A powergamer in a non-powergame.

[GQuail]

The big problem is that your DM is changing things and not giving you any notice. I have no issues with house rules, and my current game has all kinds of bits and peices: but the players need to be on the same page.

Flat-out ask him for a Word document or something that has his rules changes on them. Tell him you appreciate his right to have to make judgements ont he fly but you want to have the bare bones of the system in front of you so you have something to refer to during game to help make decisions about actions etc. If he resists giving you something, this is a gigantic warning sign, and not something I would ever tolerate. You need to call him out on this, and ask him what the difference is between him spending a token to save a bad-guy and just deciding that something a player does doesn't work because, erm, he didn't plan on it. DM Fiat should be acknowledged by him as such, and not dressed up in a rules system he doesn't explain to you: and you can't be expected to ever win a combat if you don't know the rules you're working within are.

Furthermore, there seems to be a certain degree of "bait and switch" going on here. As others have said, WFRP, True20 and many other systems would give him a game system more suited to what he wants to do, but instead he's playing heavilly house-ruled D&D. IF he's aske dyou to play WFRP you'd have come in with a set of expectations and had them fulfillled - here, you came for D&D and are a bit unchuffed as to how very different it's ended up. That's not unreasonable of you, and a GM should make a better effort when starting a game to make sure everyone is ont he same page as to what it would be like.

This sounds a bit like your GM is "damaged goods". You said he changed shooting due to a bad experience with a past group that "broke his plot": I've had a dire group that went crazy on me before, and afterwards I'll admit I ran my next few games with a lot harsher temprement to try and stop the same thing happening again. If your GM has the same fears, he has probably built this campaign and rules tweaks to solve the problems of that game. "Oh no, my BBEG got shot from long distance!" "Oh no, a two-handed Power Attack killed my Vampire"! "Oh no, they got this magical flaming sword I hadn't thought they'd ever retrieve from the Orc Warlord!" He's potentially over-compensating for the issues of a previous campaign, and you're taking the brunt of his anger at another gaming group.

The best thing I can think of is to speak to the other players. If they're happy with what's going on, then that's fine - but you have to ascertain if any others would rather be playing a more by-the-book game, and if your dislikes are shared by them. If not, then perhaps you politely retire if he's unwilling to share the rulebook with you; if so, then it's time to have a chat with the GM and make it clear that multiple of his players are underwhelmed. Be polite, but be firm: he may not realise it's a problem and expects that his plot or whatever is making up for it. To all accounts, it is, but things like the DMPC and the mega-punching Vampires are going to continue to grate.

 

[Nightfall]

Tak,

Come on! One time session! No string man! If you don't like it, fine. Just saying it might improve your outlook!

 

[Ian Demagi]

house rules

Allandaros ,

Yep, guilty as charged. To me house rules and DM's that use a lot of then are designer wannabee's, and what they ususally do to "improve the game" blows 90% of the time.

I can understand a DM who wants to limit stuff from splat books, races of books, even completes (even though I would mutter under my breath a little), but messing around with the core rules? I 'd rather skip the campaign, nor would I let anyone into our gaming group that wanted to do this either as a player or game master (since all the members have a vote). Its the DM's game, but its the players group!

Ian

 

[Allandaros]

Hmm. I guess I've had the opposite experience: most of the time, I've seen house rules that make sense and expedite play. And I've definitely seen lousy stuff put out by the parent company (but I'm speaking from AD&D experience). Eh, to each their own - and apologies for threadjacking.

 

[Kalshane]

As others have said, the big problem isn't that he's done some massive house rule-based changes, but that he refuses to release those rules to the players, and seems to apply them to differently to the PCs vs. the NPCs.

I played in a D&D game that was heavily house-ruled to be closer to anime, fighting games and old-school MUSHes. We had clear-cut rules for what our characters could do, but things weren't exactly clear for the rest of the world. Which lead to a lot of frustration from both the players and the DM. The players because we never felt like we knew what was going on, and the DM for us not being able to figure out things he thought were obvious. We stuck with the campaign until the end because it was a really good story, but it was nowhere near as great a game it could have been because of the inconsistent and unclear rules.

Ten years later, the DM is actually re-running the same campaign with new players now and has taken the time to actually write up the rules. I've "sat in" on a couple sessions (he runs the game on via Open RPG due to his players being geographically diverse) and it's working so much better. In some ways I'm jealous of these new players in that they're getting to experience the game without all the frustration the original group had to go through.

I've yet to play in a game or run a game since that didn't have some form of house rules. In every instance the House Rules are distributed to all the players either electronically or via handouts and if they'd take up more than a page of paper, they're available to be referenced during the game session if neccessary. (I have a binder with all my house rules and player game world information in it that sits on the table with all the other books during any game I run.)

 

[James Heard]

I'd start planning my own game, planning my own sell to the existing players on how cool it will be, and basically steal the night from him once I had enough support and run D&D like I thought it should be ran and try to enforce upon the other players how much easier (and still fun) things are when you can consult a book and not rely on DM tea-leaf readings to determine results.

If the guy got horribly offended by this notion of running another game, I'd KNOW he was a control freak to be avoided in social situations. Too bad about having to deal with him at work though, I suppose with enough planning and encouraging his table behaviors at meetings you might be able to fix that too.

Ah, never mind. I'm a bad person. Don't listen to me.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

All of my house-ruled games have fact-sheets or, lately, game wikis, so that everybody can have a working knowledge of the rules of the game as the game will be played. I tend to like to play with Grim Tales or d20Modern with a few house rules on how Action Points work and a few additional manuevers for flavor ... changes to gear and things like that. I think it can be fun to, say, play in a game where weapons and armor are different or more expensive ... I wouldn't want the NPCs to get stuff from the books as normal just because.

I thought the Draconians sucked in Dragonlance, I thought the Drow sucked in Forgotten Realms. People who show up with better gear than the PCs improve the level of gear the PCs get ... now, flavor stuff like orc weapons might be kind of cool, if we're not otherwise hurting for weapons and armor. A guy fighting for his life, however, is going to go ahead and use the orc sword ... heck, I'd be choping off orc ears and decorating the scabbard of my nifty new Orc Sword. "He's an Orc Sympathizer!" "No, I'm a Professional Orc Slayer and I took this sword in a fight with an orc chief and these are his ears ... for luck."

On the whole, your situation sucks. You've already laid out your parameters, however ... you're not going to try to change the game, you're not going to quit, and you're not going to say that the GM knows better than you do how to have fun (which he probably doesn't, but there we are).

So, really, all you've got left is venting on messageboards and waiting for the game to be over.

It's probably not going to be fun ... I would start configuring your rogue away from combat and away from any skills he doesn't call for checks for, only put ranks in thigs he calls for checks on with regularity and become a face/role-playing specialist. This guy sounds like he responds well to total and utter BS as long as it feeds his egotistical vision of cinema (self-aggrandizing cinema where the PCs get backhanded off piers and badguys stomp them down to attack the back lines) ... hell, your character will probably LIVE LONGER if he subjugates himself at every possible opportunity to the evil NPCs.

One of the most fun PCs I've played in a long time was Grimbold The Mighty, a goblin rogue. I played him as a cowardly little conniver ... at the start of every combat I'd do my high-pitched "goblin voice" and say: "Flee!!!" and make my first actions to move directly for cover/concealment and Hide. Then I'd sneak around the fringes and find an opportunity to jump out and stab something or shoot an arrow into something from hiding ... hopefully to kill it, and if not, then I'd flee again. That was the whole schtick ... running and fleeing and being terrified of everything and then boasting to NPCs about Grimbold's mightiness.

At night, setting up camp, Grimbold would set up a tent, lay out his bedroll ... and then stuff it with grass and old clothes and go sleep under a log or in a hole 30-60 feet outside of camp.

Essentially, I played him as pretty much useless. I got into it, and I thought it was a lot of fun. Now, MY reason was that another player had such an overpowered character that there was no real need for me to be effective ... but I figure tactics like that would be pretty good when you're also denied the ability to be effective because of the GM's dippy house rules. Just get into NOT being effective.

I say stuff him and his house rules ... the only possible logical reason for all of it is that he wants to have total control over the PCs so he can "tell a story" and make sure it's HIS story ... so the hell with it and play to it the best you can. Swing from the chandeliers BECAUSE the encounter is so hopelessly over the top that you can't win ... obviously he doesn't want YOU to win, he wants his little STORY to win ... and here's the thing -

if the story is the all-important thing here, then he can't kill your PC. This guy sounds like he's the kind of guy that's going to start ignoring and fudging die rolls to keep you guys alive at all costs ... not winning ... at least not winning without phyrric victories ... but you'll probably find that after about half the party has been stomped into dogmeat the badguys will start falling over themselves to lose to you.

Especially with the DMPC there. This guy will probably fall all over himself with joy if you start setting it up where his little PC archer gets to save your bacon at every turn. It's all going to be about his power trip anyway, so take joy in making it a spectacularly dumb power trip of suitably cinematic and epic proportions.

Slapstick comedy if you will.

Swing from the rafters while brandishing your sword and do so more when things are obviously dire! Broach of barrel of ale when combat starts and say you're going to fight with your sword in your left hand while drinking a tankard ... then change to the right while quoting Princess Bride! When the going gets tough, the tough get stupid. Throw bottles and rocks for 1d2 points of damage instead of trying to stab people. Spend round after round of combat setting up a simple tripwire trap or toss a bucketful of waste from the head at the enemy.

Ignore the rules, because it's obvious that he's going to.

And, if it gets your character killed ... excellent. If it causes a TPK, even more excellent than excellent. Then its done and you're out of a dumb game. I doubt it'll go that way, though, because that would mean this dude's power trip is over.

You've basically been disenfranchised, so you might as well show out because nothing you do within the rules is really going to change anything.

--fje

 

[takyris]

Dude. Wow.

Yes.

Thanks.

 

[Dragonblade]

It's not the dm's job to tell a story. He presents the framework and the pcs tell the story.

Quoted for truth!

 

[Dragonblade]

I think it's unfair to lump all GMs into this category though.

Point conceded.