Nifft
Penguin Herder
Sounds like your DM wants some kills.
If you die and make a new PC, what level do you start as, and what do you get for magic items?
Death might be a good deal, if your DM isn't playing by the standard rules.
Cheers, -- N
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Dealing with an "oldschool" DM
- Thread starter wayne62682
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If you die and make a new PC, what level do you start as, and what do you get for magic items?
Death might be a good deal, if your DM isn't playing by the standard rules.
Cheers, -- N
roguerouge
First Post
This... this was sarcasm, right? Right?!
A bit of both sarcasm and seriousness. I will, on occasion, spice threads like this up by providing "evil" advice, which is always listed as such. But, sometimes the evil response has a truth behind it. Perhaps hearing such advice at least lets the poster know that they are not crazy for feeling angry emotions or fostering feelings of revenge and that can let them think about the other advice in the thread in a new way.
Neutral evil response: Yes, I am completely serious. Just don't get caught with the module or a receipt.
And if you want to really "open lines of communication" as these other goody-goody posters seem to want, here's how you do it. Start setting up his girlfriend's character to take the brunt of damage when these "guess what I'm thinking" encounters go awry. She'll be far more persuasive than you can ever be. Then, let the sister get targeted after the girlfriend's been blasted two or three times.
Presto! You have a three person voting block to back up your arguments. Your DM is now ready to listen to sweet reason.
One of my current players frequentlyly points out how little gold and things readily converted to gold (as opposed to permanent magical bonuses, unique equipment, and useful non-unique equipment) I've been handing out in my War of the Burning Sky game.
I tend to just respond by pointing and laughing, but hey.
As far as the OP's problems, I think he might want to get a DM who's better at running combat, but considering that the party isn't suffering consequences from their "lack" of experience and equipment, I'm not sure I can sympathize with that part. The reason for recommended levels on modules and wealth-by-level tables is game balance - making sure a module is neither a cakewalk nor an assured TPK for the former, and keeping characters of the same level approximately equal so that they can be properly compared to monsters and modules for the latter, especially in 4e where all characters have roughly the same need for items.
So, if you're not suffering repeated death due to the module being too difficult for you, are you really underlevelled and underequipped?
Honestly, my view is that you'll ruin it for yourself more than anything else. If you make it obvious and annoying, though - exceedingly blatant metagaming and/or expecting me to follow the module exactly - it'll ruin it for me too, and then you'll be thrown out on your arse.
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Nellisir
Hero
As a long time DM - if I discovered a player was deliberately reading a module or published adventure that I was running - I would laugh my ass off and change it. Intercut rooms from the Tomb of Horrors with Keep on the Borderlands. And so forth. And I would make sure to let the player know, as he got more and more perplexed and frustrated, that I knew exactly what he had done and he wasn't going to profit by it at all.
ryryguy
First Post
I think a lot of the discussion, and both the OP and the DM in question, is missing what to me is the primary problem: the DM is not running the encounters well. He's not using the monsters' abilities to their utmost, he is not using good tactics, taking advantage of terrain, etc. And so he's not pushing the party.
That's really the core problem. Instead of addressing that problem, he's trying to address it by not scaling encounters down in order to make them tougher. And then since that would result in faster level gain leading to even less challenge, he scales back XP and loot. Then the OP, though he recognizes the issue with the way the DM is running encounters, sounds like his main frustration with the scaled back progress and whether the DM is following the rules for XP and so forth.
But the linchpin here is the encounters not being tough enough; everything else is simply downstream from that.
I'm not sure that I have any great advice about how to address that core problem, unfortunately. Running your own game and showing by example could help. Maybe trying to discuss with the DM after a game, in a nonconfrontational manner, how a specific encounter unfolded and what how he might have played things differently in order to make it more challenging. If he has trouble keeping track of all the numbers and gets overwhelmed with everything he has to keep a handle on, perhaps you could volunteer to be a bit of a DM's assistant - you could keep track of initiative and conditions at least, maybe monster HP. (Though if he's "old school" in the way that thinks it's heresy to reveal monster HP and so forth to the players, he might not be amenable, but you could still make the offer.)
But I think it's a pretty tough problem - if he's been DMing regularly for a year and hasn't gotten better, it might just not be something he's ever going to be able to do well.
There are a few side issues here as well. The DM does sound pretty stubborn, slightly adversarial, and not particularly inclined to respond to player feedback. That's not great, but it doesn't mean the game is necessarily doomed, or that you can't work something out. But it does make things more difficult.
Also, I wonder if there aren't other factors besides how he runs encounters that make the game seem less challenging. If the PCs are overmatched, but only slightly, they might be able to defeat encounters but at a higher resource cost than expected. How often are you taking extended rests? More and more often? If so, maybe the party is being "challenged" more than he realizes, in a non obvious way that could be brought to his attention. Are the rules for resting, limits on magic item use, etc. being enforced properly?
On the player's side: I wouldn't go so far as to accuse him of some unjust sense of "entitlement". Leveling up is fun; getting new loot is fun. If you feel like your rate of progress is being slowed, and not for some mutually agreed upon reason like "this is a low magic game", then that's frustrating! But again, I think that's not the real problem; the real problem is why the DM feels the need to slow progress. I humbly suggest to the OP that he try to shift his perspective to focus on that problem, and relax more about whether or not the "rules" for XP and loot are being followed. In the end, those rules are only guidelines, and the DM feeling the need to change them is a symptom, not the disease.
Finally, leaving aside that the other players are related or nearly related to the DM, it's important to ask: are they having fun? Is the OP the only one feeling frustrated? Other than these frustrations, is he enjoying the game? If so, again I humbly suggest that he try to alter his perspective and go with the flow a bit more. He may end up having more fun too. At least save his fire for times where it really will impact the fun of others - like for example, bringing in a new player two levels behind and keeping her there, which almost certainly would adversly impact her enjoyment.
That's really the core problem. Instead of addressing that problem, he's trying to address it by not scaling encounters down in order to make them tougher. And then since that would result in faster level gain leading to even less challenge, he scales back XP and loot. Then the OP, though he recognizes the issue with the way the DM is running encounters, sounds like his main frustration with the scaled back progress and whether the DM is following the rules for XP and so forth.
But the linchpin here is the encounters not being tough enough; everything else is simply downstream from that.
I'm not sure that I have any great advice about how to address that core problem, unfortunately. Running your own game and showing by example could help. Maybe trying to discuss with the DM after a game, in a nonconfrontational manner, how a specific encounter unfolded and what how he might have played things differently in order to make it more challenging. If he has trouble keeping track of all the numbers and gets overwhelmed with everything he has to keep a handle on, perhaps you could volunteer to be a bit of a DM's assistant - you could keep track of initiative and conditions at least, maybe monster HP. (Though if he's "old school" in the way that thinks it's heresy to reveal monster HP and so forth to the players, he might not be amenable, but you could still make the offer.)
But I think it's a pretty tough problem - if he's been DMing regularly for a year and hasn't gotten better, it might just not be something he's ever going to be able to do well.
There are a few side issues here as well. The DM does sound pretty stubborn, slightly adversarial, and not particularly inclined to respond to player feedback. That's not great, but it doesn't mean the game is necessarily doomed, or that you can't work something out. But it does make things more difficult.
Also, I wonder if there aren't other factors besides how he runs encounters that make the game seem less challenging. If the PCs are overmatched, but only slightly, they might be able to defeat encounters but at a higher resource cost than expected. How often are you taking extended rests? More and more often? If so, maybe the party is being "challenged" more than he realizes, in a non obvious way that could be brought to his attention. Are the rules for resting, limits on magic item use, etc. being enforced properly?
On the player's side: I wouldn't go so far as to accuse him of some unjust sense of "entitlement". Leveling up is fun; getting new loot is fun. If you feel like your rate of progress is being slowed, and not for some mutually agreed upon reason like "this is a low magic game", then that's frustrating! But again, I think that's not the real problem; the real problem is why the DM feels the need to slow progress. I humbly suggest to the OP that he try to shift his perspective to focus on that problem, and relax more about whether or not the "rules" for XP and loot are being followed. In the end, those rules are only guidelines, and the DM feeling the need to change them is a symptom, not the disease.
Finally, leaving aside that the other players are related or nearly related to the DM, it's important to ask: are they having fun? Is the OP the only one feeling frustrated? Other than these frustrations, is he enjoying the game? If so, again I humbly suggest that he try to alter his perspective and go with the flow a bit more. He may end up having more fun too. At least save his fire for times where it really will impact the fun of others - like for example, bringing in a new player two levels behind and keeping her there, which almost certainly would adversly impact her enjoyment.
Storm Raven
First Post
How is that different from a DM who refuses to bother to learn or use the rules to begin with? If the DM isn't going to play by the rules, why should he expect the players to do so?
The DM isn't God. DMs who believe they are, are just jerks.
Oryan77
Adventurer
Why do people keep saying that a DM thinks he's god if he "wings it" while running the game? I've seen a boatload of players that think they're royalty just because they privilege the DM by showing up to a game...they feel they must be catered to at all times.
It could be that rules are not as important to the DM as storytelling and trying to provide a "fun" game for players.
This type of attitude just really disappoints me. It seems like this attitude by players gets worse and worse as the years go by. It's no wonder DMing is so freaking hard to do these days. I've personally met dozens of players with this attitude and it's taken years to finally get a good[/p] compatible group for my table. That player entitlement is just as annoying as the DM quality you guys are calling bad. That player attitude is a sign of a selfish player, and I find selfish players as annoying as DMs that think they are gods. I'm not trying to say your gripes are not legitimate, but just take a step back and think about what you're griping about...I don't think they are serious enough reasons to rip on this DM.
People are complaining about piddly things here. Things that really aren't going to keep you from playing a cool character. And if these things really are that important to you, all you have to do is not play in that game. And then there's people suggesting that you read the modules and cheat? I mean, are you really that pathetic? I would like to think not. You guys are better than that, don't resort to "revenge"...come on.
If you are overcoming this DMs challenges without having PC deaths on a regular basis, and the adventures are fun & you have fun playing your PC, then why do these rule changes matter?
If his rules changes actually make it difficult to play your character, than that's one thing. But if you're complaining just because the rules are different, then I just don't get it.
If rules lawyering is more important to you than roleplaying a character, then I suggest finding a different game to play, DM a game yourself, or find a different DM. This DM being an old school DM may mean that his approach to playing D&D is completely different than yours. And from experience, I know you aren't going to change him and he's not going to change you. So if you can't deal with it, then stop playing now because this group will implode anyway if you're hanging around. Why waste your time? It's more fun to find a group you are compatible with than playing under a DM that only bugs you. And it's really annoying when a selfish player would rather play to the point that people get angry with each other rather than being an adult and saying, "Hey, I'm just not feeling this game. I think I'm gonna have to bail and try and find a DM that fits more to my style of playing D&D."
It could be that rules are not as important to the DM as storytelling and trying to provide a "fun" game for players.
This type of attitude just really disappoints me. It seems like this attitude by players gets worse and worse as the years go by. It's no wonder DMing is so freaking hard to do these days. I've personally met dozens of players with this attitude and it's taken years to finally get a good[/p] compatible group for my table. That player entitlement is just as annoying as the DM quality you guys are calling bad. That player attitude is a sign of a selfish player, and I find selfish players as annoying as DMs that think they are gods. I'm not trying to say your gripes are not legitimate, but just take a step back and think about what you're griping about...I don't think they are serious enough reasons to rip on this DM.
People are complaining about piddly things here. Things that really aren't going to keep you from playing a cool character. And if these things really are that important to you, all you have to do is not play in that game. And then there's people suggesting that you read the modules and cheat? I mean, are you really that pathetic? I would like to think not. You guys are better than that, don't resort to "revenge"...come on.
If you are overcoming this DMs challenges without having PC deaths on a regular basis, and the adventures are fun & you have fun playing your PC, then why do these rule changes matter?
If his rules changes actually make it difficult to play your character, than that's one thing. But if you're complaining just because the rules are different, then I just don't get it.
If rules lawyering is more important to you than roleplaying a character, then I suggest finding a different game to play, DM a game yourself, or find a different DM. This DM being an old school DM may mean that his approach to playing D&D is completely different than yours. And from experience, I know you aren't going to change him and he's not going to change you. So if you can't deal with it, then stop playing now because this group will implode anyway if you're hanging around. Why waste your time? It's more fun to find a group you are compatible with than playing under a DM that only bugs you. And it's really annoying when a selfish player would rather play to the point that people get angry with each other rather than being an adult and saying, "Hey, I'm just not feeling this game. I think I'm gonna have to bail and try and find a DM that fits more to my style of playing D&D."
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Storm Raven
First Post
Why do people keep saying that a DM thinks he's god if he "wings it" while running the game? I've seen a boatload of players that think they're royalty just because they privilege the DM by showing up to a game...they feel they must be catered to at all times.
If the DM isn't bothering to play by the rules, why should the players be expected to? Explain that first.
If the game was more fun, do you think the players would be complaining about it? DMs often say they are providing "more fun" for their players by winging it, and yet this rarely seems to be the case. In fact, it seems that often the only person having "more fun" is the DM.
Perhaps it is that the attitude of players is only now catching up with the overwhelming sense of entitlement most DMs seem to have.
Oh my! They expect that they will play by the rules of the game! Heaven forfend!
Melan
Explorer
Oryan77 speaks the truth.
Also:
I mean, this whole exchange is surreal. To be frank, if my players gave me that attitude, I would pack up my campaign and either find a new company or get out of gaming.
Also:
Because RPG rules are not holy writ, and house ruling has been a tradition of roleplaying since day minus ten?Storm Raven said:
I mean, this whole exchange is surreal.
To be frank, if my players gave me that attitude, I would pack up my campaign and either find a new company or get out of gaming.Similar Threads
