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

[billd91]

Maybe because I don't get a lot of game time, so, telling one player, "nope, sorry, the rest of us want to play this, see you in about six months or a year when we're done" is a pretty dick move.

I mean, I only game once a week. I game with a group. If the group decides to play something and one player opts out, that p layer isn't gaming for a while. I'd much, MUCH rather that we all get to play rather than decide that my fun is more important than yours.

I dunno, that sounds like an incredibly dick move to me. Ejecting a player just because you want to play something else? Not really groovy in my book. For a one shot? Sure, ok, no worries. But for something as long as a campaign? Yeah, the group is more important to me than getting to play something that I know my friend hates.

See, that's where [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION]'s seafood example fails. It's one thing to go to a movie or eat at a restaurant. That's one day. No harm no foul. But if you tell your friend that hates seafood, "Hey, we're going to eat at a seafood restaurant EVERY TIME we get together for the next 6 months to a year. " that's not a friend that I want.

We clearly have very different ideas of dick moves. I wouldn’t want to be the dick keeping my friends from playing the game they want to play. But then, we’re also willing to rotate games a season at a time so if someone’s out for the summer, it’s no big deal, fall is coming. We don’t want anyone grudgingly participating just to keep the gang together.

 

[Maxperson]

Hence our discussion of the Patron as a possible player-selected Background feature. Again, consent is key here.

Which I'm fine with. If you guys want to agree that the patron is a potato, then the patron is a potato. He might keep an eye on you, but he's doing little else.

 

[5ekyu]

On the Enterprise.

I was a bit curious about this, so, I did a bit of Wikipedia diving. Of the first three seasons of Next Generation, there are 74 episodes. Of those 74 episodes, 14 actually feature the Enterprise as anything other than just a background set - either the ship is threatened directly, taken over by aliens, or is somehow central to the plot of the episode. So, 14 out of 74 stories would be affected by Backgrounding the Enterprise. That means that 80% of the stories could be told.

A bit high, perhaps, but, really, considering that it's still a pretty small minority of stories, is that really all that unreasonable of the player? The DM still has 80% of the stories to work with. It's not like the DM suddenly cannot run the game. And the changes that I actually proposed - backgrounding a motorcycle, a single PC's Patron, a single PC's pet, are not going to impact a campaign to anywhere near that degree.
[MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] seems to be arguing that any limitation on the DM is too much, but, do people really feel that's true? That a DM needs to not have any limitations placed upon the campaign by the players when at least one of the players would actively not enjoy that other 20%? How is this unreasonable?

By all means keep up with your fabrications and creative imaginings of what those who disagree with you have been saying. It is quite illustrative and rntertsining.

 

[5ekyu]

Here's the thing, the warlock flavor text establishes that the player has input as to how that relationship will play out:
This right here implies that the player is establishing their expectations for play with the DM. That is not the DM dictating the terms of the pact and the patron to the player. That is most definitely space that suggests the possibility of "backgrounding" the pact. It seems like there would be a massive breach of the social contract if the DM reneged on that agreement of having it in the background.

Explanation for a Backgrounded Tardis is still a Backgrounded Tardis.

You are absolutely correct the gm and player work together to determine the nature of the patron and its obligations and neither gets to dictate those terms.

So, neither can unilaterally say "this is how that relationship must be" which is exactly what you get when both CAN say "no".

But if one saying "no" is subject to cries of dick, move, questions of their human decency etc... seems like one side of that collaboration is showing up in bad faith.

A GM cannot in any of the discussions so far force you to play a warlock with a patron you dont agree to. But apparently some feel the player should be able to force the gm to agree to one.

 

[Maxperson]

There are two things here.

(1) Why shouldn't an animal companion be a good thing in every circumstance? When are a fighter's hp not a good thing?

That's a False Equivalence. Hit points are not a fighter ability. They serve the same function for every class. Better examples are iImproved Critical, which is a bad thing when you jump on something that might have been an ally had you given it a chance to speak and crit it, killing it before it can let you know, or Remarkable Athlete, which is a bad thing if you jump farther and land in the covered pit that you would not have landed in had you just jumped normally.

Not every ability has to be good in every circumstance.

When is a MU's spell slot not a good thing?

Alter Memories is a better example. If you make the target forget time, you could easily cause it to forget something important that it saw or did while charmed, which is a bad thing.

Again, not every ability has to be good in every circumstance.

The game makes it clear that some class features are liabilities - a magic-user's spellbook is the most notorious example; a classic paladin's limitation on magic items owned is another. But nothing has ever suggested that a ranger's animal companion fits that description. The ranger in the first AD&D campaign I ever ran acquired a bear companion when she reached 10th level. It never occurred to me that the bear was meant to be a problem for her.

Sure it has. Low hit points means that the animal is guaranteed to get dead very quickly. Constantly killing off animals by dragging them into battles waaaaaaay outside of their pay grade has always seemed anti-ranger to me. That's a liability in my opinion, and why I've always avoided using that feature. My rangers actually care about animals and don't want to see them killed off like that.

 

[Maxperson]

Curiously why?

Maybe for the reasons I give above. I've always disliked them for that reason, myself.

 

[5ekyu]

There are two things here.

(1) Why shouldn't an animal companion be a good thing in every circumstance? When are a fighter's hp not a good thing? When is a MU's spell slot not a good thing?

The game makes it clear that some class features are liabilities - a magic-user's spellbook is the most notorious example; a classic paladin's limitation on magic items owned is another. But nothing has ever suggested that a ranger's animal companion fits that description. The ranger in the first AD&D campaign I ever ran acquired a bear companion when she reached 10th level. It never occurred to me that the bear was meant to be a problem for her.

(2) Suppose the caravan was "backgrounded" against theft - how would that hurt the game? There are a million-and-one scenarios that can be played involving a caravan. You played one of them. If the caravan were backgrounded against theft, you'd play one of the other million.

I mean, there's a whole range of scenarios that are implicitly "backgrounded" at many tables - PCs don't get ambushed while urinating; captured PCs don't get raped; in FRPGs there are few encounters that bring the PCs (and thereby the players) into confrontation with the social realities of mediaeval life (I've never come across a published adventure that tackles in any serious way the infant mortality rates and life expectancy of the mediaeval peasantry). We don't deal with these things because no one finds the prospect appealing, and there's plenty of other stuff that can be dealt with. How is the sort of thing [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is talking about any different?

Exactly this.

Here is where we disagree.

Compare if you will the familiar to the animal companion.

Familiars via spell come in two flavors - normal animals fakes and the special and you get to shuffle them off to never Neverland when its problamatic. Within each group they are of different groups of ability but the same basic not-very-tough.

Companions have widely divergent strengths and traits. Some are big, some are small, some are great at fighting, some are not Vut they are not conjured spirits but actual animals and do they come the basic realities associated with the choice.

If the player chooses a trex or other big honking dinosaur it does not get to follow them into normal sized corridors if they go underground which is a DIRECT CONSEQUENCE of the ***choices*** the PC made.

If one imagines that the animal companion is intended to be or only fairly represented as z bonus in all situations, does that mean once dinosaurs boy makes his choice a story line involving travel into typically sized underground ruins is now bad, off limits, etc?

There are tons of choices regarding trade offs thru dnd, it's pretty much always been that way.

Which kind of companion you choose and its strengths and hindrances is one of them.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't know if I'm following this.

Your (2) is (if I'm understanding) the point that the PC will be a locus of protagonism because that's how a RPG works. OK.

Then (again, if I'm understanding) you're saying that, in the fiction, this makes the PC a "favoured" warlock/worshipper. The sort who will be asked to take on a task. And all this has to be managed by the GM.

Given that (2) is a necessary consequence of turning up to play a warlock or cleric in a RPG, you're saying that it's inherent in those classes that the GM has to decide how the PC is instructed/directed by the patron.

Why?

For instance - just to give one example - suppose I start the game from the premise that my (cleric or warlock) PC received a vision of XYZ from my patron, and I'm going to realise it! Now we have my PC as a "favoured" one but the GM didn't have to manage the backstory at all. The player came up with it!

That's how I started my Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy game: the players established some backstory to kick things off, which included visions/portents from the gods and spirits.

And lest anyone think it's foreign to D&D: the same thing has been part of my 4e game (in accordance with the advice in the DMG and PHB about player-authored "quests"). Is 5e so fragile it's going to break under this sort of pressure in a way that 4e (or Cortex+ or Burning Wheel or . . . ) won't? That seems pretty implausible to me.

In my game the majority of the meat and potatoes of the campaign is generated after the pcs are in play, based on the stars they provide. It only makes sense for the way I play and what we like - a moving living world where stuff is going on that both interests them and affects thrm more directly than typical strangers.

Nobody i have is saying the gm gets to decide the nature of the pact or how it delivers its instructions. They are saying the GM works with the player and the player works with the gm.

Either can just say no - hence the working together part.

Remember, this process starts with a player choosing to play warlock or cleric knowing it means working with the gm by the rules.

 

[5ekyu]

Even mentioning these two points feels like breaking a taboo!
While I certainly abide by both these taboos when GMing, judging by Internet ancedotes I'd actually say that "don't ambush defecating PCs" is a much more universal taboo than "don't rape the PCs". The need for PCs to answer the call of nature is a great example of a well nigh universal Backgrounded element.

As I stated several times, this topic is different from table group agreements on off-limit subjects due to choices of campaign feel, tone and various personal triggers.

 

[pemerton]

I imagine just like some players (includes DMs) of the game prefer to play with minimal to 0 house rules (and we do not necessarily object to that), there are certain players (includes DMs) that prefer to play true to setting hence the desire not to create characters and/or backgrounds that go against type.

But how does it go against type for the warlock not to be hassled by his/her patron? Or for the warlock to know what it is that his/her patron wants (because, at the table, the player takes the lead in respect of this)? I'm not seeing it.