Battle Royale of the Gawds continuation

[green slime]

green slime - there have only been 2 DM's for GoD's :
Doc Midnight and clockwork.

Incorrect. Macbrea ran a GoD, which you didn't participate in. Macbrea too suffered DM burnout. It IS tough DM-ing one of these.

That's hardly a representative sample from which to come to conclusions about MY 'inabilities to deal with a DM'.

I wasn't talking about your inabilities to deal with a DM, I was talking about how you somehow seem to feel you are the only one singled out unfairly.

If you would just stop your harping, going back to years ago with Doc Midnight's GoD, and let it go, than perhaps you would open up your eyes and read what I'll type, and you too may see what I will prove to any onbiased observer.

My "eyes" are open. You may have a point or two buried in some of your harsh statements about the DM. HE himself admitted he made mistakes. EVERYONE makes mistakes. You just have to try and get on with it anyway. However, vitriolically attacking the DM will not attract more DMs willing to stick their necks out, to provide you and us with the entertainment we seek. Nor does it create sympathy for your cause, whether it is just or not.

Here's a preview:
green slime is incorrect about the timing - I posted my request for using the Singh Rager (powerful, but not a broken PrC in most people's eyes) well before the cutoff for characters.
Any OA you see in my build was forced upon me as a weak substitute for the core classes, which clockwork decided to deny me.

The thing is, as I see it, the DM has a responsibility to see to it that players all enter the gaming field at a somewhat similar level. If you find a loop hole in the rules, and create a character that will obviously win by default, or is so obviously more powerful than the others, it is well within the role of the DM to say "Congratulations! But not in my game! Please change this or that."

To do otherwise would seriously detract from the fun of all the other players. Which is one reason why Wish has never been allowed.

I admit, I know absolutely nothing about the timing of the creation of your characters in clockworkjoe's game. Which is as it should be. However I do know you feel hard done by. Another reason for holding all the players strictly to the creation guidelines, with final approval by the DM.

Don't you dare blame ME for including any OA stuff and getting a benefit from it - having to substitute the weak Shaman class for a cleric for no fair reason (roleplaying reasons? Give me a break) is NOT an advantage for me, so I'd appreciate you get your facts straight before ranting about me and my abilities to make clockwork drop the game against his will.

I didn't BLAME you for including OA stuff, I find it funny that you include OA stuff, and then complain about some of the other player's abilities which they were allowed in with. It all comes down to judgement calls on the side of the DM. I can guarantee you that every player feels hard done by in a GoD. "Why did this happen?" "Why this ruling?" "Why me?" "How?" are thoughts every player has.

I do not "actively dislike you", I dislike the way in which you repeatedly show complete disrespect for the DM, who is not in this for his own benefit, but to provide US ALL with some entertainment, as best as he can. This attitude towards someone who has spent hours every day of their valuable free time only to be repeatedly insulted, really, really, gets my rile up.

As for calling people obtuse when they disagree with your opinion... sheesh.

Finally; When can we see you DMing a GoD?

 

[reapersaurus]

a bunch of horrendously-inaccurate stuff

Let me prove how wrong you are in this post, green slime:

originally posted by clockwork on Nov 22nd, 6 full days and 5 pages of posts before the game started:

That's true, I'm not that worried about balance. I just don't want to get overwhelmed looking up obscure feat/spell/item X in 20 bazillion books over and over.

And I looked over the rager. He's basically a lawful barbarian with some extra goodies. Not that interesting.

If you REALLY want to use him, type every rule about the class(including the Ki shout feat) that I would need to run him without having to look at OA in your sheet. I don't want to refer to that book everytime you do something.

I did exactly as he asked, going out of my way to detail everything, so as to save clockwork the voluminous amounts of time that are obviously required to run a GoD.

green slime, you pointed out all the effort that goes into a GoD, then ranted about unless I run a GoD, than apparently I'm unqualified to state my opinion about how another GoD was run.

I respectfully disagree.

I have explained previously about how much time clockwork cost me with his actions during my character build time, and nobody's been concerned about my time invested, and why's that? Because I chose to play - nobody forced me to want to have fun in a fair contest to the death.
Similarly, why should I be giving clcokwork unqualified thanks for jerking our chains for 6 months?
He chose to run the Game, nobody forced him to, he took that upon himself as something he wanted to do.

Once he got what he wanted out of it, he dropped us all.

Now, you're right in that I could offer to run a GoD.
However, I'm not a DM nor a graphics person, so the map and story aspect would not be my strong suit.
My strong suit is knowledge of the rules, and that's what I THOUGHT a GoD was about (it's not exactly roleplaying, guys).

Apparently, that's not what other people approach a GoD like.
And that's fine -we SHOULD be able to have different approaches. However, when I get my opinion across, I've been personally attacked numerous times. Why am I expected to respond thoughtfully, or else I'm a difficult player, but other people viciously attack me with impunity?
Do you think it was easy to continue to respond maturely to the crap thrown my direction for months?
It wasn't, let me assure you, but I chose to be the better man and state facts and quote what has actually been said, etc.

Why would I bother if it's so much work, 47?
That's a good question.
Because the prospect of a FAIR, properly-arbitrated game of death that pits the skills of PLAYER VS PLAYER is so appealing to me, that I will go to great lengths to attempt to find any semblance of one.

I firmly believe that seasong's GoD IS such a thing, and I hold great trust based on his communications during character creation that he is an honest, and critically-thinking, impartial DM who most importantly has the right approach in mind: that the GoD is not about him, and how much fun he can have, but it's something that he wants to do for the players, and gaming in general.

About running one : I actually don't think that a online-based GoD is very viable for this kind of endeavor, however.
If I was to run one, it would be a scheduled event, in a chat room with private channels where all participants would show up at an appointed hour, and then play would happen rapidly, and be done in about an hour.
In addition, there;s no way I'd allow mages - characters that can cast spells cause 80% (my estimation) of rules problems and complexity.
It would also be low level, since the impact of magic at higher levels is so absurd as to minimize the effect that a well-constructed character has on the outcome : it becomes what magic items you have, not about the character.
I've said that a 4th level contest between melee-based characters, run in a chat room (preferrably in-person, at a table) would be complete-able.

It's funny that clockwork's last post comes to about that same conclusion - I posted that opinion over 2 years ago.

 

[reapersaurus]

The thing is, as I see it, the DM has a responsibility to see to it that players all enter the gaming field at a somewhat similar level. If you find a loop hole in the rules, and create a character that will obviously win by default, or is so obviously more powerful than the others, it is well within the role of the DM to say "Congratulations! But not in my game! Please change this or that."

To do otherwise would seriously detract from the fun of all the other players.

Funny you mention this point, slime.

I'll quote my email to clockwork after he said NO to my inclusion of MoF's Spelldancer, even after he approved it multiple times up till then:
a snip from his email:

So prove me and the others wrong. And don't whine about how I should have told you earlier that I wasn't going to allow this or that. I have over 1,000 pages of rules to look at. I can't consider every nightmarish possible. So give me a break and stop testing my patience and good humor.

a portion of my reply, proving my compliance with his demands:

1st off, and most important, I don't need all the by-the-book rules stuff I included to have a satisfying Game.
If you don't want something I put in, than throw it out. If you think it will undermine your game, or make the game less fun, than by all means, throw it out - I'll make do with what you allow.
I think I've been pretty clear that if you don't feel comfortable about a rule from the sources you allowed, than say so, and I'll remove it.

BTW, I would have hoped that my reactions so far to your cutting out of things would have "proven others wrong".
That snipping of cleric and paladin so that I couldn't use just the Singh Rager only cost me hours, but I did it without question because you asked and you didn't feel comfortable.

2nd: A lot of the power of my character, I think you'd agree, comes from the broken SpellDancer from MoF.
I agree that it's broken. And I didn't even initially notice that about the class.
It's the MoF stuff that makes this combo so powerful. (_I_ think)
And everybody has access to MoF, right? Are they using it?

I'll take out what you said, and get back to you as soon as I can.

So you see, I did exactly what you are saying I should have.

However, for your information, the Singh Rager is not a loophole, or abusing anything.
As I quoted last post, everyone knew that clockwork approved the Rager, and that I was interested in it.

47: I needed the Rager cause I was planning on a shield-charging paladin-type.
And it wasn't "outside of the rules", as I showed.

There is a big difference between clockwork approving one more PrC for everybody to use, and him allowing Midnight to get a ECL 23+ creature for 10 levels, and no Advantage cost.
There's likewaise a big difference to allow Macallan to disregard the restriction on Wildshaping which keeps it balanced. (Hell, that one ability alone is far more powerful than anything the broken Spelldancer could provide as a benefit, yet you don't see a disparity or a problem with it?)
If you don't see the differences, than I don't know what else to do to make it clear.

green slime - you seem to attribute some altruistic motives to clockwork's efforts in the game, and further attribute his mistakes as just that: Mistakes.
I do not share your opinion, based on personal experience (which if I get the urge, I will detail).
We will have to agree to disagree on that.

 

[green slime]

Thanks for posting so eloquently reapersaursu, I knew you have a heart and brain somewhere under that rough exterior!

However, I do not feel that I was "ranting" about you running a Game. Sorry if it came across like that. Like I said earlier, most DM's will tell you: It requires more effort than they had considered. Once in, they really, really don't want to let it go and disappoint the players. Clockworkjoe pointed out, he had made an incorrect judegement call as to how long his GoD would last. He assumed 15th level characters would leave each other in dead piles after the first few rounds. He had no idea it would be a 6 month burden on his time.

Yes, it is obvious you have a very strong grip on the rules. However, you must be aware that there isn't exactly a long queue of people wanting to DM a GoD, and of those that do, MOST of them, will not have the same grasp off the rules as you seem to.

Should this preclude them from running a game? Should we scare other potential DMs off by going on about how unfairly we have been treated? Or should we point out the mistakes coolly, and move on? Made suggestions as to how things could be improved rather than demands? Not that you ever DEMANDED, but you get the idea.

I agree, we should be able to enter a game with the different approaches, and we should all start on a level playing field. These games and the mistakes that occur in them are themselves part of the learning process. Each game has made mistakes (the first was to allow partially charged items, the second allowed scrolls of a level far beyond the capabilities of the other players) Both of these mistakes COULD have been foreseen, and in fact were, but the DM made the call. And like it or not, in the end, if you want in the game, you have to swallow it down, get on with the game, and, after the smoke clears, post clear, rational, and concise opinions on what worked and what didn't. So we can together discuss and improve the guidelines for future games, and as an assistance to future DMs.

Part of my personal reason for GoD involvement is to discover all the little rules loopholes, and overpowered abilities, and create rules that reign them in, so that in the end, no character built using the guidelines will be obviously more powerful than another, and that it comes down to more strategy and tactics on the playing field, rather than in character design. (Character design being part of the strategy, of course).

 

[green slime]

Reapersaurus:

I really can't comment on the clippings from emails. It isn't like I can go back and personaly confirm what has taken place. Your email correspondence with clockworkjoe really is none of my business.

Secondly, short of reading the entire collection of your correspondence, I couldn't be in a position to comment on who said what when. It isn't like I have access to these files, nor do I want to.

However, when any argument spills over from email onto the message board, and affects those trying to enjoy the game, well, you see my point? It also affects those reading about the game, and affects their decision to participate in one, either as a DM or as a player.

Whether the Singh Rager is a WotC rule loophole (lawful raging) or not when core barbarians are required to be chaotic is besides the point. The point being, it was outside the original guidelines set up before characters were sent in. Thus some people sent in characters with no knowledge that OA was allowed in at all. So those that plea bargained got a better deal, than those that just read the guidelines and posted a character in.

During the character creation process, one cannot have a sliding standard as to what should be allowed in. The guidelines for character creation as set out prior to receiving characters MUST be maintained, and may be curtailed, should obvious errors/oversights be found.

So, what I have been saying all along is:

1) Give the DM some slack for mistakes. We all make mistakes.
2) Treat each other civilly, both in emails and on the message board, preferably with the same courtesy you would a business correspondance (And heavens knows I'm not God's best child in this respect, so no marks for dredging up old sins)

Accusing the DM of partiality is not conducive to a good game, whether real or not. Suffice it to say, IF I felt so strongly and I was being mistreated by a DM, I would have left the game. Now I DID leave the game, but it wasn't due to clockworkjoe, but due to some rather rude emails I received from certain players. I tried to continue, but I really have no satisfaction playing with people I dislike.

I should also point out here that you Reapersaurus was NOT one of those who sent me rude emails. I just feel you could be more diplomatic in some of your postings to the board.

 

[green slime]

"horribly inaccurate stuff"

What a laugh!

 

[reapersaurus]

These games and the mistakes that occur in them are themselves part of the learning process. Each game has made mistakes (the first was to allow partially charged items, the second allowed scrolls of a level far beyond the capabilities of the other players) Both of these mistakes COULD have been foreseen, and in fact were, but the DM made the call.

you are exactly right with much of this post.
I'm particularly impressed that you pointed out exactly the issue with the first GoD's.

I'll take this time to point out my mistake from the first GoD:
I was upset at being knocked out due to the combination of 3 factors:
1) the inclusion of a partially-charged wand that completely wrecked the power-levels of the characters, 2) my incorrect calculation of my characters hp's, that would have left him alive, and 3) an above-average set of damage rolls
and posted a couple uncalled-for posts after that.
I regret that, and got too excited about the danger and surprises that a GoD stores.

From this GoD, you can add in fickle Gawds' actions, player-targetted unstoppable kobolds, swapping Wishes, mercenaries, crushing Trees, etc.
Maybe the DM's could listen to the players when we offer the feedback that their idea might not work?

________________________________

I don't believe that players CAN start on a even level (as you mentioned), since some people simply make stronger characters to bring to a GoD than others.

I believe that if there's a DM that fits the requirements to run a GoD, than he will come forth, knowing the difficulties and tribulations and effort involved in running one - in my experience, if you have to cajole a DM to participate, it is just a matter of time until the muse leaves him, and the Game will die.
Seasong offered to run one, knwing full well the dangers, and with his solid grasp of the rules (an absolute necessity, IMO, to running a GoD), he seems fit for the task at hand.
Now, if he could just get some time to free up IRL, we could start and wonderful carnage could ensue.

BTW: why would players have sent you rude emails?

 

[green slime]

you are exactly right with much of this post.
I'm particularly impressed that you pointed out exactly the issue with the first GoD's.

I'll take this time to point out my mistake from the first GoD:
I was upset at being knocked out due to the combination of 3 factors:
1) the inclusion of a partially-charged wand that completely wrecked the power-levels of the characters, 2) my incorrect calculation of my characters hp's, that would have left him alive, and 3) an above-average set of damage rolls
and posted a couple uncalled-for posts after that.
I regret that, and got too excited about the danger and surprises that a GoD stores.

From this GoD, you can add in fickle Gawds' actions, player-targetted unstoppable kobolds, swapping Wishes, mercenaries, crushing Trees, etc.
Maybe the DM's could listen to the players when we offer the feedback that their idea might not work?

________________________________

I don't believe that players CAN start on a even level (as you mentioned), since some people simply make stronger characters to bring to a GoD than others.

I believe that if there's a DM that fits the requirements to run a GoD, than he will come forth, knowing the difficulties and tribulations and effort involved in running one - in my experience, if you have to cajole a DM to participate, it is just a matter of time until the muse leaves him, and the Game will die.
Seasong offered to run one, knwing full well the dangers, and with his solid grasp of the rules (an absolute necessity, IMO, to running a GoD), he seems fit for the task at hand.
Now, if he could just get some time to free up IRL, we could start and wonderful carnage could ensue.

BTW: why would players have sent you rude emails?

I agree that we can never have an exactly level playing field. But we can greatly reduce the amplitude, and thus create a more satisfying experience for everyone.

I would agree with you on the inapropriateness of some of the elements introduced into the game, but I do think it was a brave and interesting attempt to introduce some volatility into the game, which can get static.

Noone actually cajoled DMs to run the game. But it is a bigger undertaking than most realise. So they bite off more than they can chew, and get burnt out.

I tried to start one but got so frustrated with some of Players who signed up, who were so slow to respond to requests to update their characters, or even send one in! It shouldn't take an entire month to write up and equip a character given some simple instructions. After six weeks of chasing people, I gave up.

A year later, I'm ready to try again. Look soon for an opportunity to enter green slime's gladiatorial competition (3.5E CORE RULES only).

As to WHY I got sent those emails, I have no idea at all. The real shame of it was that they were emailing from a New Zealand server, and I would never have expected that from my fellow countrymen, a place which prides itself on fairplay and sportsmanship.

Needless to say, they will NOT be participating in any game I run.

 

[green slime]

Oh yeah, one thing, that annoys me when I'm playing a GoD, is the fact that so much information is made public about my character.

I realise this is just to ease the burden of the DM to keep a list of spell/power effects in place, but given that a large number of participants can't see or hear me, and if those that do don't have spellcraft or the like, how do the characters know I'm a psion?

Sort of blew my cover as well. Part of the idea of running around in full plate with long sword and shield: disinformation.

We really should try to deal with that, imo.

 

[clockworkjoe]

Actually, if you look at Therron's first character sheet, he included more than just the singh rager from OA (such as the sohei class and the iajitsu skill) and I didn't really understand the implications of the spelldancer class when I first looked at it.

And I have apologized repeatedly for not reviewing his character more in depth at first to let him know about it. I don't know what else to say about that. I don't really remember the entire exchange between us back in november and I really don't want to re-read all those emails again. Also, he could have exercised a little more self restraint in his character creation if he didn't want to spend all that time remaking it.