A couple of questions for the DMs out there.

Cafe Society
81

I have one good and one bad (but extremely funny) story that come from the same campaign. This was a pretty big group, with eight players meeting every week. Everyone in the group was very experienced and we were able to change DMs every adventure. When a player graduated to DM, his character would either “Go rest at the inn” for the duration of the game, with the assumption that he would recieve his fair share of loot and experience upon the adventure’s end. This was a fairly fast-paced game with levels typically coming every two or three weeks, which meant that we would occasionally get hilarious multiclassed characters who had cowboy-ed up and taken stuff completely unrelated to their role in order to make up for the DM’s character swimming in their cups rather than helping out.

The most memorable example of this was one of our arcane spellcasters, who was agnostic and loudly outspoken about it, much to the in-character annoyance of our healers. Shortly after our healer became the DM, the sorceror took several levels of cleric, and the sudden, direct evidence of the existence of divine beings apparently shook him up. The poor fellow began to manifest an OCD-like tick where, whenever he was forced to cast a divine spell (and he was a good healer; he never skimped on the healing magic) he would immediately follow it up by performing a number of strange and increasingly alarming and rituals as a means of worshiping his non-divine, non-magical, very decidedly mundane spellbooks.

One day, following a particularly rough battle, he was forced to expend a number of healing spells to patch us up. We were close to full-up at that point, and instead of spending the day resting the party decided to search the city for information. Our sorcerer was having none of that, however, and his player (with a unsettlingly mischievous glint in his eye) had a quick, whispered conference with the DM, after which he asked the group if his character could stay at the inn. We had no problem with it, and we tried to keep our inquiries in the city short in deference to his decision… but no sooner had we turned back towards our inn than we ran into a squad of extremely dirty and worn-out constables who had our sorcerer in tow. Apparently he was worried that all the divine spellslinging had offended his spellbooks, and the moment our group was out of sight he had set about conducting a number of rituals devoted to “The almighty lord Keros, conqueror of shadows and patron saint of oil lamps”, which apparently began with setting the inn on fire and ended with his levitating above the balcony, using a telekinesis spell to douse passing citizens with lamp oil and a second spell to animate several books of matches that he sent chasing after said citizens.

Rather than immediately free him from the guards, we escorted him to the police station where our faceman (a rogue-type halfling whose charisma added up to 27 when you factored in all of the enchanted items and spells we routinely dipped him in, and who our group had unanimously dubbed “the sexy midget”) convinced the magistrate to set our sorcerer free based on a number of hastily-forged religious documents that we’d scrawled up while en route, which appeared to prove that Keros was a real deity whose religious observations involved setting people on fire, as “True believers will rise above the flame”.

The thing is, our sexy midget did far, far too good of a job: not only did he convince the magistrate of Keros’s legitimacy, but he also convinced every single onlooker in the station. Word quickly spread, from one jurisdiction to the next, and we couldn’t seem to go anywhere without civil service types begging our (by this time, apparently quite insane) sorcerer for sermons. Finally, a local organized crime syndicate got wind of what was going on and chased us out of the city, province, and pretty much the country, as the converted bureaucrats had apparently, on a whim, set fire to a local capo in order to bless him when he went to deliver a bribe.

The best part of this entire sequence, however, came several sessions later as the current DM’s adventure was winding down; apparently, when he had become a healer our sorcerer chose to worship a god of trickery who granted increasingly powerful stat and spellcasting bonuses on adherents based on how grandiose a lie they were capable of foisting off on unsuspecting individuals… apparently his god was so impressed by the sorcerer’s ability to legitimize pyromania as a form of religious practice that he had decided to convey divine abilities on he and the rest of the party.

So for the rest of the campaign, everybody in our party had the divine ability to ignite practically any mundane substance by touch, and to suffuse themselves or a target within melee range with a fire shield that did one point of (resistible) damage every round to enemies that were within range. However, both abilities came with a drawback: in order to keep any fire started in this manner burning, the character involved had to loudly praise and worship the fictional deity of his choice at the top of his lungs. Every onlooker that was convinced by his performance conveyed bonuses onto the blaze, which meant that you could get a positively dangerous conflagration going with enough people. (Sometimes, when we were feeling particularly vindictive, we would lure enemy forces into the province where this all started; there’s nothing quite like starting a fire around the bad guys in a city full of Karos worshippers or, as they prefer to be called, “Karos-ines”.

82

AAAHHHHHHHHH! You asshat! :smiley:

Better Nate than lever, I suppose.

83

The DM sucked, by common agreement, and I don’t remember the campaign lasting all that long as there were others around that were a good deal more amusing. This guy earned a kind of immortality by having a treasure haul that consisted mainly of cheese, which we were supposed to be delighted about, and once had a short section of dungeon where the door at the end couldn’t have more plainly said “Chief Villain This Way” if it had had a neon sign over it to that effect… but he insisted that our characters would not ignore all of the side doors on the way, and we had to go through them painstakingly and in order first.

Other campaigns were more fun. I played one a few years back that featured just two players and the DM. We’d gone back in time about 400 years and found ourselves trying to patch history back together, which entailed getting ourselves nominated as the champions of the two opposing sides and fighting a joust to settle the outcome of a war. Neither of us knew how to use a lance and one of us, being a cleric-mage, had no business even trying under 2nd Ed rules. So we both found ourselves plodding slowly and deliberately towards each other desperately trying not to drop our massive jousting lances or fall off the armoured horses, bellowing the dreaded Elven battle cry of “Woe! Woe!” (at least, that’s what it sounded like to the audience :wink: ) and making the gentlest contact possible so my fighter-mage could take a dive.

I laughed so hard I thought I was about to give myself a fatal myocardial infarction, and I literally didn’t care. :smiley:

84

This is the mission statement for roleplaying. Bravo! :cool:
(And isn’t it wonderful when your players crack up with laughter, or focus intently on the situation.)

I’m a little nervous about this. If you fail a die roll, your party gets massacred? I don’t like that.
I try to make sure every player has something to contribute, but leave some slack for unlucky die rolls. Sure, sometimes the combats are a bit easy (players rolling high), but when a party are almost all reduced to a handful of hit points (and no spells left) before winning, it’s great!

85

In my early days, I tried out a roleplaying club at work. The DM was pleasant, but I should have realised there was something not quite right when he rolled up my character (Illusionist / thief) over the phone and produced two 18’s in exactly the right places (int + dex). :rolleyes:

In the first battle our 1st level party surprised 4 orcs in a room with only one door. I kept guard on the corridor.
Since we were obviously winning, I wasn’t going to cast or fight. But the DM seemed puzzled that we weren’t using every spell. “You can rest up overnight after every single encounter!” he explained. :eek:

Soon we had a ‘vision’ that all the characters would survive until the end of the dungeon (and be present at a victory ceremony). This ‘explained’ why whenever any of us died, there would soon be:

  • a passing high level cleric (“oh, there’s no charge - happy to help!”)
  • a magic fountain which brought characters back to life
  • a potion of raise dead just lying in the corridor
    etc

But the thing I remember most is the mapping. :mad: We played regularly for over a year and the DM gave us graph paper every session to build up a massive castle map on several levels.
Because I was still inexperienced (and the people were all pleasant), I stuck it out. But over half our time was spent doing this:

DM “The corridor runs for 55 feet, then there’s an opening on the left. The corridor continues for 15 feet, then bends at an angle of 45 degrees to the right. On the opposite side of the bend, there’s a door.”

Mapper: “Was that left or right?”

DM “The opening or the door?”

Mapper “The bend.”

DM “Right.”

Other player “I think you’ve made that corridor 45 feet.”

Mapper “Wasn’t that what he said?”

DM “No, the corridor runs for 55 feet. The angle is 45 degrees.”

It transpired that there was a secret chamber in the castle, which we were supposed to spot once we had finished the map. However, since a player spilt his drink on the map, we never did work it out. :smack:

Now all mapping is drawn by the DM. :cool:

86

I do like the DM reacting to players by throwing in something like this (though it’s important to keep it balanced.)

One of my pupils was imaginative e.g. she used a ‘Create Water’ spell to impress a gullible audience that the Gods had sent an ‘omen’.
Now clerics weren’t allowed edged weapons, but when a magical Halberd was found, she really liked the look of it. So she suggested that her God would attract more followers if she was allowed to use the polearm:

“I say, aren’t you a cleric? Isn’t that a halberd?”
"Indeed it is and you show excellent knowledge. :slight_smile: However the Being I represent does allow me to use this. Would you like more information on them? :smiley: "

So now there is a sect of the Halberd… :cool:

87

It’s amazing what some DM’s think their role is. Oh, the players must examine every door in order, even though the evidence points to the real room. :smack:

The worst I ever saw was this. We alternate DMing and one chap turned up with a character that had gone up several levels since we last saw him.
“Oh, I ran a dungeon for Fred here (who looked embarrassed) and my character went down with him. Everyone got loads of experience and magic items.”

We don’t play with him any more.

88

I agree, little custom touches like that can really invest players in a game. That particular touch isn’t quite as unbalanced as it might seem, though: since it was (obviously) less of a serious venture and more of a “Mess around and have fun” world everyone basically took the class they wanted, meant that our party was really hilariously unbalanced from the getgo. As I recall we had four arcane casters who were useful in combat, one healer who could do nothing but heal, our sexy midget (thief/faceman) who had some neat offense-oriented items, one dexterous fighter/tank type, and an akashic who was practically game-breakingly useful out of combat and absolutely wretched in fights. Nobody wanted groups of baddies that were obviously lined up for our party to knock down, so the DMs tended to have us fight strong groups of monsters meant for more well-rounded parties and then a) provide us lots of chances to try and run away, and b) give us lots and lots of small abilities like the Keros-ine Flames that helped make up for a lack of variety.

89

Yeah, I learned that lesson while running a game based on the aftermath of the original Dragonlance adventure series. They had gotten to the Return to the High Clerist’s Tower part, which they had to fortify in the face of an advancing army… and we all suddenly realized just how much pixelbitching there was with all the finicky traps and things in those AD&D modules. Oy.

Fortunately, the kender had already established how she “collected” maps. We broke early, and next session the kender “found” complete blueprints to the High Clerist’s Tower in her packs. And we proceeded merrily on, with me pointing to the map and saying “you are HERE”. The player even went out and bought the Karen Wynn Fonstad DL atlas, and became the MVP for figuring out where the heck they had ended up in Krynn.

… we may have the only group of players who looked at other DL groups in horror and said “OMG, you don’t have a kender? How can you stand it?”

90

Thanks for your kind words.

For the latter, that is not precisely what I am talking about. If my first lockdown fails, we won’t wipe. The tanks get punished a bit harder and things get more complicated, but a few unlucky die rolls won’t cause us to fail. If it doesn’t work in round one, I can just try it again the following round. I am speaking more generally: if I do not consistently use crowd control and disabling techniques well, then in general we will not succeed.

One GM might get very upset if I silenced the Great Villainous Wizard in the final boss fight. In our games, it is expected that I will do something sneaky and siabling, and if I don’t manage to get him off of us for a few rounds, we will not succeed. Failure or success do not really turn on individual saving throws. If they did, I would build characters with stupid DCs and never fail, which would be boring for just about everyone.

91

I understand that’s why the French lost at Agincourt.

92

We once tried a party of all thieves, plus one cleric for healing. Whenever we came to a door, there was a rush to detect traps, listen and pick the lock. :slight_smile:
If there was a monster inside, one thief would hide on each side of the door, plus a couple more would climb walls and lurk above the doorway. The first monster out got backstabbed 4 times! :eek:

93

I am lucky enough to teach roleplaying at my school. When one group of pupils has finished maping the dungeon, I pass their work onto the next as ‘found on a dead body’.
The amusing thing is that the kids have hurriedly scribbled cryptic comments such as ’ DANGER! ', without saying what the peril was. :slight_smile: Or they just write intials, which are prone to misinterpretation (is ‘big T’ ‘big treasure’ or ‘big Troll’?).
I have got colleagues to write map comments in Latin, French + Spanish too - ah, the fun as the pupils desperately try to remember their lessons!

94

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

I misunderstood you. I agree that if the players do not play consistently well, then they should not succeed. :cool:

95

I’m pretty sure that’s one of those things that can only happen in the UK.

96

I was the kender in our DL games. They hated me, because I would never, ever shut up. You know the saying about kenders will steal everything that isn’t nailed down, and the ones with claw hammers will get that. My kender carried a claw hammer. :smiley:

I did shut up once. On one adventure we were flying to a moon and got attacked by something that could petrify us. The only party member that got petrified was me. They decided they didn’t really need to get me unpetrified, since I was so quiet like that. When they got to the moon someone asked which way the map showed the goal. Then it was a round of “I thought you had the map?” Until they realized who had all the maps we had ever found. I got unpetrified. :smiley:

As for the OP, we pretty much just worked together. After a night of adventuring, I would ask if there was anything they didn’t like or hated. If there was, and I didn’t have a long-term campaign reason for it, I did my best not to do it again. But after knowing each other for 20 years, it was pretty easy to avoid the things they hated. And it was kind of hard coming up with new things they hadn’t dealt with before.

The most important thing was being ready to improvise at the drop of the hat. Because they would always do the unexpected.

97

These are two reasons I finally dropped out of the group I was playing with. When I was playing a fighter, and trying to do my job (you know, melee fighting), the DM consistently countered me hold person-type spells or beset me with opponents with outrageously-high, unbeatable grapple modifiers.

DM: Roll your grapple check!
ME: <rolls> Um, 17? (7th-level fighter)
DM: <rolls> 39!

And even when my fighter wasn’t held or grappled, he was consistently outclassed by the party’s ranger, who somehow never got grappled, never failed a Will save (for that matter, was rarely the target of such spells), and who, benefitting from the DM’s complete misunderstanding of the two-weapon fighting rules, never left anything standing for me to fight.

Then, when I was playing a wizard, my offensive spells were consistently countered by the appropriate energy resistance. Granted, I had made a mistake in choosing to play a specialist enchanter and had to rely on scrolls/wands/magic items to provide offense. But since we never encountered an honest-to-goodness magic shop in that campaign, every item I had was either found (and dictated by what the DM wanted me to have) or provided by NPC allies (again, dictated by what the DM wanted the allies to offer), which mostly added up to items that let me cast fireball and magic missile. Then, lo and behold, every major enemy had a shield spell and/or resistance to fire.

Meanwhile, every encounter was being dominated by the party’s fighter, this time a character that the DM ignorantly allowed the player to create: an LA +4 race, so that the character was effectively 3 levels higher than the rest of the party, somehow had 200+ hit points at 7th level, outrageous racial Str and Con bonuses, and who again benefitted from misinterpreted two-weapon fighting rules. And I can’t blame the player - this was the first D&D character he’d ever played, so he didn’t know any better. He just thought it was pretty cool.

I dropped out as soon as we completed the particular adventure we were on. I simply wasn’t having any fun, for one thing. I was also getting tired of being a rules lawyer - I had studied the 3.5 rules in depth and had obtained much explanation and clarification from the official D&D boards, while it was apparent the DM had done little more than skim the 3.5 books for obvious differences between 1st Ed. and 3.5. By the time I quit, it was obvious to me why the players most experienced with this DM eschewed melee combat and arcane casters in favor of stealthy ranged attackers and divine casters (specifically, druids - druids who only used wild shape to assume bird forms to enable them to stay well out of combat, and only used spells that would allow them to attack from a distance).

98

We once had a party that consisted of five different flavours of bard (2nd Ed - it’s a statistical impossibility to roll up five 1st Ed bards in one party). That party could do almost anything (at low levels) except confront enemies directly in melee, missile or spell combat, so we resorted to being amazingly creative. My Loremaster, “Bill Tremblepike”, used to make notes on our adventures and present a party log written in iambic pentameter in time for the next session.

99

It’s much worse than you think.

My actual job is teaching chess. :slight_smile:
I added the roleplaying :smiley: , then went for the jugular by adding Computer Strategy Games (Heroes + Civ). :cool:

What is the American for ‘jammy bstrd’? :wink:

100

In a UK roleplaying tournament, my regular group were given 5 barbarians to play. The task was to recover the tribal totem from an MU who had stolen it.

We had a short discussion, then asked the DM if he minded us having fun. He grinned.
So we spent the first quarter of the timed event having competitions between the characters to see who would lead the party. (I won the spear throwing…)
Then we set off to the MU’s tower. Instead of sneaking up, we challenged him loudly.
We broke down a door and followed a staircase down into the basement. There was no tribal totem there, but there were plenty of barrels of beer. :smiley:
Happily drunk, we realised that some troops had entered the basement. They were going to steal our beer! :eek:
Our fearless leader decided to disarm the orc with a spear… by impaling himself onto the point. :smack:
The orcs promptly fled. We said a few words over the body of our leader, barricaded the door and set about having an election for a replacement. Unfortunately at this point we accidentally set fire to the basement and all perished.
At the closing ceremony, our DM made a speech about the group that had 0% points for achieving adventure goals, but 100% points for roleplaying barbarians. :cool: