Is this a cruel DM?

[barsoomcore]

Methos, what was his response to your query about why this would be fun for you?

To my mind, the actual mechanics of what happened in this one incident are beside the point. Who cares if rats can gnaw through stone? You're not trying to get him to admit that he's WRONG, you're trying to understand WHY he's running the sort of campaign that he's running.

I don't think email is the idea forum for this kind of discussion, but regardless -- don't email him a big long list of "comments" which he can then pick and choose as to which ones he'll respond to.

Send him an email. The body as follows:

"Why do you think this campaign is fun for me?"

Nothing else. Don't let him dance around on the hardness of stone or mechanics of damage resistance. That doesn't matter. What matters is his concept of your fun. FORCE him to answer you. Give him no options.

You need to know this, Methos. You need to know if there's any point in continuing the conversation.

 

[Methos]

Actually, my last e-mail indicated to him that I was no longer having fun. I'll be interested in seeing his response.

Good point, I will ask him why he thinks this campaign is fun now?

Methos, what was his response to your query about why this would be fun for you?

To my mind, the actual mechanics of what happened in this one incident are beside the point. Who cares if rats can gnaw through stone? You're not trying to get him to admit that he's WRONG, you're trying to understand WHY he's running the sort of campaign that he's running.

I don't think email is the idea forum for this kind of discussion, but regardless -- don't email him a big long list of "comments" which he can then pick and choose as to which ones he'll respond to.

Send him an email. The body as follows:

"Why do you think this campaign is fun for me?"

Nothing else. Don't let him dance around on the hardness of stone or mechanics of damage resistance. That doesn't matter. What matters is his concept of your fun. FORCE him to answer you. Give him no options.

You need to know this, Methos. You need to know if there's any point in continuing the conversation.

 

[takyris]

Question: Is this a new DM? He sounds like an inexperienced DM who's hyperexplaining things because he's insecure. This kind of DM is not going to be hugely receptive to constructive criticisms.

Also, you might want to ask him how he had envisioned it happening... Did you guys miss some obvious clues or make stupid mistakes that resulted in you having Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy? Were there clues you should have seen? Were the dice horribly against you? Or was this a challenge over your heads? There's always the possibility that you guys overlooked hugely important stuff and got into bad places by your own ignorance. Sometimes that happens. When it happens and the players complain, I usually point it out to them. "Remember when the harmless beggar told you to stay to the right? Remember the

Denying you your spells is flat-out silly. You might feel guilty, but you didn't do it on purpose. If you were a higher level cleric you could use those spells to Cure Disease on yourself, and then do Atonement. So his decision to take away your spells doesn't make sense to me. What if you were a cleric of the god of healing? Of protection? Why does your DM choose to hold your cleric to a stricter standard than that of a paladin, who actually HAS text saying he has a code of conduct and that he loses abilities even for things he did that weren't under his control?

But anyway. Yeah. You know what to do. Keep us in the loop. I'm curious as to how this turns out.
-Tacky

 

[Methos]

Experienced DM

Interestingly enough, he is a very experienced DM, to the extent that he is writing gaming material for some of the smaller d20 companies out there. For obvious reasons, his identity will be kept silent and anything posted will be highly sanitized.

Suffice to say, he is very experienced and very familiar with the rules.

Cheers

Question: Is this a new DM? He sounds like an inexperienced DM who's hyperexplaining things because he's insecure. This kind of DM is not going to be hugely receptive to constructive criticisms.

But anyway. Yeah. You know what to do. Keep us in the loop. I'm curious as to how this turns out.
-Tacky

 

[the Jester]

Well, Methos, I'd say you're dealing with this the best way you can: approaching your dm and trying to work it out. I'm sorry that, from the sounds of things, you're prolly going to leave the group, but have hope! Maybe he'll see your point!

Thanks for keeping us up to date on this- it's actually a pretty common thing for a dm's expectations to differ from the players' and for someone to end up not having very much fun, and it's good to give an example of how to resolve the issue unfolding in front of us all. Again, thank you for sharing your side, and the more of the dm's side you can share the better we'll all be at helping you- and the campaign- out.

I'm very glad that you're so active on this thread, too- it makes for a quick discussion instead of one of those post- wait five days- post things.

Keep your chin up, bud- there's more gamers in the sea! Er, you know what I mean.

 

[Methos]

I have been trying to be prompt, however, I will be out of town this weekend, and have no access to the internet, until late Sunday, (West Coast U.S.), but I'll be interested to see what posters have to say in my absence. If I get any responses from the DM that are worthwhile, I will post them before I leave this weekend.

By the way, leaving the group on this note isn't the end of the world. It is just a game after all, and there are other groups out there.

Cheers

Methos

Well, Methos, I'd say you're dealing with this the best way you can: approaching your dm and trying to work it out. I'm sorry that, from the sounds of things, you're prolly going to leave the group, but have hope! Maybe he'll see your point!

Thanks for keeping us up to date on this- it's actually a pretty common thing for a dm's expectations to differ from the players' and for someone to end up not having very much fun, and it's good to give an example of how to resolve the issue unfolding in front of us all. Again, thank you for sharing your side, and the more of the dm's side you can share the better we'll all be at helping you- and the campaign- out.

I'm very glad that you're so active on this thread, too- it makes for a quick discussion instead of one of those post- wait five days- post things.

Keep your chin up, bud- there's more gamers in the sea! Er, you know what I mean.

 

[the Jester]

Where are you from anyway? You never know- there might be a good game you can get in through the ENWorld community.

 

[Bragg Battleaxe]

Personally, I don't even think about spellbooks for my PCs most of the time. Unless they are captured or something, I just assume the Wizard has access to spells. The fire and forget system is awkward if you think about it from an "in game" mentality anyway. On the other hand, a fighter would certainly have lost his armor and weapon in the same situation. I suppose it all depends on whether or not the DM allows you to discover a way out of the mess.

 

[Dreeble]

Heya:

In a campaign where the highest level ever reached is 7th and a 5th lvl character just lost approximately 60% of his effectiveness, I'd have a tough time enjoying things. Even if there was some cool storyline thing that allowed everything to make sense in a cool way, I'd have trouble enjoying being the goat (in a manner of speaking) in that storyline.

Personally, were I in a situation like that, I'd wait a couple sessions without much comment more than a mildly sarcastic, "I hope you're know where you going with this, buddy." comment to see where things might lead, on the off chance that everything would get better relatively quickly. Now, though, it's kind of a tough situation. Were I the DM, I'd feel a little uncomfortable changing things. I dunno. Tough call, but as others have mentioned, the fun is the thing.

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[takyris]

I'd love to mask this bump with an interesting question, but frankly, at this point, I just want to see how it turns out. Does the DM drop our wererat into a silver-plated barrel? Is our player forced to eat his own familiar in a shapechanged frenzy? Does a Solar pop in and flame strike the 5th level character for being so evil that he failed a save against lycanthropy?

-Tacky