After half an hour of them making plans and scratching them, I just had to snap and say "Geez. You guys are $@^#ing epic!"
Sounds like your players had a real duh moment heh
And then, in a fight, they had powers that would stun monsters before they could act, that would guarantee monster movement, and interrupt powers that basically said "no, Wik, you can't do that".
The joy of winning the initiative roll huh?
It's about the fact that, no matter what, our fighter can blow Come and Get it, and dictate the movement of my monsters. It's about the fact that, in a big fight, my players can basically stun-lock my big bad monsters, and if I say "no, that doesn't happen" I am breaking the rules and depriving them of their core strengths. It's about the fact that, if I want to do something, my players feel they have the right to say "no, this doesn't happen."
Well when they are allowed to select powers that say just those things, of course they feel they have the right to say so. My DM usually has a good laugh when his carefully planned combat gets gutted by us. Like when we bypassed a line of 8 demons w/an Arcane Gate and during the surprise round nearly killed the psion we were attacking. He died after one quick action on the first full combat round, leaving the demons and 2 other bad guys. We refer to it now as "The Death Subway"
In the last session, my wizard got jumped by 3 dryad's treewalking ability and nearly killed. Burning Hands, Dimension Door, action point, Fireball (I'm only L10 right now) punished them a good bit and after our warden got ahold of them, I dropped Twist of space on the 4 of them, lined them up away from the treeline w/our warden still holding them in place.
Or, in other words, in other games, the players would try something and run the risk of failure, or the GM having the potential to say "no, that doesn't happen". Now, it's a matter of "Well, I missed on the attack, so he's only stunned until the end of my next turn. Now, everyone, Coup de gras him!".
I really hope you aren't allowing players to Coup de Grace on a stun. Coup de Grace requires the Helpless condition, which only happens when Dying/Unconscious. If they're stunning guys and Couping them, that would be your own fault. Or it was merely a poorly chosen example
Not playing in an Epic game, how many powers really have Stun effects on Miss?
Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table
It's not just a feeling, it's a fact.
and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important. DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade. If that makes any sense at all.
It does, but IME that trade has not been a problem. Easier to put an adventure together and both sides of the table have a level of narrative control. In 3E my DM asked me to create a few monsters for us to fight that would be tailored against particular party members. He did this b/c 1) he knew I was very good at min/maxing characters and 2) he was frustrated by the effectiveness of some group members, like our psychic warrior. So I designed these 3 monsters w/class levels and some great feats for beating particular party members.
Now our group had no way of knowing which monster was designed for which character, but as luck would have it, none of the monsters I had made that were designed to take on particular party members got to actually fight said party members. The rogue happened to pick on the one that was tailored against my Wizard, the psychic warrior took on the one who was supposed to stop the rogue cold, etc. That DM was definitely one of the "Me vs Them, I am God" type and his frustration at having his carefully planned scheme fail was great fun for everyone. After the session he even had a good laugh about it.
there is a vid on youtube that maybe everyone has seen of Chris Perkins DMing for Acquisitions INc. in a live session during a convention. During the fight, a zombie rotter (yes a minion) knocks a hydra prone with a smash...I tell you this, NO CHANCE I let that go down at my table...I don't care how pretty and colorful your little sheet with your powers on it is, and i don't care what it says I say what happens, and that just don't.
I'm sorry, if I was running that game I would be way too busy cracking up laughing and falling out of my chair to be able to tell them no.
My real beef has been going on for ten levels, and just got worse in Epic - that players can dictate the flow of the game to me, and I have no ability to change it except through breaking the rules.
I'm not looking for "The GM is god" bit. What I *DO* want is to have a role of "GM as Interpreter", as opposed to what I've got in 4E, which is "GM as Opposition intended to lose". There seems to be less and less room for me to flex my muscles, and when I DO flex my muscles, Players often have powers that let me say "no, you can't do that, get back in your cage".
I don't see a problem with players having a bag of tricks and being able to have solutions. It beats the heck out of being limited to "I swing my sword and whatever else the DM will allow me to do". You forget the GM has always been intended to lose, unless he's in the habit of just making the players play things like Tomb of Horrors or a dungeon full of Grimtooth's Traps.
The DM is (usually) running the bad guys, which are naturally in opposition to the party, and the players are playing heroes (generally) who are usually in the habit of winning. That doesn't mean they won't take a thrashing now and again or choose to avoid a nasty encounter rather than get the stuffings beat out of them, but overall players will win and that's the way the game should be. Otherwise you're always having to roll up new characters and have no real continuity.
And all of this only applies in combat. Once the fighting ends, I have no problem running 4e, although it is kind of annoying that it takes my epic-level players half an hour before they realize they can CLIMB A WALL.
Again, your players took their dumb pills before that session
What I HATE is that the game has allowed the players to say "no, do this". They have dailies that let them shut down the combat entirely. And while they ARE just dailies, there are enough of them that they can do this three or four times. Meaning, for three or four hours out of every in-game "Day", I'm sitting around having the players dictate a large part of the combat to me.
It's all about point of view. You are currently looking at it as the players shutting down your plans and having things dictated to you. Plans almost never survive the first encounter w/an enemy in real life, so why should it go otherwise in a game? There is a large gap between railroading DMs forcing the players along a particular path and players completely controlling everything, which does not happen in 4E.
Players have some ways to take charge of certain situations and are allowed to be more reactive. 4E was designed to be more cinematic in play and to give the players more power at the table. Not to make it an edition war, but when the stated goals of the new edition are one thing and that one thing is completely at odds with what you are wanting from a game, it seems like another game is the answer.
I actually enjoy 4E dark sun's presentation (sans Eladrin and Feywild). However, I've come to the realization that 4e is not for me, and once this campaign is over, I won't be playing it again.
Looks like we realize the same things here. Our Dark Sun game actually just ended up in the Feywild. Apparently we're being run thru some of the leadup material to the 4E Tomb of Horrors
(I'm a GM raised on the WEG d6 Star Wars rules, and that's where I'm happiest running)
Lots of fond memories of that system from college, altho it did seem once a player's skill reached about 4d+2 or 5d+2 that it was rare they failed no matter what got thrown their way.
It's getting to the point where, once I start getting stunlocked, I'm going to start doing the same thing to the players. We once had a "gentleman's agreement" about stun, but they're beginning to forget about it, so it might be time for me to brush it off and throwing stun monsters at them again.
Our last encounter involved a bunch of ongoing damage from minions, 2 Will O Wisps and an obelisk that would shoot out a sleep ray at people every round. Our rogue spent a large portion of the fight on his back heh. If the players are able to dish out as many stuns as you say, it's only fair that the monsters can do similar. Make sure you're using MM3/MV stats on monsters and bring things w/lots of conditions to the mix. Keep them on their toes.
