Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 3170854" data-attributes="member: 5171">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.</blockquote>

Verification