D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Hussar · Oct 24, 2018

Just to put this in perspective:

If playing "Dude, where's my dinosaur" is among the top ten most interesting things that happened in your last session with 17th level 3e characters, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and humbly opine that perhaps, just maybe, there is a chance that your game isn't as much fun as you think it is.

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As far as being against DM authority [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], I'd say that's a fair cop actually. I'm very much not a "I'm in the big daddy chair, so you gotta do what I say" sort of DM. We left those kinds of games behind a long time ago, and, frankly, good riddance. Like I said, when everyone at the table is considered equally responsible for the table having a good time, games go a whole lot better. Consensus leads to much better games, IMO, than majority rules.

Maxperson · Oct 24, 2018

eayres33 said:
Yeah I didn't state that the best way I could, the only thing the host should bring you is well respect of course and perhaps the tie breaking vote, but that last part is debatable. I don't think most of these fights come up at actual tables run in someone's house but I could be wrong, most people in person are easy to deal with, but maybe I've been lucky in the gamer's I've encountered.

That's my experience as well, and I've played with more than 100 players over the years, not including the random people at gaming conventions.

I met a new group of gamer's at a coffee shop recently and they all seem reasonable, perhaps its because I game in person and not AL that it makes these conflicts seem weird or it could be that I'm more like the Dude, and the Dude abides.

In person makes a big difference. People online are more likely to argue harder and be more intractable than they would be in person, especially with strangers who don't even have a name. I know I'm guilty of that, and I'm sure most or all of us here have been guilty of that.

Just as an example from another thread I'm in, I said that I would not be using the set initiative 5e gives and would be having my players roll every round. It's more realistic to me. The reality is, though, that even though I said that in a way that indicates that I would make it happen, if all of my players said that they wanted to have set initiative numbers for the fight, I'd listen. I wouldn't personally like it, but I wouldn't force the entire table to play it my way, either. It's just not a big enough deal to me to make a stand against the group. There may be some things that are that big of a deal, but they are few and far between, and since people tend to find like minded people to play with, they just don't come up.

Maxperson · Oct 24, 2018

Hussar said:
If playing "Dude, where's my dinosaur" is among the top ten most interesting things that happened in your last session with 17th level 3e characters, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and humbly opine that perhaps, just maybe, there is a chance that your game isn't as much fun as you think it is.

I didn't say that, though. I'm just saying that visually speaking, the T-Rex is probably going to be the most stunning thing the party has as they walk into town.

As far as being against DM authority [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], I'd say that's a fair cop actually. I'm very much not a "I'm in the big daddy chair, so you gotta do what I say" sort of DM. We left those kinds of games behind a long time ago, and, frankly, good riddance. Like I said, when everyone at the table is considered equally responsible for the table having a good time, games go a whole lot better. Consensus leads to much better games, IMO, than majority rules.

The thing is, you almost always go to the bolded part whenever DM authority comes up. It's like you think that all DMs will abuse that authority and act in the manner you state above. The reality is that very few DMs act that way with their authority. Using the authority properly makes the game fun and interesting. Abusing the authority ruins the game.

That's what I meant with my comment a few posts ago. It's an assumption that DMs will act in bad faith.

Lanefan · Oct 24, 2018

pemerton said:
Why not? Most moral and legal system don't treat death and servitude as equivalent fates.

When servitude = slavery, as it likely would for most goblins, death might start lookin' pretty good after a while regardless of what the moral or legal systems might think.

No. At the table the player learns that the result of the resolution is reducing the foe to zero hp. The player decides that the foe falls unconscious. In the fiction, the foe falls unconscious.

Conveniently and completely ignoring the fact that to subdue rather than kill often requires a different type of blow to a different part of the body...thus rather obviously meaning that the kill-or-subdue intent has to be in place before the blow is struck.

Deciding whether the foe is unconscious or dead only after the damage is done (and shown to be enough to get the foe down to 0 h.p.) is nothing more than a retcon, and rather awful.

Do you apply your "time travel" interpretation to the 5e shield spell, so that it can't protect against the triggering attack?

As written, that spell's every bit as awful because again, if the 5-point AC difference turns a hit into a miss it causes a retcon of something that has already happened in the fiction. A tweak such that the reaction-casting occurs before the "triggering attack" is resolved (i.e. before either the to-hit or damage have been rolled) would remove any chance of a retcon, though it'd generate an ugly corollary problem: a need for a declaration-of-attack step before rolling in order to check for reaction castings like this.

Better yet to just make it an ordinary spell rather than a reaction; maybe extend its duration by a few rounds (say make it 2-5 rounds instead of just one) to compensate for the loss of flexibility.

Lanefan · Oct 24, 2018

Maxperson said:
Why would a king have a champion that would lose to the barroom bully?

How else do you think barroom bullies ever become kings' champions?

Lanefan · Oct 24, 2018

Hussar said:
Consensus leads to much better games, IMO, than majority rules.

True consensus is very often a myth. What often passes for consensus is just the less aggressive or stubborn people constantly yielding to the more aggressive or stubborn, with the more aggressive types sometimes throwing a bone to the others to keep up appearances.

pemerton · Oct 24, 2018

Maxperson said:
Once damage has been rolled, yes it would be time travel to block the attack with the shield spell. Before damage, it hasn't truly "hit" yet. Before damage, I would allow the declaration of a knockout to happen. After damage, not a chance. I'm not into time traveling PCs, unless they really are time traveling due to some magic. Hmm. I may have to add that to my next campaign.

eayres33 said:
This seems consistent with the spirit of the rule, you declare the reaction when you have been hit, nothing in the spell says you get to see what the damage is before deciding. You declare the "shield" reaction once you are hit, but before you know the damage. I'd extend grace to newer players, but after that grace I'd enforce this.
PC has AC of 15
DM the goblin fires a short bow at you to hit of 17
PC that hits my AC is 15
DM that is 8 HP of damage
PC shield so that doesn't hit

That situation feels all kinds of wrong. First time player sure, I'll let you use your reaction to add 5 to the AC with the shield spell but in the future once I tell you the to hit roll you have to cast shield then or it will not count.

What if it's an attack that does a static amount of damage? (Eg a blowgun)

Aldarc · Oct 24, 2018

Maxperson said:
You consistently post with a tone of mistrust for DM authority. If that's not the tone you are trying to convey, perhaps take a bit longer when you post on topics involving DM authority and see if what you are saying matches what you believe. Just my observations, and you aren't the only one here that posts with that apparent mistrust.

And yet I suspect that many of us are also primarily the DMs as well. So maybe it is not the DM we distrust, but, rather, the culture of attitudes and privileges surrounding and imparted into the role.

Sadras · Oct 24, 2018

pemerton said:
What if it's an attack that does a static amount of damage? (Eg a blowgun)

Really @pemerton :erm:

If you have 10 hit points and you know the damage will floor you then you'd raise a shield.
If you have 10 hit points and you know the damage will not floor you and your ally cleric is going next who is going to heal you, then you might save your reaction (counterspell) for the evil mage whose turn is after your cleric friend.

pemerton · Oct 24, 2018

Sadras said:
Really @pemerton

If you have 10 hit points and you know the damage will floor you then you'd raise a shield.
If you have 10 hit points and you know the damage will not floor you and your ally cleric is going next who is going to heal you, then you might save your reaction (counterspell) for the evil mage whose turn is after your cleric friend.

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s "time travel" argument relies on a distinction between rolling to hit and rolling the damage. I'm curious what he says if there is no damage roll.

And more generally, I find it interesting that Maxperson is very quick to tell us how the 5e rules should be understood (on this thread vis-a-vis clerics and warlocks; on another current thread vis-a-vis initiative), and yet is revising/ reinterpreting these various rules because they don't fit with his picture of how the game works. That's not necessarily a fault in his picture, but it does strongly suggest that it's not a very good picture of 5e! (If there are all these features that it can't handle.)