D&D 5E Is my DM being fair?

[schnee]

For future reference he listed feats he cannot properly plan for yet:

Lucky
Alert
Sharpshooter
Great weapons master
Polearm master

Fixed.

 

[robus]

And when the DM stops enjoying a game, that is probably the single worst thing that can happen to a table. Without a DM who is invested in a system/setting a game is doomed. I would go as far as to say that the DM's enjoyment is considerably more important than everyone else's, as they are the ones who have to invest the most in terms of time (and usually money) into the game.

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes the DM must enjoy running the game or else the game will end. But it is also important that the DM be sensitive to the players fun. From the OP's description this DM is making heavy weather of the game, what with retroactively removing options and calling for too many rolls. Hopefully a happy balance will emerge soon...

 

[JonnyP71]

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes the DM must enjoy running the game or else the game will end. But it is also important that the DM be sensitive to the players fun. From the OP's description this DM is making heavy weather of the game, what with retroactively removing options and calling for too many rolls. Hopefully a happy balance will emerge soon...

Of course - and it looks like a number of mistakes have been made here, though it does seem that the main cause of them has been inexperience.

Most crucially - a lack of a session 0. That's the time to ensure everyone is on the same page, and get an idea of whether people's play-styles will mesh nicely.

There's a lot to be said for keeping it simple for the 1st game, or at least the 1st few sessions. That's why the Starter Set was so good - a basic version of the rules, supplied with a solid and helpful adventure. It gives everyone a chance to learn the system before diving in deeper with more complicated races, classes and feats.

 

[Soul Stigma]

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes the DM must enjoy running the game or else the game will end. But it is also important that the DM be sensitive to the players fun. From the OP's description this DM is making heavy weather of the game, what with retroactively removing options and calling for too many rolls. Hopefully a happy balance will emerge soon...

It's also been established that the DM is new, so some consideration has to be given there. All DMs start out struggling. Chris Perkins acknowledged that he made a ton of mistakes when he was new. If we know a DM is new, we can make concessions (hot dogs and soda, maybe, teehee), so long as we don't see a pattern of power tripping emerging.


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[hejtmane]

Barbarians can not be surprised so how is it broken sorry your DM is being unfair IMO

 

[S'mon]

I definitely think this GM should be running a no-Feats game, which is technically RAW since Feats are an option rule like multiclassing. I run one Feats game and one no-Feats, both work fine but the feel is different. He wants the no-Feats feel. He could always bring in specific 'flavour' feats like Ritual Caster.

 

[S'mon]

Barbarians can not be surprised so how is it broken sorry your DM is being unfair IMO

They can be surprised - until their init comes up in round 1 they are surprised and can't use reactions, are subject to assassin auto-crit damage etc. It's just they can rage & act on their init in round 1 even when surprised.

 

[jasper]

What? First old Camry's and now Monopoly! Have you no shame, sir? ...Harzel

No?

HE speaks the truth. I once decided not to roll initiative but let the person with the best bribe go first. Worked the first weekend. The next week end this idea was tossed when lowkey shown up early in fishnet lederhosen and gave me an interesting bribe.....

 

[Mercule]

It's also been established that the DM is new, so some consideration has to be given there. All DMs start out struggling. Chris Perkins acknowledged that he made a ton of mistakes when he was new. If we know a DM is new, we can make concessions (hot dogs and soda, maybe, teehee), so long as we don't see a pattern of power tripping emerging.

This bears repeating -- especially since I missed it, the first time around.

Thinking back 35ish years, I did some really stupid things as a new DM. It only took me a couple of years (a long time as a teen, a flash in perspective) to grow through it, but the growth has to occur. When I was learning, there were no internet message boards to which a player could turn to get the "wisdom" of veteran DMs to submit to me as an argument. If there was, I probably wouldn't have survived the couple of years it took to grow through the roughest patch of stupidity. Instead, we just had "high volume conversations" that included a few words our parents wouldn't have liked. Sometimes, we even informed each other exactly which orifice we thought produced the ruling and left the game session early. We were pretty much always there for the next one, though.

I don't necessarily recommend that exact approach for anyone who has completed puberty, but there's probably an adult version that includes a battery of quotes from Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, and Winston Churchill. It's a social game and the first level of socialization is the table (physical or virtual) at which you play.

 

[Cyrinishad]

This is where I think the Alexandrian's idea of rolling for initiative at the end of combat is genius. It seeds the initiative order early so that the transition into combat is very smooth (i.e. no "combat swoosh" where the action is paused while dice are rolled).

See here: http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/591/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-running-combat

Wow, thanks for posting this Robus... I really like the "roll initiative last" idea... I'm going to have to update the "house rules" document for my campaign, I think my players will really like this idea too.

This is a great example of no matter how many decades you've been DMing, there always something new to learn or improve in your game.