NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6207871" data-attributes="member: 22779">Just going to beat the dead Glabrezu for a second.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />This little back and forth with N'raac pretty much highlights everything I loathe in a DM.  This is the kind of thing that drives me straight up the wall and the primary reason why I started DMing the way that I do.  For me, I look at it like this.  The player has done everything right.  He's in character (evil wizard trying to summon a demon to gain a wish), he's in genre (again, evil wizard summoning a demon for nefarious ends), and he's followed both the letter of the rules and the intent.  He's spent significant character resources (Magic Circle, various protection spells, possibly done a bit of research with a sage, found a place where he can actually cast the Planar Binding etc) and, more importantly to me, he's spent time on this.  Both in game and out of game in all likelihood.  You don't drop Planar Binding spells on a whim after all.And the biggest thing of all.  He succeeded.  Had he failed, then fine.  The Glabrezu pulls his arms off, eats his head and trots off back to the Abyss.  No problems.  But, that didn't happen.  He succeeded.  He summoned the demon. He did everything right.And the DM still screws him over.  "Sorry, yes, I know that you just spent several levels, significant amounts of time and energy trying to do this, but, the demon tells you that he's already granted a wish recently and he just can't help you.  No amount of torture will change this.  It's actually the truth."People can talk about playstyles all they like.  To me this is the absolute nadir of DMing.  DM's who do this deserve to have player revolts.Actually, as a gaming story, that's exactly what happened in the first player revolt I ever saw (not led, and not the last).  Playing a 2e D&D game in the Keep on the Borderlands, the group decided to rob the jewel merchant in the keep.  One of the players spent a ton of time on this.  Several sessions of learning the jewel merchant's schedule, lots of planning, whole Ocean's Eleven type thing going on.  Fantastic.  He got the entire group on board and we were all ready to go.The DM announces, "The morning before your heist, the Merchant packed up his entire inventory and left.  He left before dawn and no, you have no idea where he went and no way you can catch him".  The entire group, as one, finished the session, thanked the DM, and walked out, never to return.Look, as a DM, if you don't like something, just tell me.  The whole Astral Projection thing is the result of a poorly worded spell and anyone can see that.  Allowing infinite wishes isn't due to a generous interpretation, it's because the spell is badly written.  Any DM who just said, "Hey, look, y'know what?  Infinite wishes are a bad thing for the game.  Let's not do that" can very reasonably expect the players to agree.  But, instead, the players operate on the assumption that the mechanics are in play, only to have the rug yanked out of them by the DM in a very passive/agreesive way.  Instead of just being honest and saying no, the DM instead manipulates the setting so that now every court the PC's visit has 3 court wizards to block any magical shenanigans, every Noble Genie is bestest friends with the rulers of the elemental planes and can never be summoned.And Glabrezu appear having already cast their Wish recently.What baffles me beyond imagination is why players put up with this.  I honestly cannot see the appeal.</blockquote>

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