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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 7951426" data-attributes="member: 6688049">I'm changing the title of this thread: "I need D&D counselling! Help!"I'm gonna let it all out.***Some more difficult/crazening episodes:A few days ago when I read off the ENWorlder's advice to my player, he said that I'm a selfish DM because I don't want to make him happy by maximizing his fun. He said when he DMs, he tries to make me happy as a player.Which sounds nice. But I basically told him:"Look, the difference is, I am EASY TO PLEASE as a player. You know I don't care how many magic items I get -- I enjoy whatever comes along. You know I don't care if my characters die - I'll happily roll up a new one. It doesn't mean I'm careless or apathetic. I'm just happy for the story. If I roll a sub-par character, you know I try to make the most of it.""You on the other hand, ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO PLEASE. You push and push to change the RAW to make your characters the most powerful. You gripe about every bit and bobble. You flip out if you make even the slightest tactical mistake, and will not accept the possibilty of any of your characters dying, or suffering any loss whatsoever. You forget whatever agreements you make. You criticize much of what I bring to the table. And you repeatedly challenge and prick at whatever rulings and parameters I try to establish."That got through to him. He agreed.(But by our next conversation, he'd reverted to his usual difficult, wrangling self.)***I'm the only player in our group who has lost characters. Three of my characters have died under his DMship. And I didn't sweat it.But when one of his characters dies, he flips out.***This player used to actually blame me for him not remembering to use his class powers. He would get angry and say: "You should've reminded me to use this power!"I would have to tell him: "Man, I have a lot going on my side of the table, with fifty monsters and NPCs and entire world to run. Imagine a line running down the middle of the table. You are totally responsible for your side of the table, namely, your PCs. And I am totally responsible for this side of the table, namely the monsters and setting."My friend may have difficulty with perceiving and honoring boundaries.***Another anecdote:I once tried to run a B/X adventure, using B/X Moldvay rules. I was interested in trying that - and had even pre-ordered the B/X-based Old School Essentials boxed set, in anticipation.But when we played B/X, he would gripe and snipe at me about this and that.He kept griping that the party's Magic-User only had Read Languages.He griped about the B/X Combat Sequence, with its Declaration Phase, etc. When I had explicitly said that part of the goal for the evening was to understand and experience how it was done back in those days.He griped that his Elf set off a trap. And blamed me: "I only rushed in without checking for traps because it took so long for you to guide the newcomers to roll up characters." (Remember, he is sure that there should be no traps in D&D at all.)The evening was un-enjoyable.After that, I canceled my OSE order.Later he asked: "When is your OSE kickstarter arriving?" I was like: "I canceled my order. We hated that game, don't you remember? (Him: "Oh yeah.") "Why would I buy a game that we hated. We could've liked it, but we didn't."When I say "we", I mean "he." And I hated the experience because it was trampled on.(Now, I admit that as DM, I was in large part responsible for various snags during the evening (e.g. I got THAC0 backwards), but he sure as heck wasn't very helpful in facilitating a good experience for all.)***BTW, when I next played, with him DMing, I intentionally rolled up a Magic-User whose one spell is Read Languages.And you know what? My 3-hit-point-MU-with-Read-Languages fought a 70 hp fire elemental hand-to-hand with a dagger, for many rounds (along with the rest of the party), and slew it.I was like: "That's how you play a MU with only Read Languages."***Another time, I bought the whole Black Hack package (hardcover + player's booklet + GM's screen) and had it shipped from the UK. I was so looking forward to GMing it, with some intention of it becoming my favored ruleset. (I was desparately seeking a way out of the brain-frazzling complexities of 5E, and the argumentative wrangling which came with it.) But when I joyfully pulled out The Black Hack to show-and-tell, he trampled on it. He wouldn't even consider playing, because the artwork was too edgy -- for example, it has a pentacle on the cover. (He went to some art school in Switzerland, and is apparently allergic to anything which isn't ultra-refined, high spiritual art.)Since then, he shudders and makes a critical comment whenever The Black Hack is even mentioned.I shelved my aspiration. TBH is gathering dust on my shelf.***Sometimes he can be kind of like the 'church lady' from SNL. I told him that a local player had responded to our D&D promotional poster, and that the enquirer said he was familiar with Savage Worlds and FATE. He shuddered and interrupted: "Oh, those are dark games aren't they?"I'm like: "FATE is about as non-dark as you can get. It's a totally generic, setting-free, mechanics-light ruleset."He's like: "Yeah, but the other, it has word 'savage' in it - it must be violent and dark. Surely it's not referring to dinosaurs."I'm like (in exasperation): "Yes, as a matter of fact, it is referring to dinosaurs. The name is inspired by pulp fiction titles from the 1920s, which featured 'savage' themes, such as Tarzan and lost worlds of dinosaurs. 1920s fiction was not so dark."He was like: "You're kind of jacked up, aren't you?"I was like: "Jay-zus, man! I'm just relaying some basic information here, about a player enquiry. Can't we just skip the moral inquisition?"***And here's more of our group history:At first was just him and I. We learned the basics of 5E together over the course of several months.I served as DM, and he as player. The emotional difficulties and wrangling I mentioned earlier, built up, and I felt chafed. So I asked him to please try DMing.Honestly, 90% of the reason I asked him to DM was in hopes that the experience of sitting on the other side of the screen would somehow sand off his constant criticism.Then a younger friend joined us, which helped the dynamic.Around that time, I'd gotten burnt out on the complexities and fiddly bits of 5E (which fueled arguments), and so we tried some OSR games: White Box, Heroes & Monsters, and the aforementioned B/X / OSE.As warm weather came, I decided to switch to a homemade LARP D&D system. And the three of us played outside all last summer. It was fun.But then as cold weather arrived, we settled back into table play. At first we used the LARP rules while sitting at the table, but 5E creeped back in. Because LARP of course lacked almost any sort of tactical / mechanical aspect.But we had a huge roster of characters - probably 50 characters between us, built using several different systems, but existing in the same world. I dreaded converting them.And I dreaded going back to the brain-friction-inducing 5E.I was also working on my own home-made RPG, and we playested it a couple times, but it wasn't really coming together.I considered quitting again.All this, from a year+ of play, had built up over time. The sore spots had not really resolved themselves. My "problem-player" had changed in some ways, but in other ways, kept doing the same difficult things over and over again. I was considering quitting.But again, a vision arose: of really devoting ourselves to learning how to play straight 5E RAW. So that we'd have a stable ruleset. We'd take one month off from playing. And we'd put up posters to grow our group, and get fresh blood flowing -- a new dynamic. During that month, we'd all buy a copy of the PHB (we played for over a year with only the Starter Set and online rule references). And the two DMs would buy a copy of the DMG. And read it. And we'd refrain from houserules, so that we could more easily plug into the existing player network.We'd convert all our key characters to 5E. And we'd play 5E RAW for 6 months straight. I would go back to serving as primary DM. I laid out the titles of a bunch of cool 5E adventures I plan to run.After 6 months, we'd re-assess. At that time, we could adopt house rules, or even switch to a different system. But just give me 6 months of 5E RAW.Thus I decided to humble myself and go back to 5E. I DON'T EVEN LIKE 5E. But I could get enthusiastic about doing it if we would essentially do RAW, so that I could finally properly learn it, instead of mixing in a bunch of exceptions and house-rules from the start, like we used to do.My friend agreed to the vision.We put up posters, and a fourth player joined us.But as things got rolling, my friend reneged on the agreement. He said: "I agreed to something I didn't understand. I don't want to play RAW." And he went into making the usual requests for rules changes, bennies, etc. like he used to do.I felt betrayed. And crazed.In retrospect, it would've been better to sit down together and jointly decide what system we would adopt, if any. BUT I WAS SO THROUGH WITH NEGOTIATING WITH HIM! The thought of negotiation blacked out whatever fire I had left to play.And I myself could not picture how any other system would really work for us. For two reasons:1) 13th Age was at the top of the list, but to buy its complete array of sourcebooks (and thus serve as a complete platform for converting our existing world) would cost $200+.2) Converting our characters to another system (whether it be 13th Age, The Black Hack, OSE, or White Hack) would involve even more home-brewing (in order to model our motley crew of monstrous PC races) -- and I dreaded haggling with him over the creative details that such a home-brewing would entail.So my vision basically mandated 5E RAW. But that is why.We took a month off - which was March. We are slated to begin play again in April. But as you see from my recent posts, there are some big wrenches in the works.***In my next post, I'll list positive qualities of this player, so you can see why we're friends.</blockquote>

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