DM problems

[Empirate]

When I started up my first roleplaying group, NONE of us knew anything about RPGs. Somebody still had to DM (first a friend of mine, later myself), but we were all on the same level of inexperience. So when the DM made bad calls, the group told him what they though of it. Similarly, when one of the players detracted from the game, we worked it out as a group. That's how we - slowly, but steadily - learned to play RPGs: together, from each other, by communicating.

The difference to your situation is the following: a power hungry sadist (so true dat!) enters the scene, telling everybody that they don't know enough to DM. He goes on to state that he's the only one qualified, and you better do as he says or there'll be no game.
So what happens is that a hierarchy is established, in which the DM is the boss and the rest of you his bitches.

What would happen if you ditched him and started over all on yourselves? First off, there would be no hierarchy from the get-go. Nobody telling anybody else what to do except by consensus. Second, you'll be learning the game better, since you're basically forced to do so (btw, tell your fellow players to put some work in and learn the darn game! No use learning the game together if two out of three people won't do it). Third, you'll develop a feel for what you feel comfortable with, what you like about the game, what playstyle gives you all the most fun, etc.


All that said, sitting down with your horrible DM and explaining the problem in a very general sense (don't get too hung up on details! They're not the point) might be a good idea still. To me it sounds as if the DM is still in the early stages of learning RPG himself. You might still be able to include him in a constructive way.

 

[delericho]

Now our DM has had some issues over these sessions that we keep trying to work out but he keeps basicly saying "I altered the rules a bit because I didn't like (fill in the blank)."

That's fine... provided the DM informs the players of the changes. It's not fair to players to have them assume the rules work one way (as written), base choices on those assumptions, and only then find things work completely differently.

The first issue was that he was unacceptably stingy on wealth, we started the game with nothing because we were immediately captured and sentinced to death (and escaped) now we a fair ways in but at level 3-4 we have a total wealth (including gear) of around 200gp per player because he "doesn't like treasure tables, they are to random" and "I don't follow the exected wealth because it tries to make things to precise"
this last seasion we killed something and he rolled a 1 on the treasure table and we got nothing so he said "see treasure tables are to random"
how are we supposed to get equipment at this rate?

This is the only part of your post where I feel you are being unreasonable. The answer to your question is clearly "you're not". The DM is running a low-treasure game, and that's a valid game style. He should probably have told you up-front that that was his style.

I was sleeping in at the Inn (in the basement, by myself because the rest of my party was mad at me) and at 1am 2 people came down the (please note this) stairs, they were trying to move silently and one failed (rolled natural 1 + 3) so I got a listen (rolled natural 20 + 10, DC 11) check and I heard them and woke up. Now they picked the lock (with mage hand, which doesn't make sense to me since they didn't even have to roll anything)

Yep, should have required a roll.

Scorpion and I tied (Scor rolled 8 + 3, I rolled 7 + 4) he said we needed to roll d20s with no modifiers to see who would actually go first (I thought it would be a Dex check but didn't say anything)

Where there's a tie, the character with the higher modifier goes first. So, you should have won the tie. Only if the modifiers are also the same do you proceed to reroll.

The DM looks at me funny and said "um, it's a ladder".

Oh dear.

Now I thought this was supposed to be an encounter right? Not a "you will now die". The whole issue was solved and it had NOTHING to do with anything it was just a "you have been captured" moment with no real purpose at all, they gained nor lost anything from this encounter, it was just a really big pain.

Oh dear, again.

This got quite long winded but I was wondering what we could say to the DM to make him reconsider his DMing style or a way to "from the rulebooks" make him less I don't know... mean?

Basically, you need a new DM. And if you can't find one, do it yourself - it's really not all that hard.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sounds to me like your group is very young, either in real age terms or in RPG experience terms. If that's the case, and if you people are friends of each other, maybe you can actually keep playing and learn more about what so far seems to be pretty much a mix of playing mistakes and DMing mistakes. At least you'll learn what shouldn't be done.

It does sound to me like this DM is struggling to even understand what a DM is. Perhaps he's trying to "win" the game against you or at best he's railroading the group.

But there are other problems.

First your assumption on treasure, it's just wrong. Instead of whining about not having enough treasure, see this as one of the many possible ways of playing the game. Maybe your favourite way is another, but now you're playing this so just play this well. I also want to point out that although it's true that 200gp of equipment at 4th level is definitely below the average D&D game (at least in 3ed), 3-4 levels of experience in 7 sessions means he's been giving you a lot of XP, in an average game you would be probably at 2nd level still.

Second, attacking each other's PC is one of the most "rookie" mistakes in a RPG. It very rarely runs smoothly even for the most experienced of gamers, and yet this happens usually from true beginners who still haven't even understood that a game of D&D is almost always (I cannot stress this enough... with very rare exceptions) a cooperative group effort. It doesn't matter if "but my character would have done that!", because characters like that would normally not be in a PC party (even in an evil campaign you have to understand that something like this requires very mature players and IMHO should only be allowed if everyone accepts the possible consequences).

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

While I agree with most of the posters here saying that your DM is playing poorly, I do want to encourage you to talk with him. Your DM might be willing to see the basic fact that the players are not having fun, and therefore some adjustments need to be made. If you all can talk in a clam and clear manner, and make "having fun for everybody" the goal, then good odds this can work out.

DMing is tougher then it seems (Although very much within the ability of most people to do!), when the DM has a specific plan as to what he or her expects to see happen, and the players though their free-will and dice-roll choices thwart that, it's a fine art to adapt the story around that. Some DM's have a harder time adjusting to the spontaneity, this may be something your DM needs to work on- setting aside the plan so that the players have a chance and have fun.

I once sent a pair of bounty hunters to capture my players. I wanted to make the fight legit and interesting, even though the main bounty hunter was quite a few levels higher than the party. They killed the assistant, lower level, sniping-from-a-distance bounty hunter, and through an Epic battle that resulted in our Barbarian slugging out toe-to-toe with the big bag guy (The players were actually fugitives at the time, he was technically the good guy), the Bounty Hunter fell and the Barbarian died as well. Here, instead of my party neatly bagged and tagged by Drow sleep poison and carried off to the next part of the adventure, I had a dead player and everyone else was still free. ....And they all had an incredible amount of fun. Especially seeing me sit there, aghast that this happened. I re-wrote my story, the player choose to roll up a new character even though we were willing to quest to raise his dead one, and life went on.

I could have fudged the dice and made my plan happen, but it was about the players having fun. If your DM can see this, then I'm sure everything can be worked out. If not.... Then follow the advice of the above posters.

 

[kitcik]

This situation clearly calls for a druid with Vow of Poverty.

And a copy of Complete Psionic as a backup.

 

[InvincibleWall]

Thanks again for all the advice

I would lake to say that yes, this is a fairly young group in age and in D&D knowledge. The DM said that he has played D&D for 6 years but truthfully I don't see that experience showing through.

About the "low-treasure campaign" idea, how does that work? I understand that it is possible but is the point basically to make you build characters in a different way? I can understand that it would be a challenging experience but doesn't it just take away some of the things players can do? Oh and he has disallowed Complete Psi and I can't really multiclass again without an exp penalty anyway.

We have actually talked to the DM in other sessions and about the "adaptive puzzles". He basically claimed that he had planned it the whole time and that it only appeared to be adapting. Is there any way to make him "prove" that this is the case?

About the PvP situation. It was somewhat of a comical scene not a violent one we actually all agreed that it was the most fun out of the whole session.

But it does have roots in another problem. I just read from another post that you (the player) are supposed to make a back story for your character and try and make it fit with other players. When we started our DM made up a quick history for our characters, mine was that I had been looting a battlefield and was caught and sentenced to death. For the rest of the game I have been tagged as "Thief" even though my PC hasn't stolen anything according to how I have played him. Which is why they attacked me is because I had an item that they wanted and they figured I just stole it anyway. So our group was never really on the same team.

anyway moving on

The other players do not believe they would want to continue playing if we restarted (even if it was with a different DM) because "It has taken long enough getting this far". So we are trying our best to fix this campaign. Truthfully I don't think the DM sees that he is doing what he is, we have told him that he shouldn't be trying to beat us and he would agree but when when it comes down to it we still get knocked out by mysterious forces.

about they high level for the amount of sessions, he isn't making NPCs take any of our exp till we are level 5, we split up a couple times and took on a bunch (13 or so) guards and a general. While the wizard escaped from (and killed) a powerful necromancer and an giant animated stone creature. But yes he has altered the exp system a bit. I don't exactly know what he did but he always has somewhat different results that I get from the PHB.

I don't know if anyone else has done this but the DM changed the treasure system to where we each had to "loot" creatures to get our treasure and that whoever did the looting got 100% of the treasure and it was their choice weather or not to share. This was another cause for the PvP, I took a story line pivoting item before anyone else could and they wanted to hold it.... yeah we are dumb >.< lol

 

[anest1s]

Make an out-of-game agreement to share anything you find.

Loot everything. Obviously you have to loot anything you kill. You can also loot the environment. You can sell a map for the ruins you recently explored for example - someone may be interested. Always demand payment for doing any quest given by a NPC.

Never split the party.

Next time you get into an "adaptive puzzle" start making jokes about it, and sit there doing nothing. The puzzle will adapt to solve itself.

 

[InvincibleWall]

Next time you get into an "adaptive puzzle" start making jokes about it, and sit there doing nothing. The puzzle will adapt to solve itself.

LOL!!! that is awesome I am going to do that next time well... actually If there is a puzzle that we can do that on. Normally its more like a swarm of insects is chasing us and the dungeon is adapting to keep you from getting out so stopping would be a deadly decision, but if ever the time happens when we can wait. I am going to lol that is such an awesome idea.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

This is the only part of your post where I feel you are being unreasonable. The answer to your question is clearly "you're not". The DM is running a low-treasure game, and that's a valid game style. He should probably have told you up-front that that was his style.

I disagree. This DM sounds like one of the many under the mistaken assumption that "PCs don't need magical items." Don't get me wrong; low-wealth is a valid DMing style, but the rules just don't support it. It takes quite a bit of DM experience or an innate bonus house rule to pull off the low-wealth style well. And it sounds like the OP's DM has neither of these things.

I do agree with the OP's DM that treasure tables are too random...but he seems to be mucking up the loot situation as bad or worse than treasure tables.

About the "low-treasure campaign" idea, how does that work? I understand that it is possible but is the point basically to make you build characters in a different way? I can understand that it would be a challenging experience but doesn't it just take away some of the things players can do? Oh and he has disallowed Complete Psi and I can't really multiclass again without an exp penalty anyway.

The "point" of low-wealth is usually a DM thinking that it makes for a more realistic game. Or something. Usually it ends badly, because low-wealth means that combat gets deadlier and deadlier as PCs gain levels. Combat becomes a matter of "Hit first, hit hard." Which is already somewhat of a problem, and item scarcity only makes it worse.

Players solutions include, as others have mentioned, playing smart casters and/or PCs with the Vow of Poverty feat.

About the PvP situation. It was somewhat of a comical scene not a violent one we actually all agreed that it was the most fun out of the whole session.

This makes me so sad, because D&D can be sooo much better than goofy PvPs. Unfortunately it sounds like your group is bound for inevitable disintegration, if the other players won't give another DM a chance.

But it does have roots in another problem. I just read from another post that you (the player) are supposed to make a back story for your character and try and make it fit with other players. When we started our DM made up a quick history for our characters, mine was that I had been looting a battlefield and was caught and sentenced to death. For the rest of the game I have been tagged as "Thief" even though my PC hasn't stolen anything according to how I have played him. Which is why they attacked me is because I had an item that they wanted and they figured I just stole it anyway. So our group was never really on the same team.

There are many ways to make character backstories, but usually it's much more collaborative than "You're sentenced to hang for looting the dead." Often you the player will say "I want to play Hopplescotch, a jolly ex-military man," or something. Then your DM will explain how such a character can fit into his campaign setting, and you'll work out the details together. Often the other players will be around as you two do this, and they might chime in with suggestions...especially regarding how your PCs know each other. Then the DM will work out with the group how the PCs arrived in their current situation. Which again, usually doesn't involved forced corpse-looting.

 

[PureGoldx58]

First, Welcome to ENworld.

Honestly, I have made similar mistakes to your ladder/stair problem. The difference is when my players say something, I correct my error and go with whatever I first said. That said, when he had a grid that clearly showed a 10 foot wide hallway you stick with it or your players will never be able to trust your directions.

Players shouldn't fight players, unless both are willing to lose everything they have worked for. If they do start a fight, make sure it is about something worthwhile. I had an instance where my character as a player was attacked by another vastly weaker in combat PC because my character offended him. The fight lasted one round with him running from disintegrates and when I asked him if it was worth it (as a player) he said no. The unfortunate thing about fights like this in character is that they don't end, if someone comes at you with a sword you never forget it.

I have also had similar problems with DMing in the past, though not as blatant or as horrific as your experience. The only way we fixed anything is to speak with our DM, unfortunately though his style is "I'm the boss", which he really shouldn't have but most of us like him otherwise.