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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 5532102" data-attributes="member: 44797">Why pursue something even you admit is draconian, when you have other pleasant options?  Dandu is advocating for a resolution that isn't draconian and doesn't piss off the player.  His solution doesn't end with people leaving the game upset.  Why would that be a bad thing?  Why would you think that people would prefer something draconian?I remember these old stories about Gary, partly because I was DMing back then too, and I remember thinking these ideas were pretty insightful at the time.  But here's the problem: we were all socially awkward and at an early point in the game's history, and we muddled through years of gaming, trying to learn and make a better game.  So while I love Gary and would happily trot out examples from him in many cases, this isn't one.  This is from a time when we got it "muddled" as far as I can tell, and there are friendlier, more mature methods of resolving this now.On a personal level, I want to share an experience that put me on Dandu's side of thinking.  A few years ago I was playing a character who was really struggling in the game world.  He was a 3.5 edition wizard, built pretty okay.  He should have been fine.  But the game was starving us of resources.  I wanted to animate dead, but no onyx was available.  I wanted a few spies for me in various towns, so I took the Leadership feat with that stated goal, only to find that followers were not available.  This repeated over & over again -- players would take a feat or try a spell or use a magic item and expect to get the listed result, only to find that it didn't work out.  The DM would never say he was gimping things, and would deny it if asked.  However, working with the campaign over the course of years, the pattern was clear: if the DM felt something was overpowered or threw a wrench in his plans, things worked only as he deemed, even if it undermined entire character builds.The DM could have told me up front that he disliked Leadership and would only allow a gimped cohort.  If he had, I would have selected something else.  Instead, I spent months of real-world time, every other weekend attending the game, trying to make it work.  I got more & more frustrated, and put more & more effort into trying to do whatever magical thing the DM needed to unlock the Leadership features.  It was only after months of banging my head against the wall that I realized he was gimping it in the game instead of being up front about it.  There was no way for me to make it work, and no way to retrain or swap out the feat, because it had been months, and the DM felt it was locked in at that point.What ended the game?  I was below the wealth-by-level guides and so I started hoarding even small loot -- my wagon carried a few redundant magical items, plus mundane junk like chain shirts and bows, because I needed every penny.  Level 12 and I was doing search checks on fallen enemies to get a long sword because I still was that poor.  On the eve of having enough money to use Planar Binding to hire some otherworldly critters to help me overthrow my nemesis, said nemesis appeared with an army so large I could not hope to defeat it, and they stole my wagon.  Why an army would be put together just to steal a wagon, I don't know.  Why they would target mine, I don't know.  My nemesis had no idea he was my nemesis, so it's not like he was worried about me.  My nemesis didn't know that I was going to do Planar Binding, using my loot to bribe the bound creatures to help me.  But the army did take the wagon, didn't do anything else (not even fight), and so I lost everything except the gear I was wearing.  It had taken literally a couple of real-world years of playing to accumulate that tiny amount of wealth and be on the cusp of actually being effective in the game world, so when I saw that I would have to rebuild from the ground up (another two years!) I was greatly annoyed.  As a player I gave up, lost interest, and bowed out of the game.Ever since then, my mantra has been to be up front with the players as much as I can.  If I need to gimp something, I just say it.  If I make a mistake, I say so and explain what I want to do to resolve it.I am playing in a new D&D 3.5 game right now.  On Saturday, at 4th level, I won a ring of spell storing.  But the DM made it up, custom.  He has it set with a big gem in the middle, and 5 small gems around the outside edge.  The big gem will store any spell.  The 5 small gems will store any spell with the fire descriptor.  For those of you who know how to break the game, you probably already know what's wrong here: with no level limit for the spells, the ring can essentially hold 6 9th level spells, which is a storage capacity of 54 levels worth of spells.  That's the equivalent of 5 greater rings of spell storing, putting its worth at around 1,000,000 gold.  For a 4th level character.I know it's utterly inappropriate, and have only filled it with Kelgore's Firebolt and a Fireball from a friendly wizard.  I'm keeping it roughly level-appropriate all on my own.  But if I try for something big, say, a level 7 spell that I manage to convince a friendly wizard to cast for me, and then the DM tells me in the middle of combat that it fizzles out, I'll be pissed.  I think undermining an item when you realize it's too awesome is just mean and passive aggressive, as Dandu suggested.  However, if the DM says to me, "Holy cow, yeah, I think I got that wrong.  I forgot how open-ended I left it, and that item is seriously overpowered for your level.  Let's agree on a fix," then I am 100% on board!  I know it's overpowered if I want it to be.  And I am happy to find a solution that feels fair.  But just having it stop working in the middle of a crisis SUCKS.  Having it stolen would SUCK, although if I could get it back, that's okay.  If it's irretrievably stolen because the DM wants it out of the game, that's right back to sucky, and I'll wish to play with someone more up front than that.I'd really encourage DMs to be up front.  If a mistake is made, try talking to a player in the real world, instead of undermining the character in the game world.  Please.  Just give it a shot, first.</blockquote>

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