|
Ichabod Sexbeast posted:So how much do emoticons cost round these parts? Because you really need You know what the world needs? Jedi Vikings.
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 16:43
|
|
with a lightsabre.
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:31 |
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:I've gone to a stranger's house twice to game, usually it's because the host is a friend of a friend. I don't think I'd ever go back to a random person I met at a gaming store's house without knowing them for a while. Yeah The best way to feel out a potential gaming group is to just get to know them, on time when I was looking for an irl group I started talking to a guy who had mentioned on-line he was looking for players, and then met him and the other gm of the group for a drink, ok it turned out that the only day the current group as a whole could meet was the one day I couldn't but ...
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 17:31
|
|
|
Rumda posted:Yeah The best way to feel out a potential gaming group is to just get to know them, on time when I was looking for an irl group I started talking to a guy who had mentioned on-line he was looking for players, and then met him and the other gm of the group for a drink, ok it turned out that the only day the current group as a whole could meet was the one day I couldn't but ... My old group always met at my place because it was the only place with enough room/no kids/not buried in bachelor debris. We were always looking for new members since our work schedules made it hard for everyone to meet every week so I usually would me any prospective members off site. I would never let some internet stranger in my house and would be leary of going to another stranger's place to game. Pretend games are not worth it. Now some wargamers have a couple of office rooms rented out and have opened up one of the rooms for rpgs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 18:07
|
|
|
A smug sociopath posted:yo maybe this was fun for you and that's cool but this is basically awful, you don't get to complain about how bad the DM is if you start the game out doing poo poo like this
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 19:41
|
|
|
On the other hand, seems to me that the GM doesn't have much room to complain about their players acting like dicks if they're openly boasting beforehand about explicitly and literally crucifying the entire party by the end of the first Goddamned session.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 19:47
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:yo maybe this was fun for you and that's cool but this is basically awful, you don't get to complain about how bad the DM is if you start the game out doing poo poo like this I don't think smug sociopath is Abe wasn't that the name of the player that gave him his user name?
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 19:55
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:yo maybe this was fun for you and that's cool but this is basically awful, you don't get to complain about how bad the DM is if you start the game out doing poo poo like this You must have missed the part where he blatantly expressed to us that he was going to start the campaign by loving crucifying us. I mean, he was smug as hell about it, and made no attempts to hide the fact that it would be a GM vs Players affair. I think his reasoning for the crucifixion was to have us in a position where we would be absolutely defenseless (and have some sadistic fun on the side) so that we could easily be railroaded by a mighty GMPC to a suicide mission to some magic ruins. Actually, he did succeed on the defenseless and railroaded part later on, with a whole "magic bracelets that explode if you disobey" shebang. Edit: quote:I don't think smug sociopath is Abe wasn't that the name of the player that gave him his user name? That's right. A smug sociopath fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Mar 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 20:36
|
|
|
Might as well write up the rest of the session right away. It gets really weird. After leaving the manor, our merry band of now-free slaves came to a small rural town. With no pursuers, we decided we'd stop there and stock up on some essential supplies. Of course it couldn't be that easy. While the rest of the party was buing some food from the town merchant, Eric headed off to the tavern. By now it was a tradition in Praedor that our party would be carrying around several barrels of alcohol. Eric enters the Tavern, and the following discussion ensues: Eric: Good day! How much for a bottle of wine? Bartender/Abe: 2 pieces of bronze. Eric: Very well! I'll take twenty! Abe: That will cost you 200 pieces of bronze. Eric: Wait, what? You just said it's 2 bronze a piece. Abe: Supply and demand.  Eric: You have to be kidding me. I'll take just one bottle then. Abe: It's now 10 pieces of bronze. Eric: What the gently caress? Eric spends a while, first trying to reason with the bartender, then haggling with him, unsuccesfully. At this point we begin to wonder what's taking him so long, and enter the tavern. Eric: I'll give you 5 copper a piece. Abe: No, ten. Eric: That's it, I'm going to pimp-slap him. So, Eric slaps the bartender, causing some nosebleed. Then he gives the bartender a bunch of copper (more than 40, but a lot less than 200) and picks up those twenty bottles of wine. We walk out of the tavern and... We're suddenly surrounded by the whole village, with pitchforks in their hands, about to lynch us. Me: Why are we surrounded by armed peasants? Abe: Because Eric slapped the bartender. Mark: Well, that was loving fast of them. Me: How do they even know Eric slapped the bartender? There was nobody in the tavern. Eric: Could we kill them all? Abe: One of them yells "Hang them!". Me: Okay, run! And that we did, Eric the fastest, with his 40-meters-per-turn speed. After our courageous retreat, we venture to the capital of the land, wherein... I don't really know. I think Abe told us that something was calling our characters there. So, this mysterious calling leads us into a shop of alchemic potions, wherein an alchemist tells us that he wants us to go to the old ruins to find some artifacts. Now, two things; In the setting, Wizards are more like gods, rare as all drat hell and powerful. Mythical creatures almost. This will become relevant soon. Second, going to the old ruins is pure suicide, as they're filled with all kinds of magical monsters more than capable of wiping the entire party out. And that's where he wants us to head to. We of course laugh at his face, because the prospect of getting eaten by a Kraken feels far less desirable than roaming the countryside and robbing poo poo. So, in effort to counter this, when we turn our backs to leave, he quickly slaps a collar on Mark, telling us it's a magical collar that will explode unless we enter the ruins within 48 hours. Mark: I guess we've got no choice now. Me: Onward to a suicide mission then? Mark: Yeah, just one thing, first. And Mark chops the alchemist's head off with his sword. Reasoning behind this being that since we're going to die anyway, we might as well kill the chump who doomed us as well. Unfortunately for us, the psychic guards from Oblivion were apparently patrolling in this city, and the whole alchemy shop is instantly filled with guards in full plate armor. We retreat into the back room of the shop, trying to hold the onslaught of guards off at the doorway, while Mark begins making an escape route for us. Making? Yes - he picked up a bunch of acid bottles off the alchemy shelves and tried to melt us a hole in the wall, while the rest of us were throwing random potion bottles at the incoming guards. Then, a wizard appears out of nowhere (well, okay, not out of nowhere, apparently he was chilling upstairs and we bothered him) and zaps all the city guards to death, while paralysing us for long enough to put the same collar Mark had, on all of us. Remember what I said about wizards being extremely rare and mythical? Yeah, I guess not. The old ruins turned out to be not all that murderous, just dull and absurd. Two things happened there; We came to a spot where there was a 3-meter wide chasm. We couldn't jump over it, or climb, or anything else. Eric: I can run 40 meters in 5 seconds, but I can't jump over a 3 meter wide hole? Abe: That's right. It's too wide. Eric: Do you even know how much three meters is? Then we were attacked, by something that wasn't invisible, but we couldn't see it. No, really. Abe: Eric, you're attacked from behind. (rolls damage) Eric: What's attacking me? Abe: It's behind you, you can't see it. Me: I'm behind Eric, what's attacking him? Abe: You can't see it. Me: You mean it's invisible? Abe: No. Me: Then why can't I see it? Mark: I'm behind Smug Sociopath, can I see it? Abe: No. Me: If it's not invisible then how come we can't see it?  Abe: *Sigh* Okay, it's an old mummy. Me: I'll hit it with my poleaxe. (Roll damage) Abe: (without looking at the dice) You do no damage. It disappears into thin air. Which ended the session, and the campaign, because none of us had any desire to continue. Abe still gets reminded of the impossible three meter chasm every once in a while. It's become a bit of an in-joke. In hindsight, I guess the campaign wasn't the worst ever (At least there was no actual danger of getting my face punched in, unlike in my old group  ), just badly GM:d and rather bizarre.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 22:48
|
|
|
A smug sociopath posted:You must have missed the part where he blatantly expressed to us that he was going to start the campaign by loving crucifying us. I mean, he was smug as hell about it, and made no attempts to hide the fact that it would be a GM vs Players affair. Your boy started the campaign by designing a dude who was completely broken, then using a completely retarded strategy to wreck the game. In my opinion he was begging for the DM to pull some sort of awful escalation. Basically if you don't treat the GM's game with respect then why should he treat you with respect? He's a player too, he deserves to have fun and not be hosed with just like you do. And the argument that he's a terrible GM doesn't work, because you knew that going in, and fired the first shot rather than just not playing with him. You went in depending on him to be a bad GM as part of your plan for enjoying yourself. You don't then get to turn around on him and say "oh look waht a bad DM he is!" If you guys had fun with it that's one thing, but I would hate to play with either you or this Abe guy, you both seem as bad as one another.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 22:57
|
|
|
Bitchtits McGee posted:On the other hand, seems to me that the GM doesn't have much room to complain about their players acting like dicks if they're openly boasting beforehand about explicitly and literally crucifying the entire party by the end of the first Goddamned session. The players don't really have room to complain about anything the GM does if he openly plans to crucify them and then they join the game anyway.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 23:00
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:Your boy started the campaign by designing a dude who was completely broken, then using a completely retarded strategy to wreck the game. In my opinion he was begging for the DM to pull some sort of awful escalation. Or maybe the GM should've had the decency to at least read some of the rules before approving his character. He definitely had the chance, and the power to deny Eric's character. But he didn't, because, like rest of his GM:ing, he half-assed on getting to know the rules ( and this was after being in a several month long campaign of the same game). quote:And the argument that he's a terrible GM doesn't work, because you knew that going in, and fired the first shot rather than just not playing with him. You went in depending on him to be a bad GM as part of your plan for enjoying yourself. You don't then get to turn around on him and say "oh look waht a bad DM he is!" At that point, it was his campaign or naught. Back then I had no say in what got played, so I just tagged along for the ride. I went in expecting the same kind of sandboxy fun we had had in the same group previously. Instead I got a gloating description of how we were going to get crucified. So hell yeah, look what a bad GM he is. quote:If you guys had fun with it that's one thing, but I would hate to play with either you or this Abe guy, you both seem as bad as one another. U-huh.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 23:20
|
|
|
A smug sociopath posted:Or maybe the GM should've had the decency to at least read some of the rules before approving his character. He definitely had the chance, and the power to deny Eric's character. But he didn't, because, like rest of his GM:ing, he half-assed on getting to know the rules ( and this was after being in a several month long campaign of the same game). Sorry bro, but his being a lovely DM doesn't mean that you weren't a lovely player. There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with other people and yours is the wrong way. Your stories remind me of the old 50 Foot Ant stories from previous incarnations of this thread. Other people in this thread are either bragging about great times they had with friends, or sharing war stories of terrible people whose behavior just ruined their day. You, by contrast, are bragging about how you ruined some terrible person's day by being terrible yourself. I don't get why you think that's cool. Also lol I just realized that you were blaming him for not knowing the rules well enough to recognize that one of his players was being a huge douche. Oh, of course, the guy wasn't a douche, because the DM (who didn't know the rules yet) said it was OK! Even though the player did know the rules, and knew that what he was doing really wasn't OK. That's like if I rocked up to someone and scammed them in some pyramid scheme and then said "whoa, shoulda understood finance better!" sure they should have, but that doesn't make me magically not a thief (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2012 23:32
|
|
|
Liesmith, normally you come across mostly as a voice of reason. But sometimes an rear end in a top hat GM is just an rear end in a top hat GM, regardless of the player's own actions. If not, out of real curiosity if that's not bag GMing, could you fill us in on what is bad GMing? If the crucifixion was a surprise, would that be bad then? Or still good because it is the GMs game and his story? EDIT: Also, are you calling Smug a Bad Player, for the broken character his Friend made? I'm probably just missreading that part. Section Z fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 00:33
|
|
|
Section Z posted:Liesmith, normally you come across mostly as a voice of reason. But sometimes an rear end in a top hat GM is just an rear end in a top hat GM, regardless of the player's own actions. Nobody's saying it's good GMing, I'm just saying that it's terrible play on Smug Sociopath's part and really reflects poorly on him. He had a lot of options, from walking away from a terrible game, to trying to be a good player and maybe turn the GM around, to just acting like a huge passive aggressive jerk who decides that if the GM is gonna be bad, then there's no reason for him to treat anyone at the table with respect. And his buddy is worse since he'd been planning to gently caress with this game since character creation. Liesmith fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 00:34
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:Nobody's saying it's good GMing, I'm just saying that it's terrible play on Smug Sociopath's part and really reflects poorly on him. He had a lot of options, from walking away from a terrible game, to trying to be a good player and maybe turn the GM around, to just acting like a huge passive aggressive jerk who decides that if the GM is gonna be bad, then there's no reason for him to treat anyone at the table with respect. And his buddy is worse since he'd been planning to gently caress with this game since character creation. They were attempting a turnabout-is-fair-play lesson and they failed. It was notably bad and that's what this thread is for.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 00:50
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Sometimes the only way to break a bad GM's bad GMing is to out-douchebag them from the other side. This is never a good idea, it is always stupid.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 00:55
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Sometimes the only way to break a bad GM's bad GMing is to out-douchebag them from the other side. I've never seen a GM like Smug's go "oh, no one wants to play with me, it must be that I'm a cockbag and I need to learn how to be a better player." No. It's always "no one wants to play with me? well it must be that they can't handle my genius." I disagree. I mean, yeah, just sitting passively in hopes that their lovely GM grows up is a schoolboy nerd error, but turning around and saying "well this guy sucks, so we will be dicks first" is an incredibly lovely move as well. And this isn't like the guys in this thread who show up at a con and a huge fat guy shows up and then describes how his werewolf rapes the female NPCs or whatever, while the other players reel in shock or scramble to respond. They knew this guy, they knew what he was like, and they chose to play with him anyway. YOu can't really complain if you put yourself in that situation.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 00:56
|
|
|
Look, everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to recover from them with maturity. smug sociopath, I recommend you offer to run a one-shot as a break from his campaign, then relentlessly torture his character as he has yours.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 01:04
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:I disagree. I mean, yeah, just sitting passively in hopes that their lovely GM grows up is a schoolboy nerd error, but turning around and saying "well this guy sucks, so we will be dicks first"  " and also made full notice that this was going to be a GM-vs-PCs game. So they accepted and took on the fight. When the GM couldn't even make the game interesting and had to resort to disappearing invisible mummies, they quit.I've been in some adversarial GM games that have been fun, and they were fun because the GM started off with "I'm gonna throw poo poo at you that you have maybe a 1:100 chance of winning and you're gonna try to avoid the bottom 99 of that range." The GM did what he said, we made our characters as absurd as possible, and poo poo was hilarious for both sides. It's like the bizzaro world version of Smug's story, but it is possible if the GM isn't a fuckhead (or at least isn't a boring fuckhead).
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 01:07
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:But they weren't dicks first. He fired the initial salvo with "hey guys I'm gonna literally crucify your characters by the end of the first session, heh The difference is that you did it in a spirit of good natured competition, whereas Smug Sociopath sounds like a dick in 100% of his stories so far. Also, when your GM tells you that you are gonna get crucified as a plot point, and you don't want to be crucified, either discuss it with him or don't play the game. it's not rocket science
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
Liesmith posted:The difference is that you did it in a spirit of good natured competition, whereas Smug Sociopath sounds like a dick in 100% of his stories so far. I don't know where you're getting that; in every story I've read from him it was Abe who was the aggressor, with the latter actively attempting team-killing in at least one case, before anything was done in retaliation. He's just a lot more creative than "I stab Abe" in dealing with this guy, whose continued presence in their group confuses me considering that their primary interactions seem to be him trying to screw everyone and them beating him at his own game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 01:35
|
|
|
His name is Smug Sociopath, guys.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 02:16
|
|
|
Yes, keep in mind Smug takes his name from the time he Prevented Abe from graphically torturing another PC to death in front of an audience (the details of his intended torture which written on a stack of passed to GM notes). Via ballista bolt and commando squad. Causing Abe to call Smug his current name sake because Abe Got Killed instead of Abe Tortures Non Smug PC To Death. Save fellow PC from a grim torture by another PC with vampire commando squad and siege weaponry. Clear bastard all the time instead of just debatably this one time. Section Z fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Mar 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 02:38
|
|
|
On the one hand, Abe, Smug Sociopath, and the rest of his gaming group have shown remarkably unenlightened mindsets. On the other, the stories are kinda cool. Given that that encompasses the spectrum of reactions here, could we please drop the argument and return to posting stories?
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 05:13
|
|
|
Dareon posted:could we please drop the argument and return to posting stories? Stories > arguments. So way, way, way back in the day White Wolf published LARP rules for Vampire: the Masquerade. Now, Vampire LARPS are pretty much a cesspit, we all know this now... but when the game was new, well, we still thought it could be awesome. So our group organized one at the local gaming store. Of course, since A) the game was new and we didn't have as firm a grasp on the rules as we could have, and B) we were all much younger then, we cane up with some pretty batshit crazy and/or minmaxed characters. (One thing we learned right quick: the rank 5 Fortitude power is a quick way to ensure that you never get XP again. It allows you to ignore a single source of damage at the cost of a permanent Willpower point (sunk cost: 3 XP) or three physical Traits (sunk cost: 3 XP). Given that you usually get 1-3 XP per session, this means you basically give up your XP for the day in exchange for ignoring the fuel-air bomb or whatever. Problem is, when a GM wants to demonstrate how nasty a villain is but doesn't want to kill a character... who do they have that NPC target? That's right - Fortitude boy. If your GM isn't careful, you pretty much lose the chance to ever keep up with the XP curve in exchange for being the mine canary for the rest of the group. Yaaay.) Anyways, this one dude had an... interesting concept. He was a Malkavian (the guys who are all crazy) and everyone thought he had multiple personalities - one week he'd claim to be Tomas the Lasombra and another week he'd be Bob the Nosferatu or whatever. This was incorrect. Each of his 'personalities' was actually the soul fragments of a vampire he had Diablerized (drank the soul out of). His actual craziness was megalomania. Every time he Frenzied, however, he would switch 'personalities.' Point is, one week he's running around as Tomas and he's basically undermining the efforts of everyone trying to keep the city from sucking and being a political gadfly, and I figure if this personality stays dominant for another few weeks we're probably going to have chaos on our hands. So clearly something must be done. That something was a cheap plastic squirt pistol filled with LSD and DMSO in solution. Squirt vampire, wait fifteen minutes, then walk up to him, throw a handful of confetti in his face, and shout "SPIDERS!" And that was the last we saw of Tomas for a while. The best part of that story, I like to think, is that when randomly determining which personality would be next on the chart he got a female persona, and so arrived at the next game in drag. Which isn't the best part, the best part was several of the other players checking him out and then double-taking and feeling faintly nauseous when they realized whose rear end they'd been ogling.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 06:14
|
|
|
There shall never be another story posted ever. So. My group has always had awesome sessions, or else we wouldn't have been together for nearly ten years. But we used to have pretty bad sessions interspersed with things, now those are mostly gone as we've burned out the lows. But there was one point when an unequivocally good experience came out of a game that, while I love it, I look back on now as kind of awful. There were other good experiences too, but this is the one that sticks out in my mind up until today. So let's meet the cast. Our Heroes. Amon was a wizard. We were playing in GURPS at this time, which meant that he had to navigate the awful complexities of the GURPS 4E standard magic system, which was irritating as balls to work with, but he managed it. He had a separate superpower of always being away from a fight when it broke out for the first half of the game. He was on this trip just to be an rear end in a top hat. Also because he was in a relationship with Aelestis, protector of Evyna, and Abigail's adoptive brother. Abigail was a pretty mundane sharpshooter. The main story was following her attempts to recover her memories from some awful fear demon. Aelestis ("Elly") was a bird-woman mercenary who favored picks and awful swooping attacks. Her ex-husband was a general in the demon's armies trying to find their daughter. She was looking for a more permanent way of stopping him. Evyna was an NPC. Her voice had been stolen by the fear demon, and locked away inside of his fortress. She was a race of cat-beastmen's goddess of parties and the like. Her initial protector died because he was an avatar of another race's war god, and ended up getting the poo poo killed out of him by the fear demon's razor-claws while everyone escaped the fortress the first time, with her voice. There were others throughout the game, but this was only those three. They had invaded a small god's manse, this one was Evyna's brother, The beastman god of metallurgy, alchemy, and being an rear end in a top hat. They needed some special metal from him that would grant the permanent-death to the demon and any gods that happened to get in their way. Unbeknownst to the party, the demon calls ahead and tells him to be ready, because Evyna is finally coming back for revenge for some insult, and they're going to stake him to a rock for a few dozen years. Gods are immortal, but not invulnerable for the most part. Still, Evyna is able to tell them that, hey, he's not going to be happy to see them. So they enter the hostile god's mountain and are crossing a black bridge in a pitch black void. Everything is screaming TRAP. They know it. But they're sure they can handle it. And they meet the guy in the center of the bridge. He then stomps on the bridge, and it separates into a thousand pieces. There's a red light below, magic forge-magma. That's the only light, and they're falling toward it. Then they're not falling. They end up on pieces of the bridge, spinning about as unseen assailants start cutting at them. Sometimes aiming to throw them into the forge, sometimes just aiming to stab them. So Elly flies around, but is battered by the black moving debris. Amon tries to get some light going, but it's not much, and Abigail is trying to shoot the enemy god, who is standing on his platform and terribly amused with himself. Someone remembers that Evyna is capable of making a great deal of light, but she's already on it, illuminating the whole system of spinning debris and black-clad spectres wielding knives. Elly and Abigail are getting torn up, but they're keeping them off of Amon. So everything's going wrong. Evyna couldn't help even if she wasn't dancing to maintain the light. Abigail can't get a clear shot for the spectres. Elly has gotten rid of a few, but she's so cut up she can't fly anymore. Were I a good GM at this time, I'd be worrying if I set up the encounter right, but this was back when I figured awful adversarial poo poo was OK. (I'll write my Shadowrun Worst/Best Experiences later). Amon's turn. IRC, so we wait a few moments. I'm trying to think of how he can fix this. I'm expecting him to go out and save Elly, or fire lightning at things, as that's been his best spell, and it's what he's used in pursuit situations, and generally to murder stuff. His description comes in. He holds up his staff, points it at the platform the god is standing on, smiles, says a few words. Then I see what spell he's using. Shape Earth. Breaks apart the platform out from under the god, sending it to who knows where. So he falls, spectres disappear. Normally Amon is a murderous type, but he wants to keep him alive, so he re-forms the platform a bit lower, catching him. It was the first real fight he'd been in, not just a stomping. And it sort of set the tone for any other ones he ended up around. The game was full of a lot of weird poo poo, but none of it was really interesting. It was just weird. Amon's player, though, went on to always have awesome incidents whenever my adversarial GMing crap came up. Eventually I was cured of it a few years later, but that was after my Shadowrun games.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 08:44
|
|
|
So I play a Pathfinder game every week and it's been getting progressively worse. The Rogue is close friends with the GM and found a dagger in one of the first sessions (at level 1) that was worth 25,000 gold. He sold it and bought all kinds of stuff for himself, not splitting with the party even though the dagger was originally in the party's loot pool. In contrast, we're now 5th level and the ranger in our group has a set of +1 chainmail and a handy haversack as his only magic items. This will be important later. We are in a random dungeon that showed up as we were walking through the Underdark that's full of traps. The rest of us pretty much twiddle our thumbs while the rogue disarms them for an hour at a time. We finally get to the bottom of this side dungeon and find a door and a corpse outside of it burned by a trap. I use Blood Biography and find out he was drained by vampires, and tell everyone we should probably go. They decide to press on, so I hang to the back of the group waiting for a good chance to flee if I need to. A vampire immediately rushes out and almost instagibs the barbarian in the surprise round, we start normal combat turns and I get a Haste down on everyone. The Barbarian goes to swing and misses with a 26 total. The Ranger gets some lucky rolls and we end up taking her down, but it turns out her AC was 29. We're level 5, most of us without magic items that matter, and I think everyone needed 17's to hit her while she was autohitting for around 35 per round. There's another vampire inside who's shooting flaming arrows at the monk who ran in, turns out he has a 29 AC also. I stick a Glitterdust on him and he loses all his Dex bonus so his AC goes down to 21. He ends up going down like a bitch, but only because he was blinded. We destroy their coffins and find all their stuff, including Greater Bracers of Archer and a +2 Flaming Composite Longbow (+3 Strength Pull). The Rogue suggests that he and the Ranger roll off for it, whoever wins gets the bow and the loser gets the bracers of archery. The Ranger doesn't want to, I tell him that it's pretty terrible since all he does is shoot and he doesn't even have a magical weapon. The rogue offers to hand him down his +1 magic composite bow if he can have the new one. I tell the rogue that he has all this good poo poo and the ranger has nothing and his defense is "but I bought all that with money from that dagger I found!"  He keeps hiding behind that dagger being the DM's mistake for putting in such a high value item. The DM doesn't get involved in any conflicts, just pretends to be doing something else any time it comes up or ignores my facebook messages that he needs to watch out because things are becoming heated and adversarial between players. It's the most frustrating thing in the world, not because I am greedy for magic items (I've actually gotten nothing in 5 levels, but I'm a wizard, who need them?), but because the rogue can't see that it's an apple of discord and keeps rubbing it in. For bonus points, the DM gave us a Wand of Wonder that has 600 things that can happen and infinite charges. Our last game, over an our was spent with people pointing the wand at eachother to see what would happen. What ended up happening: Someone gained a +4 (untyped) bonus to strength permanently, the ranger grew wings permanently, a player had to talk in a rhyme until we can break enchantment on them, the monk caught a disease, and a bunch of random spells happened. Apparently it can instant kill you with no save as well, and can target people not involved in the wand pointing. I was tempted to throw it in an acid pit we crossed over because they kept using it and hitting me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:04
|
|
|
Rods/Wands of Wonder are usually (not always but most of the time) an indicator of a lovely DM. They can be fun and entertaining and even useful, but more often than not it's just a way for the DM to say "I made a wacky table that no one but me gets to look at! You should roll on it to see what zany thing happens next!"
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:14
|
|
|
I dont mind the concept of wands/rods of Wonder, but I think they need to be treated like I treat them in something like Crawl or Nethack. "Oh cool - something that might help at the last minute if I'm at 1HP and have used all my potions. Maybe I'll turn to stone, or get a +1 to Acrobatics checks, or summon a Baal...or maybe it'll teleport me to safety."
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:20
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Rods/Wands of Wonder are usually (not always but most of the time) an indicator of a lovely DM. They can be fun and entertaining and even useful, but more often than not it's just a way for the DM to say "I made a wacky table that no one but me gets to look at! You should roll on it to see what zany thing happens next!" It's pretty much exactly how it's being used, except the players are trying to leverage it for mechanical benefits. I really, really want one of them to die from it, but part of me knows that it's going to bounce and hit me or someone else who won't go near the drat thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:21
|
|
|
Regardless of how the Rogue got his gear, he still has more/better than everyone else. That automatically eliminates him from loot pools until everyone has the same amount of gear. How is this even an argument? I mean, jesus, just point him to this thread.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:21
|
|
|
areyoucontagious posted:Regardless of how the Rogue got his gear, he still has more/better than everyone else. That automatically eliminates him from loot pools until everyone has the same amount of gear. How is this even an argument? I mean, jesus, just point him to this thread. The worst part is that the money he spent on gear came from the party's pool. Everyone got like 400 gold after splitting the normal loot, but he keeps all 25k from selling the dagger. The big thing is that the Ranger has 16 strength, so he can use the strength pull on the composite bow to the fullest. The Rogue has 12 strength, so he can barely even draw it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:25
|
|
|
Rods of Wonder aren't universally a terrible idea, it's just that it's a yellow light when one shows up. Last time I ran a D&D game I put a Rod of Wonder in as an artifact, but about 90% of the effects were either "this hurts the thing you point it at" or "this helps you, the wielder, in some way". An 01 on the d% was "roll again, whatever you roll hits everyone within 100 feet" and an 00 was "pick something from the list, it hits whoever you want" and there was nothing really massive in it; no instant death or granting of wishes, but the odds were good that if you're using it that whatever happened was worth the action spent on it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:28
|
|
|
We pulled a rod of wonder once, but the effects tables were pretty wacky and not mechanically broken at all. The DM pretty much gave us a fun item that in no way broke the game, unless you count turning the wizard blue (we also were able to tell what a haunted house was thinking). Not grognardy "You gain a +5 to dex! You die of a horrible kidney infection! Isn't this rod so wacky?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:37
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:For bonus points, the DM gave us a Wand of Wonder that has 600 things that can happen and infinite charges. Our last game, over an our was spent with people pointing the wand at eachother to see what would happen. What ended up happening: Someone gained a +4 (untyped) bonus to strength permanently, the ranger grew wings permanently, a player had to talk in a rhyme until we can break enchantment on them, the monk caught a disease, and a bunch of random spells happened. Apparently it can instant kill you with no save as well, and can target people not involved in the wand pointing. I was tempted to throw it in an acid pit we crossed over because they kept using it and hitting me. This reminds me of the "Mystery pills" we used to have in our Paranoia campaign. They lead to some hilarious crap. Of course, that was Paranoia. They might not be so much at home in a serious setting.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:41
|
|
|
A smug sociopath posted:This reminds me of the "Mystery pills" we used to have in our Paranoia campaign. They lead to some hilarious crap. Of course, that was Paranoia. They might not be so much at home in a serious setting. Yeah, from what I understand of Paranoia, having an item where you can get a random affect is pretty much awesome because the worst case scenario (you shake the wand and everybody bursts into flame and dies - nice job dickwad) is still amazing if done at the right time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 17:42
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:The big thing is that the Ranger has 16 strength, so he can use the strength pull on the composite bow to the fullest. The Rogue has 12 strength, so he can barely even draw it. Rules wise, he can barely draw it and gets something like a -4 to hit. It's like the actual player trying to draw a 150 pound bow. There's no loving way. Also, just tell him, in character, that next time he targets you with an attack, you're going to kill him. You're tired of it, he's had his fun, but you're not going to tolerate it anymore. And oh, the ranger, who IS THE ARCHER, gets the bow and the bracers. Just like the barbarian would get magic huge weapons. I'm sure the others would back you up on pretty much every point.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 18:12
|
|
|
Swags posted:Also, just tell him, in character, that next time he targets you with an attack, you're going to kill him. You're tired of it, he's had his fun, but you're not going to tolerate it anymore Don't do this! Be an adult instead and don't act like a child in the game. Either you or another person in the group needs to talk to this guy and let him know he's being difficult.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 18:19
|
|
|
Swags posted:Also, just tell him, in character, that next time he targets you with an attack, you're going to kill him.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 18:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:31 |
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:This will do nothing positive, it will only reinforce him and probably end with the rogue pulling a coup-de-grace the next time your character is asleep. Instead tell him out of character that the next time he pulls any sort of antagonistic bullshit, he's uninvited to everything. D&D, movie night, drinks at the bar, everything. He'll either shape up fast or you'll be down one rear end in a top hat. Right, because borderline behavior in a D&D game is totally worth severing a friendship over. Presumably there's some other reason they like this guy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2012 19:58
|
|