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View Full Version : /Rant: Entailing my Storyteller and his NPC's



Dragor
2008-11-02, 05:46 PM
This is nWoD, by the way.

Our Storyteller can be good, really. His stories are usually well planned out and engaging, with the right balance of those things which make a story, well, shine. When it works, we have a whale of a time. He introduced me to role-playing, after all.

But, whenever we're short of players (like now; we're currently playing a game over MSN), it's awful.

His NPC's are nearly exclusively bad-ass lone wolves who are always stronger, faster and better than us. Take this for example. We were exploring a crime scene in the wood; mine and the other characters PC are Irish Hunter's, brothers. My character is an otherwise saintly cop who hides the secret that his brother is a member of the IRA and a public enemy, for family values. The other brother is bordering psychopath; a gun nut who barely keeps his cool. We like our concepts, and stick to them like glue- we play around with the 'family values' aspect well. These brothers, while at opposite ends of the spectrum, value Ireland, and think it's their duty to guard it against the monsters.

Back to the point. We met the DM's NPC before, called Azrael. (Oh how he loves that name, or anything with -ael at the end). At the main crime scene, the campsite, we'd met briefly, and we met again in the woods (where the trail for the monster which had attacked had gone cold).

My character told him, respectfully, that him and his brother considered it that it was their duty to bag the monster, because the land was in their veins. The Englishman responded by putting my character in an armlock (with no dice roll). My brother walks out from behind the tree (he was checking his belongings while we talked) pointing one of his guns at the Englishman.

The Englishman holds an SMG in his general direction. "Now I've been polite long enough too: I'm letting you two morons wander around my hunt because I respect your territory."

(Am I right in thinking that if he tried to FIRE the MP5 single handedly he wouldn't be able to hit anything at all?)

With that he walks off.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like a little hardball. But our Storyteller just seems to adore his own creations (even though they're all remarkably similar) and just WANTS them to be in charge. They're always ridiculously cheesed out- I had a peek at the sheet, sue me- and since our characters are new, we have little to no chance at beating him in a fight.

We had to argue with the Storyteller to justify going into the woods alone, when after seeing this immaculately described gentleman armed to the teeth going in, I think he expected us to ask him and follow his lead. This wouldn't make sense for our characters (strong sense of duty and pride, he's not Irish, untrustworthy) to obey him, and the Storyteller just seems to want to thrust this guy upon us.

Sorry, this probably is all garbled and makes no sense. I'm just a little angry is all.

Fiery Diamond
2008-11-02, 05:52 PM
It makes sense, and I feel sorry for you.

Flickerdart
2008-11-02, 05:56 PM
No, you're absolutely right to be angry. Have you tried talking to him about this? Maybe he thinks that the low-level party needs Ubercheese McSue, and that making him nice wouldn't fit the setting or something. If that fails, offer to DM instead of him. Whether you'll show him how to do NPCs properly or smite him with Hardball Sue yourself is up to you.

Dragor
2008-11-02, 06:03 PM
No, you're absolutely right to be angry. Have you tried talking to him about this? Maybe he thinks that the low-level party needs Ubercheese McSue, and that making him nice wouldn't fit the setting or something. If that fails, offer to DM instead of him. Whether you'll show him how to do NPCs properly or smite him with Hardball Sue yourself is up to you.

No, the last time I argued the toss with him about something was when I was DM'ing, and I was forbidding him from being a Vampire (for D&D) while the other player was a Human Rogue, because I didn't want him outclassing him by such a large margin.

It was also in my homebrew desert setting, and he wanted immunity to sunlight. I wasn't prepared to make those concessions, or let him be so overpowered. We argued a lot and fell out for a while.

That was the most ridiculous argument I'd had, period.

I could try telling him nicely, but I don't know whether he'd understand or be angry. How could I phrase it without angering him?

--EDIT--

Continuing on, we've got several Dramatic Successes and this search for anything is going at a snails pace (Yeah, we've rolled great dice rolls and he's basically gone 'nah'). He's also almost insistent that we go back to the camp site, where the police are.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-11-02, 06:19 PM
Your storyteller sucks, and in a very typical way: he likes Mary-Sue avatar DMPCs, which are one of the absolutely best ways to ruin a game. The GM isn't supposed to be using any of the NPCs as a vessel, and that's precisely what yours is doing.

Tell him to stop, or stop playing with him. Direct him, perhaps, to any of the endless disseminations of the matter that explains in detail why it's terrible, and terrible GMing. Generally, if you want to change anyone's mind about anything at all, you must not argue with them directly - you need to give them something to read on the subject. (Yes, those annoying people handing out Chick Tracts have the right idea. They just have horrible execution and a reprehensible mechanism. One out of three isn't so bad. Well, actually, it's just 33% ...)

Your GM sucks even more for not being able to compromise, or recognize when he's being unreasonable and should back down.

Raum
2008-11-02, 06:26 PM
Sounds like you're on a railroad with a Hollywood engineer driving. How long you ride is up to you.

That said, don't get angry over it. Do something about it. Anger is seldom productive.

Flickerdart
2008-11-02, 06:30 PM
Link him to this thread. Should be fun.

Dragor
2008-11-02, 06:36 PM
Well, the game just ended. We've randomly found a hut with Monster #1 in it. After about three dice pools of Dramatic Successes. About bleeding time?

We'd just lost all interest in the end, and we ended up being deliberately inconvenient about its appearance, trying to make out like we couldn't understand what a relatively humanoid dark shape with eyes mounted on its forehead would be like. Pedantic-like humour ensued.

What rubbed me the wrong way was his comments afterwards.

one day, (Other Player's) lack of...a brain...will cause him many problems
I'm going to stop making Hunts with a plot soon, and just fill a room with zombies
then have a door that links to a room full of vampires
and on like that

Uhhh- what? Now he's insulting the players? :smallyuk:

Tsotha-lanti
2008-11-02, 06:44 PM
That said, don't get angry over it. Do something about it. Anger is seldom productive.

Depends on what you do with it. If you, say, angrily quit a bad game, that works out nicely.


...

Your GM sucks.

"Follow my heroic NPC" is not a plot you run in an RPG. (It's actually not that interesting in any other format either.)

Flickerdart
2008-11-02, 06:56 PM
"Follow my heroic NPC" is not a plot you run in an RPG. (It's actually not that interesting in any other format either.)
"Follow my heroic NPC" could work in Cthulhu, but only if the NPC dies a horrifying death 3 seconds in from having his brain explode. It does a good job of showing the PCs that they really should be careful if even awesome people can bite the bullet so easily.

Dragor
2008-11-02, 07:15 PM
I'm all up for quitting the game and letting him know his faults. But how do I let him know without losing a friend?

Piedmon_Sama
2008-11-02, 07:53 PM
Not to be terribly offensive, but if he'd be willing to break up your friendship over a game then it doesn't sound like such a great friendship everywhere.

Just be forthright and polite and he really can't hold anything against you. "Ben," (or whatever his name is) "I have to be honest--I think we're coming at the game from totally different angles and expecting some different things out of it. We don't seem to be able to find some middle ground, so I think maybe you'd enjoy this game more if you found some new players and counted me out." (I've used variations on this to get rid of players who were unbearable, it's a good way of giving both parties an 'honorable exit.')

Raum
2008-11-02, 08:18 PM
Depends on what you do with it. If you, say, angrily quit a bad game, that works out nicely.Not really. You can quit without the anger after all. Quitting angrily, as you suggest, is more likely to cost friends and give yourself heartburn.


I'm all up for quitting the game and letting him know his faults. But how do I let him know without losing a friend?Be honest but brief. Tell him you're not having fun. Only give more specific feedback if he asks for it in private. Whatever you do, try not to embarrass him publicly. Most people are more likely to forgive you proving them wrong than they will being embarrassed.

Guinea Anubis
2008-11-03, 07:01 AM
Not to be terribly offensive, but if he'd be willing to break up your friendship over a game then it doesn't sound like such a great friendship everywhere.

Just be forthright and polite and he really can't hold anything against you. "Ben," (or whatever his name is) "I have to be honest--I think we're coming at the game from totally different angles and expecting some different things out of it. We don't seem to be able to find some middle ground, so I think maybe you'd enjoy this game more if you found some new players and counted me out." (I've used variations on this to get rid of players who were unbearable, it's a good way of giving both parties an 'honorable exit.')

This is some of the best advice you could get.

BobVosh
2008-11-03, 07:29 AM
Could just be that he wants to play, does he play much, or DM most of the time?

Er...ST.

And I thought half the point of nWoD is to be "bad-ass lone wolves"

Well, vampires mainly.

Dragor
2008-11-03, 04:06 PM
Well, that's how most people play it, but in fact WoD- and especially what we're playing, Hunter- requires a good group coherence to survive.

@ BobVosh (the above included): We usually swap around as it goes. This was our first real try at Hunter. He's quite happy to be in charge- in fact this was at his request, and I did agree to it because he knew the source better than we did. When he plays he plays the exact same character anyway- usually Ex. This always annoys me because WoD is about ordinary people in extraordinary situations for the most part, and he just goes along and plonks Captain McActionhero in there.

Yeah, I'm still quite annoyed about this.

I think the TV Trope I can pull out here is Jerkass Stu, except all the other characters [i]don't like him despite his Jerkass-ness. His characters will make quips about the other ones, sometimes threaten to run them through if they don't shut up (in the case of D&D- yes, this has happened a few times) and regularly biffs other characters if they rub him the wrong way. He also constantly tries to hog the spotlight by running off and doing his own thing. Alone. He tried this in my 4th Ed. first quest and he got himself almost mauled to a complete death by Drakes, much to my amusement. (The rest of the party saved him though, when they eventually got there.)

Next time he's online, I'm going (to the best of my ability) to try and explain to him his faults. If he can't appreciate it, then that just confirms it, really.

Prometheus
2008-11-03, 04:27 PM
Wow this is the story of a DM who meets all the standard stereotypes for a terrible DM:
-DM PC, who takes the spotlight
-Not only encouraging Mary-Sues and munchkins but using them
-Railroading PCs in an unimaginative way
-Punishing the PCs for roleplaying
-Refusing to change.

From what it sounds like, he's not to nice of a player either. I'm not sure what he gets out of it D&D, but he's not getting to you guys by being a control freak.

On talking to him about it, sadly it probably has more to do with how he reacts to these sorts of situations than what you say exactly. Some people can change immediately, other people have wait to grow up, and some people switch over to WoW.

toddex
2008-11-03, 04:41 PM
I'm all up for quitting the game and letting him know his faults. But how do I let him know without losing a friend?

If the guy is that insecure that he cant take some criticism then I really dont think there is a way you can go about doing it in a nice way, in his eyes anyway. I guess just dont invite him to games anymore.