A couple of questions for the DMs out there.

[Lightray]

I’ll just tell myself that someone might learn not to do what I did from me telling these anecdotes, ok?

@glee

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!

Tried that once – I used Anglo-Saxon as the “archaic” language, figuring that it looks close enough to English that they could puzzle it out without getting too frustrated.

… Should have remembered that one of my players was a linguistics major in school. Who had been doing his dissertation on Anglo-Saxon sagas or something. :smack:

He went and got a red pencil and marked up my grammar. Gave me a “B”.

Lesson learned. Next time, it’ll all be in Arabic. or Hindi.

@Lok

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.

That DL game started after a very silly one-off where everyone had to play a kender, tinker gnome, or gully dwarf. They were defending Hylo from Dragonlord Toede, with the help of the kender militia, a gnome-designed tactical sewing machine, and some really really mean goats.

Anyway, the gnomes quickly noticed the kender eyeing their equipment lists, from which they would randomly “borrow”. All three gnomes immediately huddled together and produced a list twelve pages long of things they were going to carry around for the kender to steal. :eek:

The kender were kept busy, the gnomes always had whatever gear they wanted available, and the lone gully dwarf kept offering some string that no one wanted.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@glee

What is the American for ‘jammy bstrd’?

I’m pretty sure it’s “Jelly Roll Morton”. Are you telling me you teach jazz piano too? Is there anything you don’t do?

[glee]

@Hostile Dialect

I’m pretty sure it’s “Jelly Roll Morton”. Are you telling me you teach jazz piano too? Is there anything you don’t do?

‘Jammy bastard’ means ‘lucky’ here in England. (‘Jammy dodger’ is a biscuit. :eek: )

I only teach chess, roleplaying and computer games now.

[glee]

@Lightray

…
The kender were kept busy, the gnomes always had whatever gear they wanted available, and the lone gully dwarf kept offering some string that no one wanted.

I sympathise with that gully dwarf!

[MandaJo]

@Phase42

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).

We actually had a quiz on the combat/movement rules at one point. For bonus XP. It sounds really silly, but we all studied for it, and it forced us all to go over the rules and really get a handle on what we did and did not know. Combat has gone much more smoothly since then.

We have also played “Campaign Setting Jeopardy” for Stardrive.

We are nerds.

[Mister_Rik]

@Manda JO

We actually had a quiz on the combat/movement rules at one point. For bonus XP. It sounds really silly, but we all studied for it, and it forced us all to go over the rules and really get a handle on what we did and did not know. Combat has gone much more smoothly since then.

For good, in-depth discussion on the rules problems I had with this DM, check out my relevant threads over on the D&D boards:

DM misinterprets Two-Weapon Fighting rules/feats
Spellcasting, damage, and Concentration
Questionable DMing + Bad Playing