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When are you allowed to beat your DM?
Tweet Topic Started: Jan 20 2006, 11:29 PM (434 Views)
hylentor Jan 20 2006, 11:29 PM Post #1
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[rant]

I don't know, I just don't trust my DM for squat. He's running a semi-monster based campaign, and I was told to shoot for an ECL of 3.
I pick up savage species the next time I'm in the store and start running through it - To start with, if he's going by the rules, we have a Satyr and a Yuan-ti in our group, with ECLs of 7 and 6, respectively, and he calls it relatively balanced... huh?

Then, we have an encounter tonight with a Drow ranger, level 2-3ish. Ok, the CR checks with the group, but I, as a 2nd level Monk (Tiefling), do NOT hit her with a roll of 18 (yes, after modifiers). Sure, we're in a globe of darkness, but an 18 should hit almost anything you want to throw at us.

He tells us later that we needed to use better tactics - WHAT fricking better tactics? We had NOTHING in the party that could dispel the darkness (he apparently either thought I was an Aasimar or that we had the same skillset, as he looked at me when he said something about dropping a light spell) and the only reason we got RID of the darkness was he centered it on the party member who was on watch (who was dropped almost immedeatly by a crit), and one of the others tripped over her and pulled her out of the way.

I have no problem with tactical battles. I also have no problem with teaching players a lesson when something critical is forgotten (we had an NPC Aasimar cleric the first game, whom none of those who were his contact - I wasn't one - invited along on this one). This could have turned out very fatal in a big hurry (it came close to being a TPK with three people down, and I was almost out), and he doesn't fudge numbers at all - she was landing crits all the way through the battle.

We did nothing abjectly stupid, unless you count running into the globe of darkness stupid, but would it have been any better to sit outside and listen to the party that was inside get slaughtered?

IMHO, as an experienced Gamemaster of multiple systems, he should have done a few things (separately or together):
1. Ignore crits on us. Wouldn't have made her easier to hit, but we would have been standing longer to win by attrition
2. Keep the globe, but lower her dex by a few points so we didn't have to nat 20 to hit her.
3. Drop the globe, but do something that would make her move out of it - fudge a roll or such when the Half-Ogre ran in to try to sweep her out that knocked her out of the globe. It could have been an in-and-out sort of tactic.
Or, #4, My personal favorite:
Teach us the lesson about making sure the party is prepared, beat the snot out of us, leave us for dead, but allow the person(s) with decent Heal skills to shake it off and stabilize everyone.
This would give a party that has learned a valuable lesson without having to roll up new rookie characters to make similar rookie mistakes (at least for those of us who actually roleplay).

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Valefor Jan 21 2006, 02:10 AM Post #2
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I was reading your rant, and while I sympathize with your party getting its ass kicked, I'm not sure it was your DM's fault. It sounds like your party didn't have very good tactics.

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I, as a 2nd level Monk (Tiefling), do NOT hit her with a roll of 18 (yes, after modifiers). Sure, we're in a globe of darkness, but an 18 should hit almost anything you want to throw at us.

It's true that most CR 3 monsters fall into the AC 13-18 range (at least in the 3.0 Monster Manual 1), there are some major exceptions. On the low end of things, there is the gelatinous cube with an AC of 3, and the large zombie with an AC of 11. However on the high end of things there is the Yeth Hound with an AC of 20, the small Tojanda with an AC of 22 and a small Xorn with an AC of 23. So, obviously the people at Wizards of the Coast feel that sometimes throwing a 3rd level party against something with an AC higher then 18 is ok.

Also, Drow are suppose to be scary. And its not hard to get the AC up quickly. With their +2 to dex, it's not hard to justify an 18 or 20 Dex. Add +3 or +4 AC for studded leather or a chain shirt, and the AC shoots up pretty quick. You give the ranger a potion of Protection from Good, or Law, or a potion of Barksin, you've easily accomplished a high AC for very cheap.

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He tells us later that we needed to use better tactics - WHAT fricking better tactics?

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We did nothing abjectly stupid, unless you count running into the globe of darkness stupid, but would it have been any better to sit outside and listen to the party that was inside get slaughtered?

Chasing a drow into a globe of darkness is never a good idea. Since many drow have darkness as a racial ability, many drow take Blind Fighting as a feat. Which means the the drow ranger is getting +2 to hit you (See table 8-8 for invisible attackers), while you lose your Dex bonus to AC and suffer a 50% miss chance.

It would have been much, much better for your entire party to have gotten out of the globe of darkness. Instead of fighting on the drow's terms you could have moved out of the circle. The spell is only 20 feet, in any direction you should have been able to move out in one turn, maybe two. Your party could have surrounded the darkness and waited for the drow to come out or the darkness to wear off.

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1. Ignore crits on us. Wouldn't have made her easier to hit, but we would have been standing longer to win by attrition

Why should the DM ignore crits on characters? The players don't ignore them when they hit enemies. If you want the right to dish out a crit, you need to be willing to accept them as well.
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2. Keep the globe, but lower her dex by a few points so we didn't have to nat 20 to hit her.

Why? The drow are not stupid. If an NPC has an intelligent battle plan, why should the enemy’s stats drop when things are not going the PC's way?
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3. Drop the globe, but do something that would make her move out of it - fudge a roll or such when the Half-Ogre ran in to try to sweep her out that knocked her out of the globe. It could have been an in-and-out sort of tactic.

Um, isn't that the players' job? To remove an enemies' strength or advantage so that they're easier to defeat?
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Or, #4, My personal favorite:
Teach us the lesson about making sure the party is prepared, beat the snot out of us, leave us for dead, but allow the person(s) with decent Heal skills to shake it off and stabilize everyone.
This would give a party that has learned a valuable lesson without having to roll up new rookie characters to make similar rookie mistakes (at least for those of us who actually roleplay).

This would not have been a bad idea. In the DM's defense, sometimes the death of a character can teach a lesson more quickly and that will last longer then just a beating.

It's late, I'm tired and cranky and I'm probably coming off like an asshole, or more of an asshole that I normally am. But it does sound like a lot of the mistakes were made of the side of the players and not the DM.
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Shapeless Caren Jan 21 2006, 08:52 AM Post #3
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Well, I am not sure about the others, but the ecl of the other pcs(satyr and yuan-ti) were definitly off. That is unfair to you as a player. Other than that, well you could have moved out of the darkness... Not sure about the others...
Darkchild. Alone in the dark...
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hylentor Jan 21 2006, 10:13 AM Post #4
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Now that I've slept, and I'm not as pissed off about it, here's the whole situation, which I didn't put down due to being tired and pissed.

Person A (fighter) is on watch, the drow comes in, surprises/drops a globe on her, and drops her immediatly with a crit (this I would have ignored, as that could kill the party). The DM decides to allow her one shout before going down to wake the party up (I didn't wake up, naturally) - ok that's at least fair, but now we HAVE to fight on the drow's terms.

The drow then tells the drow member of the party (who got her own ass kicked, but not killed last night, and who's at like one HP) that she needs to enter the globe and duel or she'll kill the fighter. The half-ogre, who's already done one stupid thing that night, effectively losing an arm, rushes into the globe and promptly trips on the fighter, and the Satyr sneaks off to the side to try to drop a sleep spell off of his pipes, which drops me again right after I wake up next round. The other drow enters the globe, and the Satyr stops playing as he realizes he only hampered his own party.
Personally, I'm a monk, and we're EXPECTING another attack - I highly doubt Id've remained asleep that first round, but I could let that one ride. Getting hit by the Satyr's sleep spell sucked, but such is life.

Basically, we now have three in the globe, three out - one in the globe is down, one is just getting back to his feet, the last has NO hit points to speak of.

Outside is me, the Satyr, who chooses to go in this round, and the Yuan-ti sorcerer, who tries to cast entangle (and fails - but that was an *excellent* tactical choice).

My choices are A. Go in and possibly save or die with my party (we did NOT know we needed a 19 to hit this bitch at this point, since everyone in the globe had rolled low). B. Sit outside and wait, possibly listening to the party die and then having to deal with a drow by myself, or C. Leave. C. wasn't an option, and B. wasn't very palatable to my character.

I could arguably had shot slingstones into the globe, and whacked whomever I happened to hit. I could have dropped another globe of darkness myself - whoopee. I should have taken blindfight as my 1st level feat, but I had all of a half hour to make the character, including looking up the race stats and a handful of other things, and I'm not all that up to snuff on everything in 3rd ed (I've run 2nd ed for years, and was in grad school and not playing squat right after 3rd came out). That's an oversight I would have noticed had I more time (say, the week's worth of time everyone else had) when genning.

Things we didn't know: where the globe was centered. My character thought she put it on herself (I would have). If we'd have known the globe was centered on our fighter, we could have estimated the center and made a mad dash.

I personally entered the globe to give the bitch more targets - our drow needed A hit to drop, and, as I said, the player of the half-ogre won't listen to anyone, so he would have stayed in until he dropped.

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t would have been much, much better for your entire party to have gotten out of the globe of darkness. ...  Your party could have surrounded the darkness and waited for the drow to come out or the darkness to wear off.

Covered that one. Would have loved to. Not sacrificing a party member for that, thank you.

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This would not have been a bad idea. In the DM's defense, sometimes the death of a character can teach a lesson more quickly and that will last longer then just a beating.


Teach a lesson to the PLAYER? Yep. Teach a lesson to the low level-character that I'm roleplaying his lack of experience with things? Nope, he's dead, didn't learn anything except how to die.

Valefor:
Have you run games? From your comments, I'm guessing you haven't.

The gamemaster has the responsibility to make sure that the party doesn't get wiped during a random or minor encounter just because something absolutely stupid happened. Ok, someone dies from a random crit, not a problem, it happens. Someone dies from sheer stupidity - say we were ALL out of the globe, and someone ran in. Well, you deserved it.
The party member on watch drops and it is NOT part of my plan? In fact, just by that happening ups the danger level by 2 or 3 times? I start fudging some rolls.
*I*, personally, would have ignored the crit on the fighter that dropped her. This at least gives us something we can tactically do which does NOT involve fighting on the drow's terms, as it would have been clear early on who the globe was centered on. I (me) knew it wasn't the drow since she took a swat at our party's drow from the edge, but my monk (character) was asleep still. By the time I was up, people were in the globe, and the monk, acting on his own knowledge and not mine, does NOT know where its centered.

Now, if this were a big boss battle, a TPK would certainly have been on the table, and I wouldn't be as pissed off that we were nearly wiped from some bad rolls (and actually, Id've been pissed at the dice, not the dm).

As a postscript - this DM also has a history of A. Making NPCs that are a bit much for the party, and B. Changing things when we get a tactical advantage over him.
In the last game, we were fighting our main nemesis in the outdoors when one party member pops out a potion of polymorph self that he got a LONG time ago, and morphs into a dragon. Suddenly, a brand new attack our nemesis never had comes into play (if he had it before, he would have USED it before, it was just that damn good). He also now wants to talk instead of fight, whereas before, when it looked like he was winning, he just wanted to kick our ass (ok, I can see this, but when the dm is NOT letting the character who's now a dragon attack by using this other ability...)

Edit:
By the same token, I reserve the right to *increase* the difficulty level of the encounter if I misestimated and put NPCs who are too low/ineffective in. I will never make a crit that doesn't exist (I might ignore a crit), but my NPC saving throws and attack rolls may get fudged in either direction depending on how the party is doing (this is for minor encounters only - major encounters, the party is on their own as far as my dice).
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Valefor Jan 21 2006, 03:05 PM Post #5
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Person A (fighter) is on watch, the drow comes in, surprises/drops a globe on her, and drops her immediatly with a crit (this I would have ignored, as that could kill the party). The DM decides to allow her one shout before going down to wake the party up (I didn't wake up, naturally) - ok that's at least fair, but now we HAVE to fight on the drow's terms.

I don't disagree that having Fighter A live past the surprise round would have been a good idea. While it was completely within the rules, nobody likes having their character killed before they have a chance to act.

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The drow then tells the drow member of the party (who got her own ass kicked, but not killed last night, and who's at like one HP) that she needs to enter the globe and duel or she'll kill the fighter.

Nothing like a good bluff. Your DM should have allowed a sense motive check. But so far this is not a bad tactic.

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I'm a monk, and we're EXPECTING another attack - I highly doubt Id've remained asleep that first round, but I could let that one ride.

Um, once you're asleep you're alseep. Some DM's make their players roll Listen checks when they're alseep and some don't. Personally, I wouldn't of bothered making PC's roll a listen check at the death scream less right next to them, but that's the DM's decision to make.

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Outside is me, the Satyr, who chooses to go in this round, and the Yuan-ti sorcerer, who tries to cast entangle (and fails - but that was an *excellent* tactical choice).

Yes, it was. Entangle is a wonderful spell and would have changed the situation. Maybe for the better, maybe worse, but it was not a bad idea. I'm sorry to hear that it didn't go off.

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Basically, we now have three in the globe, three out - one in the globe is down, one is just getting back to his feet, the last has NO hit points to speak of.

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My choices are A. Go in and possibly save or die with my party (we did NOT know we needed a 19 to hit this bitch at this point, since everyone in the globe had rolled low). B. Sit outside and wait, possibly listening to the party die and then having to deal with a drow by myself, or C. Leave. C. wasn't an option, and B. wasn't very palatable to my character.


Or, you could have yelled for everyone to move outside the globe and surround it. Or, if you were determined to enter the globe you could have ordered everyone into a line and moved in. Once someone encountered the drow they could have yelled out and the rest could have attempted to surround the drow. If it wasn't within your character concept to wait, or plan, or order everyone about then so be it. Often, when you're playing character you do what the character would do instead of what you think would be the best thing to do. But when this happens things don't always go well.

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I could arguably had shot slingstones into the globe, and whacked whomever I happened to hit. I could have dropped another globe of darkness myself - whoopee.

I agree that these were not your best options.

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I should have taken blindfight as my 1st level feat

It would not have been a bad idea, but I don't blame you for not taking it. I don't know if you were trying to use a particular feat chain to make your character more effective and didn't have one to spare. Or maybe you were trying to qualify for a prestige class. And if you didn't look over the tiefling abilities carefully then it probably never entered your mind that the Blind Fight feat might have been useful.

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The half-ogre, who's already done one stupid thing that night, effectively losing an arm, rushes into the globe and promptly trips on the fighter

Once the half ogre tripped over the fighter he should have known that the drow was bluffing. You would have thought that the half-ogre would have tried to drag the fighter out of the darkness, and thus found out that darkness was centered on the fighter. However, the actions of the other players are never in your control. Did anyone else know (in character) that the fighter was down? If so perhaps the low HP drow could have dragged the fighter out of the way.

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I personally entered the globe to give the bitch more targets - our drow needed A hit to drop, and, as I said, the player of the half-ogre won't listen to anyone, so he would have stayed in until he dropped.

If you yell out a battle plan, and one or more of the characters doesn't respond then that's the player's fault, not yours.

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Covered that one. Would have loved to. Not sacrificing a party member for that, thank you.

Um, why not? You are playing a tiefling. Now you could have been playing a good tiefling trying to raise himself above his evil heritage. And if that is the case then you are right. Good characters almost never sacrifice members of their own party. But if you'll playing a neutral or evil character then sacrificing a party member is not out of the character.

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Valefor:
Have you run games? From your comments, I'm guessing you haven't.

I've been running games for 16 years. Most of that time I've been a DM only. For the last four years I've been able to play thanks to Kismet, but I've never stopped completely. I'm running a game for her later today.

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Teach a lesson to the PLAYER? Yep. Teach a lesson to the low level-character that I'm roleplaying his lack of experience with things? Nope, he's dead, didn't learn anything except how to die.

Yes, teach a lesson to the PLAYER. I spend several years running and playing White Wolf. If you've never played White Wolf their experience system is very different. One of the ways you get experience is you say what you, the player, have learned. By playing White Wolf I've learned that if you pay careful attention, that almost every game can teach you, the player or the DM something. If you didn't learn anything except how to die, then you missed an opportunity to learn.

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The gamemaster has the responsibility to make sure that the party doesn't get wiped during a random or minor encounter just because something absolutely stupid happened.


No the GM doesn't. Now, as you mentioned earlier sometimes a PC happens because of the dice (like you mentioned with a crit). And sometimes a character does something stupid and gets himself killed (also like you mentioned earlier). But sometimes the entire party does something stupid, or none of the PC's can roll above a 5. While it's frustrating to everyone involved, sometimes a TPK is appropriate. Now, when this happens it would be nice if the DM suddenly had the NPC decide to have their last hit be subdual damage, and attempt to capture the party so they get a chance to escape later. This allows a bad situation to turn into an interesting little side adventure all on its own. But this is not always appropriate. There are many monsters that attack because they are hungry. They are not going to tie everyone and drag them to their lair so they can escape. They are going to eat the PC, probably right then and their. Also, some enemies are trying to do nothing but kill the adventures. The assassin that slips in through your window is not going to try and tie you up. The assassin is probably going to try to slit your throat in your sleep. When you, as a DM suddenly start fudging die rolls, dropping stats, and changing intentions when things start going against your players stop losing their fear of death. And when that happens they start feeling like they can do whatever they want, without fear of consequences. On the other hand, if they know that you as a DM will kill any PC if the dice roll that way, then every fight gains more tension. Even a casual fight with orcs can turn fatal if that one crit is rolled. If the party make a very bad decision, or even if luck isn't with them then they could all die alone and unremembered. By keeping the threat of death constant, and occasionally dishing it out (always fairly) then you keep the fear, excitement, and adrenaline in fights at a high level.


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As a postscript - this DM also has a history of A. Making NPCs that are a bit much for the party, and B. Changing things when we get a tactical advantage over him.
In the last game, we were fighting our main nemesis in the outdoors when one party member pops out a potion of polymorph self that he got a LONG time ago, and morphs into a dragon. Suddenly, a brand new attack our nemesis never had comes into play (if he had it before, he would have USED it before, it was just that damn good). He also now wants to talk instead of fight, whereas before, when it looked like he was winning, he just wanted to kick our ass (ok, I can see this, but when the dm is NOT letting the character who's now a dragon attack by using this other ability...)

I'll admit that this sounds like it was a little sloppily done on the part of your DM. As a player it really sucks when you have the hated BBEG on the ropes, and suddenly the DM throws something completely made up and unfair out of his ass to save him when he should be dead. As a DM, it can really suck when the BBEG you've so lovely crafted and schemed is about to be killed due do to something you overlooked, forgotten, or plain bad luck. It's even worse when that BBEG is part of your plot, and if he dies now your entire plot is screwed. But that's the way of the dice. Sometimes you can figure out a way for the BBEG guy to escape, and sometimes he dies prematurely and you have to spend a while trying to rework your plot.

Again I'm sorry to hear that you almost suffered a TPK, and that your character got killed. No matter the situation, it always sucks, and you have my sympathy. While I don't agree with you that the situation was entirely the DM's fault, it does sound like you did what you thought was best and tired your best. And in the end, that's all you can ever do.
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hylentor Jan 21 2006, 09:00 PM Post #6
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I never said my character got killed.

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No the GM doesn't....


Yes, yes s/he does. We'll just have to disagree on this one.

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The assassin that slips in through your window is not going to try and tie you up. The assassin is probably going to try to slit your throat in your sleep.


Ah, but an assassin would not be a MINOR encounter. At least in my opinion. Then again, I prefer playing in high fantasy - you're more likely to die on the battlefield than I am to send a *good* assassin against you. Now, if I were running in Thieves' World or Lankhmar - take a light sleeper feat. :devil:

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When you, as a DM suddenly start fudging die rolls, dropping stats, and changing intentions when things start going against your players stop losing their fear of death. And when that happens they start feeling like they can do whatever they want, without fear of consequences.


Yes and no. Like I said, I start fudging rolls either way. And I don't fudge in the big encounters. Its no fun for the players die to a pack of 5 goblins when I want to give them a change to die against the pack of bugbears at the back of the dungeon (for instance). Or die to the skeleton guard with 6 hp (when they're at a full, say, 30) when the wizard is in the next room. By the same token, if they start mopping the floor with every encounter and don't take ANY damage, they start not taking the dungeon seriously, and will probably make that critical error with the boss NPC. Some people may not even be having fun there (I know I don't have much fun when there's little chance of even damage for my character).

Its no fun for them (either to die or have it too easy), its no fun for me (if they die in the wrong place or if they start turning the air in my dungeon to a fine red mist).
If you aren't having fun, its not much of a game, ne?

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Yes, teach a lesson to the PLAYER.


Yes, I can see that, but no, I disagree. I've been playing D&D and the like since before 2nd ed came out (I actually started with the basic/expert, etc line), so I've been playing for somewhere about 20 years, and I've played in quite a few other systems. I've been running games in varying systems (lots of 2nd ed, I ran MERP, Paranoia, Star Wars d20, a couple others) for circa 15-16 years.
I KNOW how to play a character, there's very little dying will teach me the player, outside of maybe what you expect when running the game. ...Ok, that's a bit out of reach. Yes, I personally at the very least learned something about the limitations of skill x or tactic y in situation z, but that isn't my point right now, read on...

Now, the half-ogre. He's the DM's brother and has been playing, oh, a year or so. He still makes stupid mistakes, and lots of them. We all try to coach him a bit, and the DM is even a little light on some of his mistakes, but he pretty much runs into his situation and has to deal with the consequences. He has not yet grasped the idea of ROLE playing, which segues into my next point.

There's something else you're ignoring. I (me, the player), while not a tactical genius, win my fair share of games like Warhammer, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Chess, and what have you. My character (a SECOND level monk, who's pretty much only worked with other monks) is most definitely NOT a tactical genius.
I'm playing my character - *I* certainly would have liked to shout directions out to people in the globe, my character, not so much, he's not a leader, nor a tactician. He's second level - he's had only a handful of true battle experiences to boot, and has probably NEVER fought drow (to back up a point - I've fought, and used, plenty of drow in battle, I know a fair amount of them have blind fighting, and I know they have other nasty spell like abilities. Does my monk therefore know all that?)

Unfortunately, the crux of it is that I may HAVE to start using personal knowledge just to survive. I'm betting the DM expects us to use every advantage we can squeeze out of our knowledge of the system and experience playing. Why? That's pretty much what he did as a player in my Star Wars game (oh, the stories).

Basically, I think my ranting here has to do with I have a vastly different gamemastering style than he does. But I've also been running for about 14 years longer than he has, so I have considerably more polish. Does it make me right? Not neccessarily - what it does make is a point that I need to sit down with my DM out of game and have a good chat - preferrably without the other players there (then I probably need to sit down with the couple other intelligent players in the group and we need to work out some tactics).

edit. rasse frasse typos.
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kismetrose Jan 22 2006, 02:06 AM Post #7
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I don't know, I just don't trust my DM for squat. He's running a semi-monster based campaign, and I was told to shoot for an ECL of 3.
I pick up savage species the next time I'm in the store and start running through it - To start with, if he's going by the rules, we have a Satyr and a Yuan-ti in our group, with ECLs of 7 and 6, respectively, and he calls it relatively balanced... huh?

One of the first things that I learned about D&D was that not all DMs could be trusted. It took me a bit longer to realize that not all players can be trusted, either. One of the things that really burnt my biscuits was that one of my players would not tell me when something bothered him. I would get the idea that something was bothering him but even when I asked him about it, he wouldn't tell me the truth. This made things very frustrating all around.

What I'm wondering is: When you noticed the discrepancy in the ECLs, did you go to your DM and ask him about it? It would only be fair for you to have an equivalent character to the other players. Your DM, however, might have forgotten the level he told you, or made some other mistake. And if he didn't care that you were getting so badly short-changed, then it might not have been wise to continue to game under him.
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IMHO, as an experienced Gamemaster of multiple systems, he should have done a few things (separately or together):
1. Ignore crits on us. Wouldn't have made her easier to hit, but we would have been standing longer to win by attrition
2. Keep the globe, but lower her dex by a few points so we didn't have to nat 20 to hit her.
3. Drop the globe, but do something that would make her move out of it - fudge a roll or such when the Half-Ogre ran in to try to sweep her out that knocked her out of the globe. It could have been an in-and-out sort of tactic.
Or, #4, My personal favorite:
Teach us the lesson about making sure the party is prepared, beat the snot out of us, leave us for dead, but allow the person(s) with decent Heal skills to shake it off and stabilize everyone.
This would give a party that has learned a valuable lesson without having to roll up new rookie characters to make similar rookie mistakes (at least for those of us who actually roleplay).

When I DM, I try to keep fudging to a minimum. The players tend to know when you do it and then they tend to rely on it. And when the characters are doing something you feel is bone-headed, it does not tend to help if you start fudging rolls. It almost rewards the behavior you would rather the players avoid.
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Valefor:
Have you run games? From your comments, I'm guessing you haven't.

Valefor has run quite a few, and I very much enjoy his efforts. Just because someone disagrees with us doesn't mean they haven't run before.
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I've been playing D&D and the like since before 2nd ed came out (I actually started with the basic/expert, etc line), so I've been playing for somewhere about 20 years, and I've played in quite a few other systems. I've been running games in varying systems (lots of 2nd ed, I ran MERP, Paranoia, Star Wars d20, a couple others) for circa 15-16 years.

Which leads me to this - it doesn't matter how long anyone has been gaming, or what they have played - we all have things to learn and we all make mistakes. Perhaps your mistake has been gaming under the wrong DM to suit your tastes. In which case, this incident might have ended up teaching you something after all.
Kismet's D&D - WoD - SG-1 - FB
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hylentor Jan 22 2006, 07:53 AM Post #8
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What I'm wondering is: When you noticed the discrepancy in the ECLs, did you go to your DM and ask him about it?


Yep. He seems to think there's no discrepancy.

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And when the characters are doing something you feel is bone-headed


Absolutely - if they're doing something stupid, they get no mercy. If they're just having a bad dice night, I'm more lenient.

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Perhaps your mistake has been gaming under the wrong DM to suit your tastes.


Unfortunately, there's been a dry gulch for me in gaming (odd, being in a gaming store, but I don't like jumping into a group of total strangers - at least these guys are my friends). At least I'm playing in a decent (more rp to hs) star wars right now (I put it as "a spot opened at the big kids table" to blufrogz :P ). Basically, I want to have a chat with him, maybe with one of the other guys who also has a few issues with how he runs. I did that in the first session, since he was running some weird hybrid of 2nd and 3rd for the oriental campaign we were doing last year - he hadn't read the rules thoroughly enough to realize the system had, oh, totally changed, and I wanted to make sure I knew what ruleset we were coming from.

I'm going to give him another session or two - if this keeps up, I'm out.

Sadly, I was talking about this with my stepdad, and he's thinking I'm the bad guy because I'm "taking my ball and going home." In a way I can see that, but if it just annoys me how he runs, and I'm not having ANY fun, why should I play?
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