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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 3143034" data-attributes="member: 29014">(OOC: I'll admit that it did.  This is mainly because the actions the soldiers chose were, in my mind, actually very stupid actions that someone with training would not realistically take but actually happened to be choices that exacerbated the situation.  In effect, they made it even more certain that they would perish (well, they managed to survive because some of the other PCs chose to keep them alive, but they would have perished if we actually wanted to kill them) in exchange for simply making the situation more difficult and causing Zaeryl's readied action not to trigger.  The weird movement without attacking?  That was an incredible tactical blunder in that it gave plenty of time to allow their third ally to be easily ganged up against, even when they knew we wanted the stone from him primarily.  If they had just attacked, they may very well have offed Zaeryl before the other slowpokes meandered over there and thus been able to gain an edge on us.  This is, of course, all in my opinion, but it seemed like another 'gotcha'.  Tactics that I thought were actually good tactics for soldiers to use that screwed us up?  I'd have just laughed and said 'Good one'.  For example--throwing a bolas to get Zaeryl tied up or something like that.  However, the particular tactics had the appearance of being metagamed, though I am of course not saying that they actually were.  However, this is indeed the first point where I was being frustrated.    (OOC: Zaeryl is definitely an unusual character.  However, I don't think he ever got to be a problem in-character--even with Michael, Zaeryl was actually morally-enough in the right (for perhaps the first time ever against a LG cleric) that pretty much any NG or CG character I've created would have taken the general path that the other PCs did--agree with him that Michael was wrong but chide a bit for the unkind way he said it.  In that sense, Zaeryl was actually doing so willingly--he likes this group (except Michael), and he was willing to be a scapegoat that people didn't like and be the 'crazy' guy who threatened to kill Michael for the others' sakes and to protect their freedoms.So I don't necessarily think it's Zaeryl in-character but more that I'm just getting frustrated out of character at being stymied at every turn.)  (OOC: I'm actually with you on verisimilitude--I think it is a worthwhile goal, and I always have NPCs react in a way I consider to be realistic.  However, in my personal opinion, I think you go too far when you actually mess up the verisimilitude in the name of verisimilitude.  What do I mean?  Well, I hope the following doesn't sound too harsh.  I don't mean to be harsh, but I'm having trouble finding the words here, so I'll just have to use them.  If you think the tone is harsh, please ratchet it down about three levels, and that's what I wish I could express, but I can't.  Anyway, here goes.You've ruined my verisimilitude for Zaeryl.  Zaeryl has the highest Intelligence and Wisdom point buy combined of any character at this level that I've ever made (I typically dump Wisdom to have fun with absentminded smart characters, typically with good charisma too).  He's an observant genius (with social issues, granted) and if he doesn't always make the right choice, he's at least tactically on top of every situation.  And it was within my stated intentions to be sure we had them all.  Not only that, it wasn't even that I was negligent and ignored the thought of the three soldiers out of character either.  I actively out of character recalled the three soldiers and read through the thread (without voiding the other people's SBLOCKs until just recently) with the intent to ensure that we had them all and I was convinced that we did.  There was not a single post that I could have possibly read that would have led me to believe otherwise.  No "They only have the two soldiers".  No "Zaeryl sees the fallen soldier on the ground."  It was literally impossible for me to read through the thread and discover the loss of the third soldier without asking metagaming OOC questions, and even when I just went through to check tonight, I still thought we had all three.   But that isn't the thing that frustrated me most--this is that Zaeryl came out of it looking like a complete idiot.  He's expounded like ten times on how we can't let any of them be left behind.  But we already did leave them behind?  That's perhaps the thing that destroyed my morale and my fun, the only part of this situation that I can look at and honestly say that I think you were simply 'wrong' and not just that it was a difference of opinion.  It's not that we're screwed by leaving the soldier (which we are, but that doesn't matter), not even really that it still seems like a gotcha (which admittedly it does), but because you made my character look like a mentally-challenged otyugh, just like the failed Spot check for not 'looking up' made that player feel that their keen-eyed scout character was being made a buffoon.  I would have greatly appreciated a post when Zaeryl came past that either we had only two or he saw the third, but the thing that I can't deal with and has made me not want to continue the game (because, and I want to find a simple way to say it that isn't 'I don't trust you' because it isn't quite that, but it almost is--I'm expecting a 'gotcha' around every corner) is that at least the first time Zaeryl brought this up, even if it was already too late, you didn't send a little OOC with 'by the way, you only have two of them'.  Now, you may have noticed this, and I'm not saying I'm right to be this way, but I just noticed it myself:  I'm typically pretty laid back until the GM starts 'gotcha'ing me, and then, when I feel the GM is being adversarial, I stop trusting that GM to have me go with the flow and start trying to micromanage, to bring up rules to make sure all the players don't keep getting screwed, etc.  For an example of what I mean, Isida Kep'Tukari makes long updates in her games because she is rather sporadic lately, and she extrapolates actions for characters to make those updates.  And I've never had trouble with letting her choose actions for my character or writing out a paragraph or two of what my character did.  Why?  Because she's never used that to screw us over.  I'm willing to let things be simple and go with the flow, especially to end something like that which was so complicated.  The fact is that I assumed we had the three soldiers along with several other details because it seemed to say that we did and I didn't want to be 'that guy' who stalls the game for a week asking OOC questions like that before we could leave--I just wanted to let us leave and I trusted that if something weird like that happened, you would understand that all the players were trying to help you clear this confusion up by going along with it and point things out or give us the benefit of the doubt.  Unfortunately, it seems that the way that we viewed the situation were completely opposite.  That isn't to say that I don't see your side--I absolutely do.  We could have put in OOC questions about whether we had all three soldiers, etc, and we didn't.  I just don't want to be in a situation where I have to be wracking my nerves over the details in already-confusing situations and/or getting adversarial with the GM--I like to be friends with the GMs.  Every GM, especially a Judge who took over a game like you, deserves respect and friendship from the players.  GMing is not easy, and it is a commitment taken to bring fun to the players.  GMs deserve better than to have to put up with grief over a game, and so I don't want you to have to either, and I predict more grief in the future with the way this is going.  So anyway, that's why I feel I need to leave the game.  And I'm hoping these posts are helping you understand my position, but if you feel they are also giving you grief, I can stop posting them too <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />--the key is that I don't want to mess up the game for everyone elseEDIT: And ajanders, it definitely isn't you.  Your roleplaying is excellent and interesting, and indeed I often vote for you for best RP in those monthly vote thingies.  There's no reason that you would have to leave.)</blockquote>

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