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

[5ekyu]

And you skipped the part where the DM can have the high priest make demands upon the PC whenever he wants. There are built in obligations to the cleric class.

And of course the cleric can refuse perhaps risking severe consequences for his choice or perhaps its the high priest that is in the wrong - holy cow - is that a drama bit of story i smell? Oh my - quick bring out the meta-game drama dissolver pen.

 

[Maxperson]

And of course the cleric can refuse perhaps risking severe consequences for his choice or perhaps its the high priest that is in the wrong - holy cow - is that a drama bit of story i smell? Oh my - quick bring out the meta-game drama dissolver pen.

Yep. And the warlock can refuse the patron. That's not the point of any of this. We're discussing whether or not there are NPCs that can the DM can use to make demands upon the PC built into the class.

 

[5ekyu]

Yep. And the warlock can refuse the patron. That's not the point of any of this. We're discussing whether or not there are NPCs that can the DM can use to make demands upon the PC built into the class.

"any of this" - the entire thread of this discussion? nah the thread has covered a lot more about the patron cleric than just that. But i will give you time to catch up.

The answer to your query is "yes" - the class has NPCs all wrapped up in its descriptive and so they are there and since the Gm controls NPCs by the 5e rules, those can make demands on anyone, the cleric included as long as they can get to the individuals.

The key to this is that this should be done in collaboration with the GM, but in the final tally, you have this as a core definitive declaration...

"As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes lists of many of the gods of the multiverse. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign."

So a player can consider all sorts of things but the GM determines which gods are available and by pretty much dint of that what options exist for the player to choose from.

is there a good in the campaign which allows the options you wanted for all those details of your relationship and priests etc... ask your GM. he may say "nope."

He may decide to say "there are no gods available that do not require the high priest being able to make demands of lower status clerics." and if so, there you go.

So the answer comes down to "ask your gm and talk with him."

 

[Umbran]

Rain isn't wet. Rain is water. Water is wet.

Maybe someone else got this in the intervening pages, but, if we are going to get pedantic, water is not wet. To be wet is to be covered or saturated with water - water cannot saturate itself, and therefore cannot be wet, any more than most people's favorite d20s are "covered in" plastic.

 

[Maxperson]

"any of this" - the entire thread of this discussion? nah the thread has covered a lot more about the patron cleric than just that. But i will give you time to catch up.

The answer to your query is "yes" - the class has NPCs all wrapped up in its descriptive and so they are there and since the Gm controls NPCs by the 5e rules, those can make demands on anyone, the cleric included as long as they can get to the individuals.

The key to this is that this should be done in collaboration with the GM, but in the final tally, you have this as a core definitive declaration...

"As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes lists of many of the gods of the multiverse. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign."

So a player can consider all sorts of things but the GM determines which gods are available and by pretty much dint of that what options exist for the player to choose from.

is there a good in the campaign which allows the options you wanted for all those details of your relationship and priests etc... ask your GM. he may say "nope."

He may decide to say "there are no gods available that do not require the high priest being able to make demands of lower status clerics." and if so, there you go.

So the answer comes down to "ask your gm and talk with him."

Yeah. You and I have been in pretty close agreement on this topic.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe someone else got this in the intervening pages, but, if we are going to get pedantic, water is not wet. To be wet is to be covered or saturated with water - water cannot saturate itself, and therefore cannot be wet, any more than most people's favorite d20s are "covered in" plastic.

It was a joke based on what he said about me. It wasn't intended to be serious, which is why I finished with the ""
"

 

[Hussar]

/snip

You-as-player get to fully play the game within the limits you've put on yourself.

The player already did handle the decision-making, way back at char-gen when that particular charcter and deity was chosen. What's happening now is that the game is saying "here's where the decision you made then has ramifications now".
/snip

Kinda sorta. Those limits are placed within the writeup of the game. It's not like the player chose to put that limitation there. IOW, the player likes everything else about the class, just not this one, specific thing and is asking the DM if, in this campaign, we can shelve this one specific thing for this one specific character.

And the DM's apparent answer is, "Nope. You chose this, you have to accept this, I will absolutely not take your preferences into account and you must anticipate that I will bring this into the game regardless of how you happen to feel about it."

/edit to add

There's other bits here as well. Playing a Dragonborn character or some other oddball race. Everyone agrees that there isn't a mechanical problem here. There's no powergaming going on. Nothing in the Dragonborn description talks about how Dragonborn are particularly feared or suffer negative reactions. That's something that the DM has added in. Now, it's not a case of the player accepting the consequences of his choices, but, rather the DM imposing consequences probably justified by some sort of nod to verisimiltude or setting fidelity or something like that.

Now, how is this not the DM specifically adding "consequences" that aren't even referenced in the rules? Same as having a motorcycle. Nothing in the game mandates that your motorcycle or your horse needs to be constantly protected. That's all on the DM. And the player is asking you to simply not do that because it's not interesting to the player.

The next box should be rubber lined, then!! Or some other non-conductive method. The point is that the smart player/PC learns from mistakes and works to mitigate them.

See, this is what Backgrounding is meant to avoid. This sort of for tat back and forth escalation between the player and the DM that the player, by invoking Backgrounding, is signaling that he or she is not interested in. Because, frankly, the player can never, ever win that contest. I put my spellbook in an adamantine, rubber lined, wax sealed box and the DM will just come up with another way to take away my spellbook.

I mean, good grief, there's a reason that spells like Leomund's chest and whatnot exist in the game. It's the ultimate form of this approach to the game. It's a way that the player can get around the DM constantly picking the lowest hanging fruit to challenge the player.

 

[Maxperson]

See, this is what Backgrounding is meant to avoid. This sort of for tat back and forth escalation between the player and the DM that the player, by invoking Backgrounding, is signaling that he or she is not interested in. Because, frankly, the player can never, ever win that contest. I put my spellbook in an adamantine, rubber lined, wax sealed box and the DM will just come up with another way to take away my spellbook.

I mean, good grief, there's a reason that spells like Leomund's chest and whatnot exist in the game. It's the ultimate form of this approach to the game. It's a way that the player can get around the DM constantly picking the lowest hanging fruit to challenge the player.

This completely misstates what is going on, though. There isn't some sort of DM effort to thwart the player and take away spellbooks. That's just paranoia. What is happening is that the party gets hit, as they commonly do, by a fireball. The wizard misses his save and his flammable stuff saves. Oh no! bad luck! The spell book goes poof. Now the wizard has learned that he should keep it protected from fire and has a metal box made. Play continues and through pure happenstance, the wizard gets hit by a lightning bolt and misses his save. The lightning bolt also sets stuff on fire and goes through metal. More bad luck! The wizard now sets about to keep his book safe from that.

Now, in 5e you really don't have to do that without a house rule changing things. Only stuff that is not worn or carried are at risk from catching fire, but assuming such a rule has been added to 5e, the players are aware of this at the outset.

Oh, and Leomund's Chest was built with a chance of the stuff in it becoming lost, so spellbooks weren't safe there, either. From 1e where the spell originated...

"While on the ethereal plane, there is a 1% cumulative chance per week that some creature/being will find the chest. If this occurs there is 10% likelihood that the chest will be ignored, 10% possibility that something will be added to the contents, 30% possibility that the contents will be exchanged for something else, 30% chance that something will be stolen from it, and 20% probability that it will be emptied."

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Now, in 5e you really don't have to do that without a house rule changing things. Only stuff that is not worn or carried are at risk from catching fire, but assuming such a rule has been added to 5e, the players are aware of this at the outset.
/snip

Now, why do you think that is? Why did they add that bit to D&D that only stuff that is not worn or carried is at risk? It obviously hurts verisimilitude. It's hardly believable that I can be killed by that firey dragon breath, but, my charred corpse is still wearing pristine clothes.

Because, well, we've backgrounded that bit because it's not a lot of fun. It gets kinda pointless and boring for many tables. So, it's Backgrounded.

Which is the point I've been making all the way along. So much of the game already does this. A player asking to add one more element isn't going to hurt anything.

 

[5ekyu]

Kinda sorta. Those limits are placed within the writeup of the game. It's not like the player chose to put that limitation there. IOW, the player likes everything else about the class, just not this one, specific thing and is asking the DM if, in this campaign, we can shelve this one specific thing for this one specific character.

And the DM's apparent answer is, "Nope. You chose this, you have to accept this, I will absolutely not take your preferences into account and you must anticipate that I will bring this into the game regardless of how you happen to feel about it."

/edit to add

There's other bits here as well. Playing a Dragonborn character or some other oddball race. Everyone agrees that there isn't a mechanical problem here. There's no powergaming going on. Nothing in the Dragonborn description talks about how Dragonborn are particularly feared or suffer negative reactions. That's something that the DM has added in. Now, it's not a case of the player accepting the consequences of his choices, but, rather the DM imposing consequences probably justified by some sort of nod to verisimiltude or setting fidelity or something like that.

Now, how is this not the DM specifically adding "consequences" that aren't even referenced in the rules? Same as having a motorcycle. Nothing in the game mandates that your motorcycle or your horse needs to be constantly protected. That's all on the DM. And the player is asking you to simply not do that because it's not interesting to the player.



See, this is what Backgrounding is meant to avoid. This sort of for tat back and forth escalation between the player and the DM that the player, by invoking Backgrounding, is signaling that he or she is not interested in. Because, frankly, the player can never, ever win that contest. I put my spellbook in an adamantine, rubber lined, wax sealed box and the DM will just come up with another way to take away my spellbook.

I mean, good grief, there's a reason that spells like Leomund's chest and whatnot exist in the game. It's the ultimate form of this approach to the game. It's a way that the player can get around the DM constantly picking the lowest hanging fruit to challenge the player.

RE the bold - yes and that reason is to give characters some more options for even more protections and safetiues for what are actual risks represented in the game world.

if these risks were meant to be just handwaves away through meta-game drama dissolver - there would not need to be those spells and they could be left to NPC challenge fodder. There are many other spells which can serve these functions as well - magic mouths, locate objects etc all have pretty common applications for things like protecting, alarming or even finding stolen gear. but they do require the character in-game to gain access to them - maybe spend money at casting etc.

or put another way - engage the problem in-game.

or, you know, just talk with the Gm and see if he would rather just meta-rule it away.

Which is fine if thats how your group likes to role, but not all groups will - no matter how insulted and offended that makes you.

My game would be one of those, it seems. but thats OK, see, you have other options.