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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kae'Yoss" data-source="post: 198747" data-attributes="member: 4134">Story is a fine thing, and there's nothing better than a DM that's a good storyteller - except a DM that's not only a good storyteller but also a good DM. The reason we play RPG's is not to experience a great story (that's what reading a book is all about), but to play a character who does things we ourselves won't/couldn't do experience an adventure.You can write great stories without rendering the players helpless. The "no, your powers just won't work" thing upsets people. They play their character for a long time and gain powers, and they don't like to have those powers stripped off them only because the DM was to stupid to write a better storyline or has thought well about how the charakters are subdued.An example (one I experienced myself): Some evil bastards (in our case this was a priest of Cyric with his sidekicks) wants to capture the party because they've crossed them one time to many. He sets up a net trap, but knowing that won't hold the andventurers for long, casts a hightened sleep spell on them. The problem's only that the whole party consists of elves and half-elves. Now you the DM can do two things: either he says "This sleep spell is so great that it even affects elves" or he makes the villains do something else (in our case, the Cleric cast "Blasphemy"). The first thing is the easy way out for the DM, and it usually really pisses the players off (and rightly so): why have some powers if the DM just ignores that? Don't get me wrong: the DM should challenge the players time and again with things where their strongest powers won't count (for example, my Bladesinger's AC is so high that most creatures with CR = his CL have a real hard time to hit him. But since a great deal of that is from dodge bonues, an invisible foe can hit me. So time and again I have to face something I can't see), so the players don't think they're unbeatable. But that shouldn't be accomplished simply by denying them their powers just because "the DM says so!", but it should be reasonable (and not be too often!!!! The party's rogue will start to wonder if he chose the wrong class if you make the campaign combat-orented and use only undead...). Also, every player needs a situation where he can really shine: many closely huddled, but not-so-strong foes for an evoker, someone with low AC for the Fighter with power attack, and so on.</blockquote>

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