Dealing with an "oldschool" DM

[roguerouge]

No offense, but this "Neutral Evil" advice sounds exactly like "horrible, socially poisonous ideas that may not only destroy the campaign but friendships as well" to me. It was not clear from your post that you were being facetious or sincere. IMHO the sensible options before the OP are a) cope, b) discuss, c) leave. You were suggesting d) subvert, which is never a good idea to try in human relationships.

None taken. After all, that's what Neutral Evil is all about! Besides, to me, if anyone follows advice that's labeled as Neutral Evil, well, they did have fair warming.

And as for the rationale, you missed it on page three. See here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/260189-dealing-oldschool-dm-3.html#post4883950

 

[roguerouge]

So you think it's more Chaotic Evil then?

I warned you all about alignment discussions!

Neutral Evil response: Chaotic Evil is just Neutral Evil with Charisma, Wisdom and Intelligence as the dump stats. So, I would think that the Chaotic Evil response would be to depose the DM at gun point, cackling madly while swilling beer. Sadly, no one has offered the OP such advice... yet.

 

[Melan]

Certainly, making a drinking cup out of the DM's skull is right out?
(I certainly hope so.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're both right. Play the game being offered or, if you just can't enjoy it, get into a new game. Maybe you should run a second game in which he can play. Perhaps you can persuade him that your style is something to emulate.

This.


RC

 

[Doug McCrae]

horrible, socially poisonous ideas that may not only destroy the campaign but friendships as well

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[ExploderWizard]

None taken. After all, that's what Neutral Evil is all about! Besides, to me, if anyone follows advice that's labeled as Neutral Evil, well, they did have fair warming.

Fair warming? I thought the advice was kind of on the cool side.

 

[Storm Raven]

I can help you understand. Maybe you won't agree, but at least from here on out you'll be able to say that you understand the idea. From the 2nd edition DMG:

Yes, and that advice was a giant pile of crap then, and remains a giant pile of crap now. Is this unclear?

 

[roguerouge]

- Apparantly, none of the player picks up on the idea that you can try to negotiate after initiative is rolled. Considering that the DM apparently complained multiple times on this tells me that neither player nor DM have adapted their behavior or learned from this so far.

Neutral Evil response: No, the better option is to get the DM's girlfriend to try to negotiate after initiative has been called. That way she's the sucker who approaches the heavily armed people without her weapon drawn. Also, if the party fails to guess which few encounters can be negotiated from ALL the encounters that start with initiative, this will happen frequently enough that Operation "Get the Girlfriend's PC Killed" will succeed.

Real response: This whole "calling for initiative doesn't mean you can't negotiate" idea strikes me as baloney. First of all, it takes actions to initiate a skill check. Second, if your meat shield goes first, then this diplomacy attempt goes out the window. Third, there are usually penalties for rushing skill attempts. Finally, the DM has never called for initiative and then had the bad guys initiate it when they go first, or the OP wouldn't have a problem in the first place.

So the DM doesn't strike me as being terribly fair on this issue. There are solid mechanical reasons why the initiative system is terrible for negotiations across a wide variety of editions.

 

[Storm Raven]

While being "off-limits" is a bit silly since so many groups have multiple people who DM, the contents of the DMG, including what gets used or ignored is for the DM of the game being run at the time. Players may read what they wish in thier spare time but the DM is under no obligation to make sure that player's assumptions about what's in the DMG are correct.

And that's simply silly from my perspective. The player's should be able to expect that the rules of the game are the rules being used unless they are informed otherwise, regardless of which core book those rules are in. Saying "that's DM territory, player's don't need to know" changes the game into nothing more than a lottery.

 

[wayne62682]

From what I can tell, there IS a communication issue in that we (the players) regard rolling initiative as meaning there is no longer an option for discussion, while the DM seems to think otherwise. The issue is that he normally has creatures act hostile to us, so naturally we attack them, and then there really is no longer a chance to negotiate (because we've attacked them, and they've attacked us).