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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    RifleAvenger's Avatar

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    Default Re: Not Getting To Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Not at all. If a player chooses a path that leads to their non-participation, thats on the player. Ive got one player who likes to try and pull some lone wolf crap pretty frequently, and i am constantly forced to remind him that while he is allowed to wander off to brood in the woods (yes, i am being literal) if something happens while he does that, he wont get to participate.

    The DM cannot be the only person responsible for managing the engagement of the group. its a two way street. If you arent going to make good faith attempts to participate in the action, why should i try to drag you into it anyway?
    There's a difference between: "I go to brood in the woods," "I get drunk," or the time I had the brilliant idea in a Werewolf game to position my character, on no essence, half a mile from the action because "I can totally rely solely on puppeteering the party's car and nothing can go wrong";

    and

    "Ok, I'm not a good sneak, so I'll distract the mark while you guys break in."

    The former are either direct efforts to disengage or just really poorly thought-out.

    The latter is an entirely reasonable plan, giving a PC a way to contribute to group-success without being in a theater of action they're ill-suited for. That's a good-faith effort, and the GM should put in the effort to reward that. Because, in-universe, if that PC wasn't handling the distraction? The heist would be uncovered and either fail or result in them being hunted by the authorities.

    Unless, of course, the GM is assuming the party has to tackle a challenge a certain way, only prepares for that assumption, and ergo thinks they shouldn't have to be ready to run any alternatives. It doesn't matter whether one or more PCs go to distract the mark or not, because all that matters is the instance of the heist itself. Choo-choo.
    Last edited by RifleAvenger; 2020-11-27 at 11:08 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: Not Getting To Play

    Quote Originally Posted by RifleAvenger View Post
    There's a difference between: "I go to brood in the woods," "I get drunk," or the time I had the brilliant idea in a Werewolf game to position my character, on no essence, half a mile from the action because "I can totally rely solely on puppeteering the party's car and nothing can go wrong";

    and

    "Ok, I'm not a good sneak, so I'll distract the mark while you guys break in."

    The former are either direct efforts to disengage or just really poorly thought-out.

    The latter is an entirely reasonable plan, giving a PC a way to contribute to group-success without being in a theater of action they're ill-suited for. The GM should put in the effort to reward that. Because, in-universe, if that PC wasn't handling the distraction? The heist would be uncovered and either fail or result in them being hunted by the authorities.

    Unless, of course, the GM is assuming the party has to tackle a challenge a certain way, only prepares for that assumption, and ergo thinks they shouldn't have to be ready to run any alternatives. It doesn't matter whether one or more PCs go to distract the mark or not, because all that matters is the instance of the heist itself. Choo-choo.
    They chose to do the distraction in the most non-engaging way possible. That isnt on the DM. They could have attempted to engineer something more interesting to do, but didnt. They just... talked. The reward was that it worked. Like, i dont understand why you think that should have had more focus put on it than it needed. In what way is that not just a waste of everybody's time, including the distracting player's?
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Not Getting To Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    They chose to do the distraction in the most non-engaging way possible. That isnt on the DM. They could have attempted to engineer something more interesting to do, but didnt. They just... talked. The reward was that it worked. Like, i dont understand why you think that should have had more focus put on it than it needed. In what way is that not just a waste of everybody's time, including the distracting player's?
    If the distraction is a waste of time because it lasts more than a single skill check, why did the heist need to last two hours? Can't everyone do one skill check and be done with it?

    Why are you presuming that talking is a less engaging and interesting encounter than something more physical? Social is a pillar of the game, no?

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    In what way is that not just a waste of everybody's time, including the distracting player's?
    If the distracting player is expected to fill a role in a plan where they roll a single skill check, and then twiddle their thumbs for two hours as Pex said, why are they even at the table? That's the real waste of time, not 1-3 minutes here or there to check in on how things are going for the decoy.

    It's not hard to just give people a little time or a way to get back into the action.

    In that Werewolf game, the GM had a good samaritan find my body waking up after my psychic link to the car was severed. A good samaritan full of juicy essence, if I would just yield to the predator within. It's to save the pack from my own cowardice, isn't it? (I also could have destroyed my fetish to get a smaller amount back)

    In a more recent D&D 5e game, we had a major villain captured, but the party then was drawn away to a disaster not far from the road. Since we didn't trust the merchant we were travelling with to guard the villain, I drew the role of sitting out the combat to watch the prisoner. The GM made sure to flash the scene to me twice, briefly, to watch for and foil escape attempts.

    I wouldn't have minded if the GM left me to destroy the fetish or be out of the game in the Werewolf example; I was in that position because I tried to be overly clever. I still appreciate that they did give me a more expeditious way to keep participating, at a steep cost.

    I would very much have minded if I was given no attention for an hour in the second scenario, because the alternatives would have been: the villain escaping, the villain probably kidnapping or killing the merchant, or bringing a dangerous and hostile individual into a combat situation we didn't have involve her in.
    Last edited by RifleAvenger; 2020-11-27 at 11:54 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Flumph

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    Your second example brings up an interesting conflict between screen-time and effectiveness though. You mention:
    because the alternatives would have been: the villain escaping, the villain probably kidnapping or killing the merchant, or bringing a dangerous and hostile individual into a combat situation we didn't have involve her in
    Which is from the perspective that success is important, not just any course of action that proves exciting. Not that that's a weird POV, it's one I'm often in when thinking IC myself.

    But - which way of running it gives you the better chance of success?
    1) Simply by being there vigilantly, they're not going to be able to break out (how many GMs would run it if there weren't a fight happening simultaneously).
    2) Make like a single Perception check for the above (also common).
    3) Have to foil a series of breakout attempts separately.

    The third is the most interesting for the player doing the guarding, but it also has the highest risk for the villain to escape. So, I think if you asked a number of players you'd get a spread of different answers how they'd rather it was handled. Putting more focus on the separated player than their task would usually merit isn't wrong, but it isn't the only right way either.

    Related, the conflict in SF games between "exciting minigame for the ship's engineer to play in combat" and "If I'm a competent engineer, the ship shouldn't be at risk of breaking down every fight!"
    Last edited by icefractal; 2020-11-28 at 05:53 AM.

  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Quote Originally Posted by RifleAvenger View Post
    If the distraction is a waste of time because it lasts more than a single skill check, why did the heist need to last two hours? Can't everyone do one skill check and be done with it?

    Why are you presuming that talking is a less engaging and interesting encounter than something more physical? Social is a pillar of the game, no?
    Im not presuming that talking in general is less engaging and interesting, im asserting that this specific subset of talking is not. It is specifically empty conversation about nothing. There was no intent to find information, no intent to build friendship with the NPC for the future, just... talking for the sake of talking. Roleplaying small talk is not, as a rule, very interesting. Besides which, if you stop in every 10 minutes real time and force him to make a performance check or something, youve pretty much guaranteed a failure unless he's a bard that specializes in that sort of thing or the DC is so low as to be meaningless. If any roll below a 10 is failure, then a guy with a low or no bonus has an increasing chance of failure the more rolls he makes.

    As for the heist, maybe they could have trimmed it down some. I dont know, i wasnt in that game. But if its something they want most of the party there for, then presumably its more complicated than "sneak in, palm the thing, walk out."

    Quote Originally Posted by RifleAvenger View Post
    If the distracting player is expected to fill a role in a plan where they roll a single skill check, and then twiddle their thumbs for two hours as Pex said, why are they even at the table? That's the real waste of time, not 1-3 minutes here or there to check in on how things are going for the decoy.

    It's not hard to just give people a little time or a way to get back into the action.

    In that Werewolf game, the GM had a good samaritan find my body waking up after my psychic link to the car was severed. A good samaritan full of juicy essence, if I would just yield to the predator within. It's to save the pack from my own cowardice, isn't it? (I also could have destroyed my fetish to get a smaller amount back)

    In a more recent D&D 5e game, we had a major villain captured, but the party then was drawn away to a disaster not far from the road. Since we didn't trust the merchant we were travelling with to guard the villain, I drew the role of sitting out the combat to watch the prisoner. The GM made sure to flash the scene to me twice, briefly, to watch for and foil escape attempts.

    I wouldn't have minded if the GM left me to destroy the fetish or be out of the game in the Werewolf example; I was in that position because I tried to be overly clever. I still appreciate that they did give me a more expeditious way to keep participating, at a steep cost.

    I would very much have minded if I was given no attention for an hour in the second scenario, because the alternatives would have been: the villain escaping, the villain probably kidnapping or killing the merchant, or bringing a dangerous and hostile individual into a combat situation we didn't have involve her in.
    The player had a way into the action: He could have been with the party and they could have set up some other distraction. They didnt do that. They chose to have the player do something boring for 2 hours when they didnt have to.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Im sorry, but im not entirely clear on what you expected to happen during that encounter. Were you wanting to have 20 minutes of talking about nothing with this NPC for every 20 minutes the theft took? Do you realize that you would be essentially holding the entire rest of the game hostage so that you could be doing something that would, at best, turn out exactly the same? It would be one thing if you were fishing for actual information or something during this time, but if youre just having a conversation with them about your favorite style of decorative silver spoon, im with your DM on this one. If you want something interesting to do, plan to do something interesting next time, dont try and guilt your DM into making an empty conversation into an encounter just for you.
    Dialogue about the metaplot, some politics that was happening. Maybe the NPC is trying to end the conversation to go back to his room, and I need to do something non-threatening to stop him. Maybe we have the conversation, taking only a few real world minutes, but then something else happens that has nothing to do with the burglary or the NPC that occupies my time. Most definitely it's something spontaneous the DM thought up on the spot. He did that with other players, or rather some random weird thing happens which turns out later was not random but in fact was campaign plot related. There were a few subplot paths the party chose not to pursue at that particular time. Perhaps one of them could have chosen to pursue me. Something, Anything. Not leave me alone to do absolutely nothing for more than a real world hour.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
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  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    Dialogue about the metaplot, some politics that was happening. Maybe the NPC is trying to end the conversation to go back to his room, and I need to do something non-threatening to stop him. Maybe we have the conversation, taking only a few real world minutes, but then something else happens that has nothing to do with the burglary or the NPC that occupies my time. Most definitely it's something spontaneous the DM thought up on the spot. He did that with other players, or rather some random weird thing happens which turns out later was not random but in fact was campaign plot related. There were a few subplot paths the party chose not to pursue at that particular time. Perhaps one of them could have chosen to pursue me. Something, Anything. Not leave me alone to do absolutely nothing for more than a real world hour.
    So you want the DM to do considerably more work and drag out the encounter even longer, making the entire rest of the party wait for just you to do your thing, because you didnt want to go along with them on the stealth segment?

    Again, i fail to see how this is anything other than a "player chose to take the boring path" issue here. You had plenty of opportunity to engineer something more exciting. You didnt. Why is that on the DM? Theyre a player too, demanding that they do a ton more work simply because you chose not to participate with the rest of the party is absolutely not fair to them.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    So you want the DM to do considerably more work and drag out the encounter even longer, making the entire rest of the party wait for just you to do your thing, because you didnt want to go along with them on the stealth segment?

    Again, i fail to see how this is anything other than a "player chose to take the boring path" issue here. You had plenty of opportunity to engineer something more exciting. You didnt. Why is that on the DM? Theyre a player too, demanding that they do a ton more work simply because you chose not to participate with the rest of the party is absolutely not fair to them.
    "Because it's what my character world would do".

    If the GM is just going to play your world honest... eh, I've got no problems with that, actually. I think that it would behoove a GM in that situation to metagame, and point out to the player, "you're gonna just sit there doing nothing for an hour / while they pull off the heist - you're OK with that, right? That's why you chose this course of action (because you've got homework you need to get done / SO you need to call / whatever), right?"

    However, if the GM is willing to change the world to make the game more fun, then this is obviously an opportunity to do so. As the GM had (seemingly) done so in the past, the player was expecting the same fair treatment that others had received.

    Also: The player didn't "choose to take the boring path", they chose to take the path with the greatest chance of success. That path happened to be boring. It's like saying someone choosing to play a Fighter in 3e is choosing to not participate. It may be true, but it's not (usually) why they chose to play a Fighter.

    That said, I can certainly see how splitting the party can make the game drag longer - I usually hate scouts (and the handling thereof) for just that reason. Give me mindless "kick in the door" over hours of thumb-twiddling solo scouting.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-11-28 at 12:54 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    So you want the DM to do considerably more work and drag out the encounter even longer, making the entire rest of the party wait for just you to do your thing, because you didnt want to go along with them on the stealth segment?

    Again, i fail to see how this is anything other than a "player chose to take the boring path" issue here. You had plenty of opportunity to engineer something more exciting. You didnt. Why is that on the DM? Theyre a player too, demanding that they do a ton more work simply because you chose not to participate with the rest of the party is absolutely not fair to them.
    If it makes you feel better this is the opinion of the DM in question in his not trying to keep me. I quit his game. We won't reach consensus. I constrast with another DM where something similar was happening. He'd spend a real world hour with other players, individually among several games, during downtime interacting with NPCs. When it was my turn it would be 5 minutes. I said something, and since then the DM made an effort to be more engaging. I do my part by takng more initiative, creating an encounter or two the DM needs to react. He no longer spends an hour with another player, cutting it to 10 minutes or so then switches to someone else. I get my turn of 10 minutes. We both changed how we were playing the game. Everyone gets their spotlight time.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  10. - Top - End - #100
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    That's definitely the way to do things when people split the party, and it's a hard lesson to learn. You go until you reach a nice, natural stopping point and then swap to someone else.

    This is also where playing online comes in handy; I can have people post things they're doing in chat if it doesn't require my direct, immediate attention and come around to them as needed. I imagine it's a bit harder in an in-person game.

  11. - Top - End - #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    That's definitely the way to do things when people split the party, and it's a hard lesson to learn. You go until you reach a nice, natural stopping point and then swap to someone else.

    This is also where playing online comes in handy; I can have people post things they're doing in chat if it doesn't require my direct, immediate attention and come around to them as needed. I imagine it's a bit harder in an in-person game.
    Indeed. "Never split the party" has become a golden rule at my table because its just completely infeasible for me to keep with with more than MAYBE two groups acting simultaneously. Especially if one is doing a combat and one is not. My players all understand (even the lone wolf guy) that there are 5-6 other players at the table who are also needing my attention, and if they go off away from the group that they have to wait their turn even if that means a bunch of OOC idleness.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  12. - Top - End - #102
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Indeed. "Never split the party" has become a golden rule at my table because its just completely infeasible for me to keep with with more than MAYBE two groups acting simultaneously. Especially if one is doing a combat and one is not. My players all understand (even the lone wolf guy) that there are 5-6 other players at the table who are also needing my attention, and if they go off away from the group that they have to wait their turn even if that means a bunch of OOC idleness.
    The lone wolf is the player who purposely does his own thing, to play the game by himself and despite the other players. I have no tolerance for such players. That is not what I was doing. My character could not be accomodated in the scenario. The party needed to climb up a castle wall unseen and go through a window. The druid wildshaped into a spider. The bard made himself and the wizard invisible at his highest 3rd level spell slot and used his slippers of spider climbing. The wizard casts Levitate on himself. We had no other resources to get me up the wall unseen, so the party agreed I go find the noble whose office they were burglarizing to be the distraction to ensure he doesn't go into his office while they're there. I was perfectly fine with the DM running their encounter for 10-15 minutes, let them do their thing and have whatever awesomeness and/or shenanigans that results, pause at a dramatic time if possible, then spend 10-15 minutes with me trying to keep the noble away from his office with all the hilarity that could happen considering my 8 Charisma and no proficiency in social skills should any rolls be relevant, pause at a dramatic time if possible and go back to the others. Repeat. The DM chose not to run my distraction scene and 15 minutes became more than an hour.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  13. - Top - End - #103
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    I moved to another state. Had friend bring his laptop played by zoom. Then California shut down the state again. So no more game.
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  14. - Top - End - #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    The lone wolf is the player who purposely does his own thing, to play the game by himself and despite the other players. I have no tolerance for such players. That is not what I was doing. My character could not be accomodated in the scenario. The party needed to climb up a castle wall unseen and go through a window. The druid wildshaped into a spider. The bard made himself and the wizard invisible at his highest 3rd level spell slot and used his slippers of spider climbing. The wizard casts Levitate on himself. We had no other resources to get me up the wall unseen, so the party agreed I go find the noble whose office they were burglarizing to be the distraction to ensure he doesn't go into his office while they're there. I was perfectly fine with the DM running their encounter for 10-15 minutes, let them do their thing and have whatever awesomeness and/or shenanigans that results, pause at a dramatic time if possible, then spend 10-15 minutes with me trying to keep the noble away from his office with all the hilarity that could happen considering my 8 Charisma and no proficiency in social skills should any rolls be relevant, pause at a dramatic time if possible and go back to the others. Repeat. The DM chose not to run my distraction scene and 15 minutes became more than an hour.
    Without seeing the character sheets, i cant say for certain, but i can already imagine plenty of ways for you to have gone in with the rest of the party. Just off hand, you could have been the one levitating and just carried the wizard. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the fact remains that you split from the party to go do a less exciting thing, and are complaining that it was less exciting.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  15. - Top - End - #105
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Without seeing the character sheets, i cant say for certain, but i can already imagine plenty of ways for you to have gone in with the rest of the party. Just off hand, you could have been the one levitating and just carried the wizard. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the fact remains that you split from the party to go do a less exciting thing, and are complaining that it was less exciting.
    Even carrying the wizard I still would not have been invisibie or otherwise be unseen. Maybe or maybe not there was something we didn't think of to solve the problem, but the point is we didn't have such a solution at the time and we all agreed I go be the distraction. I'm not complaining it was less exciting. I'm complaining that it didn't happen at all.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  16. - Top - End - #106
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    I was perfectly fine with the DM running their encounter for 10-15 minutes, let them do their thing and have whatever awesomeness and/or shenanigans that results, pause at a dramatic time if possible, then spend 10-15 minutes with me trying to keep the noble away from his office with all the hilarity that could happen considering my 8 Charisma and no proficiency in social skills should any rolls be relevant, pause at a dramatic time if possible and go back to the others. Repeat.
    Gotta be honest - this sounds a bit spotlight-hogging. There are three players inside, so if splitting screen-time evenly is the concern, shouldn't it be more like 10 minutes with you for every half-hour with the rest of the party? I'm not saying no time is right either, but demanding as much time solo as the rest of the group gets put together?

  17. - Top - End - #107
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    Even carrying the wizard I still would not have been invisibie or otherwise be unseen. Maybe or maybe not there was something we didn't think of to solve the problem, but the point is we didn't have such a solution at the time and we all agreed I go be the distraction. I'm not complaining it was less exciting. I'm complaining that it didn't happen at all.
    And now were back to you wanting to spend 15-20 minutes on empty conversation. I just dont get why you think this is a remotely good use of your DM's attention, or anybody's time. Sometimes you throw in a vague request for them to have done "something" but you dont seem to be particularly sure of what that would actually entail.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  18. - Top - End - #108
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    And now were back to you wanting to spend 15-20 minutes on empty conversation. I just dont get why you think this is a remotely good use of your DM's attention, or anybody's time. Sometimes you throw in a vague request for them to have done "something" but you dont seem to be particularly sure of what that would actually entail.
    Y'know, I gave a reasonable answer several posts back: because the GM already had demonstrated being in the habit of doing just that, turning "filler" content into plot-relevant details.

    Was it wrong of him to expect more of the same?

    Granted, this isn't necessarily the OP's reasons - we'll need to wait for an official weigh-in on that one.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-11-29 at 06:52 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Gotta be honest - this sounds a bit spotlight-hogging. There are three players inside, so if splitting screen-time evenly is the concern, shouldn't it be more like 10 minutes with you for every half-hour with the rest of the party? I'm not saying no time is right either, but demanding as much time solo as the rest of the group gets put together?
    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    And now were back to you wanting to spend 15-20 minutes on empty conversation. I just dont get why you think this is a remotely good use of your DM's attention, or anybody's time.
    At the moment I left the Zoom meeting, the druid pulled a hyena out of a bag of tricks just because the player wanted to. There was no emergency. We just finished the adventure arc and traveling along with the Prince and army back to the Capital City to report to the King on our adventure. Mind I was already denied something I wanted to do where we were before we left for the city. I wanted to have the Prince visit my character's sister and her husband because we were small town folk and it would be a nice treat for her to meet the Prince. The DM knew this because I messaged him about this the week before. Anyway, the DM spent 20 minutes roleplaying the hyena talking to the druid about how cool it is to be a hyena. The hyena then went off hunting as the DM spent the next 5 minutes decribing how it hunted some farmer's cattle. The DM spent the next 5 minutes talking as the hyena describing the kill and cattle to the druid. It then went off again and killed a soldier's dog, so finally the druid and bard went after the hyena to kill it since it refused to listen to the druid to stop hunting. Thirty minutes of this nonsense that had nothing to do with anything. Stuff like this happens all the time with this DM with the other players. I am being selfish for wanting to have a conversation with an NPC? No, not buying it. For whatever reason this DM refused to engage with me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Sometimes you throw in a vague request for them to have done "something" but you dont seem to be particularly sure of what that would actually entail.
    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    Dialogue about the metaplot, some politics that was happening. Maybe the NPC is trying to end the conversation to go back to his room, and I need to do something non-threatening to stop him. Maybe we have the conversation, taking only a few real world minutes, but then something else happens that has nothing to do with the burglary or the NPC that occupies my time. Most definitely it's something spontaneous the DM thought up on the spot. He did that with other players, or rather some random weird thing happens which turns out later was not random but in fact was campaign plot related. There were a few subplot paths the party chose not to pursue at that particular time. Perhaps one of them could have chosen to pursue me. Something, Anything. Not leave me alone to do absolutely nothing for more than a real world hour.
    In addition, we stopped a Demon Cult that took root not only in the noble's lands but also his house with his senile mother inside. Mentioning that would at least get his initial attention and something to discuss. In other words, campaign plot relevant. We didn't know at the time if the noble was in on it, a victim himself, or like his mother oblivious to the situation, hence the burglary.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Y'know, I gave a reasonable answer several posts back: because the GM already had demonstrated being in the habit of doing just that, turning "filler" content into plot-relevant details.

    Was it wrong of him to expect more of the same?

    Granted, this isn't necessarily the OP's reasons - we'll need to wait for an official weigh-in on that one.
    One incident in question involved the druid wildshaped into a mouse to eavesdrop on the noble whose office the party burgled. Instead of hearing the conversation a half-hour was spent about a cat that saw him and chased him around the castle into a suit of armor to be eventually rescued by the bard. Sometime later in his normal self he saw the cat again. However, he was then Dominated and made to attack a friendly NPC. We have no proof it was the "cat", but it was suspected because it was quite particular chasing the druid as a mouse earlier. It wasn't a normal cat. The druid and wizard made it a point to look for that cat, but it was never seen again increasing the suspicion. Maybe it was just a normal cat, but it shows the DM is quite willing and able to throw in random events we don't expect. Me having a conversation with the noble the party is to burgle is hardly an unfair imposition.
    Last edited by Pex; 2020-11-30 at 07:07 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  20. - Top - End - #110
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Not Getting To Play



    There's so much bad, so many red flags there in that last post (that weren't really included in previous posts) that if you were a new member, I'd suspect you were trolling / pulling our legs.

    That GM was clearly running the game for someone, and that someone wasn't you.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-11-30 at 10:17 AM.

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