So, you flat out refuse to engage with any hooks placed by the DM, only ever play amoral characters to avoid the introduction of any kind of moral or ethical drama in your games, and refuse to play with a DM who deviates from the rules or uses optional rules in his game?
Yes. I do refuse. This is a test of 5E D&D per the rules as written in the PHB. Not "Flamestrike's Rules" as he likes to run the game. I play in a game where I have to run every house rule by the other players or they refuse to play. Any group of players can do this, which is why the rules are an important touchstone for the player and DM.
There are two types of player agency in a game. PC player agency (the characters in game) and the player (the person) exercising his agency.
You have right off the bat violated the second form of agency by doing the following:
1. Assuming things about the characters that are not true such as making them criminals. The entire goal is to avoid moral games one way or the other.
2. You have offered me an unappealing adventure and expect me to play in it. Something I won't have fun playing with items my party can't use. Why did you design the adventure prior to looking at group composition? You have one player that uses a melee weapon as a primary form of combat. His weapon is a longsword and you offer the greatsword
Blackrazor. No one else in the group uses any of the items offered in
White Plume Mountain. It's a waste of my time to run through it. 20,000 gold? Are you allowing magic item purchases? In 5E, gold is a pretty boring reward without customizable magic. It doesn't motivate my players. They barely write down gold as it is unless they're a caster that needs it for spell components.
3. You toss on a timetable for the destruction of the world to force me as a player into your adventure. Why would I find this fun? Do you really think that you as a DM don't have to take into account the fun of the group? I have to do that every time I DM.
Look, I dont want to get into a judgement of your version of 'collaborative play' or really get into why you have to be so combatative but thats neither here nor there.
You want a test of high level play. High level play involves the PCs dictating. Standard adventure hooks don't work any longer. Gold is fairly meaningless. Magic items matter far more. Players ask themselves if this is fun and worth their time. They've been playing the same characters for however long it took to get to 13th level. They have personal goals usually involving obtaining a cool magic item they can use. They have a lot resources for planning and don't like to be put on a timetable that takes away their resources or they feel you're jerking them around as a DM.
A NPC of some importance has just offered your PC (and 4 other PCs) vast wealth (100,000 GP), royal titles and so forth to do a quest. He's hinted (strongly) that the world is about to blow up in about 5 hours time killing eveything. Are you telling me that of the five characters sitting in that pub, none of them buy this hook?
I'm telling you that me as a player find this hook uninteresting. It doesn't sound fun. It sounds like artificial motivation to do a quest for items I can't use for money that I can't use to do much. Why do you think gold motivates high level characters in a world without custom created magic items? In 3E this might have been motivating because the group would have item creation feats and would start planning out what magic items they planned to build. That isn't the case in 5E.
None of these five players have any intrest in noble titles, the Kings favor, vast wealth or not blowing up in 5 hours time?
Noble titles mean nothing in D&D. One of the characters is in fact already a noble, so she has noble titles. Gold is easy to come by for 13th level characters and fairly worthless in 5E. Imagine my surprise when I heard this from my players. I asked them if they were writing down their gold. One player tells he hasn't bothered after buying plate mail because he can't buy magic items and doesn't care about keeping track of gold. The other players complained they have nothing to spend their gold on but 50 gold healing potions and they have too many of those as it is. This is following the 5E standard rules.
So no, gold isn't worth much.
Five hours to kill? When my players have earned a character to 13th level, all they care about is keeping it alive. A living 13th level character is more valuable to them than just about anything else.
Instead you would rather just insult this bloke, and potentialy make very powerful enemies?
The way I see it your wizard is insulting my characters. You the DM have made a lot of assumptions that should not have been.
No, you dont have a Pegasus and a Flying carpet. You have unlimited (within reason) standard gear from the PHB, spell components within reason, and a few magic items (to be determined)
So a bunch of other adventurers with Pegasus and flying carpets went off to the mountain.
He doesnt or you'd already be dead. In case you havent figured it out yet, he's trying to hire you, not kill you.
You hire adventurers by claiming you have a "slate" to wipe clean? You way overstepped as a DM. I'm wondering treat you players in this fashion because I would not tolerate it as a player.
Why? How on earth is this relevant to the adventure for the purpose of the thread?
You wanted to run this as an adventure. As a player I don't want walk into unknown situations. I am notorious scout and researcher. I tend to always find out where I'm going and who I'm dealing with in any game I play.
I'm going to stop this right here as far as roleplaying goes. I'm not interested in the way you like to DM. We're already at a point where I would have left your game as far as your DMing style. I don't like games with artificial timetables. I don't like DMs that assume my characters have criminal records when I would work to avoid that. I don't like illogical plot hooks where more powerful heroes riding Pegasus and flying carpets have been sent to do something that some archmage is paying weaker characters to do for reasons unknown. I'm also not much motivated by the items in this adventure considering only one character might use them.
The Archmage standing in front of you would love to see you try.
Assume Forgotten realms levels of power. If Manshoon, Tzass Thaam, Fzoul Chembryll and co cant do it, a bunch of 13th level CN PCs wont either.
You are aware that the game doesn't go much beyond lvl 20 now. And that five lvl 13 characters would likely kill 5E designed Elminster, Manshoon or the like unless you created them far outside the parameters of an archmage? An archmage in 5E is a CR 13 enemy that is a medium encounter for lvl 13 PCs. And even the so named characters would likely be in the CR 20 to 23 range. You would have design them in a fashion that far exceeds what 5E is capable of to make them challenging? And by doing so, you would remove any feel the PCs have of power in the realm at the same time. This would also be another deal breaker in our games as the players prefer to be the biggest heroes in the realm they are adventuring. Given I believe this should be the case as a DM, I run the game accordingly and keep such characters out of their way.
So we'll stick with this as a combat simulation. I'll get the combat stats done up soon enough. We'll run the combats. I'm done roleplaying. I would never run in an adventure of this kind with my lvl 13 characters or tolerate some king bothering me or heroes with flying mounts and magic items far in excess of what I have after completing most of the possible levels of the game.
