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

Hussar said:

Nobody is saying the DM should not control the NPC's. We're saying that this one specific NPC, that only impacts one PC and no other PC can ever interact with, gets taken off the table. Infinity-1 while smaller than infinity is still pretty damn big. Losing control of one NPC and making a player happy seems a pretty small price. Claims that this is going to ruin the game for the DM seem a bit overblown to me.

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Well, that's wrong. The NPC impacts the Warlock, yes. First, it also impacts every other member of the party, as typically the rest of the group will aid the warlock with whatever tasks come along. At the very least, even if the warlock does the task alone, the group is impacted by the lack of the warlock for the length of the task. Second, infinity -1 is still not infinity and if the DM doesn't like the loss of NPCs, he is being forced to play a game he doesn't want to play. It's about the principle, which does seem overblown to you, because you don't care and therefore are failing to understand it.

Sadras said:

Still very much reading through the multitude of pages, but just wanted to pick up on this as I don't feel my take on it would be too drastic, I consider myself somewhere in the mid/reasonable side of this discussion and DMing practice.



So I am running a mash-up of STK and ToD, and we have sibling PCs in the services of Bahamut, one being a divine warlock and the other a paladin. I use that background connection and if their holy symbol is visible to provide them with bonuses when dealing with good-aligned dragons, extremely negative reactions from cultists and certain level of skepticism from giantkin, depending.

I might provide them with various dreams, visions, possibly an inspiration point for deeds done which promote their patron/deity. It is a way of tying them closer to the setting and storyline.

From an encounter perspective they would be enemy#1 for cultists, evil dragons and generally minions in the service of Tiamat.

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Exactly, as has been mentioned previously, the relationships can and should be generally seen as overall (not exclusively) beneficial or at worst an even trade off and always interesting - all things considered. After all as Gm you want to make the choices things folks want to engage with.

Whether it has been with those who engaged their NPCs/relationships or those who chose front grounded no-ties players, most everybody has seen it as "worth it" to engage - even if it was not their cup of tea they say what it did for the other players and story as a whole.

Lanefan said:

Last session the whole party got hit with a fireball - three characters failed their saves, and we went through their items to see what they'd lost. The party's lead arcane caster - sometimes not the luckiest of sorts, this chap - lost 2/3 of his spells for the second time in three adventures.

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You'd think that he'd have gone to an alchemist for some fireproofing after the first time it happened, or a metalsmith to have a steel box made to keep the book in, or... There are ways to mitigate the chances of book destruction if you just think about it.

pemerton said:

I want to go further than [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - a GM who even regards this as a price is a GM with a flaw that I would not want to play with.

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It's not a price, though. It's simply a function of the class. If you play a cleric, paladin, or warlock, you are choosing to have a being who you have obligations to. When those obligations come calling, it's something you already agreed to by choosing the class and it's bad faith for you to get upset about. Unless you and the DM make an agreement before the game begins for it to be otherwise.

Maxperson said:

It's not a price, though. It's simply a function of the class. If you play a cleric, paladin, or warlock, you are choosing to have a being who you have obligations to. When those obligations come calling, it's something you already agreed to by choosing the class and it's bad faith for you to get upset about. Unless you and the DM make an agreement before the game begins for it to be otherwise.

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How you think the game should be played (or how it is played at your table) does not make it true about the game rules system itself.

Aldarc said:

How you think the game should be played (or how it is played at your table) does not make it true about the game rules system itself.

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It's not how I think the game should be played. It's the rules. The player has no ability to alter classes. By RAW, the DM is the one with that power. So yes, by RAW, if the player chooses a class and nothing is agreed upon by both the player and the DM prior to game play, the player has agreed to what that class entails. It's simple, and it's a fact of the game. It's easy to change, though. It just requires the DM changing it after being approached by the player. If the DM won't change it, the player should pick a different class.

This argument is too fluid, in my opinion, to have a resolution. For most of us, doesn't it depend on circumstance? I have had players who carefully chose a deity, or patron and it was important to them, so yes, obligations came up (as well as perks). Other times, players just choose a logical deity, scribble it down, and never think about it again. Obviously the players aren't that interested in the deity impacting the campaign, so it's left in the background. This does not make one game better or worse than another. Someone wants to play a cleric mostly as a source of healing, or alternate magic font? So be it. There's plenty of other story hooks to be had. I mean that paladin could have all kinds of angst that has nothing to do with her oath. Or no angst at all, if the player just wants to kill monsters and save the village.

The most important skill a GM can have is knowing the players, and what kind of challenges they prefer, which can shift on a weekly basis. One time my whole group spent the entire session shopping at the market and attending a party, where not much of import happened. "Do you guys not want to get to the actual adventure?" I asked. " No, no, we're having fun just puttering about today. " So that's we did. This could be held up as an example of terrible GMing. A session of nothing happening. But in that particular evening, all the players found shopping really engaging.

My round about point is to be alert to the players, ask if need be, and arguments over deity obligations and flammable spell books depend on the interest of the players. I believe that we GMs get our satisfaction from an engaged group of players. Details are usually pretty irrelevant.

pemerton said:

Or the fact that almost no RPGs scenarios with villages involve funerals of children who died in childbirth or not long after?

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Risk of death in childbirth actually has been a major of focus of play in my D&D games, twice that I can recall. The more recent time, Quillax the Druid put immense effort into successfully delivering the child of Titus Scarnetti, and defeating the Curse of Lamashtu (Pathfinder's demon goddess of monstrous birth) on mother and child. I got the impression that Quillax's player considered this one of the more satisfying experiences in the whole campaign, moreso than the usual killing of monsters.

S'mon said:

Risk of death in childbirth actually has been a major of focus of play in my D&D games, twice that I can recall. The more recent time, Quillax the Druid put immense effort into successfully delivering the child of Titus Scarnetti, and defeating the Curse of Lamashtu (Pathfinder's demon goddess of monstrous birth) on mother and child. I got the impression that Quillax's player considered this one of the more satisfying experiences in the whole campaign, moreso than the usual killing of monsters.

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Obviously this will vary by campaign and setting.

In a magical world where there are magical means to purify water, cure disease, create nourishing berries and where the goddesses favoring mothers, hearth, fertility etc actually exist and there are rituals and entreaties to them within the common lore, a practice of just assuming the non-magical earth environmental ratios such as negative outcome pregnancies and infant mortaility can come under scrutiny or at least be questionable.

Not to mention of course it might fall into the trigger player side table off-limit topics, if a group has such.

Obviously not all will and it may create different flavors of opportunities for fantastic role playing.

5ekyu said:

Not to mention of course it might fall into the trigger player side table off-limit topics, if a group has such.

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I suspect the difficulties around my own son's birth and his mother's emergency Caesarean may have contributed to my using this as a theme a couple times.