Free Will and Story

[sheadunne]

So the unbridled power of a released god in 4e is level 13... unless of course the PC's are a different level, ugh!!. This is exactly one of those sticking points that rubs many DM's the wrong way in 4e.

I never said any such thing. I was talking about the guidelines for creating a god (or at the every least a level appropriate for a god), not creating an appropriate "level" creature for the players to fight. I don't care if the encounter is above or below the party level. The entire point is that there is a roll, even if that roll is nearly impossible to make.

As to your second point, the DM put the same effect on the monster (150 points of damage) as he did the PC's with no save, attack roll, etc. So I don't really see it as "unfair". Now yes he could have used a lower damage number and that may have been (depending on what he was trying to achieve) a mistake. As far as declaring an auto-hit... well let's not pretend 4e doesn't have auto-hit attacks (the prime culprit being magic missile) so again there is a precedent for it and he applied it equally to players and monsters.

The monster is a DM creation, he can do whatever he wants to it, have a rock fall on its head, have it implode, or have a good blast it for 100 points of damage, doesn't matter. That has no effect on the Players. Completely different things. We're talking about the DM effecting players, no one cares about the monster. The fairness relates to DM/Player not DM/DM. That's why we have rules.

Eh, Dm's playing calvinball... especially if they are improvising is not in and of itself a bad thing... and again, where is there a rule that anything built by the DM must be level appropriate? In every edition prior to 4e (and yes, I include 3.x because the math behind CR's was still more art than math) DM's created stuff however they wanted to and tons of players and DM's had fun and enjoyed their games. Now I understand your preference is for the DM to be mathematically constrained by 4e's guidelines but that doesn't logically lead to... if a DM doesn't follow 4e's guidelines or is exercising his creativity (as opposed to measurement and math skills) in making things up then...
1. He is a horrible DM
2. It is a horrible game
3. There is a problem

Just wanted to clear that up.

See above. Not talking about level appropriate encounters here. The encounter presented wasn't level appropriate to begin with. It was clearly above the players, which is perfectly fine. We're only talking about allowing the players to play their characters. And you must be confusing posts because I could care less about the mathematics. I never mentioned anything about them. The god's attack roll could be +100 for all I care, as long as there is a roll. When I said, "Whatever number is appropriate for the encounter, following the guidelines presented in the rules," I was not saying, "Whatever number is appropriate for the level of the players." Two different things. No problem with encounters being far above the players level, I do it all the time, but there will always be a die roll and everything follows the same rules.

It was badly done in your opinion. A DM choosing not to follow the rules (and like I said, though small, there is a precedent for some auto-hit attacks in 4e) is certainly within his perojative even in 4e since these are just guidelines.

Messing with the characters... I need to understand this better... is it because of the ressurection? If so wouldn't the DM ruling they couldn't be brought back be messing with the agency of the warlock? And like was suggested earlier in the thread they could have just killed themselves when they were brought back... but they didn't.

The reason rules exist in the game is to arbitrate between conflicts in the game. The DM says: The monster hits you (the intent of the action). The Player says: no it doesn't (the intent of the resistance). The neutral dice decide (the outcome). Taking away the Player's ability to say, "no it doesn't" negates any reason for the Player to even be playing the game.

When the DM takes control of the character away from the Player, that is the DM messing with the Player. It happened twice in that scenario. Once when he said, "take 150 points of damage" and didn't give the opportunity for the player to disagree and thus being resolved by the neutral dice roll. And again when he gave one of the players the ability to resurrect the Players without their consent. What's the point of playing in a game where you don't have control of your own character?

 

[Kelimar]

OK, It has been just short of a week since the end of the campaign and Majoru directed me to this thread earlier today, I am the DM of the campaign in question and felt after reading all twelve pages that I should create an account and weigh in here on my opinions both regarding the situation, and the opinions brought up in this thread.

First off I would like to clarify that while at times playing with Jim (hereafter referred to as Fortune) can be frustrating I largely feel that his frustrations are often at least rooted in understandable complaints, such as my rather loose grasp of the rules. Fortune can be at times a colorful character and can bring even more colorful characters to the table, as such he will always have a welcome chair at my games, though I admit he may not be particularly interested in rejoining us for my up coming campaign. My major frustration with Fortune beyond his at times excessive rules lawyering is his insistence on power gaming, an aspect of tabletop games which I find most deplorable as it forces the rest of the party to do so as well, or risk feeling like the sidekick to the vastly more impressive other player. These things said I don't want to paint Fortune as a villain and feel that many of our disagreements are simply rooted in our drawing enjoyment from vastly different aspects of the game. He likes to bend the rules and feel like a king, I'm there to create flavor in my characters, RP as much as I can, and watch the story unfold, and both are completely legitimate aspects of these types of games.

I fully admit my faults as a DM, in that I don't have a fantastic grasp of the mechanics of the engine we are using to run the game, and at times my on the fly decisions can go beyond the realm of "just outside the rules" straight into the land of "I just made this up". This is because I have had little in the way of motivation to read the library worth of play books which would be required to sufficiently satisfy Fortune in particular. In addition I decided roughly halfway through the campaign that I don't particularly enjoy 4e as an engine and only ran the rest of the campaign in it because I wasn't eager to change systems halfway through and also because I knew I wanted to run a game of Next once it was able to handle a non-boxed campaign and felt it would be better to bide my time. In addition I would like to add that when I came into 4e it was already entering its twilight, Next however is still in its youth which will allow me to learn the rules as they grow and form.

My complaints with 4e are rooted in the dichotomy between my expectations and experiences with the system. My expectations are that I would like to run a campaign where the characters represent exceptionally talented individuals who are in no way super heroes much like how the main characters of the Lord of the Rings are. Whereas the engine itself encourages the "I'm a super hero" point of view. I heavily dislike that the engine encourages high level players to combat gods, and reinforces the concept that they are demigods themselves, which is why I chose a mid level campaign in the first place, though I admit that I ran it more like an endgame campaign, what with the players taking on exceedingly powerful beings and witnessing the death of gods etc.

Now to give a bit of background regarding the campaign, or at least flesh it out somewhat from what my friend Majoru has outlined. Don't worry I will try to keep things brief and use as little campaign centric jargon as I can.

The campaign revolved around the conflict between the Demon Allupion and the party members. The demon, whose race had diverged from the race that also birthed the gods at some point in the distant past largely due to the actions of those who became gods, intended to slay the goddess Maisha and steal her power thus becoming a god himself. The party was in direct opposition to this, but events transpired and they found themselves in a final showdown with Allupion who had already activated an artifact of his design intended to draw out the power of a god and was in the process (with the aid of several wizards) of draining away Maisha's power.

Note: I had intended for this to be the culmination of the campaign since very shortly after my introduction of the Allupion character. Sometime after that I came up with the concept that Maisha would die and one of the party would become a recurring god in the universe. My way of leaving a lasting mark on the world for future campaigns to touch on.

The party combated the Demon and the combat was beginning to drag, the players had already wiped out all of the minions in the fight and were down to just going around the table beating on the demon who, as you may know had an excess of hit points due to his being a solo. I decided to have the goddess use the last of her power available in a last ditched attack against the demon, throwing a haphazard beam of energy out before dying.

More Notes: As per my dislike of the gods having stat blocks, the gods in my campaign universe exist outside the rules. While they do have limitations their limits are so far beyond what any mortal or even demigod could hope to accomplish that to the eyes of mortals they may as well not have limitations. They also operate outside of the normal laws of magic, as such they can bend said laws in any way they wish. A god could in theory snap his/her fingers and bring back everyone who ever worshiped them, however the gods mutually prevent each other from interacting with the world on a large scale, thus hobbling each other and preventing events from getting out of control. A war between gods would likely leave mortals out in the cold so badly that they wouldn't even know what happened.

The beam did have a roll to hit against reflex (my rational being they could try to jump aside) but in all fairness the roll wasn't a fair one and there may as well have been no roll at all. And yes Majoru did guess right, I pulled the number out of thin air. If I remember correctly my thought process went something along the lines of the following;

DM: (Internal) *Rolls a random number of d12 coming up with 50ish damage, which seems appropriate. I'm going to have to hit some players so I don't want to do anything silly.
DM: (Internal) but wait, Majoru did 100 damage earlier in the fight, and this is the last gasp of a god. There is no way a mortal would outdo a god. 150 seems more appropriate.
DM: (speaking) 150 damage to everything in the beam, that's Fortune, Bruuf (also a player), Allupion, and several NPCs, some of whom were semi-important. (leaving Allupion at less than 30hp)
Fortune and Bruuf: Well were dead.
DM: (speaking) huh?!
Dm: (Thinking) damn I figured they would have more HP than that, they usually brush off mountains of damage

Around this point the contention started but I'll sideboard that and continue with the play, largely because most of it was ranting that I tried to tune out in order to wrap up the session. The party's nany NPC who had been around from the beginning but not there for the oath made to the Demigod earlier, shouts to the party to grab the artifact before Allupion can. Allianna our Warden goes to grab it but is convinced by the party to stay and deal with the now very badly injured Allupion, instead Meva our resident Warlock runs over and grabs the artifact, becoming a god. I take Meva into the other room and RP a short event where she meets with the other gods who have returned to the moon upon noticing the distress of their sibling/compatriot. They inform Meva that according to their self imposed laws she cannot affect the world in any major way (Ie: blink the events of the campaign away, or disintegrate Allupion etc.) and must instead act through the actions of her followers. However they will make an exception in that Meva can resurrect her fallen compatriots regardless of if they are her followers.

We return to the room and Meva has a short discource with the party during which one member and an npc convert to her and she resurrects Bruuf and Fortune against their wills. Bruuf, having been a zealous follower of Maisha and completely gobsmacked that she would in his eyes kill him so offhandedly swears against all gods. Fortune turns on the party, siding with Allupion as by this point Fortune is probably more interested in being disruptive. Fortune the player is by this point actively denouncing the campaign as well as Meva's actions claiming they were against the rules etc. Meva revokes the gift of life for Fortune and Bruuf but returns it to Bruuf after learning that in the confusion Bruuf doesn't actually have a problem with being brought back (rules wise), just a problem with the gods and their actions. The party sans the now dead Fortune flee the crumbling city and the campaign ends.

I feel that my failure was also in part due to my not sufficiently communicating the universe of the campaign to the party. I had always intended the gods the be far above and beyond the players and the rules, and had shown this to a lesser extend by introducing the party earlier in the campaign to a demigod (not the one who made them swear about the artifact) who was capable of acts far above and beyond what even the stat block D&D gods could accomplish. Again though I do feel that the failure was as much in my court as Fortune's over the top reaction to it was in his.

I think that's everything I wanted to say but I may have forgotten something.

 

[Imaro]

I never said any such thing. I was talking about the guidelines for creating a god (or at the every least a level appropriate for a god), not creating an appropriate "level" creature for the players to fight. I don't care if the encounter is above or below the party level. The entire point is that there is a roll, even if that roll is nearly impossible to make.

Guidelines for creating a god, where are those located again?? In all seriousness I don't think there are guidelines for creating a god in 4e. I guess you could look at some examples but even then they aren't all the same level or do the same amount of damage with an attack or are even the same role... so again what criteria does 4e give for making a god??

I do apologize for mistakingly assuming you were talking encounter and/or monster level... but I think you would find it understandable since this is how adversaries (for the most part) are created in 4e...

The monster is a DM creation, he can do whatever he wants to it, have a rock fall on its head, have it implode, or have a good blast it for 100 points of damage, doesn't matter. That has no effect on the Players. Completely different things. We're talking about the DM effecting players, no one cares about the monster. The fairness relates to DM/Player not DM/DM. That's why we have rules.

Ok, so if you don't believe in encounter level being appropriate to character level... how is fairness between player and DM maintained? I guess I'm a little confused on what exactly your stance is.

See above. Not talking about level appropriate encounters here. The encounter presented wasn't level appropriate to begin with. It was clearly above the players, which is perfectly fine. We're only talking about allowing the players to play their characters. And you must be confusing posts because I could care less about the mathematics. I never mentioned anything about them. The god's attack roll could be +100 for all I care, as long as there is a roll. When I said, "Whatever number is appropriate for the encounter, following the guidelines presented in the rules," I was not saying, "Whatever number is appropriate for the level of the players." Two different things. No problem with encounters being far above the players level, I do it all the time, but there will always be a die roll and everything follows the same rules.

Well first I don't think the encounter was above the players, I might be mistaken but I thought it was a solo equal to their level that they were facing.

More importantly... So your main issue is that the DM didn't roll the dice? You want the DM to roll the dice just to roll the dice, even if the attack can't miss... I guess that's a valid position though I guess I don't see the point. And again what about things like magic missile that don't require a roll and are within the rules of the game?

The reason rules exist in the game is to arbitrate between conflicts in the game. The DM says: The monster hits you (the intent of the action). The Player says: no it doesn't (the intent of the resistance). The neutral dice decide (the outcome). Taking away the Player's ability to say, "no it doesn't" negates any reason for the Player to even be playing the game.

Again, there are auto-hit powers in 4e so this isn't a very strong argument when also coupled with the fact that you don't ascribe to balanced encounters.

When the DM takes control of the character away from the Player, that is the DM messing with the Player. It happened twice in that scenario. Once when he said, "take 150 points of damage" and didn't give the opportunity for the player to disagree and thus being resolved by the neutral dice roll. And again when he gave one of the players the ability to resurrect the Players without their consent. What's the point of playing in a game where you don't have control of your own character?

An auto-hit power doesn't take away control of a character, and if it does thenit's an accepted part of 4e. Though admittedly a little shakier... I Also don't feel giving another player the ability to ressurect took away control of the other characters PC's because they had the option to kill themselves after being ressurected.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Uhmm... you do realize the OP already told us Jim was planning to derail and disrupt the entire adventure from the beginning right (not because it's what his character would do, but just because)? IMO, this right here tells me that Jim was never going to play in good faith. I also wonder how player 2 would have reacted without Jim there to exacerbate the situation...

I don't think he'd actually have done it. He even told the DM about his plan to derail the game at the beginning of the session. It was a joke. Though, like I said, it's sometimes hard to know if Jim's jokes have a small kernel of truth associated with them. I'm guessing he started the session frustrated at the direction it was going. He didn't like the idea that the DM had the ending planned out in advance. He's really big on DMs having nothing really planned out and adapting. Though, he understands this isn't one of those games. So, he shows he frustration by joking about doing what he wishes he could do.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

*looks upthread*
Oh, look. I successfully cast a Summon DM spell.

 

[Manbearcat]

This entire tale could have been averted by:

1 - Explicit table agenda calibration.

2 - Knowing the tools in your toolbox, understanding what you are trying to build with respect to those tools' utility and then properly and precisely applying them to facilitate construction of an edifice that doesn't go wobbly.


Except for Jim. Given Jim's, seemingly belligerent, self-stylings toward utter social dysfunction (which given that he is cognizant of it, its external to any formal diagnosis of schizophrenia), its hard to imagine things not going pear-shaped with him willfully "flexing those social discord muscles" in a group enterprise such as TTRPGing. I've seen more than my fair share of "Jims". Most "Jims" will resist a collective effort at operative conditioning toward assimilating to the collective, so you're typically left with intimidating them or just outright excising them...or you endure...and everyone suffers for it...and Jim doesn't care.

What is amusing is the awesome edition warring logical circus that would use a poster child for willful, social dysfunction as a line of evidence for what is wrong with 4e's ruleset or what it allegedly engenders. That is the fundamental, irrational attribution that underwrites bigotry and bad science; take a highly anomalous anecdotal part/data point/person and extrapolate a whole/series/culture (race/ethos) from it. Its that same sort of rubbish that got our hobby maligned in the early 80s and the decade thereafter.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I've seen more than my fair share of "Jims". Most "Jims" will resist a collective effort at operative conditioning toward assimilating to the collective, so you're typically left with intimidating them or just outright excising them...or you endure...and everyone suffers for it...and Jim doesn't care.

Perhaps. Though what you consider "suffering", I consider mild discomfort and sometimes mild amusement over his constant grumbling about people to the point of absurdity. He's told me how if he was in charge, he'd hold a lottery to kill off 80-90% of the population to get rid of the majority of people so he didn't have to worry about being around them all the time.

Then again, his schizophrenia manifests itself as paranoia most of the time. He constantly thinks people are staring at him and out to get him. Or at least he does when he isn't on medication. I suspect, however, that the medication doesn't remove these feelings entirely, just lowers their intensity to the point where he feels that people are out to get him in small ways....like a DM ruling against him in a game.

I've gotten used to listening to his grumbling, laughing at it and moving on.

What is amusing is the awesome edition warring logical circus that would use a poster child for willful, social dysfunction as a line of evidence for what is wrong with 4e's ruleset or what it allegedly engenders. That is the fundamental, irrational attribution that underwrites bigotry and bad science; take a highly anomalous anecdotal part/data point/person and extrapolate a whole/series/culture (race/ethos) from it. Its that same sort of rubbish that got our hobby maligned in the early 80s and the decade thereafter.

At the risk of adding to the edition warring, I'd like to say that despite my love of 4e, it does have some issues. Jim isn't the only one with that mindset towards the game.

The composition of our group has changed a bunch in the last 2 years. Previously, we had at least 3 more members who were nearly as bad as Jim was.

As soon as someone noticed that an AC was 2 points higher than what they expected, there would be huge complaints about how the monsters were impossible to hit because the DM was changing the rules.

I had one player who literally showed up with a new character every session because he got bored of them that easily. He didn't so much roleplay as create character builds and revel in how much damage/healing/control/whatever they did. He'd basically play a session and go "Look, I stunned all the enemies every round for an entire combat. Isn't that awesome? Well, now that that's done, I have another character who can heal everyone to full 20 times that I'd like to play."

Jim created a character who teleported 1 square twice as a minor action at will. Each time he teleported he did about 20 points of damage to all enemies adjacent to him without rolling. He was doing 120 points of damage in an AOE without rolling. However, this idea wasn't his to begin with. Another one of our players in a different game played a variation on the character first to show how much damage he could do. Jim saw it and thought it was awesome...but not good enough. So he improved it and created the character for a different DM(at the time, we were playing 2 weekly games).

One of our new players created a character that hits on a 2 against almost every enemy when he charges. He does enough damage to bloody an enemy of his level in one hit. When he charges, he goes invisible and becomes nearly impossible to hit.

It's been my experience that when rules oriented players get a hold of 4e's rules, they tend to abuse them.

Though, the damage they can wrought in 4e is completely insignificant compared to what those same players did in my 3.5e game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

[MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION]you're right that d20 D&D caters strongly to players who enjoy the character build mini-game. Prior to d20, they'd probably have preferred Champions/HERO System.

 

[Starfox]

I am the DM of the campaign in question and felt after reading all twelve pages that I should create an account and weigh in here on my opinions both regarding the situation, and the opinions brought up in this thread.

Welcome to ENworld, and kudos for joining the thread. I feel Majoru did a good job presenting your campaign; your description meshes well with the description he gave. Seems like a lovely game to me!

Don't worry too much about the sometimes snide remarks here; most of us here are using this thread (and many, many others) to push our own agendas and ideas of how an RPG should be, what edition of DnD is good, and so on. There is a constant ongoing argument here, and if one comes in at the middle of one of the skirmishes like you do now, ENworld can look like quite a hostile place. It is not. We can be nice, and even give constructive criticism at times. Pick up the advice and points you like and feel are true, and skip the rest unless you enjoy debate for the sake of debate.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I wouldn't even have said the DM needed to take back the damage, but rather at least allow an attack roll or save to see if it even hit the players or the monster.

As I've been reminded by the post above by our DM...he did make an attack roll, though he made up the bonus to hit and now that I was reminded, it hit Reflex 46 or something, so it was guaranteed to hit, given the highest defense in the group is about 29.