on the bright side, he's always able to come up with a good scenario (for as long as i've had him as a GM) and he's great at NPC acting.
now, for the flip side.
our group is mostly composed of beginners. however, the DM expects us to have the instincts and experience of long-time players.
also, when we're taking a long time to figure out a solution to problems (for whatever reason), he tends to get mocking and sarcastic because HE (and/or his other experienced friends) would have long solved that situatition.
and, sadly, he likes to go on several minute monologues even now and then about stuff that has no immediate relevance (if any to begin with). the most frequent of which i know of is about the average population of different towns. he must've mentioned this one at least 3 times since i've played with him.
in combat, he's nitpicky about pointless stuff. for example :
DM : Which Goblin do you attack?
Me : (with my bow) The closest one.
DM : That's not specific enough.
Me :
fine...Goblin number 1.
DM : Dude, i shouldn't have to tell you that you have to choose betwen the melee Goblins and the ranged Goblins. you have to make sure you know this and if you can't understand my subtle hints, it's your problem.
Me : (to myself) are you
ing serious???
the rest of the fights, we almost always start toe-to-toe with the enemy, making my archery Rogue entirely POINTLESS. i can only depend on my Rapier and hope i get criticals because i have no AB worth talking about.
as for in-game situations...
first campaign, he takes over some of my roleplay moments. i ell him that even if i blow at it, i'd like to do my own roleplay so i can hopefully improve. pretty much ignored.
the party meets up, we get out of town and about two encounters in, we get chased by Frost Giants...at level 1.
luckily, we escape. we ended up in an underground cavern and because the DM wouldn't give us any advice, half the party almost drowned in ice-cold water. we could have taken 20 but since we didn't ask him, he didn't tell us.
luckily, we survived that too (he gave us 100 xp for surviving a danger we created ourselves). we end up in a Dwarven Kingdom. during a mission for a dwarven mine, we get captured by Drows because we didn't specify we were Silent Moving.
again, luckily, the prison we were in was falling apart so we got out.
later, in the main city, we learn (too late) that we need a pass to even BE in there. it's possible we should have not told them we didn't have a pass but still, we had no way of knowing this at ALL. no one told us and we had no reason to suspect we needed one...until the innkeeper called the guards on our ass.
the rest of the campaign was us getting carried to jail and publicly executed. he also spent a few hours on this sequence. which means we spent the REST of the session jerking off because there was NOTHING we could really do. hell, i just said **** it and was doing intimidation checks for the lulz.
second campaign. we have to clear a mansion of undeads. after a while, we get to the source and what do we discover? a Lich. in spite of my inexperience, i had decided this was NOT worth it, turned around and RAN. heck, one of the players lost his character right there. lost their soul to it. the Paladin made a brave charge and after a few rounds, the Lich just teleported away and all was well again.
a while after, we just left the region, got ambushed by way more bandit than we could handle (7 to 1 ratio), were left naked (except for a stick i found) and peniless. we walked to a nearby town where we went to a church an asked for charity. turns out the priest fetched a few guards to kick our ass (luckily we won). apparently the particular deity didn't like us or something. we dropped this campaign altogether.
third campaign. we have to solve some mystery about people going nuts for no reason. some of his experienced friends have joined our group of beginners. since they're used to playing DnD, they take the spotlight and the DM never does anything to involve ANYONE else. which means i spend most of the time jerking off. eventually we trace the source to some tower. we tried to distract a group of Kobolds by lighting a tent on fire from a distance. ALL the Kobolds charged STRAIGHT at us immediately. luckily, we survived. except that in the next session, the quest was "completed" by a couple of newly introduced players.
we later travelled to another town, got a quest to go into a mausoleum. however, whenever we approached the mausoleum, an entire HORDE of zombies came at us. even the DM admitted he screwed up on that one. the next few encounters consisted of monsters that, while relatively fragile, could ORKO us with 3 attacks per monster. there was also some "recorded flashback" sequence that held no obvious meaning. then we fought a boss that could ORKO us except it wasn't fragile.
that quest was dropped too. mostly because the DM couldn't keep the whole group in sync.
current quest. he sends us at a goblin base to fetch a merchant's family amulet. he sends us to a left-right choice with no real indication of what leads where. then we get to a base and he eventually told us to check for a secret entrance because we couldn't find any obvious way in. we get in and eventually find the amulet. on the way, we got stuck in a magically trapped room (the ONLY room in the ENTIRE base with any magic) that required our sorcerer i think FIVE successful rolls in a ROW to merely FIND the source of the magic. in the meantime, i got knocked to 0 HP by an aberration creature. i really wonder why the goblins never got stuck in there...
there are other buildings we tried to explore. one was the sleeping quarters for the goblins with a high level DC that i BARELY managed to lockpick (you'd think one of the goblins we killed would have the keys to their own SLEEPING QUARTERS). there wasn't even anything valuable in there. then there was a massive tower that i couldn't unlock with maxed-out lockpick at Rogue level 2 AND a natural 20. we had to leave it.
also, there was the Goblin treasure hoard but the amulet was actually in a random cabinet somewhere. WHY would Goblins put it there???
those are my personal experiences with that DM. so i ask...am i just weak or is the DM too unreasonable?
now, for the flip side.
our group is mostly composed of beginners. however, the DM expects us to have the instincts and experience of long-time players.
also, when we're taking a long time to figure out a solution to problems (for whatever reason), he tends to get mocking and sarcastic because HE (and/or his other experienced friends) would have long solved that situatition.
and, sadly, he likes to go on several minute monologues even now and then about stuff that has no immediate relevance (if any to begin with). the most frequent of which i know of is about the average population of different towns. he must've mentioned this one at least 3 times since i've played with him.
in combat, he's nitpicky about pointless stuff. for example :
DM : Which Goblin do you attack?
Me : (with my bow) The closest one.
DM : That's not specific enough.
Me :
fine...Goblin number 1.DM : Dude, i shouldn't have to tell you that you have to choose betwen the melee Goblins and the ranged Goblins. you have to make sure you know this and if you can't understand my subtle hints, it's your problem.
Me : (to myself) are you
ing serious???the rest of the fights, we almost always start toe-to-toe with the enemy, making my archery Rogue entirely POINTLESS. i can only depend on my Rapier and hope i get criticals because i have no AB worth talking about.
as for in-game situations...
first campaign, he takes over some of my roleplay moments. i ell him that even if i blow at it, i'd like to do my own roleplay so i can hopefully improve. pretty much ignored.
the party meets up, we get out of town and about two encounters in, we get chased by Frost Giants...at level 1.
luckily, we escape. we ended up in an underground cavern and because the DM wouldn't give us any advice, half the party almost drowned in ice-cold water. we could have taken 20 but since we didn't ask him, he didn't tell us.
luckily, we survived that too (he gave us 100 xp for surviving a danger we created ourselves). we end up in a Dwarven Kingdom. during a mission for a dwarven mine, we get captured by Drows because we didn't specify we were Silent Moving.
again, luckily, the prison we were in was falling apart so we got out.
later, in the main city, we learn (too late) that we need a pass to even BE in there. it's possible we should have not told them we didn't have a pass but still, we had no way of knowing this at ALL. no one told us and we had no reason to suspect we needed one...until the innkeeper called the guards on our ass.
the rest of the campaign was us getting carried to jail and publicly executed. he also spent a few hours on this sequence. which means we spent the REST of the session jerking off because there was NOTHING we could really do. hell, i just said **** it and was doing intimidation checks for the lulz.
second campaign. we have to clear a mansion of undeads. after a while, we get to the source and what do we discover? a Lich. in spite of my inexperience, i had decided this was NOT worth it, turned around and RAN. heck, one of the players lost his character right there. lost their soul to it. the Paladin made a brave charge and after a few rounds, the Lich just teleported away and all was well again.
a while after, we just left the region, got ambushed by way more bandit than we could handle (7 to 1 ratio), were left naked (except for a stick i found) and peniless. we walked to a nearby town where we went to a church an asked for charity. turns out the priest fetched a few guards to kick our ass (luckily we won). apparently the particular deity didn't like us or something. we dropped this campaign altogether.
third campaign. we have to solve some mystery about people going nuts for no reason. some of his experienced friends have joined our group of beginners. since they're used to playing DnD, they take the spotlight and the DM never does anything to involve ANYONE else. which means i spend most of the time jerking off. eventually we trace the source to some tower. we tried to distract a group of Kobolds by lighting a tent on fire from a distance. ALL the Kobolds charged STRAIGHT at us immediately. luckily, we survived. except that in the next session, the quest was "completed" by a couple of newly introduced players.
we later travelled to another town, got a quest to go into a mausoleum. however, whenever we approached the mausoleum, an entire HORDE of zombies came at us. even the DM admitted he screwed up on that one. the next few encounters consisted of monsters that, while relatively fragile, could ORKO us with 3 attacks per monster. there was also some "recorded flashback" sequence that held no obvious meaning. then we fought a boss that could ORKO us except it wasn't fragile.
that quest was dropped too. mostly because the DM couldn't keep the whole group in sync.
current quest. he sends us at a goblin base to fetch a merchant's family amulet. he sends us to a left-right choice with no real indication of what leads where. then we get to a base and he eventually told us to check for a secret entrance because we couldn't find any obvious way in. we get in and eventually find the amulet. on the way, we got stuck in a magically trapped room (the ONLY room in the ENTIRE base with any magic) that required our sorcerer i think FIVE successful rolls in a ROW to merely FIND the source of the magic. in the meantime, i got knocked to 0 HP by an aberration creature. i really wonder why the goblins never got stuck in there...
there are other buildings we tried to explore. one was the sleeping quarters for the goblins with a high level DC that i BARELY managed to lockpick (you'd think one of the goblins we killed would have the keys to their own SLEEPING QUARTERS). there wasn't even anything valuable in there. then there was a massive tower that i couldn't unlock with maxed-out lockpick at Rogue level 2 AND a natural 20. we had to leave it.
also, there was the Goblin treasure hoard but the amulet was actually in a random cabinet somewhere. WHY would Goblins put it there???
those are my personal experiences with that DM. so i ask...am i just weak or is the DM too unreasonable?
Naw, I don't know what to say about this. There is a lack of info, so I'm not sure what you are complaining about. Are you saying the DM shouldn't have had a Lich as the BBEG at your level?
