RangerWickett
Legend
Edit: In hindsight I wish I hadn't been so vitriolic, but I'm leaving the post here as it was so new people to the thread aren't confused. But for the record, I overreacted, and my DM is not the fool some people here claimed. The lesson, it seems, is not to trust one person's opinion when you don't know the full circumstances.
You know how, when you play a video game RPG, and they say, "We've got to hurry before the train is derailed!" you don't actually have to hurry, because there's no real time limit? Like how, whenever you reach the final boss, the train will derail right after you beat him? Or how, no matter how many monster fights you flee from or how quickly you navigate the level, you'll always reach the end just in time to see the villain in a cut scene killing a key character from the game?
Well that's temporal railroading, and that's what happened in the game I played tonight. It is fine for video games, but not cool for person to person RPGs.
The quick version: We needed to steal the Orb of the Undead from a mind flayer city before an army of Drow stole the orb. A high-level dude tasks us with getting the orb, but refuses to come with us, because he has more important things to do. Sure, okay. Even though we've been told this orb will destroy the world, I guess the guy's busy. We're fine with that. We tell him we've got next to no chance of sneaking into a mind flayer city, and that there's not much point in going after the orb without his help, but he's higher level and an NPC, so he can't join our party, and we're fine with that.
He gives us a guide, and tells us it'll take a week for us to navigate the tunnels and get down to the mind flayer city. We find a way to get there in a day. We arrive just in time to sneak in while the dark elves are assailing the mind flayer city. We fight a few illithids and their minions, but the bulk of the forces are fighting drow, so we make it to the elder brain pool, where the orb is. The pool's defense is a Will save (DC 30, and we're 12th level) that affects anything hostile that comes within 1000 ft. My PC is the only one who makes it, and I fly in, hoping to maybe, just maybe steal the orb while the brain's distracted fighting a drow army.
As I fly in, I make spot checks. 880 ft. away. Can't see it. I would teleport in, but the area is dimensionally locked, so I'm stuck with just having to fly.
760 ft. Can't see it.
640 ft. Can't see it.
520 ft. Can't see it, but can make out figures in the center of the pool.
400 ft. Can't see it. Realize there are two illithids and three cloaked figures - sky elves, who are a sort of 'enemy of my enemy' of the drow.
280 ft. Can't see it.
160 ft. Can't see it.
90 ft. Stop outside of mind blast range, and spot the orb as the mind flayers hand it off to the robed figures. Meanwhile, a mass of roiling darkness -- the epic spell of the leader of the drow -- is forcing its way into the elder brain pool. I'm spotted.
Initiative is rolled, I win. I try to telekinesis the orb out of the guy's hand. He makes his Will save. He then planeshifts away with the orb. Which you can apparently do in an area with dimensional lock.
Now, I had an item that granted a wish, that I had earned after saving an Arabia-esque nation from a yuan-ti conspiracy and a dragon who tried to destroy the sultan. This is a very precious item to me, and I've been saving the wish for a while. I wish for the guy and the item to be back where the were, and for the guy to be unconscious. Well, I get the first part of my wish. He reappears. I cast silence on a rock and toss it at him, hoping to keep him there. He runs out of the silence field and plane shifts away.
So then I leave, link up with my stunned allies, and teleport out before the dark elf doomsday darkness spell kills us. We are miffed.
It's fine that the guy got away with the orb. What irritates me is that he waited until right when I was there to do it. It's like the villain just wanted to rub it into my face that I couldn't stop him, because he had plot protection.
Now logically, out of game, I know the GM just wanted a dramatic scene where the villain narrowly escapes so we have to chase him down. But timeline wise, this makes no sense. Would the drow have waited to attack if we had taken longer to get there? What would we have seen if I'd failed my will save? Would we just have gotten there and found nothing at all? We did so well, but the GM won't let us accomplish anything, because he wants the villains to get away.
Four different groups of villains are being manipulated by one villain so they set up the world for destruction. We're trying to stop this, and whenever we attempt to inform them they're being manipulated, they ignore us. They must just not have the same information we have. Yet somehow they are always a step ahead of us, and all the scrying and teleporting in the world won't let us get there before them.
Basically, all I'm saying to my DM is, you win. We cannot defeat your villains until the time you have chosen for us. We will not bother fighting mooks. We will wait until the end of the world is nigh, and then we'll teleport to the main boss and fight him. We're through running around. For the sake of making things different for once, why not let us stop a villain some time other than right before he is victorious. Maybe let us defeat a villain before he screws us.
I know I'm overreacting a bit, because we have defeated villains before. But it seems like it's never before they do their cool thing. I know you want to give us a challenging victory, with some people dying but hopefully us winning in the end. But, y'know, just once, why not let us win something small ahead of schedule?
You know how, when you play a video game RPG, and they say, "We've got to hurry before the train is derailed!" you don't actually have to hurry, because there's no real time limit? Like how, whenever you reach the final boss, the train will derail right after you beat him? Or how, no matter how many monster fights you flee from or how quickly you navigate the level, you'll always reach the end just in time to see the villain in a cut scene killing a key character from the game?
Well that's temporal railroading, and that's what happened in the game I played tonight. It is fine for video games, but not cool for person to person RPGs.
The quick version: We needed to steal the Orb of the Undead from a mind flayer city before an army of Drow stole the orb. A high-level dude tasks us with getting the orb, but refuses to come with us, because he has more important things to do. Sure, okay. Even though we've been told this orb will destroy the world, I guess the guy's busy. We're fine with that. We tell him we've got next to no chance of sneaking into a mind flayer city, and that there's not much point in going after the orb without his help, but he's higher level and an NPC, so he can't join our party, and we're fine with that.
He gives us a guide, and tells us it'll take a week for us to navigate the tunnels and get down to the mind flayer city. We find a way to get there in a day. We arrive just in time to sneak in while the dark elves are assailing the mind flayer city. We fight a few illithids and their minions, but the bulk of the forces are fighting drow, so we make it to the elder brain pool, where the orb is. The pool's defense is a Will save (DC 30, and we're 12th level) that affects anything hostile that comes within 1000 ft. My PC is the only one who makes it, and I fly in, hoping to maybe, just maybe steal the orb while the brain's distracted fighting a drow army.
As I fly in, I make spot checks. 880 ft. away. Can't see it. I would teleport in, but the area is dimensionally locked, so I'm stuck with just having to fly.
760 ft. Can't see it.
640 ft. Can't see it.
520 ft. Can't see it, but can make out figures in the center of the pool.
400 ft. Can't see it. Realize there are two illithids and three cloaked figures - sky elves, who are a sort of 'enemy of my enemy' of the drow.
280 ft. Can't see it.
160 ft. Can't see it.
90 ft. Stop outside of mind blast range, and spot the orb as the mind flayers hand it off to the robed figures. Meanwhile, a mass of roiling darkness -- the epic spell of the leader of the drow -- is forcing its way into the elder brain pool. I'm spotted.
Initiative is rolled, I win. I try to telekinesis the orb out of the guy's hand. He makes his Will save. He then planeshifts away with the orb. Which you can apparently do in an area with dimensional lock.
Now, I had an item that granted a wish, that I had earned after saving an Arabia-esque nation from a yuan-ti conspiracy and a dragon who tried to destroy the sultan. This is a very precious item to me, and I've been saving the wish for a while. I wish for the guy and the item to be back where the were, and for the guy to be unconscious. Well, I get the first part of my wish. He reappears. I cast silence on a rock and toss it at him, hoping to keep him there. He runs out of the silence field and plane shifts away.
So then I leave, link up with my stunned allies, and teleport out before the dark elf doomsday darkness spell kills us. We are miffed.
It's fine that the guy got away with the orb. What irritates me is that he waited until right when I was there to do it. It's like the villain just wanted to rub it into my face that I couldn't stop him, because he had plot protection.
Now logically, out of game, I know the GM just wanted a dramatic scene where the villain narrowly escapes so we have to chase him down. But timeline wise, this makes no sense. Would the drow have waited to attack if we had taken longer to get there? What would we have seen if I'd failed my will save? Would we just have gotten there and found nothing at all? We did so well, but the GM won't let us accomplish anything, because he wants the villains to get away.
Four different groups of villains are being manipulated by one villain so they set up the world for destruction. We're trying to stop this, and whenever we attempt to inform them they're being manipulated, they ignore us. They must just not have the same information we have. Yet somehow they are always a step ahead of us, and all the scrying and teleporting in the world won't let us get there before them.
Basically, all I'm saying to my DM is, you win. We cannot defeat your villains until the time you have chosen for us. We will not bother fighting mooks. We will wait until the end of the world is nigh, and then we'll teleport to the main boss and fight him. We're through running around. For the sake of making things different for once, why not let us stop a villain some time other than right before he is victorious. Maybe let us defeat a villain before he screws us.
I know I'm overreacting a bit, because we have defeated villains before. But it seems like it's never before they do their cool thing. I know you want to give us a challenging victory, with some people dying but hopefully us winning in the end. But, y'know, just once, why not let us win something small ahead of schedule?
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