Vigilance
Explorer
scipio said:I am the DM in question, and yes, I was unaware that Rangerwickett was so upset about our adventure last night. It would also surprise me somewhat if the other players had the same complaint, but I concede that they might.
While he has some of the mechanics details a little off (simply because of the iceberg mentioned above, esp with respect to the dimensional lock), I thought I adjuticated fairly during this episode.
The party used a wish from a cursed item to get to the site early. This item has been clearly shown to result in really bad results when used (its basically the Monkey's Paw); however, the player rolled very well using our luck system (d100, high=good). At the time, I thought getting to their destination faster while having the city of the enemy distracted would work, but still with the undesirable result of the other bad guys arriving - a tightrope walk IMHO.
The wish worked as stated in the DMG.
The "brain pool" was reacting to another threat.
Another player used a well-timed strategy to completely clear the path to the brain pool (I'm starting to hate that phrase)
The player who would normally spit in the high level NPC's face and refuse to go on his quest was not present at this adventure. I actually expected the group to refuse and go do something else entirely, i.e. the adventure I had planned (esp since the NPC and the players themselves thought the mission was both suicidal and unlikely to succeed - it's a city of Illithids!). It was an effort to introduce the NPC.
Rangerwickett failed to mention that they destroyed the Illithid brain pool (ugh, last one) and forced them all to flee the world.
The other issue is - I have 3 sessions at best to wrap up what would probably have taken months to resolve, since I'm leaving Atlanta forever. If things seem roughly planned or "temporally railroaded" I apologize to all my players.
As to what has happened in the past, this party has saved 2 cities, killing the BBEG in one and soundly defeating the other through good tactics, foiled an attempt to destroy a safe haven, and have killed reams of NPCs (I have no DMPCs, the guys in this last adventure weren't even statted out!).
So, I will take the typed out lashings of this thread in stride, and will talk to my players to find out what everyone wants for these final sessions...
Wow, I can only say... wow.
Reading the responses from the various people in this thread (including the "offended" player) and then reading the response from the other side was a real eye-opener.
Let's break this down.
1.) The DM was adlibbing an entire session, because he threw what he considered a suicide mission at the party and they bit the hook.
Let's keep than in mind. Anyone ad lib an entire session? I have, and you have a LOT going on. So not everything goes completely smoothly and occasionally niceties get overlooked.
In other words, if he wanted to REALLY railroad them he would have forced them into the adventure he WROTE and saved himself a lot of troubles and headaches.
2.) Said GM is leaving town in three weeks and trying to cover a lot of ground to give his friends closure on the campaign. I've been in this situation too and you do want to move things along.
I guess if you move at any pace other than the player's you are a railroading power hungry maniac.
3.) Said friend mentions none of his concerns to the GM, but instead airs his one-sided grievances on a public message board so everyone can join him in flogging his friend before he leaves town (maybe forever).
Sheesh people. GMs are people, not your personal entertainment centers.
It sounds like there were a lot of mitigating circumstances here.
Chuck