[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 21 February 2020 - 02:38 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 21 February 2020 - 11:43 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 21 February 2020 - 08:04 AM, said:

"Worry-wan has taught you well"

Speaking of, what happened to Worry? Don't think I've seen him around in quite some time?

I spoke to him not long ago I think he's taking a break.

Hope he's back soon. I miss his wit and content. We may not have always agreed, but he's a damned fine debater and thinker. And funny...occasionally.

[Abyss]

ExcrementEncephalon, on 21 February 2020 - 06:47 PM, said:

.... illegal Mexican couple we took under our wing in 2002...

Whoa, back up there and explain.

[Slow Ben]

Fuck bullys.

Good man BK.

[Slow Ben]

ExcrementEncephalon, on 20 February 2020 - 09:39 PM, said:

Have had 4 thoroughly BAD dreams 4 nights in a row. One was about Star Wars and QT, one was about Slow Ben and two in a row of my dead mother.

He thinks it was a dream! Abyss you were right, the potion worked!

[Puck]

More... disagreements with our new D&D DM. I will not be written to in all fucking caps just because I insist on not being ignored throughout the game because you little asshole first allowed me a character concept, then took that away when I was done with planning, allowed me another character concept then decided to completely ignore everything I'd told you about and retcon my backstory, then be like "Sorry, didn't mean to, will think of something to get everything in order again", THEN essentially tell me, yeah, no, I'm not changing anything but you're welcome to bring in ideas of your own. Like he didn't just smack down every idea I'd brought in because it didn't fit his nicely plotted campaign that leaves zero room for characters to actually be characters instead of jumping from one plot point to the next. What an idiot. Then he has the gall to write-shout at me in all caps that signing off on my backstory then completely contradicting it and making it impossible IS ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY NOT RETCONNING.

...doesn't help that I've got quite the temper and have been fed up with this guy's idea of DMing since attempt number 1, which was three attempts ago. Needless to say, it usually last five sessions max.

Edit: No, I'm not actually as pissed as I sound, I'm just frustrated because we gave up one of out two monthly D&D sessions of an amazing campaign to deal with that nonsense and I'm frustrated with the idea of leaving the group, since, you know, that's my only way to regularly stay in touch with people I enjoy spending time with. Fuck's sake.

This post has been edited by Puck: 22 February 2020 - 02:03 PM

[Puck]

We've been at this encounter for four freaking hours. Big surprise with five level 4 players and 40-50 enemies. I'm not even listening at this point, tbh, as one round is taking 20+ minutes.

[Puck]

We ended up with 70 enemies versus five players. Our usual, very much awesome and calm and amazing and experienced DM just quit the session.

[Abyss]

Kobolds, skeletons, or zombies?

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Puck, on 22 February 2020 - 11:40 PM, said:

We ended up with 70 enemies versus five players. Our usual, very much awesome and calm and amazing and experienced DM just quit the session.

Abyss, on 23 February 2020 - 05:47 AM, said:

Kobolds, skeletons, or zombies?

That is some ridiculous nonsense!

[Puck]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 23 February 2020 - 07:13 PM, said:

Puck, on 22 February 2020 - 11:40 PM, said:

We ended up with 70 enemies versus five players. Our usual, very much awesome and calm and amazing and experienced DM just quit the session.

Abyss, on 23 February 2020 - 05:47 AM, said:

Kobolds, skeletons, or zombies?

That is some ridiculous nonsense!

Goblins on dire wolves. Wouldn't have been bad if there hadn't been 50+ of them, plus two dozen bow men, a bunch of fighters with an AC of 20 (D&D people will know), a handful of dire bats and also one druid as the cherry on top. That's against a level 4 party of five, ONE of which is a cleric that can take some damage, a scout, a warlock, a druid-healer and an artificer. Who'd just met and have no reason to die for each other OR the stupid chest of gold we were supposed to get from point A to point B.

This morning we got our XP, spelled out in what gave us how much XP, one point being no XP for running through the ambush and being hit by some arrows. You know, that ambush that was the only way through to the other side of the battle map, which we were forbidden from circling around. The original plan had been to either circle around or fly over the ambush, but the DM got so hot and bothered about it, we opted to play along.

At the point where the second dire bat entered the map after 5+ hours of real life time grinding through that shit and sitting through 20+ minutes turns because for some reason every single group of enemies had to be included in the turn order, our usual DM threw it in and I did as well two minutes later. This may or may not have gotten the message across to the campaign's DM, 'cause he also quit and left a somewhat passive-aggressive "Sorry for wasting your time"-message for everyone.

The usual DM and I returned to the group call and we had a heart to heart with everyone, everyone being in the same boat about this having been a shit show. Then, surprisingly, the campaign's DM showed up again, tied to explain himself by telling us that this was aaalmost the end of the encounter and there were only x dire bats left and the some of the 50+ gobbo riders were wounded and also the druid was weak and and and. I politely (no, really, sometime I can do that) told the dumbass he's missing the point by a wide margin. We players don't care to know how weak or strong our enemies are or how many there are left if we're feeling like being set up for a total party kill on session three of the campaign. He argued it was supposed to be a forged-in-fire kind of situation. I get the idea, but that's not how it works, especially if every party member is forced to run for their life across a river on their own while being shot at from both sides of a canyon.

Moral of the story is, don't DM like that, kids. It's fine to present the party with difficult situations, but it's not supposed to look like a total party kill on session 3. More importantly, those enemy groups didn't need freaking turn initiative, they are supposed to act at the DM's discretion whenever it's needed. We've previously spent entire sessions on one encounter in the other campaign as well, but that's because we're dumbasses of the highest order*, not because the DM still hadn't figured out how to structure an encounter and NOT overwhelm the party on his THIRD try to run a campaign. At this point half the players were just humoring him by agreeing to the campaign, hoping he'd finally gotten the hang of it.

*I mean, we were supposed to raid an enemy space ship. They were unprepared. We still managed to punch a whole into the bathroom wall, then try to squeeze five people into the shower to hide. We totally, most definitely were not level 20 at that point, I swear.

Nah.

In any case, I though we'd gotten the point across to him last night, especially since we're generally a pretty chill group and will not even notice 90% of mistakes the DM makes and are great at making out own story. Which seems to be the problem. We're used to a play style that allows us quite a bit of freedom and this DM seems to want to play a game by the numbers and a timetable, and play out grand battle schemes that don't take into account the ingenious ideas players can have. For example, after all of this, this morning the druid player offered to warp the wood of the bridge at the end of the canyon to allow for only one enemy to pass through at a time. Dm said we can't do that, the bridge is too big. Druid said, but the bridge is made up of pieces that are small enough to warp. DM said no and shut up, not happening. I got a headache at that point.

The general consensus now seems to be, give the guy one more chance and then we'll see.

The worst part is not only that we're otherwise pretty good friends, he's actually a great PLAYER in the other campaign. A bit hyperbolic and paranoid, but it makes for a great character, and everyone enjoys the game. It's a pity he can't seem to get the hang of Dming but desperately wants to, and we're willing to go along, but at some point it'S not worth wasting our free time on that mess anymore.

Sorry for the long story, keep going.

This post has been edited by Puck: 23 February 2020 - 09:22 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Puck, on 23 February 2020 - 09:13 PM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 23 February 2020 - 07:13 PM, said:

Puck, on 22 February 2020 - 11:40 PM, said:

We ended up with 70 enemies versus five players. Our usual, very much awesome and calm and amazing and experienced DM just quit the session.

Abyss, on 23 February 2020 - 05:47 AM, said:

Kobolds, skeletons, or zombies?

That is some ridiculous nonsense!

Goblins on dire wolves. Wouldn't have been bad if there hadn't been 50+ of them, plus two dozen bow men, a bunch of fighters with an AC of 20 (D&D people will know), a handful of dire bats and also one druid as the cherry on top. That's against a level 4 party of five, ONE of which is a cleric that can take some damage, a scout, a warlock, a druid-healer and an artificer. Who'd just met and have no reason to die for each other OR the stupid chest of gold we were supposed to get from point A to point B.

This morning we got our XP, spelled out in what gave us how much XP, one point being no XP for running through the ambush and being hit by some arrows. You know, that ambush that was the only way through to the other side of the battle map, which we were forbidden from circling around. The original plan had been to either circle around or fly over the ambush, but the DM got so hot and bothered about it, we opted to play along.

At the point where the second dire bat entered the map after 5+ hours of real life time grinding through that shit and sitting through 20+ minutes turns because for some reason every single group of enemies had to be included in the turn order, our usual DM threw it in and I did as well two minutes later. This may or may not have gotten the message across to the campaign's DM, 'cause he also quit and left a somewhat passive-aggressive "Sorry for wasting your time"-message for everyone.

The usual DM and I returned to the group call and we had a heart to heart with everyone, everyone being in the same boat about this having been a shit show. Then, surprisingly, the campaign's DM showed up again, tied to explain himself by telling us that this was aaalmost the end of the encounter and there were only x dire bats left and the some of the 50+ gobbo riders were wounded and also the druid was weak and and and. I politely (no, really, sometime I can do that) told the dumbass he's missing the point by a wide margin. We players don't care to know how weak or strong our enemies are or how many there are left if we're feeling like being set up for a total party kill on session three of the campaign. He argued it was supposed to be a forged-in-fire kind of situation. I get the idea, but that's not how it works, especially if every party member is forced to run for their life across a river on their own while being shot at from both sides of a canyon.

Moral of the story is, don't DM like that, kids. It's fine to present the party with difficult situations, but it's not supposed to look like a total party kill on session 3. More importantly, those enemy groups didn't need freaking turn initiative, they are supposed to act at the DM's discretion whenever it's needed. We've previously spent entire sessions on one encounter in the other campaign as well, but that's because we're dumbasses of the highest order*, not because the DM still hadn't figured out how to structure an encounter and NOT overwhelm the party on his THIRD try to run a campaign. At this point half the players were just humoring him by agreeing to the campaign, hoping he'd finally gotten the hang of it.

*I mean, we were supposed to raid an enemy space ship. They were unprepared. We still managed to punch a whole into the bathroom wall, then try to squeeze five people into the shower to hide. We totally, most definitely were not level 20 at that point, I swear.

Nah.

In any case, I though we'd gotten the point across to him last night, especially since we're generally a pretty chill group and will not even notice 90% of mistakes the DM makes and are great at making out own story. Which seems to be the problem. We're used to a play style that allows us quite a bit of freedom and this DM seems to want to play a game by the numbers and a timetable, and play out grand battle schemes that don't take into account the ingenious ideas players can have. For example, after all of this, this morning the druid player offered to warp the wood of the bridge at the end of the canyon to allow for only one enemy to pass through at a time. Dm said we can't do that, the bridge is too big. Druid said, but the bridge is made up of pieces that are small enough to warp. DM said no and shut up, not happening. I got a headache at that point.

The general consensus now seems to be, give the guy one more chance and then we'll see.

The worst part is not only that we're otherwise pretty good friends, he's actually a great PLAYER in the other campaign. A bit hyperbolic and paranoid, but it makes for a great character, and everyone enjoys the game. It's a pity he can't seem to get the hang of Dming but desperately wants to, and we're willing to go along, but at some point it'S not worth wasting our free time on that mess anymore.

Sorry for the long story, keep going.

As a Cleric with 20AC I cast spirit guardians

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Puck, on 23 February 2020 - 09:13 PM, said:

Sorry for the long story, keep going.

Don't apologise. I think what people miss sometimes is that D&D is an outlet and a bit of escapism. If people being people (whatever that entails for each group) is making it less fun, then it's an issue and can get stressful if D&D is something you do to relax (which it certainly is for me).

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 24 February 2020 - 08:49 AM

[Silencer]

Also feel like this DM is definitely missing either:

1) the ability to read the table to make adjustments on the fly, or
2) either the knowledge that improv is required when DM'ing or the ability to act on the need.

Honestly it sounds a lot like the DM just doesn't understand that, no matter what it seems like, your plans never work out how you intended, and you have to make things up as you go along.
Got an awesome scene in mind that your players just avoided? Doesn't matter, save it for another time, maybe even another campaign. Got a battle that you plotted out only to realise your players took the first two waves really hard? Weaken or remove the third wave (Unless you've agreed that it's meant to be a deadly game and overwhelming odds will happen...in which case drop hints that maybe the group might want to consider alternatives to fighting, etc).

You cannot doggedly stick to an encounter you made just for the sake of it, you need to be prepared to adjust, make up, remove, and replace things on the fly. Anything less will lead to disappointment, and quite possibly frustration and abandoned campaigns. I'd argue the ability to improv- not necessarily in terms of acting, but in terms of encounters - is the most important part of DM'ing. It's an interactive story, after all, not a movie.

Might be worth, depending on the situation, to give it a few days and see if your normal DM can sit down and have a chat with him about what he actually thinks DM'ing is.

[Slow Ben]

All that. I'd be upset also. Hopefully he gets it.

I love combat in DnD, but the sessions where i've had the most fun have the smallest amount of combat. Great RP is essential and it makes combat better because then you actually care about the characters.

[Abyss]

There are DMs who enjoy DMing because the players enjoy the story > DMs who are out to get the players or so fixated on their 'plan' it amounts to the same thing.

[Puck]

Thanks for the input, everyone!

All I can say is that I agree with everything you guys say. It's a pity, really, there's so much potential (I mean, the battle map layout was actually pretty darn great and challenging, and there's some really in-depth worldbuilding so far), but he seems to have some mental barrier that prevents him from understanding.. how do I put it... the human aspects of being a DM?

He's got the theory down, but even after both our regular DM and me (I haven't DMed for a while now but I do have a couple years of DMing experience under my belt as well and used to get very positive feedback, so can't have been horrible at it) have had heart-to-heart DMing talks with him, and have both thought "Ha, I think he got it!", only to be disappointed the next session.

It's like he's got a plan of this amazing campaign and shit, but either cannot adjust the situations AT ALL or gets too lost in details of his own plan he misses the need to adjust to the situations? I really don't get it, even after talking about it at length. I've also reminded him that in our regular campaign, some of our best sessions have been those where we barely got any plot done while roleplaying our characters getting drunk and nosing around in the private matters of party members, which in turn made them more willing to defend each other. As far as most people in the group are concerned, we're doing this to have a good time and socialize/stay in touch. This guy is the "worldbuilder"-type, if you know what I mean. Maybe that's the issue and he wnats to show off his "amazing" worldbuilding and everyone else is like "but I wanna have fun!". Can't really talk to him about this aspect of the issue as he gets defensive right away *sigh*

But I'm also not willing to push it further. We've agreed to let it rest until the next session in this campaign and see how it goes. Maybe it's just a matter of differing playing styles and expectations. We are as a group most definitely not focused on the details, we're very "broad strokes, comedy, roleplay and also some combat". It's important that everyone enjoys the game, and not every DMing style will suit every player. Maybe he's just unlucky and other players would suit him better. We will see.

This post has been edited by Puck: 25 February 2020 - 10:35 AM

[Morgoth]

A lovely visit to Valencia this week end to celebrate a weeding became quite the trial as we got stuck in Amsterdam on our way home. Delays, cancellations and bad communication resulted in us arriving home at 4 am last night, instead of late afternoon on sunday. I am so desperately tired today, and I have so much to do at work, but I can't do anything because my brain wont work properly.

[Gorefest]

Morgoth, on 25 February 2020 - 11:02 AM, said:

*snip* weeding *snip* Amsterdam *snip* I have so much to do at work, but I can't do anything because my brain wont work properly.

I think I have identified your problem.

[Aptorian]

I am at work instead of lying on my couch reading False Value.

[Abyss]

Puck, on 25 February 2020 - 10:25 AM, said:

... he seems to have some mental barrier that prevents him from understanding.. how do I put it... the human aspects of being a DM?...Maybe he's just unlucky and other players would suit him better....

Or maybe he's determined to write his ten part epic LitRPG fantasy series and become the next George RR Tolkind.