Griffith Dragonlake
First Post
I've been playing D&D for 30 years and have come to the conclusion that D&D is unfun for the following [tongue-in-cheek] reasons:
Level Drain: Whether from undead or lifestealing swords, losing levels is unfun. When my character loses levels I have to refigure the character sheet. And losing levels makes my character weaker and he falls behind the rest of the party.
Save or Die spells: Roll poorly one time and your character is dead due to bad luck. How unfun is that?!?
Polymorph spells: Being polymorphed into toad is totally unfun. My character sits around doing nothing the entire combat. And to add insult to injury, my friends start cracking jokes about cooking up some frog legs. D&D is about doing something each round of combat, not sitting there listening to someone describe how they're going to cook your legs!
Petrification attacks: Cockatrices, Basilisks, Medusas, and the Flesh to Stone spell. It's no fun being turned into a statue and doing nothing until someone reads a Stone to Flesh scroll.
Backstabs: There you are minding your own business when suddenly you find a shortsword poking through your midsection while you collapse to the ground. Maybe next time I'll play a barbarian so I can detect the backstab and kill the little halfling!
Assassinations: Man I'm so glad that I'm not playing 1st edition AD&D anymore! One time an NPC hired an assassin, the DM rolled some percentile dice, and the next thing you know I had to roll up another character.
Sleep spells: At first level, whichever side cast sleep first wins! Sleep + throat slitting makes quick work of goblins, kobolds, and 1st level PCs. (See save or die spells above.)
Dragon breath weapons: Did you notice that the Forgotten Realms dragons were given an option to combine their three breath weapons into a single triple damage breath? Holy cow! Even when my barbarian made his saving throw, he still fried. How unfun is that?!?
Item Saving Throws: And if by some miracle my paladin survives the Forgotten Realms Ancient Huge Red dragon's breath weapon in spite of a failed saving throw, now I have to roll to see if the +5 holy avenger melts?!? The only thing worse than that is:
Rust Monsters: What was Gygax smoking? My precious +5 plate mail and +5 vorpal holy avenger both turn to rust? What's up with that?
Traps: Don't even get me started on traps. Acid pits, lava pits, poison tipped rusty iron spike pits — and those are just the pits. One way teleporters. Disintegration beams. The whole contents of Grimtooth's traps are totally unfun! (unless you're a sadistic DM)
Critical hits: Just when you've got the BBEG on the ropes, he confirms a critical hit and maxes out his damage. You go from 20 to -12 in one hit. Totally unfun. NPCs should not be allowed to critical my character.
Deck of Many Things: Have you seen how many black card there are? Lose all your possessions? A henchman betrays you? Trapped in the Void?
Magic Jar: Oh great. My character's soul is trapped in a jar while some necromancer goes galavanting around in my character's body doing God know what but undoubtedly having more fun than I am.
Confusion/Chaos spells: Not only does my character not get to fight in melee but now he has to worry about a buddy attacking him. Unfun.
Hold Person/Monster spells: Another one of those spells that keeps my character from doing anything fun during combat.
Charm Person/Monster spells: And another unfun spell.
Paralyzation: Ditto.
Feeblemind: I mean just how many spells are there in this game that keeps my character from participating in combat?
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In all seriousness, I think that coddling player-characters so that the players themselves do not have any "unfun" is absolute and total excrement. I mean, come on already! We have raise dead, resurrection, remove poison, restoration, regeneration, heal, limited wish, wish, etc. D&D is about overcoming great risk to life, limb, and soul and telling stories about it. (Like the first [and last] time Fochar the monk attacked a spectre with his bare hands — priceless.)
Level Drain: Whether from undead or lifestealing swords, losing levels is unfun. When my character loses levels I have to refigure the character sheet. And losing levels makes my character weaker and he falls behind the rest of the party.
Save or Die spells: Roll poorly one time and your character is dead due to bad luck. How unfun is that?!?
Polymorph spells: Being polymorphed into toad is totally unfun. My character sits around doing nothing the entire combat. And to add insult to injury, my friends start cracking jokes about cooking up some frog legs. D&D is about doing something each round of combat, not sitting there listening to someone describe how they're going to cook your legs!
Petrification attacks: Cockatrices, Basilisks, Medusas, and the Flesh to Stone spell. It's no fun being turned into a statue and doing nothing until someone reads a Stone to Flesh scroll.
Backstabs: There you are minding your own business when suddenly you find a shortsword poking through your midsection while you collapse to the ground. Maybe next time I'll play a barbarian so I can detect the backstab and kill the little halfling!
Assassinations: Man I'm so glad that I'm not playing 1st edition AD&D anymore! One time an NPC hired an assassin, the DM rolled some percentile dice, and the next thing you know I had to roll up another character.
Sleep spells: At first level, whichever side cast sleep first wins! Sleep + throat slitting makes quick work of goblins, kobolds, and 1st level PCs. (See save or die spells above.)
Dragon breath weapons: Did you notice that the Forgotten Realms dragons were given an option to combine their three breath weapons into a single triple damage breath? Holy cow! Even when my barbarian made his saving throw, he still fried. How unfun is that?!?
Item Saving Throws: And if by some miracle my paladin survives the Forgotten Realms Ancient Huge Red dragon's breath weapon in spite of a failed saving throw, now I have to roll to see if the +5 holy avenger melts?!? The only thing worse than that is:
Rust Monsters: What was Gygax smoking? My precious +5 plate mail and +5 vorpal holy avenger both turn to rust? What's up with that?
Traps: Don't even get me started on traps. Acid pits, lava pits, poison tipped rusty iron spike pits — and those are just the pits. One way teleporters. Disintegration beams. The whole contents of Grimtooth's traps are totally unfun! (unless you're a sadistic DM)
Critical hits: Just when you've got the BBEG on the ropes, he confirms a critical hit and maxes out his damage. You go from 20 to -12 in one hit. Totally unfun. NPCs should not be allowed to critical my character.
Deck of Many Things: Have you seen how many black card there are? Lose all your possessions? A henchman betrays you? Trapped in the Void?
Magic Jar: Oh great. My character's soul is trapped in a jar while some necromancer goes galavanting around in my character's body doing God know what but undoubtedly having more fun than I am.
Confusion/Chaos spells: Not only does my character not get to fight in melee but now he has to worry about a buddy attacking him. Unfun.
Hold Person/Monster spells: Another one of those spells that keeps my character from doing anything fun during combat.
Charm Person/Monster spells: And another unfun spell.
Paralyzation: Ditto.
Feeblemind: I mean just how many spells are there in this game that keeps my character from participating in combat?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In all seriousness, I think that coddling player-characters so that the players themselves do not have any "unfun" is absolute and total excrement. I mean, come on already! We have raise dead, resurrection, remove poison, restoration, regeneration, heal, limited wish, wish, etc. D&D is about overcoming great risk to life, limb, and soul and telling stories about it. (Like the first [and last] time Fochar the monk attacked a spectre with his bare hands — priceless.)
