That was a waste of five hours of my life (mild)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Today I got to go to my RPG group. Our lovely great quest was to wander into a unknown location and hope we stumbled across a monster capable of eating whole armies. Somehow, the GM didn’t understand I wasn’t terribly excited, and really we couldn’t play through as our combat-wombat had already left.

In response, we wound up involved in… a wedding. A more or less unremarkable wedding with nothing untoward happening. Then the completly moronic subpolot involving ninja cats stealing the wedding food. Ah, OK. Then we stumbled into a magical, but extremely stupid, land of cats. There was some long bullshit about getting back the lord’s youngest daughter, who had been kidnapped by th cats in a pathetically blatant rip-off of the mediocre anime The Cat Returns. Since there was not a thing the cats could do to stop us, I walked away and eventually they grabbed her and left. Imagine my joy.

2

Many moons ago I and some friends RPG’d every Friday night, always leading into Saturday afternoon. One guy had, well, issues. Napeoleon like. As we were setting up (read: getting out the soda, munchies, and smokes) he made one too many offhand snarky comments about the DM and his girlfriend.

The rest of the evening was a game of “Watch the DM try to kill off the moron” while the rest of us pretty much sat and watched. We tried to assist the moron, but it had become personal and he refused our assistance and the DM shut us off from him. We ended up wandering around a deserterted city.

Fun.

3

What bothers me is that every second session or so is horrifically pointless and NOT FUN, and GM keeps pretending I have a choice in matters when he’s set it up so I don’t. No, I didn’t want to go hut this terrible monster capable of eating armies by wandering around the backwoods despite having no information about it and no means of getting any (as it turns out, said GM forgot I had an ability which did let me get something, but realized his mistake at around midnight when I no longer gave a shat, and yes I did remind him about it).

In this case, I wanted to actually do some political dealing, but I couldn’t because we’d already agreed to go fight the monster. Eeveryone else in the entire world is completely and totally helpless without us, so of course we must do everything for them, and thus far they have failed to ever thank us for it. My GM somehow thinks I want the NPC’s to offer me treasure or gifts or favors or something (although they only do this for things I didn’t help with and never for things I did :rolleyes: ) but all I want is for them to just fucking thank my character for shattering his bones and bleeding out half to death while saving their nation from a horrific wave of terror and death. Plus, his habit of playing everyone we might like an air-headed, genial, genius regardless of whether they want us to die screaming and alone or wish us the best tends to make me back off from any actual talking.

Anyway, he “offers” to let me do political dealing, conveniently forgetting he’s given us a very short deadline for dealing with the monster. Since our combat character didn’t show (player just didn’t come) we had no means of dealing with the monster anyhow, but I felt I had to at least get us up to where it was. No, I’m not going to wreck the agreed-upon plot by staying at home and talking. Yes, I know you won’t actually pay any attention to me anyhow if I did.

But for the love of GOD! Did you have to insult me by making a “challenge” that any six-year old could defeat? I mean, fucking HONESTLY! Then, after demonstrating my disgust by refusing to have anythig to do with this bullshit, he decides to insult me by having a mighty lord of the city offer me a favor, for no fucking reason, not even having been involved in the bullshit nonsense.

That’s buying me off, and I was about ready to tell him to shove it up his own ass. I don’t want a fucking in-character reward. I WANT something to DO which a retarded child could not easily accomplish in five minutes. If you’re not going to provide, don’t bother having the GODDAMN GAME.

4

Coulda been worse. You could have been watching the musical Cats, without a sword.

5

Is ruling class plot to keep you distracted from your oppression. And why a princess? Why not a female Ph.D in statistical analysis, or the daughter of the People’s Commissar for Parks and Roadways? It offers the illussion of power without any access, and they get you to pay rent for it. And for a bonus, it occupies your time, and prevents you from going about campaigning vigorously for the candidate of my choice!

Your choice. Slip of the keyboard. Your choice, of course.

6

I cn haz yr princess?

7

Hey, The Cat Returns may have been mediocre by Miyazaki’s standards, but it’s not a mediocre movie. It’s a charming movie about staying true to yourself with lots of spectcatular action.

Sucks about your DM though. Can you find a new group?

8

So run your own game.

Daniel

9

I’ve tried. They’re like jackals. We’ve got two loons, two ludicrous powergamers, and one berzerker loon. One or more of them will destroy any game I try to run. PLus, I’m just not a terrribly good GM. You can’t even do a dungeon crawl because they start doing things like tunneling, sheep-assaults (i.e., get a mess of helpless sheep to trigger traps), locking the monsters in to their horrible deaths, and mostly, avoids the dungeons at all.

10

My first (and last) experience trying to explore the world of D&D consisted of one night, with 7 new players, having to completely flesh out characters. It took about 8 hours, none of us had a clue what we were doing or what any of it meant.

The second night, the GM mentioned a stray dog and his new girlfriend is an animal nut and we spent the rest of the evening trying to catch the dog. And 5 hours of my life gone.

Never had the guts to try again.

11

I think I’m safe enough not to be caught (by my friend, not a mod) for this post, so here goes.

I played an RPG that took place in a wedding, once. Both in and out of game. Our GM was getting married, so the rest of us in the group decided to play a game of Call of Cthulhu during the reception. Yes, really. The setting of the game was us at the reception. Of course, we swapped the character sheets around (we had done a “play as yourselves” game way back when, so we still had the sheets) so we were playing as each other. Naturally, the bride was the villain (hey, we wanted our GM to ourselves!), though we didn’t finish it. The groom’s sister also joined in, which was great. It was a surreal, fun day.

12

Eh. I GMed games for ten years or so and, let me tell you, it gets hard finding ways to challenge and engage the same folks over and over. Took up too much of my free time doing it, and when I did a good job, the players wanted more. They gave up every attempt to run games themselves, so I was always the worker and never the player. In general, I had to resort to using whatever shortcuts I could find to create the illusion of a dynamic world with depth and cause-and-effect…I have sympathy for anyone trying to run a game, and tend to cut them some slack.

I had a few pretty crappy players…notably, one time a villain sent the heroes engraved cards inviting them to a beatdown (“attend, or else the city gets it!”), and two of the characters refused to attend – literally turning down engraved invitations.

But I generally had few rules lawyers or serious minimaxers/munchkins, because i was exhaustive and specific about house rules and I went over everyone’s character with a fine-toothed comb beforehand. This weeded out the serious rules-abusers before actual playtime.

IMHO one of the most annoying sins game masters commit – and I myself was occasionally guilty of it, despite struggling to avoid it – is getting one player alone in another room to roleplay some solo action, and then losing track of how much time this is taking him/her away from the other players. In my playing years I’ve seen some sessions where one guy drags the GM into the back room to discuss something and they stay in there until there’s a mutiny in the other room full of bored players wondering how the GM can be so rude. Literally they’d stay in there for hours, shrugging off requests to wrap it up, doing something secret from the rest of us, while we ate chips and tried to think of stuff to talk about. Now THAT’S a waste of my time!

Sailboat

13

Off to MPSIMS.

14

You’re the GM! You can fix their wagon.

Tunneling: Lava pockets, avalanches, unstable ground creating random pits and hazards, terrible things attracted by the racket, powerful earth elementals (or other earth creatures) who don’t appreciate it much

Sheeping traps: Traps that detect alignment (and I always go by my idea of alignment, not what they have written), traps that give positive effects and turn their “sheep” on them, traps that when triggered cause wide-ranging negative effects like area damage or loss of treasure

Locking the monsters in: Teleporting monsters, enemy mages and sorcerers (that now have been given the chance to use ALL of their nasty prep spells and scry on the party to determine their weaknesses), and again treasure loss

Avoiding the dungeon: Either use alignment traps (oh, the paladin won’t bother to investigate a threat to the world?) or, the bane of every powergaming party, treasure loss, simply don’t let them encounter anything good to attack without cooperating

I wouldn’t use these tools on a real party (well, not all of ‘em) as I hate railroading, but if they intend to force your hand by acting out of character and metagaming like crazy, I say, teach them a lesson. They’re bound by their characters’ abilities; you’re not. The GM always has the upper hand. If they want to play “destroy the GM’s adventure”, fight back.

15

Or you can applaud their creativity. One of the greatest DMs I’ve ever played with (he won some national judge’s award through the RPGA for a few years before they discontinued it) talks with glee about a dungeon he set up for the characters, lovingly spending hours on it, stocking rooms with monsters, figuring out their relationships to each other, preparing for the PCs’ every possible move.

The PCs figured out where the dungeon was, did some divination to figure out where the Big Bad was in the dungeon, and cast Earthquake on it. End of Big Bad!

He could have tried to fight against it, but instead he called them a bunch of bastards, grinning the whole while, and started extemporizing.

If the PCs figure out clever maneuvers, try to let them work at least once and at least partially. That’ll be more fun for them, and it’ll be a wonderful challenge for you. Of course, after the first sheep is bloodily exploded by a trap, the remaining sheep are going to stampede back toward the PCs, and suddenly you’ve got a hilarious combat encounter going on. Tunnels require serious knowledge to prevent collapses, and they make a lot of noise: PCs who have that knowledge are probably going to encounter a welcoming party when their tunnel comes out, but at least they’ve bypassed a lot of the rooms. And the bad guys aren’t waiting around in the dungeon to be slaughtered: they’ve got their own plans, and if the PCs don’t interfere with those plans, Bad Things Happen.

I started one campaign off with a murder mystery. When the PCs lollygagged, innocent people died, people that could have become powerful allies. When they took initiative, they got to humiliate the bad guys. It set a good tone for the rest of the campaign.

Daniel

16

The problem is that all of the mentioned measures are very specific. As in, I can’t use them very often or the players get pissed. And you can’t very well have lava pop up in the middle of the dungeon very often, or avalanches, or teleporting monsters, etc.

The real problem is that we’ve got one puzzle solver, who always plays a mighty spellcaster (usually with every advantage/combo in the book plus several he devised himself). One guy who ignores the game except to randomly whip out his mega-specialist ability (and who swaps characters every few sessions). Two crazies who really don’t care but like to have long-winded but pointless conversations where they babble incoherently at the monsters/NPC’s. One guy who flies into berzerk rages (Him, not the character. Well, the character, too.) and destroys all evidence/clues to the next plot.

Basically, I can’t put in puzzles which will hold up puzzle solver for more than five minutes. He’s that good at solving them. He doesn’t need to be a Rogue because he simply comprehends how any trap can work, and takes measures to avoid any magical and nonmagical trap (seriously, he knows of which I speak). And he can solve puzzles faster than I can make them. If he does make a mistake, or someone actually finds a method of outsmarting or tracking him, he gets pissed at me. I refuse to enable his passive-aggression.

The other power-gamer will randomly whip out powers I’ve never seen before, usually some super-specialist can-opener ability. He refuses to show me his character sheet and swaps characters at the drop of a hat. He basically uses our friendship as a tool to manipulate me. I refuse to be manipulated, so I won’t run for him.

I can’t put in anything subtle or which involves diplomacy or discretion, because the two loons wreck it.

I can’t run any game at all because the berzerk loon destroys any plot or clues, attacks anything which comes within reach (including, on one occaisions, the Pope), insists on playing machine-gun wielding marines in every setting, including DnD, and gets mad at me for either challenging him or not challenging him. Yes, he actually gets mad if I he’s in any actual danger and he’s mad because he’s defeating the enemies too easily. Frankly, he really wants to be playing FPS games but doesn’t have a computer. I refuse to play with him.

The first player mentioned is the current GM, and while he’s also hit or miss, he’s pretty good when he hits.

17

You shouldn’t have to; Left Hand of Dorkness has the right mentality here.

Then let him get pissed. That is his problem, not yours. With a guy like that he will likely pull away from the group while he is annoyed, allowing you to work more with the others

I am sorry, but this is terrible DMing. Not only should you see their sheet, you need to personally OK anything they have. The key to avoiding most power gaming troubles is in never letting them have the odd powers to begin with. A good rule is that anything in the PHB is acceptable and anything outside of that needs both your specific approval (every instance) and a good in-character reason for it. Also, what they hell is up with switching characters? Why would you allow him to do this? It’s your game, take charge. You are letting your players walk all over you.

That is OK. It is not your job to make sure the PCs do their job. If they wreck things enough times then the other PCs (probably the power gamer and the puzzle solver) will put the smack down on them. I bet once they wreck things that you give the PCs another way to solve the problem. Make them pay for what they do, perhaps making the current adventure unsolvable and the world a more dangerous place to live in.

That is your right. Even better, only allow him a reasonable character. Either he will quickly die (Pope’s guards should take out any character of a reasonable level) and then he is out of your hair for a while with the other PCs likely hesitant to let his next character join their group unless he looks more stable, he will get mad and leave (which is fine), or he will play reasonably. Win, win, win.

I am not sure you have played with a good DM before.

18

Yeah, but I just stopped making up material after awhile. They kept bypassing everything, and it’s kinda nice that they put so much effort into it, but I wind up spending a lot of time on stuff which never takes gets used.

Nah, when he gets pissed he tries to wreck the game. So I stopped GM’ing for him.

No, I’m not allowing him to walk all over me. I’m refusing to GM becaue they refuse to work with me. It’s crap like this which is why I stopped GM’ing for them. They will not work with my rules, and I’m the only one who ever makes any effort to compromise.

I like the idea, but they won’t enforce party discipline. I’ve tried t do so in the past (when playing) but they won’t back me up. So I refuse to GM for them any more.

You’d thik it would work, but it hasn’t yet. Unfortunately, the current GM is ludicrously lax.

I actually agree with all your points. That’s how it should be. But the gaming scene here is splintered and hard to get in touch with these days, and is very, very small. I don’t have many options. Aside from which, even if they do piss me off, these are my friends and I don’t get to hang out with them very much. So I play but I won’t GM. I’ve been burned by them too many times.

19

Wow, sounds like you have a shitty group. I hope they are better friends in other realms, because they are terrible gamers. They also sound like the kind of people who would be difficult to be around in other arenas. Have you considered a new gaming group?

I love these threads as they remind how good my group is. I only really play because I have known them forever and that is the main activity when we gather (from many hours apart). I occasionally get down on them because out of the six of us there are maybe two half-decent roleplayers and two half-decent strategists, but at least none of the others get mad or ruin the game for anyone.

20

Yeah, I’m the only Roleplayer (well, somebody part-times it) and the only Strategist. I’d like some things otherwise, but as I said, switching groups is problematic, as I only know of one other group, anywhere. I’d kinda like to join it, but so far no luck. I think they’re pretty full right now.