Free Will and Story

[Majoru Oakheart]

The DM, at least to me, killed the Player's character in the worst possible way for the Player and then attempted to raise him in the same worst possible way. I wonder how it would have turned out if the Player had died from "by the rule" wounds and then was raise by "by the rule" healing. Would he have had such an extreme reaction? I feel as though emotionally he still would have felt the loss of the character, but I'm not as sure that he would have reacted as poorly. I don't know.

I'm fairly certain that he wouldn't have cared. Knowing Jim, he likely still would have said no to being brought back to life. He almost never says yes. As I said before, he always has another character waiting to play. This being the last session, he MIGHT have said yes if done the right way. But I think he was just glad the campaign was over when he died. So, the reason he got so angry is that he felt people were forcing him back into a game he didn't really want to play anymore.

I know before the session even started he was thinking up ways to ruin the last session. He said "I know our DM spent a lot of time on this adventure. He's been leading up to this moment for ages. He's already started planning his next campaign that takes place 100 years in the future. I bet he already knows how this session will end, with us defeating Illoopion and saving the day. I say we throw him for a loop and immediately change sides at the beginning of this adventure to Illoopion's side and see what happens. I bet it'll screw him up."

I laughed and said that was a great idea because it'd be so funny. He DID use getting killed by a goddess and coming back to life as an excuse to join Illoopion and try to kill my character. Though, with Jim I can never tell if he's joking or not since he likes to say completely absurd things in deadpan serious face. He keeps telling me that he knows where I live and plans on murdering me in my sleep on a regular basis. It's not all the funny, but he seems to find it hilarious.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Now, this? This I agree with. Too many players won't quit games even when they don't like them. And it's not a DM's fault (at least, certainly not always). Players sit down at a table and then expect the DM to change to fit what they want. It's very frustrating. Particularly when it's one odd man out. The rest of the group wants X and that one guy wants Y. Yeah, I can totally get that.

I think Jim just feels that even a bad D&D game is better than no D&D game. It's not like Jim is social enough to go out and find another group of people to play with. He barely tolerates us and he's known us for a long time. Going to a stranger's place and meeting new people isn't something Jim does. He'd just sit in his room playing computer games or watching tv if he wasn't playing D&D. He feels that D&D is an interesting diversion from that...since he spends the rest of the week doing that.

Plus, I think it's a matter of degrees. Does Jim get annoyed at the constant breaches of the rules? Sure. But he's played in games with worse DMs who would get the rules so wrong he DID walk away. At least our current DM knows them well enough to create a game Jim doesn't want to walk away from. Though, that won't stop him from grumbling about it.

Heck, our weekly game run by me is now a D&D Next Playtest group. Jim has been fairly vocal about not liking D&D Next when I ask him away from the table. He doesn't like the lack of options. However, he shows up every week(which is to say, he walks down the stairs) and plays anyways. He keeps saying that he's playing mostly to pass the time until the next playtest packet comes out and hopes it'll fix his problems with it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

On a side note: The DM didn't set it up. By all accounts the players were told not to touch it and that the DM wasn't even aware that the players might die. It appears that the DM adjusted it to compensate for the events transpiring, but still refused to compromise his story in favor of player enjoyment. My take anyway.

It was definitely resolved through fiction. The stone was always going to give god powers to someone. When we were told not to touch it a couple of months ago, we joked that no one could stop us from doing so and we thought we'd make great gods. The guy pointed out that we'd be stealing the powers of Misha and that her power is what causes the plants not to overrun the cities and destroy all the buildings. We mostly agreed this would be a bad thing so we agreed. He even used some sort of magic to make us agree under penalty of death not to do it. He said the magic was binding and once we had agreed, if we tried to use the artifact we'd die.

Which is why, I assumed there'd be some sort of lever or button or something to turn it on and we'd just not activate it. When our Warlock saw the glowing gem, I don't know what she thought exactly. Maybe that it contained the god's essence and smashing it would release them. Instead it gave her god powers.

So, this was all definitely set up in advance. I'm fairly certain he didn't plan on anyone touching the stone until the battle was over. He assumed we'd defeat the demon and then we'd likely get a visit from Misha asking us to destroy the gem without touching it or something. We'd then have the choice of taking the power for ourselves or giving it to Misha. However, when the Warlock touched it in the middle of combat, he improvised.

Still, that improvisation was within the bounds of the fiction that he had set up.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The DM was producing an experience throughout the camapign that everyone, except Jim, was enjoying and even the last encounter it was only two players who took issue with how he handled it

You mean that 100% of the players he instakilled with no warning, rolls, or reason took issue with it?

Who are you to say what the DM should do... in a general sense that is so group dependant I don't think you can make a general statement...

"Rocks fall and you die" is never a good idea - and especially not in 4e where a lot of work went into making sure that that never happens.

I know it might come as a surprise but there are DM's and players who are willing to accept a character being momentarily killed (because neither PC was permanently dead in the example) to further the unfolding narrative.

Um... it wasn't done to further the unfolding narrative. It was done because the DM didn't know the rules and didn't understand the guidelines at all.

he then tried to rectify the death of the two PC's through a narrative device... but they chose instead not to accept it.

That wasn't rectifying. That was doubling down while not admitting the mistake. It was making the PCs even more pawns in the hands of the DM rather than in control of their own destinies.

Good for you... but now we have at least one example that it does exist.

OK. We have an example that someone who deliberately sets out to ruin a gaming session will interpret things in the most ass-backwards way possible.

OAN...I'm curious what fantasy world exactly (outside of it's own) does 4e simulate very well??

It does a hell of a lot better at Dark Sun than the system Dark Sun was written for. It's pretty good at Peter Jackson's version of Middle Earth. It does a pretty good Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (much better than AD&D).

A relatively inexperienced DM made a mistake and then created a narrative that fixed it,

Removing free will is not the same as fixing a problem. The DM doubled down on the problem (the PCs all being pawns in the DM's hand and what they did not actually mattering). And then had the PCs free will overrriden in order to "fix" it. The problem with such an instakill isn't death. It's deprotagonisation. It's making the PCs not matter. And in order to "fix" it, the DM further deprotagonised them still further, making their choices about whether to be resurrected not matter even when both (and remember it wasn't just Jim who made that choice) said "no".

That wasn't a fix. It was a doubling down on the actual problem.

 

[N'raac]

No. That was the GM making further manipulations of the fiction that irritated the players. Whereas the GMing I mentioned in my post was owning up that a mistake had taken place, and correcting it at the metagame level.

It seems fairly clear that Jim et al were not like the players that you know. They wanted the GM to admit that he made a mistake; not to deny that he'd made a mistake and then engage in further fiated manipulation of the fiction to rectify the very mistake that he denied he had made.

It seems that Jim wanted the GM to admit he made a mistake. I don't see that same "et al". From all the comments made, Jim is the player who is not happy with this game, or this GM, and is rarely if ever happy with any game or GM. The other players do not seem to have the same unhappiness.

I also don't see where the GM is denying he made a mistake. I don't see any indication he is asserting "I knew what 150 hp would do", or "If your characters are so poorly designed they can't take a 150 hp hit at this level, that's your fault". I suspect, had he said "OK, that's my mistake. Sorry guys - make it 75 points", that would have attracted as much or more criticism from Jim. That criticism seems to be Jim's primary, if not only, enjoyment of the game.

I'm fairly certain that he wouldn't have cared. Knowing Jim, he likely still would have said no to being brought back to life. He almost never says yes. As I said before, he always has another character waiting to play. This being the last session, he MIGHT have said yes if done the right way. But I think he was just glad the campaign was over when he died. So, the reason he got so angry is that he felt people were forcing him back into a game he didn't really want to play anymore.

I know before the session even started he was thinking up ways to ruin the last session. He said "I know our DM spent a lot of time on this adventure. He's been leading up to this moment for ages. He's already started planning his next campaign that takes place 100 years in the future. I bet he already knows how this session will end, with us defeating Illoopion and saving the day. I say we throw him for a loop and immediately change sides at the beginning of this adventure to Illoopion's side and see what happens. I bet it'll screw him up."

So basically, Jim's fun comes from screwing up everyone else's fun. I'm feeling less and less sympathy for the Jim whose picture this discussion paints. He sounds like a purely disruptive player that the game would be better off without. I suspect he'd be no more happy in a game where the GM knows the rules perfectly, as he would then have no leverage to justify screwing up the game. The GM mae an error that he tried to fix (probably not the best fix, but tried to fix). That impacted one play session. Keeping Jim around seems like a mistake that will affect every play session.

I wonder how great a GM Jim would be...

 

[Starfox]

So basically, Jim's fun comes from screwing up everyone else's fun. .

The OP admits Jim has issues. He is doing the best he can to be social, but because of psychological limitations he's not getting all the way. Jim does try - as showing up at all indicates.

Kudos to the OP for remaining his friend and making Jim's life better!

 

[N'raac]

Thanks for that comment, Starfox, as I don't disagree. I also neglected to note that I suspect we're not getting the complete picture of Jim - we're seeing those aspects that are posted. Given the whole thread comes back to the conflict between Jim and the DM, I suspect we're seeing a lot more of Jim's negatives (which contribute to the problem) and a lot less of the positives (which keep him coming back, and welcome back by the rest of the group). Similarly, for the mechanical negatives we're presented in the GM's game, something must have kept the game going, and the players coming back, for a year (and ready to play in his next campaign).

 

[MetaVoid]

Jim sits around doing nothing (TV and computer) with occasional break with gaming. He may be trying to be social, but I get the feeling the group tolerates him because they know him long and they play at his (shared) place...maybe one would really say he's a friend (this is just a feeling, mark, I don't really know that)

DM may be inexperienced and it would be nice if he worked out the rules over the year (lazy? uncaring? irrelevant), but the story is obviously captivating enough to have loyal group of players...he made a mistake. He's human, mistakes happen.

Yes, mistake was trying to force them back (actually mistake was that it happened at all, but we already know he blundered there), but Jim still seems to be going out of his way to be disruptive...even before the mistake happened.

So, I still stay "grow up, child"

 

[Neonchameleon]

It seems that Jim wanted the GM to admit he made a mistake. I don't see that same "et al".
...
I also don't see where the GM is denying he made a mistake. I don't see any indication he is asserting "I knew what 150 hp would do"
...
So basically, Jim's fun comes from screwing up everyone else's fun. I'm feeling less and less sympathy for the Jim whose picture this discussion paints. He sounds like a purely disruptive player that the game would be better off without.

Re-read the OP.

Our DM points out that my character(an assassin) managed to combine poison, encounter powers, and daily powers to do 100 damage in an attack earlier in the battle and that a GOD should surely do more damage than some assassin.
...
Our DM doesn't care, he says it's the last session of his campaign ever and he said 150 damage and he's sticking with it. It kills 2 party members. One of which is a cleric of Misha. He gets a little annoyed that his GOD would kill him like that. The other one is Jim. The DM re-explains that she couldn't control it because she was so weak
...
Apparently, the two dead people who had been sitting there getting a little annoyed out of character that their characters died in one hit with no chance to stop it, both said no. They didn't want to be brought back to life. They said that if she had the powers of Misha now, that she basically was Misha. And Misha just killed them. They weren't accepting any sort of Raise Dead from a god who would be petty enough to kill them. She tried to explain that she wasn't Misha, she was still Meva...our Warlock. They still said no. The reason wasn't exactly clear why they refused to come back to life. They just seemed a little bitter about dying.
...
The DM pointed out to Meva that she WAS a god and didn't have to respect their wishes if she didn't want to. She had the power to bring them back against their will. She said "Fine, I do that. They shouldn't have been killed and I'm going to right that wrong." So, they come back to life.

So there isn't just one upset player who refused resurrection, but two. The DM justified 150 damage then stuck with it rather than admitting fault. And then the DM and Maeva's player deprotagonised the two dead PCs, returning them to life explicitely against their will.

I'm feeling little sympathy for Jim. But the DM was ignoring the first rule of holes. He made a mistake (150 damage/autokill). He doubled down on the mistake (stuck with the 150 damage when the players protested). And then when he realised he was down in the hole with a JCB he started digging in earnest by telling the person he'd just given divine powers to to override their choices. And it wasn't just Jim; the other dead PC reacted the same way right down to refusing any power she gave.

 

[Imaro]

It was definitely resolved through fiction. The stone was always going to give god powers to someone. When we were told not to touch it a couple of months ago, we joked that no one could stop us from doing so and we thought we'd make great gods. The guy pointed out that we'd be stealing the powers of Misha and that her power is what causes the plants not to overrun the cities and destroy all the buildings. We mostly agreed this would be a bad thing so we agreed. He even used some sort of magic to make us agree under penalty of death not to do it. He said the magic was binding and once we had agreed, if we tried to use the artifact we'd die.

Which is why, I assumed there'd be some sort of lever or button or something to turn it on and we'd just not activate it. When our Warlock saw the glowing gem, I don't know what she thought exactly. Maybe that it contained the god's essence and smashing it would release them. Instead it gave her god powers.

So, this was all definitely set up in advance. I'm fairly certain he didn't plan on anyone touching the stone until the battle was over. He assumed we'd defeat the demon and then we'd likely get a visit from Misha asking us to destroy the gem without touching it or something. We'd then have the choice of taking the power for ourselves or giving it to Misha. However, when the Warlock touched it in the middle of combat, he improvised.

Still, that improvisation was within the bounds of the fiction that he had set up.

Thanks for confirming this...