D&D General "It's not fun when..."

[EzekielRaiden]

This is the "The DM is Satan" trope, and it's one of my least favorite in all of tabletop role-playing gaming. Of all the abused player syndromes that I encounter when bring experienced players in, this is the most common one. When you have "The DM is Satan", the world is subtly or overtly skewed to evil such that all acts of goodness, mercy, kindness, trust, compassion, and so forth harvest only sorrows. Those NPC's that aren't entirely wicked are stupid and incompetent to the point of there being no real difference. The world the PC's operate in is perverse and twisted, so that not only are NPCs merely strangely hostile, but they will even ignore their own best interests in an effort to backstab the PCs and enact the pettiest sorts of revenge on them. This will continue no matter how many times the PC's save the day and prove themselves heroes. PC's never accrue any benefits from a positive reputation.

The result of this sort of experience is the players are taught that the only way to succeed is to be utterly ruthless and evil themselves - never truth anyone, never leave an enemy alive, never be honest, never be charitable. Murder hoboing becomes the functional strategy for dealing with the game universe because only evil is rewarded by the GM as clever, whereas every act of goodness is actively punished.

Indeed. I say a lot: think about your incentives. A lot of DMs teach their players to be murderhobos without even realizing it.

It's why I have gone to great lengths to support my players' merciful, constructive, positive actions. The world can get better, if you actually try. It may not get better uniformly, or quickly, or in ways that are particularly powerful. But it can get better.

 

[pukunui]

I do think it would be better if more spells always had some effect. To me it's less the "I wasted my best spell slot" and more the "I waited 15 minutes to get to my turn, and it consisted of one failed roll that I didn't even see" factor that makes save or suck spells unfun.

Agreed. Last time I played 3.5e, I chose to play a psion in a Dark Sun game. Since psionics doesn't generally have obvious casting components, and since my DM is notorious for having hot dice, my character would regularly get teased for "just standing there looking constipated".

In fact, I made a decision a while back to avoid save DC-heavy characters, since I much prefer my PCs' effectiveness to be dependent on my own dice rolls rather than the DM's.

(In case anyone is wondering, my DM rolls in the open, so it's not like he's cheating or anything. He just has really good luck.)

 

[Oofta]

According to the Living Greyhawk Wikipedia page, New Mexico was part of the County of Urnst region, while Arizona was part of Nyrond, both of which were in the "Nyrond and Her Environs" meta-region. BDKR1 covers the Bandit Kingdoms, which was assigned to Oklahoma and Texas, and was part of the "Iuz's Border States" meta-region.

Yep, we were Nyrond. Totally different attitude from the admins, I don't think I would have stuck with LG if we had been in New Mexico.

 

[Alzrius]

Agreed. Last time I played 3.5e, I chose to play a psion in a Dark Sun game. Since psionics doesn't generally have obvious casting components, and since my DM is notorious for having hot dice, my character would regularly get teased for "just standing there looking constipated".

Just out of curiosity, was your character making a Concentration check to suppress their powers' displays, or did everyone just forget about them?

 

[pukunui]

Just out of curiosity, was your character making a Concentration check to suppress their powers' displays, or did everyone just forget about them?

I don't remember but probably.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think "The DM is Satan" is a step up from the conventional "every NPC is inexplicably hostile/a wanker", but they're definitely closely related.

I've seen both separately is why I say that. I've played with a DM where every NPC was a wanker, but the world generally seemed okay, and when this was actually pointed out to him he got pretty embarrassed, and it stopped happening, except when he occasionally sort of forgot what he was doing, but we could get things back on track by just saying stuff like "Why is this guy so hostile? Did we do something wrong?". I feel like he was very much the product of "abused player syndrome" as you say.

But I also played with a "Satan"-class DM for a while in my teens who just ran things exactly as you said. The funniest thing was the dude was obsessed with Paladins and how great they were, and had a DMPC Paladin who would come and bully the PCs at times, but he couldn't accept anyone doing anything "Good" having good results. Even his DMPC never did anything actually good, just murdered bad people/monsters.

This is a fair point to make. I guess what I'd say is, there's a spectrum involved here, with roughly five messy stops along the way:

Teddy Bear/Softball DM: Everything is always sunshine and rainbows. Relatively rare in practice.
Good Buddy/Hopepunk DM: Stuff can get dark, but good is always possible if you work for it. (That's where I'm at, or try to be.)
Your Neutralness/Referee DM: The world...is. Maybe you can change it. Stuff happens, people live, people die. (The next two think they're here.)
Diogenes/Cynical DM: The world, or at least the people in it, suck. Maybe you can make it better. Probably not, but maybe.
Satan/Nihilistic DM: The world sucks. Your character, as part of that world, sucks. Defy this maxim at your peril.

A lot of people take any constructive effort at anything beyond Your Neutralness as being the most extreme, saccharine version of Teddy Bear. It is (as noted below) an aspect of the cynicism of our time, which I at least partially blame on the oppressive censorship/homogenization of media in the period from the mid 30s to the late 60s.

Larian, the videogame developers have a problem which verges on "The DM is Satan", as illustrated by DOS1/2 (particularly 2), and BG3 initially suffered from this, before huge pushback from players forced the devs to reconsider their approach. They're not the only videogame devs who have gone down this path too (though it is thankfully somewhat rare).

Can't say I'm surprised, though I'm glad Larian has (hopefully) listened to the feedback. I definitely got a feeling of "you can't do anything good in this world, just maybe possibly deflect bad things a little bit" from DOS2. They did at least give the Red Prince some good "wow, the way my people treat others is HOT GARBAGE, isn't it?" stuff, so hopefully they'll take that limited awareness and expand on it into something good.

Sadly, we live in an era still shaped by the negative reaction to the Hays Code and other restrictive, repressive, "only goody-two-shoes vs Saturday morning cartoon villains" requirements. Someone unabashedly good is either a fraud, a crazy person, or a martyr. It's very frustrating.

 

[jasper]

Player, "HEY YES TWO NAT 20S Tiamat is going down. That beeep."
Player," WHAT Tiamat hit me with TWO NAT 20s the DM is a BEEP."
Monk, "YEs Key and fail save. He prone and stunned. In your face." Does victory dance.
Monk, "I move 40! why does cost me 20 to stand up from prone. It should only be 15 like when I was 1st level." {Actual quote} Gives DM sad puppy eyes.
Player "YES The monster is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This is a great game."
Player, "WAH! My pc is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This game sucks!"
Players always love it when the fight goes their way, but a minor setback is cause to rewrite the rules more in their favor.

 

[Alzrius]

Players always love it when the fight goes their way, but a minor setback is cause to rewrite the rules more in their favor.

I've seen ardent rules lawyers turn into diehard simulationists when it comes to things like why an NPC getting a 37 on a Pick Pockets check isn't sufficient to steal their wizard's spellbook. "But it's inside my pack along with those other tomes we recovered! How would he even know which book to grab?!"

 

[Lanefan]

Agreed. Probably the bigger point is that there shouldn't be spells that end challenging encounters with one casting if a save is failed.

I disagree, in that I like the idea of every now and then (but by no means always!) being able to hose the BBEG without taking a scratch; in full realization that if my attempt fails nothing will happen and I'm probably screwed.

Flip side, I have to accept that sometimes the same might happen to my PC: I could get one-shotted by a lucky enemy.

It's all about one's tolerance for swinginess in combat. It's also about one's tolerance for planning. Sometimes a good plan can make a combat either much easier or a one-shot kill where without said planning it would have probably been a drawn-out and risky slugfest. I don't want to take that away.

 

[iserith]

Indeed. I say a lot: think about your incentives. A lot of DMs teach their players to be murderhobos without even realizing it.

It's why I have gone to great lengths to support my players' merciful, constructive, positive actions. The world can get better, if you actually try. It may not get better uniformly, or quickly, or in ways that are particularly powerful. But it can get better.

My players don't need any help from me to be murderhobos thankyouverymuch!

 

[overgeeked]

Player, "HEY YES TWO NAT 20S Tiamat is going down. That beeep."
Player," WHAT Tiamat hit me with TWO NAT 20s the DM is a BEEP."
Monk, "YEs Key and fail save. He prone and stunned. In your face." Does victory dance.
Monk, "I move 40! why does cost me 20 to stand up from prone. It should only be 15 like when I was 1st level." {Actual quote} Gives DM sad puppy eyes.
Player "YES The monster is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This is a great game."
Player, "WAH! My pc is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This game sucks!"
Players always love it when the fight goes their way, but a minor setback is cause to rewrite the rules more in their favor.

Exactly.

 

[Lanefan]

Speaking of fleeing: I was in a game the other day where the DM had our base of operations (a school of sorts in a large tower) attacked by some bad guys which included an adult red dragon. We are all around 5th to 7th level. My cleric, Wanda Curelight, was able to blast some of the invaders with a fireball and others slowed them down and finished them off, but we knew the red dragon wasn't anything we could handle, so we fled. As it turns out, this was the DM's expectation - we were meant to flee out a tower window and climb down a few floors to escape the immediate problem then head down the stairs and out of there. Only the tower was described as something like 200 feet tall, so falling was just as deadly as the dragon's fire, and not everyone - including my cleric - were willing to take the chance that the DM would call for a Strength (Athletics) check that would likely fail.

Thus far, this sounds like a hell of a good set-up!

So two of us tried to get away in a mazelike library in hopes that the dragon would go after someone else. The other 3 characters climbed out the window. The dragon went after the two that went into the library. As soon as the dragon got within breath weapon range, my character was toast. The other fell shortly after that. The three that went out the window had some problems too and one of them died. This was 30 minutes into the session.

There were two survivors, though - right?

If yes, there's no good reason for the DM to do anything other than carry on with those two, for now, being the party. Do they recruit replacements for the fallen (meaning you other three players bang out new characters) or do they try to recover and revive the corpses?

What was initially hailed as a shake-up to the campaign ended up being retconned after a 5-minute break of DM reflection. The DM's intention was to have us flee out the window to witness the destruction of our base presumably to set up a revenge arc or whatever. That didn't work out, so corpses were recovered and resurrected, and we were back in business. This was a dissatisfying moment, and the result of a DM who should have known better trying to push a particular outcome.

Yes, this is a bi-ig mistake on the DM's part: the DM needs to roll with the punches of what happened, just as the players do. It's rare that a DM manages to throw a curveball at him(?)self, but that's what seems to have happened here, and he(?) needs to be able to hit it.

The chase mechanics may have helped here (my cleric actually has a good Dex and Inspiration banked), but what would have also helped is not pointing a gun at something you're not willing to shoot, and not trying to force a particular resolution. I definitely find that sort of thing to be unfun.

Personally, I'd very likely have found it great fun until the moment the DM suggested a retcon, at which point fun ends.

 

[Scribe]

Player, "HEY YES TWO NAT 20S Tiamat is going down. That beeep."
Player," WHAT Tiamat hit me with TWO NAT 20s the DM is a BEEP."
Monk, "YEs Key and fail save. He prone and stunned. In your face." Does victory dance.
Monk, "I move 40! why does cost me 20 to stand up from prone. It should only be 15 like when I was 1st level." {Actual quote} Gives DM sad puppy eyes.
Player "YES The monster is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This is a great game."
Player, "WAH! My pc is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This game sucks!"
Players always love it when the fight goes their way, but a minor setback is cause to rewrite the rules more in their favor.

In every scenario here, the player is obnoxious. Its a game, its not life or death. lol

 

[iserith]

There were two survivors, though - right?

If yes, there's no good reason for the DM to do anything other than carry on with those two, for now, being the party. Do they recruit replacements for the fallen (meaning you other three players bang out new characters) or do they try to recover and revive the corpses?

The latter is what happened, effectively. It wouldn't have been practical to make new characters.

Yes, this is a bi-ig mistake on the DM's part: the DM needs to roll with the punches of what happened, just as the players do. It's rare that a DM manages to throw a curveball at him(?)self, but that's what seems to have happened here, and he(?) needs to be able to hit it.

Personally, I'd very likely have found it great fun until the moment the DM suggested a retcon, at which point fun ends.

The issue was really the DM expecting the game to proceed in a specific direction then giving the players freedom to decide on something in the opposite direction.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Player, "HEY YES TWO NAT 20S Tiamat is going down. That beeep."
Player," WHAT Tiamat hit me with TWO NAT 20s the DM is a BEEP."
Monk, "YEs Key and fail save. He prone and stunned. In your face." Does victory dance.
Monk, "I move 40! why does cost me 20 to stand up from prone. It should only be 15 like when I was 1st level." {Actual quote} Gives DM sad puppy eyes.
Player "YES The monster is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This is a great game."
Player, "WAH! My pc is (charmed, stunned, banished)! This game sucks!"
Players always love it when the fight goes their way, but a minor setback is cause to rewrite the rules more in their favor.

Found the answer to the thread.

Not the dialogue, the attitude that fostered writing it.

 

[Lanefan]

The latter is what happened, effectively. It wouldn't have been practical to make new characters.

Though by retcon rather than organic play, it seems, which outright kills the funfor me.

The issue was really the DM expecting the game to proceed in a specific direction then giving the players freedom to decide on something in the opposite direction.

Or giving the dice that freedom.

I mean, hell, for all the DM knew you lot might have got lucky and wasted that ol' Red without ever needing to flee - did the DM have a fallback plan for that eventuality (my guess would be 'no')?

 

[Reynard]

Though by retcon rather than organic play, it seems, which outright kills the funfor me.

Or giving the dice that freedom.

I mean, hell, for all the DM knew you lot might have got lucky and wasted that ol' Red without ever needing to flee - did the DM have a fallback plan for that eventuality (my guess would be 'no')?

Prep situations, not plans.

 

[pukunui]

The chase mechanics may have helped here ...

Probably not because the chase mechanics in the DMG are rubbish. Not that anyone knows that since no one reads the DMG (except for me).

Define fun.

I'm playing Jedi: Fallen Order right now.

Is it fun to die? No, it's usually annoying.

But it would be even less fun to not die. Indeed, one of the most fun parts of the game is when I had to take like six tries to beat the 9th sister, and a lot of the time when I'm playing I'm thinking "I'm not playing well enough to be beating the game this easily."

Is it fun when you fail? No, it's usually annoying.

But it's even less fun when you can't fail. The complaint to me feels like, "I made my best attack, but I missed!" The possibility of "rolling a 1" is always there. Something can always negate your action. It's frustrating, but it would be even more frustrating if it couldn't.

The main difference here is that Jedi: Fallen Order is a single player game, and when you fail, you get to try again immediately. In a cooperative team-based game where you're all constructing the narrative together as you play, when you fail, you can't just try again. What happened is generally set in stone, and you have to just accept it and move on, which is fine.

For me, it's not failure in and of itself that's frustrating or unfun. It's when I have a repeated run of failures due to poor dice rolls / bad luck / etc. It's when I spend the better part of an hour or more not actually getting to contribute to the game in a meaningful way (and get teased about it on top of that).

The party fighting a heroic, effective, but losing, battle until the wizard drops a fireball on them is awesome.

Dropping that fireball and killing them all in the first round... is an issue of encounter design. When the party wizard has Fireball, how did you make an encounter that could be defeated by a single use of the spell? They're all low hit points and bunched up to start? What was the GM thinking?

Or, to put it in this thread's idiom - It is not fun when the encounters are not well-designed for the party.

Exactly. In my last session, we were fighting some warforged in the Mournland when an oni and its gnoll minions ambushed us. The oni's cone of cold took out the remaining warforged for us, so we were able to quickly shift our focus to the gnolls and the oni. We took out the gnolls and then beat on the oni. As it tried to flee invisibly, the artificer PC cast sleep, hoping to roll well enough against the wounded oni's reduced hit points. It worked! It was a brilliant end to a tough fight.

If, however, the artificer had cast sleep right at the start and had somehow managed to knock the oni out right away, while we undoubtedly would've felt relieved, I don't think it would have been as fun/satisfying.

 

[Oofta]

In every scenario here, the player is obnoxious. Its a game, its not life or death. lol

Maybe not in your game. Some people want the game to have real stakes.

 

[iserith]

Or giving the dice that freedom.

I mean, hell, for all the DM knew you lot might have got lucky and wasted that ol' Red without ever needing to flee - did the DM have a fallback plan for that eventuality (my guess would be 'no')?

I'm not sure. It couldn't have been fun for the DM here either.