Jaelommiss
First Post
Before I ask my questions allow me to share with you an experience I suffered while playing D&D last night. Our sessions last around four hours. This will be relevant later in the post.
As a party we had been becoming more and more aware of an approaching orc army. After a number of side missions, we found a large warband as a random encounter. The majority of the party decided to flee to town and help them prepare for the assault. Instead of following them, I rode my awakened (bard 3) horse as fast as I could in another direction after privately telling the one party member I trusted to buy for time and to "look to my coming on the first light of the morrow, at dawn look to the north." That's right. I was headed to a nearby allied fortress to pull a Gandalf on these orcs. Since we were playing online it was easy enough to keep my plan private between myself, the DM, and one other player. After a private Persuasion roll to get past the guards, I explained what I was asking the castle's commander. Relevant modifiers from political knowledge meant that I did not even need to roll to convince the leader to lend me soldiers. This entire process took about a dozen private messages back and forth, and was concluded less than fifteen minutes into the session. This includes telling him how I planned on deploying the soldiers I got and the exact strategy I would use upon reaching the town. I now just had to let everyone hold them back until dawn.
Before continuing I should mention that I had, as a ranger, set orcs as one of my favoured enemies. I used downtime to follow orc scouting parties and study them. To the best of my knowledge I knew more about their tactics and strategy than anyone for a hundred miles. Before riding off screen I had even asked what I could surmise about their plan of attack in case they wouldn't be aiming for a protracted siege. Everything I had been given suggested that the assault wouldn't be a quick raid and that I could safely spend the night riding to get help.
Five minutes (at the table) later the others had returned to town and were preparing defences, searching for healing potions, and generally digging in for the long haul. The orcs arrived, made their demands, and gave the party an hour to respond. At this point I still thought that I would be able to help since everything was happening on the scale of hours.
After some cheating during the negotiations (involving the Grasping Vine spell to rescue a captive), the DM spoke the words I had been dreading: "roll for initiative." I knew that fighting would occur, but I also knew that modelling it in six second increments would not end well. The army was instantly converted into a pile of hit points that could be forced to retreat with enough "I attack the orcs." The reinforced and barricaded gate fell twelve seconds after they starting hacking it with their battleaxes. Clearly our defences were made of cardboard. By the fourth round (24 seconds in) they had flooded into the streets. I'm not sure how they can cross the couple hundred feet to our walls, batter them down, and all charge inside that quickly, but these orcs managed to do it.
I would occasionally bring up thoughts like "why did none of the civilians go to the keep after being warned that an army was approaching and then having an entire hour after the orcs arrived to walk five hundred feet to safety" but was regularly beaten down for being unfun (apparently never having been attacked before prevents people from knowing that multiple feet thick stone walls can protect you from murderous orcs). Instead, I got told to mute myself (I really wish I were exaggerating, but the DM actually said "name, can you mute your mic and let us get back to the game?") and got to sit there for three and a half hours listening to them reduce an entire siege to a number of rounds, hit points, and attacks. I had expected to be waiting somewhere between an hour and ninety minutes for the night to pass while the others managed the defenses abstractly on a broad scale, with the occasional side mission where they would secure a breached wall or fall back from a compromised position.
When I confronted the DM after the session about it I was told that I got given stuff to do and chose not to. Looking back through the chat log (that I wasn't bothering to look at since I had no interest in watching everyone else roll their attacks for three hours) I found a private message saying that I ran into complications on the road. Okay, that's fine. My mista- Wait. Orcs? You mean like the orc scouting parties that would hang back and observe? Or the orc raiding party that is miles away and probably already defeated? The slow, on foot orcs that have half the movement rate of my awakened horse that could cast Longstrider on itself if it thought it needed even more speed? You mean those orcs? Your defence for my not being able to do anything this session is an encounter with enemies that I can (and should) safely ignore without adding more than a few seconds to my journey?
In case you can't tell, I'm pretty frustrated by this. A session gets canceled when unexpected things come up. Someone might get sick halfway through the session and it has to be delayed until the following week. Those, while disappointing, are justifiable. Inviting your players to a game only to have one player actively excluded for almost the entire session is NOT. It wasn't even like I had decided that I didn't want to go to that dungeon and instead stayed in the tavern. I didn't decide not to go on the ship because I thought it would be faster to walk. Based on the available knowledge I developed a plan (possibly even a reasonable plan) that involved interacting with the world to a greater degree than applying pointy pieces of metal to creatures, and for my efforts essentially got told to sit down, shut up, and wait for the end of the night. Perhaps worst of all is that this is not an isolated incident. Following a character death I waited to get back in. After two hours of sitting and doing nothing the party had a TPK and the session ended. It was an post-cataclysmic exploration based game taking place on a mostly isolated island so it makes sense that I'd have to wait a while, but even then two hours is a long time to sit and do nothing.
My questions are pretty simple:
· As a DM, what would you do in this situation to ensure that everyone is included? (I DM a couple of games and I want to avoid doing this myself)
· Given the risk of being excluded, should plans that involve taking players off screen for more than a minute or two be prohibited? If plans that take a player off screen for an extended period are allowed, how much effort should the DM take in fast forwarding through that time?
· As a player, how would you respond if your DM did this? Is confronting the DM appropriate? Although we did have a Session Zero where people expressed an interest in playing a more strategic game, most players quickly decided that it is impossible to have fun without hitting things.
· Is my indignation justified? At this point I am seriously considering quitting the game. I can understand and accept a plan failing if it has a fatal flaw or if the dice don't allow it. If there is a missing piece of information that causes it to fail that is fine too. But when a player makes a decent plan (was it a decent plan?) based on invested time researching, their class features specific to the situation, and knowledge of game world politics, is it reasonable to expect it to at the least take place at some time during the session instead of being shunted to the side?
In case anyone was wondering, I got given 20 goblins and 10 hobgoblins. I myself am a seventh level Mounted Combatant Polearm Master Spell-less Hunter Ranger with a Belt of Stone Giant Strength, mounted on an awakened 3rd level Bard horse. My plan was to have the goblins fire a volley of arrows at the orcs while the hobgoblins follow me. My horse (still a third level bard) would cast Thunderwave to create a breach in the orc line. I would then widen the gap using maneuvers and four attacks (Attack, Extra Attack, Horde Breaker, Haft). The hobgoblins would rush in and fight tightly together to maximize Martial Advantage for 1d8+2d6+1 with each longsword attack. The goblins would hide each turn (if possible) and continue providing ranged support. Pinched between the my force and the defenders, the orcs would almost certainly fall apart.
My DM reads follows these boards, and I have already told him that I will be posting this. It is possible that he will end up posting his version of events later on. What I have written is my own perspective on the session and is undoubtedly tainted by my own bias and perception.
As a party we had been becoming more and more aware of an approaching orc army. After a number of side missions, we found a large warband as a random encounter. The majority of the party decided to flee to town and help them prepare for the assault. Instead of following them, I rode my awakened (bard 3) horse as fast as I could in another direction after privately telling the one party member I trusted to buy for time and to "look to my coming on the first light of the morrow, at dawn look to the north." That's right. I was headed to a nearby allied fortress to pull a Gandalf on these orcs. Since we were playing online it was easy enough to keep my plan private between myself, the DM, and one other player. After a private Persuasion roll to get past the guards, I explained what I was asking the castle's commander. Relevant modifiers from political knowledge meant that I did not even need to roll to convince the leader to lend me soldiers. This entire process took about a dozen private messages back and forth, and was concluded less than fifteen minutes into the session. This includes telling him how I planned on deploying the soldiers I got and the exact strategy I would use upon reaching the town. I now just had to let everyone hold them back until dawn.
Before continuing I should mention that I had, as a ranger, set orcs as one of my favoured enemies. I used downtime to follow orc scouting parties and study them. To the best of my knowledge I knew more about their tactics and strategy than anyone for a hundred miles. Before riding off screen I had even asked what I could surmise about their plan of attack in case they wouldn't be aiming for a protracted siege. Everything I had been given suggested that the assault wouldn't be a quick raid and that I could safely spend the night riding to get help.
Five minutes (at the table) later the others had returned to town and were preparing defences, searching for healing potions, and generally digging in for the long haul. The orcs arrived, made their demands, and gave the party an hour to respond. At this point I still thought that I would be able to help since everything was happening on the scale of hours.
After some cheating during the negotiations (involving the Grasping Vine spell to rescue a captive), the DM spoke the words I had been dreading: "roll for initiative." I knew that fighting would occur, but I also knew that modelling it in six second increments would not end well. The army was instantly converted into a pile of hit points that could be forced to retreat with enough "I attack the orcs." The reinforced and barricaded gate fell twelve seconds after they starting hacking it with their battleaxes. Clearly our defences were made of cardboard. By the fourth round (24 seconds in) they had flooded into the streets. I'm not sure how they can cross the couple hundred feet to our walls, batter them down, and all charge inside that quickly, but these orcs managed to do it.
I would occasionally bring up thoughts like "why did none of the civilians go to the keep after being warned that an army was approaching and then having an entire hour after the orcs arrived to walk five hundred feet to safety" but was regularly beaten down for being unfun (apparently never having been attacked before prevents people from knowing that multiple feet thick stone walls can protect you from murderous orcs). Instead, I got told to mute myself (I really wish I were exaggerating, but the DM actually said "name, can you mute your mic and let us get back to the game?") and got to sit there for three and a half hours listening to them reduce an entire siege to a number of rounds, hit points, and attacks. I had expected to be waiting somewhere between an hour and ninety minutes for the night to pass while the others managed the defenses abstractly on a broad scale, with the occasional side mission where they would secure a breached wall or fall back from a compromised position.
When I confronted the DM after the session about it I was told that I got given stuff to do and chose not to. Looking back through the chat log (that I wasn't bothering to look at since I had no interest in watching everyone else roll their attacks for three hours) I found a private message saying that I ran into complications on the road. Okay, that's fine. My mista- Wait. Orcs? You mean like the orc scouting parties that would hang back and observe? Or the orc raiding party that is miles away and probably already defeated? The slow, on foot orcs that have half the movement rate of my awakened horse that could cast Longstrider on itself if it thought it needed even more speed? You mean those orcs? Your defence for my not being able to do anything this session is an encounter with enemies that I can (and should) safely ignore without adding more than a few seconds to my journey?
In case you can't tell, I'm pretty frustrated by this. A session gets canceled when unexpected things come up. Someone might get sick halfway through the session and it has to be delayed until the following week. Those, while disappointing, are justifiable. Inviting your players to a game only to have one player actively excluded for almost the entire session is NOT. It wasn't even like I had decided that I didn't want to go to that dungeon and instead stayed in the tavern. I didn't decide not to go on the ship because I thought it would be faster to walk. Based on the available knowledge I developed a plan (possibly even a reasonable plan) that involved interacting with the world to a greater degree than applying pointy pieces of metal to creatures, and for my efforts essentially got told to sit down, shut up, and wait for the end of the night. Perhaps worst of all is that this is not an isolated incident. Following a character death I waited to get back in. After two hours of sitting and doing nothing the party had a TPK and the session ended. It was an post-cataclysmic exploration based game taking place on a mostly isolated island so it makes sense that I'd have to wait a while, but even then two hours is a long time to sit and do nothing.
My questions are pretty simple:
· As a DM, what would you do in this situation to ensure that everyone is included? (I DM a couple of games and I want to avoid doing this myself)
· Given the risk of being excluded, should plans that involve taking players off screen for more than a minute or two be prohibited? If plans that take a player off screen for an extended period are allowed, how much effort should the DM take in fast forwarding through that time?
· As a player, how would you respond if your DM did this? Is confronting the DM appropriate? Although we did have a Session Zero where people expressed an interest in playing a more strategic game, most players quickly decided that it is impossible to have fun without hitting things.
· Is my indignation justified? At this point I am seriously considering quitting the game. I can understand and accept a plan failing if it has a fatal flaw or if the dice don't allow it. If there is a missing piece of information that causes it to fail that is fine too. But when a player makes a decent plan (was it a decent plan?) based on invested time researching, their class features specific to the situation, and knowledge of game world politics, is it reasonable to expect it to at the least take place at some time during the session instead of being shunted to the side?
In case anyone was wondering, I got given 20 goblins and 10 hobgoblins. I myself am a seventh level Mounted Combatant Polearm Master Spell-less Hunter Ranger with a Belt of Stone Giant Strength, mounted on an awakened 3rd level Bard horse. My plan was to have the goblins fire a volley of arrows at the orcs while the hobgoblins follow me. My horse (still a third level bard) would cast Thunderwave to create a breach in the orc line. I would then widen the gap using maneuvers and four attacks (Attack, Extra Attack, Horde Breaker, Haft). The hobgoblins would rush in and fight tightly together to maximize Martial Advantage for 1d8+2d6+1 with each longsword attack. The goblins would hide each turn (if possible) and continue providing ranged support. Pinched between the my force and the defenders, the orcs would almost certainly fall apart.
My DM reads follows these boards, and I have already told him that I will be posting this. It is possible that he will end up posting his version of events later on. What I have written is my own perspective on the session and is undoubtedly tainted by my own bias and perception.
Last edited:
