Greenfield
Adventurer
This is more or less a rant, so I won't be offended if you stop reading right here.
As some of you may have gathered, our 3.5 game uses a system of rotating DMs. We take turns DMing in a common campaign world.
What that means, aside from the fact that everybody gets to play, is that the quality of the DMing varies.
Our current DM, every now and then, starts a railroad. We're on one now.
Our characters were traveling through the northern areas of Scotland/Pictland and heard rumors of children going missing. We also heard of a fortress/factory that was making and selling arms in huge quantities, including magic weapons and equipment. It was called ACME (yes, he went there.)
We had a mission, to return the body of a dead friend to his family, so while we suspected that there might be a connection we had no real in-game evidence. We noticed that the kidnappings all seemed to happen around the time of the full moon, and magic items came out in batches just after the new moon. We mentioned this observation to the local law in passing and went on our way.
We met a road patrol, from ACME, and asked if they had seen any children around. Their answer was, "We don't know about any missing children". We hadn't said anything about "missing" and they claimed that there hadn't been any kidnappings in their area and that our tale was the first they'd heard of it.
In short, they rolled a 3 on their Bluff check.
We continued on our way, knowing that we had to do something about that, but also knowing that we wanted to deliver the corpse to the family first. Reporting our suspicions to the King (the dead friend's father) seemed a prudent move, if only so we wouldn't be accused of some crime. You level a fortress or two, burn a few towns to the ground, and pretty soon you get a bad reputation, you know what I mean?
The DM applies some pressure and pretty much twists our collective arms to ensure we're going on the mission he wants.
But instead of letting us turn around and do that, the next words out of his mouth are, "As you enter the royal city", chopping off several days of travel and fast forwarding us past the decision point.
Now we're bound to stay in town for the wake of the prince (our friend), and every day's activity is "box text". You remember box text, don't you? When the DM reads a description or a conversation and isn't to be interrupted?
As a note: Box text always wins initiative.
We see evidence of evil afoot and take precautions. Doesn't matter, bad things happen.
For example, several people are killed, including several of the king's advisers. We publicly suggested that Speak With Dead could reveal much, but would have to wait until the ceremony could be prepared.
We then privately prepared to stand guard on the bodies. The DM decided that they'd be stored in the church basement, in town. No security at all.
Two of us on watch, middle of the night. Basement door opens and Alchemist's Fire is thrown in, then the door slams.
The Ranger/Druid throws Quench immediately, changes into a wolf and sets off in pursuit.
The Cleric stays behind, locking the door right after him.
But somehow a Rogue managed to sneak into the room, right past the two PCs in the doorway, and back stab the Cleric after the Druid had left.
The Cleric heals himself as he backs away and the fight is on. The Rogue somehow drops a Fireball and teleports out, all in a single action. Bodies are trashed, Cleric has to make his way out of a burning room. The entire place is engulfed in flames. But the curch isn't in danger because it's all made of stone, including the room that was on fire.
The Ranger/Druid pursues the fire-bomber through the town, and right down to the water, where the trail ends. One round behind, moving at full speed, with low-light vision and tracking scent, he never managed to lay eyes on the guy, The DM says, "The trail ends at the water. He's gone.
The Ranger/Druid, having the PC's "he can't get away" attitude, heads right into the water after him and turns into a Porpoise for the pursuit. The fire-bomber manages to swim all the way across the bay in four rounds (he couldn't run that far in that time), but the DM has a hard time justifying that a man can outswim a porpoise, so he has the Druid landing just a few rounds behind the guy.
So the DM declares that the man explodes, Empowered, Widened Delayed Blast Fireball. Apparently some of the magic gear he was wearing was boobietrapped, somehow triggered by the presence of a PC.
I ask, politely, if the guy had any Rogue levels, and if he'd made his Save.
The DM gives me a dirty look but rolls the Save. He rolled a 5 on the dice and smiled, declaring that the man was indeed dead.
Druid picked up some clues, and some magic gear that survived the blast. Apparently the Haste effects from Boots of Speed had lasted all time the chase had run through town, on a swim across the bay, plus four rounds on shore afterward. And the man's Invisibility effect changed in nature several times along the way as well, as different methods ran into problems that would have ended them.
Next day the wake continued. We suspected that someone would try to poison the drinks being served, so we used various Detect Poison effects, as well as using a couple of different Purify Food and Drink effects just to be sure.
So, no dice rolls to spot someone tampering with the casks, we're told that everyone at the celebration had been poisoned, and that one in three had died. We all had to make saves, even the ones who had made a point of not drinking. Somehow, someone had poisoned the wine.
Non standard poison for D&D, 12 hour delay before it took effect, and it's Save or Die.
Those of us who could ran around using Neutralize Poison on as many ill people as we could find. DM ruled that that, and a lot of Heal checks, managed to drop the death rate to one in six.
So, we take everything we know to the King and explain. He decides that, with pretty much all of the city guard down or dead because of the poison, and a significant portion of his population in the same condition, we should go and deal with Acme. Five of us are supposed to lay siege to their fortress/factory.
I joked that we could station one of us in front of the north wall, one to the south, one to the east and one to the west, and have one of us flying overhead. Once they were surrounded, they'd have to give up.
There are a lot of other things going on, but the pattern is the same: The DM wants us to have information, it pretty much gets handed to us and/or rammed down our throats. Any plan we have that doesn't fall in line with the DM's planned events, any thing we do, pretty much doesn't happen. No impact at all.
I hate railroad adventures.
As some of you may have gathered, our 3.5 game uses a system of rotating DMs. We take turns DMing in a common campaign world.
What that means, aside from the fact that everybody gets to play, is that the quality of the DMing varies.
Our current DM, every now and then, starts a railroad. We're on one now.
Our characters were traveling through the northern areas of Scotland/Pictland and heard rumors of children going missing. We also heard of a fortress/factory that was making and selling arms in huge quantities, including magic weapons and equipment. It was called ACME (yes, he went there.)
We had a mission, to return the body of a dead friend to his family, so while we suspected that there might be a connection we had no real in-game evidence. We noticed that the kidnappings all seemed to happen around the time of the full moon, and magic items came out in batches just after the new moon. We mentioned this observation to the local law in passing and went on our way.
We met a road patrol, from ACME, and asked if they had seen any children around. Their answer was, "We don't know about any missing children". We hadn't said anything about "missing" and they claimed that there hadn't been any kidnappings in their area and that our tale was the first they'd heard of it.
In short, they rolled a 3 on their Bluff check.
We continued on our way, knowing that we had to do something about that, but also knowing that we wanted to deliver the corpse to the family first. Reporting our suspicions to the King (the dead friend's father) seemed a prudent move, if only so we wouldn't be accused of some crime. You level a fortress or two, burn a few towns to the ground, and pretty soon you get a bad reputation, you know what I mean?
The DM applies some pressure and pretty much twists our collective arms to ensure we're going on the mission he wants.
But instead of letting us turn around and do that, the next words out of his mouth are, "As you enter the royal city", chopping off several days of travel and fast forwarding us past the decision point.
Now we're bound to stay in town for the wake of the prince (our friend), and every day's activity is "box text". You remember box text, don't you? When the DM reads a description or a conversation and isn't to be interrupted?
As a note: Box text always wins initiative.
We see evidence of evil afoot and take precautions. Doesn't matter, bad things happen.
For example, several people are killed, including several of the king's advisers. We publicly suggested that Speak With Dead could reveal much, but would have to wait until the ceremony could be prepared.
We then privately prepared to stand guard on the bodies. The DM decided that they'd be stored in the church basement, in town. No security at all.
Two of us on watch, middle of the night. Basement door opens and Alchemist's Fire is thrown in, then the door slams.
The Ranger/Druid throws Quench immediately, changes into a wolf and sets off in pursuit.
The Cleric stays behind, locking the door right after him.
But somehow a Rogue managed to sneak into the room, right past the two PCs in the doorway, and back stab the Cleric after the Druid had left.
The Cleric heals himself as he backs away and the fight is on. The Rogue somehow drops a Fireball and teleports out, all in a single action. Bodies are trashed, Cleric has to make his way out of a burning room. The entire place is engulfed in flames. But the curch isn't in danger because it's all made of stone, including the room that was on fire.
The Ranger/Druid pursues the fire-bomber through the town, and right down to the water, where the trail ends. One round behind, moving at full speed, with low-light vision and tracking scent, he never managed to lay eyes on the guy, The DM says, "The trail ends at the water. He's gone.
The Ranger/Druid, having the PC's "he can't get away" attitude, heads right into the water after him and turns into a Porpoise for the pursuit. The fire-bomber manages to swim all the way across the bay in four rounds (he couldn't run that far in that time), but the DM has a hard time justifying that a man can outswim a porpoise, so he has the Druid landing just a few rounds behind the guy.
So the DM declares that the man explodes, Empowered, Widened Delayed Blast Fireball. Apparently some of the magic gear he was wearing was boobietrapped, somehow triggered by the presence of a PC.
I ask, politely, if the guy had any Rogue levels, and if he'd made his Save.
The DM gives me a dirty look but rolls the Save. He rolled a 5 on the dice and smiled, declaring that the man was indeed dead.
Druid picked up some clues, and some magic gear that survived the blast. Apparently the Haste effects from Boots of Speed had lasted all time the chase had run through town, on a swim across the bay, plus four rounds on shore afterward. And the man's Invisibility effect changed in nature several times along the way as well, as different methods ran into problems that would have ended them.
Next day the wake continued. We suspected that someone would try to poison the drinks being served, so we used various Detect Poison effects, as well as using a couple of different Purify Food and Drink effects just to be sure.
So, no dice rolls to spot someone tampering with the casks, we're told that everyone at the celebration had been poisoned, and that one in three had died. We all had to make saves, even the ones who had made a point of not drinking. Somehow, someone had poisoned the wine.
Non standard poison for D&D, 12 hour delay before it took effect, and it's Save or Die.
Those of us who could ran around using Neutralize Poison on as many ill people as we could find. DM ruled that that, and a lot of Heal checks, managed to drop the death rate to one in six.
So, we take everything we know to the King and explain. He decides that, with pretty much all of the city guard down or dead because of the poison, and a significant portion of his population in the same condition, we should go and deal with Acme. Five of us are supposed to lay siege to their fortress/factory.
I joked that we could station one of us in front of the north wall, one to the south, one to the east and one to the west, and have one of us flying overhead. Once they were surrounded, they'd have to give up.
There are a lot of other things going on, but the pattern is the same: The DM wants us to have information, it pretty much gets handed to us and/or rammed down our throats. Any plan we have that doesn't fall in line with the DM's planned events, any thing we do, pretty much doesn't happen. No impact at all.
I hate railroad adventures.
