Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6294638" data-attributes="member: 7006">There's a big difference between a DM having a theme to his campaign that he'd prefer players ascribe to up front, than having a particular mechanical requirement (in this case, someone in the party NEEDS to have a Cure Wounds spell available) so that the party can advance at the pace the DM wants.That final point is the key.  It's the combination of the two (the amount of healing available *and* the pace at which the party progresses) that is the issue.  If a DM wants a "grim and gritty" game with lots of damage and threat about... and is perfectly happy to have the group take weeks off to recover from the grievous wounds they suffer because they might not have the healing resources for quick recovery... that's great!  If that's the world he has, then so be it.  The party does not need a Cleric, because the DM has set up the expectation for the campaign that occasionally the party will get the butts handed to them, and when that happens they'll need to go lie down and rest for a spell.  And the story will pick up when they finally get up and about.But I'm talking about the kind of DM that wants that "grim and gritty" kind of game but also wants his story to progress at speeds which he (and everyone at the table) knows they cannot handle and cannot recover from.  Because his "story" says that they don't get any down time.  They don't get to recover from their wounds.  Like every two hours there's some new threat that's going to attack the group and that's the way the world is, and woe be to them if they cannot handle it.  At that point, the DM isn't collaborating (as you put it) with the group... he's forcing their hand because the pace of his story trumps their choice.  He basically is telling them that if they want to play in his world, they better get a Cleric or two because his world is his world and will stop at no man.You may not want to ascribe an emotional description to what that DM is doing.  But I have no problem with that.  I think that DM is being unreasonable, and yes "jerkish"... because he wants it both ways.  *His* decision on how violent his world is, and *his* decision on the frequency how that violence gets dispersed and recovered from.  He could easily adjust either dial slightly so that no one player felt forced to play a class just to get a specific mechanic (Cure Wounds) into the game... but nope.  His world, his rules.  Deal with it or the party keeps dying.  To me, that's not collaboration at all, and yes, there's an emotional component there to what I thnk the DM is choosing to do.</blockquote>

Verification