A powergamer in a non-powergame.

[takyris]

Nightfall, as soon as the dang novel is done and I can take online time for something that isn't that, I'd love to.

Honestly, while I'm aggrieved at the rules here, I really like the DM. He's a nice guy, and I'm interested in the story he's trying to tell. I always thought of myself as a story-oriented person, and I think I'd really be enjoying this if I didn't have these blinders on.

There are rules changes that I find frustrating but agree with -- he won't let us boost a skill unless we can convince him that we've been training in it or have access to increase it, which means that we don't know anything about the world, since we're from small towns without a whole lot of literacy. I dislike that, but I can buy that as a rules change.

And then there are the things that seem almost directly opposed to what he says he's trying to run. He owns that he's not about the rules. He says that the rules shouldn't get in the way of a good story, which is why we have no class skills, armor proficiency is up for grabs based on the background, and as a rogue, I can choose as many weapons as I'd get rogue weapons for and declare those my weapons (but I cannot chose swords, because those are for nobles). He also says that he wants people to feel like they can be cinematic, so he gives out cinematic points and then has us spend them to do things that are cinematic. In theory, spending the point lets you do something cool that breaks the rules, and hey, when you make a cool daring decision, that can get you a cinematic point.

However:

1) Since we're outclassed 90% of the time, we don't have a lot of leeway to actually do anything cinematic. It's fairly uncommon for more than half the party to be conscious at the end of a fight, so taking time to swing from the chandeliers isn't really worth it.

2) When we actually TRY something cinematic, his response is to roll dice. For example:

We're in my mother's house. Suddenly, archers are shooting flaming arrows into mom's roof. I open the door to see who's coming, and apparently the archers had readied actions, as I took half my hit points in damage from flaming arrows. Ow, but fine.

On my next turn, trying to be cinematic, I say, "Can Mom have a rickety old table that I can pick up and use as a shield as I run out the door? I'd like to drop it outside the doorway to give people something to take cover behind."

He rolls some dice and then informed me that my poor mother's table is too large to fit through the doorway. He then looks at me sadly and says, "But that was a really great idea. That would have worked really well," by way of consolation.

I just don't know where to go with that. If I try to play by the rules as written, he doesn't. If I try to think outside the rules and do something creative, it's solved by random dice rolls.

Frankly, the most intelligent thing for my character to do would be to retire from adventuring, except that I can't, because people are trying to kill us, and we're on the run from bad guys with far more levels than we've got.

And I am interested in the story.

I just wish there were some sort of consistency rewarding either knowledge of the rules or willingness to completely ignore those rules.

 

[Nightfall]

Tak,

Ah the novel can wait. My games might inspire you more! Besides it's all run through the En World chat anyway!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Congratulations! You're playing D&D, and you're a powergamer in a storyteller's campaign. Been there. Done that. Best advice: just enjoy it while it lasts.

What he said. You obviously have different styles of gaming and he is doing his best to impose his style. Since he is the DM I imagine that he's going to win out. I guess it's up to you how long you can put up with it. If it's not fun anymore for you you have to consider if it's worth putting up with since you want your wife to enjoy the game and you do have to work with the guys.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Hypersmurf]

Do you mean that there's a BAB requirement? (I don't see one.) Or do you mean that the opposed roll lets the target add his or her BAB?

Right. The tougher the opponent, the harder it is to make Feint work...

The flavor text was the amount of damage that I was hit for and the fact that I was knocked unconscious.

Another house rule?

"- Declaring that when my rogue was reduced to 0 hit points in a fight on the docks, he was thrown off the docks due to flavor-text..."

0 hit points is disabled, not unconscious...

-Hyp.

 

[Nightfall]

I always thought the difference between a power gamer and a storyteller type deal is this:

Power gamers care only about collecting the most "jink" and powerups for themselves. Storytellers have some plots to work out but generally prefer to have the PCs do what they want as long as they don't start messing up the order of the universe.

Hyper,

I thought you only stuck in the rules section for rules stuff.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Bad news Taky, this isn't a game for you. I have a lot of sympathy for your situation. And good luck toughing it out.

You know it's a bad situation when you're prefacing everything with "He's a really nice guy but...." or "He has some really fun NPCs...."

But here's the thing. The game isn't about making an effective character and using great tactics to win the day. There's already been a bunch of wierd little things that just seem to set you up so that you can't really count on the rules too high. Especially the house-ruled chip system. The mean part of me wants you to ask and see if you can't get a detailed description of how that works, but that's really just kind of fighting the point. The chip system is more a way for the DM to feel like he has a setup for imposing cool things on the normally static situation.

So, if the game isn't about using the rules, what is the game about? The game is about expierencing all the cool things that the DM has set up for you. Literally, that's what you can do. He's the gatekeeper for all the cool stuff, and his cool stuff is the point of the game. It's something I've done, and I've been through a bunch. I think it's pretty normal (ie: not some strange occurance that rarely happens).

Now, what you're really going to have to do to enjoy this game is understand how it goes and look for the fun parts in that. Get it into your skull that this is how it will work, and look for the ways to enjoy it while playing along in the cool elements that your DM has put together.

Does that suck? Oh yeah, especially given your earlier complaints. It definately isn't the game that you'd be playing, if you got to choose. Unfortunately, the best you're going to be able to do is dig up what enjoyment you can, where you can. That, and maybe DM a game later and totally spoil your wife.

Do me a favor? Can you list out 4 or 5 things that you really enjoyed about the game?

 

[Terwox]

Weird, I wonder why the DM isn't running True20 or something if he wants to run such a low-magic game... but I guess that's not for everyone.

A game like that would drive me completely nuts, and I'd have trouble getting into the story.

I can say that as for "vicariously cheating" ... I've played before and spoke up about rules people were forgetting all the time, and in all of those games, the players and the DM had more fun if I just kept my mouth shut and let the game run along. Don't sweat it too much.

And... I usually roll some dice to randomly determine if a cinematic idea would work (the big table idea) but if I like the idea enough, I don't look at the dice and just let it work. I'm not sure you could bring that up or not though.

Maybe you could mention the DMPC is a bad idea. A lot depends on if the guy takes criticism well or not, and that's tremendously variable among DM's. (I know I'm not always too great about it! )

 

[greywulf]

Ouch. I feel your pain. That's not role-playing to my mind.

You're playing through a story of the GM's making and you are just Extras. His vision for the plot seems to be more important than your enjoyment, which is a shame.

If everything is spelled out in advance that's one thing, but if you go in expecting to play D&D with all it's quirks and conventions, then that's another. Especially if the playing field isn't level from the start. If the Bad Guys have weapons you can't use after they are dead, it's a bad sign. Reminds me of Drow weapons which melt in sunlight and exploding Draconians. Yeh. We've all been there

Sounds like too much Deus Ex Machina is going on for my liking. Personally, I'd walk from the game saying "it's not the kind of game I'm interested in playing". As that's not possible then just run with it and hope things improve. Maybe offer to GM a game yourself so he can see how you like to play. That might work. Some of your goodness might just rub off

 

[Sledge]

[horrible accent]Yous wants some of us Edmonton DM's to have a little conversation with your DM? Make him an offer he cannot refuse?[/horrible accent]

Okay seriously though as a storytelling DM I can say that a DMPC is not storytelling, it is novel writing. I've had to run a few DMPC's in the past and as a DM its frustrating. The DMPC has to follow rules that turn it into a proper NPC. The first rule is that the DMPC must NOT outclass the PC's. Right now I have a game that we play occassionally where the original DM moved to BC. Now I'm DMing it, but the nature of the game requires all the characters we have. So I've got to manage my PC as an NPC. However this character is not the primary grunt, and is not the primary caster. Doesn't heal, and doesn't do trapfinding. Essentially this character is just extra muscle. He does not dictate party decisions, instead he generally just agrees with the rest of the party. If someone else volunteers to DM or we get to the point that we can really make this character disappear then the character will disappear. If your DM is thinking the opposite way and trying to be sure his character keeps the story on the rails then perhaps someone really should have a chat.

 

[LostSoul]

If the DM's style and my style clashed that much, I think I would be much better off quitting. I think that everyone else would be much better off, too.