[rant] Stupid DM, and Stupid players

[Weeble]

Well Webble, you're not the type to just hand out Decks of Many Things to small, 8th level parties and then let them kill adult dragons. At least I hope you're not. There's something about that style of play that slides right past Beer&Pretzels and goes straight to Bad.

And if you don't know the type of DM I'm talking about, you're really lucky. Imagine everything in the "bad design" section of page 100, add a habit for handing out powerful items, gold, and XP like there's no tomorrow, and you'll either have a 12 year old who just got his hands on the books or else a DM who just has a fetish for big explosions and pyrotechnics in preference to good taste, game balance, and quality.

The people who actually want to look at the suggestions for campaign shaping and running the game, ironically, tend not to be the ones who need to be strapped to a chair and forced to.

While I know what type of DM you are talking about, I'm the 2nd youngest member of our group at 29 so I don't see or hear alot involving "bad design". We probably have a combined 60+ years of D&D gaming in, and we absolutely LOVE 3e, even with its flaws. We enjoyed going through the "rules-lawyering" faze, knowing that when it ended, we could hash out our house rules and get on with role playing. Min/Maxing and Powergaming? We love it! Once those initial concepts are hashed out (usually before meeting at the table) Role Playing evolves.

Oh yeah, Decks of Many Things? I haven't seen or heard of one of those since 10th or 11th grade! Maybe I will toss one at em, role play the buffet, and tell em all it was a horrible dream their characters collectively had!

 

[kamosa]

That is too funny. I'm sticking this little gem in my "I once heard of a guy..." collection of gaming stories.

Here is my Deck of Many Things story.

We were adventuring with a Wild Mage. As you remember, wild mages had a percentage chance to control the deck of many things.

One fine day in the dungeon we run into a genie. The wild mage antagonized him, trying to get the genie to give him a wish. Unfortunatly, one of the other players blurted out "I wish you'd shut up!" Done and done. The genie took his tongue. {That wasn't what we ment, but he did have it coming.}

Low and behold we come a cross a deck of many things in some dungeon. I think we had to draw at least one card to pass. So each of us drew our card. The last person to go was the wild mage. He gets the wild idea to draw four cards.

First he drew Ruin, and lost all property and wealth. Well the only thing he owned was his cloak and his spell book. Failed his roll to avoid the card-- Poof, spell book.

Next he drew Flames-- emnity with an outer planes creature. Failed his roll to avoid it. In pops the genie that he had insulted earlier in the dungeon.

The third card was Moon -- Gain 1d4 wishes (rolled a 4), of course he couldn't speak cause of that no tongue thing.

The fouth card was Donjun -- You are imprisoned. Of course he failed to avoid this as well.

So, he ended up imprisoned by the genie, with no items, with 4 wishes and no tongue with which to speak them.

At this point we are on the floor in laughter. We all agreed that is was a proper ending to his character and he brought in a new character.

Gah. There's a new campaign that I was going to be playing in. Great, I think, because I never get to play, only DM. The DM planned on starting us at 8th level -- a bit higher than I'm used to, but hey, why not?

And so, the other night, I get a call up askign if I wanna play D&D that night. I say no, it's father's day and all and I'm busy. So, they say okay, and say they probably won't play that night.

Today I see a couple of my friends, and they tell me how they got a prelude to the campaign last night. They got draws from the deck of many things too. 2 of them drew the card that gives you 50,000 xp and a medium wonderous item. They also fought an adult dragon, and overcame it without losing a single HP (they also fought other things, but I didn't care to hear details).

Now, this is ridiculous... We have a party of 2 level 8 PCs, and 2 level 15 PCs. Now, the players who have the level 15 PCs are pissed off because I refuse to play in a group in which half the party is twice as many levels as I am. Not only would they get little HP for an encounter that would be suited to me, but I would be killed in an encounter suited for them. PEOPLE ARE STUPID!

I should have expected this out of a first time DM. Gah.

*whew* Done ranting now.