is bad at things.