Let's rant! When house rules get stoopid...

[Chronologist]

The problem with the crusader is that one session, we engaged in combat with him and just about before he died, he teleported away an an immediate action. Then, we found him again, and began to fight. After a few rounds, he backed off and I (the face of the party) tried to convince him that he was going evil (ahem LG alignment child killer). THe session ended abruptly. At the beginning of the next session, the DM began by saying "Azrael has disappeared somewhere". Now, when he's a Crusader who CAN'T TELEPORT and has no teleporting magical items (we looted his stuff after he later gave up) this is just plain bad DMing.

About the falling damage, I think the DM just didn't like my character. Chaotic Good Soulknife specializing in electricity enhancements. I was actually the weakest member of the party.

At this point, I basically gave up on alignments in his game. I stopped thinking about them way back when the LN guy shanked the party member for no reason, then killed a civilian because she looked at him funny.

The "pulling punches" thing usually goes to this extent.
DM: Father Hawthorn attacks you (rolls dice) and hit you with his vicious mace. (Pause). How many hit points do you have?
Me: Four
DM: (Rolls dice, looks surprised, shakes head) You are knocked down to -9 and stabilize.
Me: (looking across DM shield) But, you rolled at least a 17 there for damage.
DM: You are at -9 and stabilize.
Me: Shouldn't I be dead right now?
DM: -9. Stabilized.
Me: I'm not telling you my hit points anymore.

After talking with him, he said that he believes the campaign to be "highly dangerous and risky, challenging but fair". When I asked him why no characters have died yet (though we have collectively gone into the negatives more than 30 times) he responded by saying "You were lucky... a lot" and changing the subject.

Anyway, how can I break the news to him that his DMing style has problems?

 

[Celebrim]

The Bo9S thing would not be as huge a problem if he didn't run 5 session long days. It took us 8 sessions to complete a story arc, and it was 2 days long. My Factotum barely recovered his spells, the Monk ran out of Stunning Fist halfway through, and the Ninja nearly died about 8 times. I don't even want to mention the Wizard. The fact that the whole "ability attrition" thing could have been averted if he'd let us use Bo9S kinda pissed me off. Plus, it meant that since we fought the villain not once, but three times, he (a Crusader) never got weaker, and all the PCs did. Huh.

It sounds like generally bad DMing, but the, "My villain is a crusader and you can't play one." is a pretty typically bad 'DM PC'. There is nothing wrong with hectic pacing, but you really have to be careful with it. And the fact that the 'DM PC' showed up three times in one game day is darkly hilarious. On the other hand, if no one died, then either he was pulling his punches or else the scenario was simply frustrating, not unfair.

The falling creature thing normally sounds bad... except it killed my brand new character on the first session. No save, no attack roll, just 15d6 damage because he felt like it. It WAS a Huge earth elemental, but still, it was a dick move. I stopped playing with him because of that.

I probably would have too. I don't have a problem with a huge earth elemental causing damage when it collapses, but there ought to be chance it doesn't fall on you and a chance to avoid the damage. Plus, this sort of thing adds to the effective CR of large creatures, which ought to be figured into the challenges the DM provides. If a creature has a special ability 'On death, do 15d6 damage in a 20' radius burst', it adds to its effective CR and turns a reasonable challenge into one that just isn't. There is no fun for anyone in unreasonable challenges.

When Protection from Evil didn't work on those guys, I basically left the table and waited for combat to be over.

It sounds to me like that at that DM's table, "Good" was defined to mean "Whatever results in screwing with the players".

On another note, my current DM has an unstated house rule. "The PCs never die".

Uggg, if anything that's worse that 15d6 damage no save... where do you find these gems???

Have you ever had a DM that pulled punches?

I think every DM not running a tournament game pulls there punches from time to time, but not to that extent. I sometimes pull my punches in small ways when I'm afraid that I've got the challenge of the encounter wrong and the player is losing through no fault of there own. But if the player ever knows you pulled your punches, you've failed as a DM. There always has to be the real possibility of failure, or there is little point in playing and all the excitement just goes away.

 

[Celebrim]

...this is just plain bad DMing.

Agreed. I don't think the problem here is the house rules so much as an egotistical DM.

About the falling damage, I think the DM just didn't like my character.

That's even worse. If the DM didn't like the character, he should have never approved it.

At this point, I basically gave up on alignments in his game.

Alignment can add a lot to the game, but only in certain circumstances. There has been pretty poor support for alignment over the years in the books, and many DMs simply lack the education to pull off a consistent moral ethos. Plus, modern American cultural ethos tends toward relativism, which leaves people in tension with the described D&D world. I'm impressed by Rich from OotS as a writer in the community that consistently gets alignment.

The secrets to running D&D alignment successfully are:
1) Having a group, both players and DM, that understand that the D&D alignment does not need to be commentary on how the real world works. If you can understand that in the D&D world there are 4 elements and no 'Sodium Elementals', then you are off to a good start.
2) Having a DM who has worked out an internally consist description of the alignments. This is more than most writers for TSR/WotC have managed. I'm still appalled by the number of TSR/WotC products that try to define evil as 'selfish' and good as 'selfless', and then try to define the disagreement between 'chaos' and 'law' in basically the same terms.
3) Having a DM who doesn't try to surprise the player with the consequences of there action. I'm appalled by stories where the player takes some action and the DM says something like, "Ok, now you are evil, lose your paladinhood." If your interpretation of what is evil and what isn't differs from the player, you have a responsibility as a DM to forewarn the player of any severe transgression from their stated alignment. Leaving alignment ought to be an act of player choice, not something sprung on them like a trap.
4) Understanding that even if alignments are absolute and consistent, it doesn't mean that mortal members of those alignments need necessarily be so. The assumption is that for mortals at least, no one is perfectly consistent and everyone departs from their own deeply held beliefs at least occasionally. The player needs to be given some flexibility to make choices outside of their stated ethos in order to play complex characters. The trick is in how the player role plays their response to their characters hypocrisy and failures.

Anyway, how can I break the news to him that his DMing style has problems?

I'm not sure. Honestly, of the three DMs you've described, he sounds like the one with the most problems. On the other hand, he sounds like he might be the least jerk, so he might be the only one you could actually approach and achieve a positive result.

Make sure you do it in private. Don't challenge the DM publically and in front of his other friends.

It sounds like the DM has alot of problems:

1) He's got you on a railroad. He is unwilling to let the players make their own story and own choises. When you take away the players ability to fail, you've taken the player out of the story and made them pure observers. Freedom of action must include the oppurtunity to fail.
2) He's unable to make balanced encounters. He's trying to bring the awesome, but doesn't know how to do it in a way that doesn't result in deaths. He's trying too hard to impress the players.
3) He's afraid of offending the players. He's probably deep down embarassed and feeling guilty, and desparately trying to hide his own failures. Make sure you are sympathetic. Make sure you find something about the game to praise. But also be honest about what you find to be a problem.

 

[billd91]

I don't think it's right to house-rule that the player's can't play something that you're going to use in the campaign.

On that, I don't agree. I haven't allowed PCs to use psionics in the Greyhawk game I run but have NPC psionicist villians about as a secretive organization. I have no problem with the DM keeping some tools for himself as part of the campaign's secrets, secrets that have to be prised out of his hands as the PCs explore and learn.

That said, if it became a big enough of a hook and PCs wanted to infiltrate the organization to learn the secrets as a multiclass, that could be a pretty cool campaign arc. I'd allow it then, but not as a starting option any more than I'd allow a new PC be a lich or a vampire.

 

[Chronologist]

Alright, my next game with my current DM is in a few days, I'll call him before that and talk to him about my issues with the game. However, this DM has a history of being inflexible, and dislikes people commenting on his performance. He probably won't do anything, and he might take his anger out on my character, but hey, he's immortal anyway. Thanks to everyone for your help and advice, I hope I didn't derail the thread too much.

Oh, and billd91, in a low level good-aligned party, having a vampire or lich character is a pretty bad idea. However, in a high-level evil party, I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed, unless you have personal reasons why liches or vampires can't be adventurers. Personally, if I ran a game where Psionics existed, I'd let a player play a Psionic class (and the same with Bo9S, though I don't usually allow it). Maybe that's just me, but it feels like fair DMing.

 

[Drowbane]

On another note, my current DM has an unstated house rule. "The PCs never die". Whenever a damaging attack is coming, he asks for our hit points. NPCs stop what they're doing in combat and heal us when we're dying. We automatically stabilize at -9. Random healing comes out of nowhere occasionally. When facing a tough opponent and losing, an NPC does something heroic to save us.

That has got to be the worst House Rule I've ever seen. I couldn't play in such a campaign... I mean what is the point?

A couple years ago I was DMing a mini campaign for my niece (12yr old at the time). She loved her character, had put alot of thought into backstory and build design. And I killed the PC off (Crit happens!). My niece was shocked, she teared up and left the room. An hour later she was asking for my PHB and for advice about how she could've avoided dying. As a result she has become a more strategic player.

 

[TarionzCousin]

A couple years ago I was DMing a mini campaign for my niece (12yr old at the time). She loved her character, had put alot of thought into backstory and build design. And I killed the PC off (Crit happens!). My niece was shocked, she teared up and left the room. An hour later she was asking for my PHB and for advice about how she could've avoided dying. As a result she has become a more strategic player.

I remember that. And then you killed her next character off, too. Ah, good times!


[sblock] He he he. [/sblock]

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I don't see how "The PCs can't die" is worse than any flavor rule so long as everyone agrees to it. I've played games like that, and you can still have fun because while you know your character can't die you don't know what's going to happen next in the story.

 

[Mecrazyfang]

I've run into some interesting house rules...

For instance, my first ever DM decided on the rule role
----
roll

Meaning, if you fail at something, you can roleplay your way out. Sure, that's fine...Only...Erm...I, the pervy samurai, (Oriental campaign, whole party was sex-positive.) tried talking to a jewelry shop owner about a recent break-in. I got barely any info, mostly numbers, and a vague idea of what classes they would be. When I was quietly grumbling about how useless he was, out of character, the DM commented that I didn't ask the right questions...When no reasonable person, outside of one of the DM's own characters, would have asked anything differently. Also, people are afraid of samurai. The owner should have been screaming out info for his dear life.

In fact, every campaign with that DM, it was expected of the party to do things that she, or one of her other friends MAY have done. When the party was sane. And sober.
Come on, who tries to move a solid adamantium jail cell? Apparently, that was what we were expected to do. It was described as 'appearing to be made of adamantium'...One of the heaviest, and thickest, materials in DnD 3.5. She said this, not bothering to tell the dwarf that something was up.

Of course, I had my own bad house-rule...

In my one campaign, I decided to run something with a 'careful, it's a jungle out there...One wrong step, and you're dead' theme. My rule was, 'Abuse, and you lose. Not the right, but the fight.' Meaning, they could be as overpowered as they wanted. It just meant, I got to pick on them more.

They got fed up with the game after calling in divine intervention twice in a single session. Fancy that, eh? I actually let them call gods in...Their own fault, for choosing overpowered classes, races, and items...One of them was a centaur, without the level adjustment. At level 5.

Then, there was this other DM, who had an unspoken house rule that the DM was not to be annoyed. He proved this, in the following scenario:

DM: "Alright, so, you're in a field."
Ditsy Player chick: "Wait, what's going on?"
DM: "You're in a field."
DPC: "...Where are we?"
DM: "You. Are. In. A. Field."
DPC: "Wait...What?"
DM: "The field eats you."

Humorous, of course, but a bad idea when he was having a bad day. Among our friends, a new phrase was coined for DnD. "He Kevin'ed us."
Meaning, he threw something at the party that JUST avoided a TPK...A phrase coined, just for the one guy! He did it THAT often.

 

[Greg K]

On that, I don't agree. I haven't allowed PCs to use psionics in the Greyhawk game I run but have NPC psionicist villians about as a secretive organization. I have no problem with the DM keeping some tools for himself as part of the campaign's secrets, secrets that have to be prised out of his hands as the PCs explore and learn.

Agreed. When I run 3.x, there is a class from a third party publisher which gets its powers from bargains with infernal forces. I have that limited to NPCs. The same goes for certain PrCs.

If I were running 4e, I would place the same limitation on Star Pact and Infernal Pact Warlocks.