Bullgrit
Adventurer
This game we play relies on a lot of shared imaginings, and sometimes our shared visions are not in sync. Two examples of this came up in our last game session:
[We play a round-robin campaign – each player takes a turn DMing an adventure.]
1.
We PCs were talking about the logistics of us navigating through a flooded dungeon tunnel, and I mentioned my heavy shield. The DM commented, “When did you get a shield?”
My war cleric wears full plate armor and a heavy shield, and wields a “bastard warhammer” (basically a hammer version of the waraxe/bastard sword – I have the feat to use it one-handed). This has been my character for our weekly game for almost a year. My character is directly and exactly based on my [url://http://www.totalbullgrit.com/images/HHH.JPG]painted metal miniature[/url] that sits on the battle mat all game session, every game session – the mini has a big honkin’ shield and a big honkin’ hammer.
I have often described missed enemy attacks as “deflecting off my shield” (and/or armor). I have even many, many times described tucking my hammer under my shield arm when I need a free hand for something. This has been a big (to me) issue with trying to cast spells – I just recently bought a “hook-thingy” for hanging my hammer, and I thought I made a fairly big deal out of having this new feature.
All the other Players at the table knew my character used a shield and hammer. But the DM thought I used a two-handed hammer, and had no shield.
Considering all this obvious evidence to my character having a shield, I’m stunned to hear someone didn’t know that I have a shield.
2.
The DM described the flooded dungeon tunnel – from our current position, the tunnel steps down into water. [This is moment when the above tale happened.] The PC barbarian decided to go down and swim along the tunnel. He would swim half as far as he could hold his breath, then turn back if he didn’t discover a way back up and out of the water.
The DM asked for exactly what he was wanting to do, and then described the swim. The barbarian came up out of the water at his halfway point. He quickly looked over the area and then went back under water and swam back. [The barbarian has a glowing magic sword for light.]
Then he decided to check the other tunnel out of our room, which the DM described as the same as the previous tunnel. So the barbarian again went under and swam to investigate. But this time when he came up, he came up in the middle of a group of zombies. He fought them while the rest of the party waited for his return.
One Player/PC was saying we should go help him. I said we couldn’t see what was going on (and the barbarian Player agreed) and so shouldn’t act on knowledge our PCs don’t have. The DM said yes we could see the fight. It was at this point that we all started discussing the scene and the tunnels, and we found out that we had all been thinking totally different descriptions.
The barbarian’s Player and I thought the tunnel went down, ceiling and all, below the water line (and we even quoted what we heard the DM say) – that’s why the barbarian swam underwater to investigate.
Another Player and the DM said the water was only 3 feet deep and we could easily see down the tunnel to the extent of our lights (and they even refuted our quote of the DM’s description) – they were both confused as to why the barbarian wanted to swim underwater down the hall but they just shrugged and didn’t question for reasons.
The other Player in our group said he thought the tunnel was flooded almost but not completely up to the ceiling.
So there we were, 5 people at the table with 3 distinctly different understandings of the scene described. Each of us was absolutely sure we had heard and understood what the DM said. The DM described X, and one Player heard X, another Player heard Y, and two other Players heard Z.
* * *
How does this kind of thing happen? Have you any examples of a player or group completely failing on the shared imagination concept?
Bullgrit
[We play a round-robin campaign – each player takes a turn DMing an adventure.]
1.
We PCs were talking about the logistics of us navigating through a flooded dungeon tunnel, and I mentioned my heavy shield. The DM commented, “When did you get a shield?”
My war cleric wears full plate armor and a heavy shield, and wields a “bastard warhammer” (basically a hammer version of the waraxe/bastard sword – I have the feat to use it one-handed). This has been my character for our weekly game for almost a year. My character is directly and exactly based on my [url://http://www.totalbullgrit.com/images/HHH.JPG]painted metal miniature[/url] that sits on the battle mat all game session, every game session – the mini has a big honkin’ shield and a big honkin’ hammer.
I have often described missed enemy attacks as “deflecting off my shield” (and/or armor). I have even many, many times described tucking my hammer under my shield arm when I need a free hand for something. This has been a big (to me) issue with trying to cast spells – I just recently bought a “hook-thingy” for hanging my hammer, and I thought I made a fairly big deal out of having this new feature.
All the other Players at the table knew my character used a shield and hammer. But the DM thought I used a two-handed hammer, and had no shield.
Considering all this obvious evidence to my character having a shield, I’m stunned to hear someone didn’t know that I have a shield.
2.
The DM described the flooded dungeon tunnel – from our current position, the tunnel steps down into water. [This is moment when the above tale happened.] The PC barbarian decided to go down and swim along the tunnel. He would swim half as far as he could hold his breath, then turn back if he didn’t discover a way back up and out of the water.
The DM asked for exactly what he was wanting to do, and then described the swim. The barbarian came up out of the water at his halfway point. He quickly looked over the area and then went back under water and swam back. [The barbarian has a glowing magic sword for light.]
Then he decided to check the other tunnel out of our room, which the DM described as the same as the previous tunnel. So the barbarian again went under and swam to investigate. But this time when he came up, he came up in the middle of a group of zombies. He fought them while the rest of the party waited for his return.
One Player/PC was saying we should go help him. I said we couldn’t see what was going on (and the barbarian Player agreed) and so shouldn’t act on knowledge our PCs don’t have. The DM said yes we could see the fight. It was at this point that we all started discussing the scene and the tunnels, and we found out that we had all been thinking totally different descriptions.
The barbarian’s Player and I thought the tunnel went down, ceiling and all, below the water line (and we even quoted what we heard the DM say) – that’s why the barbarian swam underwater to investigate.
Another Player and the DM said the water was only 3 feet deep and we could easily see down the tunnel to the extent of our lights (and they even refuted our quote of the DM’s description) – they were both confused as to why the barbarian wanted to swim underwater down the hall but they just shrugged and didn’t question for reasons.
The other Player in our group said he thought the tunnel was flooded almost but not completely up to the ceiling.
So there we were, 5 people at the table with 3 distinctly different understandings of the scene described. Each of us was absolutely sure we had heard and understood what the DM said. The DM described X, and one Player heard X, another Player heard Y, and two other Players heard Z.
* * *
How does this kind of thing happen? Have you any examples of a player or group completely failing on the shared imagination concept?
Bullgrit