Temporal railroading.

[Vigilance]

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

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Timetables, schedules, deadlines etc. are exciting if they're real. If they're just part of a set piece, they're yawnworthy.

The best set pieces are the ones you didn't create as set pieces. This is a law of D&D, henceforth to be known as P&P's law.

 

[gizmo33]

Sheesh people. GMs are people, not your personal entertainment centers.

IMO anyone that posts on these boards can expect to have their post taken seriously. RangerWickett's side of the story was the only side at the time. The degree to which it was accurate is the degree to which anyone's responses should be taken seriously - and most still stand on the principle. If I described a game session where one of my players tried to stab me because I wouldn't give him a +13 sword, then it would be the same issue. A bunch of people would post and say "you shouldn't stab people that don't give you magic items". And then later the offending player posts and says "well, I really just threw a spit ball at him". No one is going to retract their statements or feel bad about saying that you shouldn't stab DMs.

So here's how I see it: DMs IMO should not railroad PCs to the degree that their actions have no significant effect on the flow of the game. To what degree this applies to RangerWickett/Scipio is up to them - none of us were there. It's up to them to match our advice to what actually happened. They're just a couple of screen names, and they could be the same person for all I know. If the person using the Scipio screen name doesn't agree with the facts as presented by RangerWickett, then our comments should have little meaning. I would advise Scipio to see this as us criticizing a DM who doesn't exist - because if RangerWicketts assessment is not accurate - then that's pretty much the situation.

 

[RangerWickett]

Tom and I talked about it. I hadn't wanted to complain to him because, yeah, he's leaving soon, and I didn't want him to think I wasn't enjoying the game. I only really have gotten frustrated when the villains have escaped. That's just because I'm a sore loser.

I'm sorry that this thread got to the "your DM sucks" stage. I had ignorantly assumed that Tom had planned this in advance, and I'm sorry if my frustration got people to call Tom bad names, or point their fingers accusingly like the evil monkey that lives in Chris's closet.

To be fair, Tom then schooled us in Magic, and then me and my friend Neil schooled him in Soul Calibur. So it's all good. I just hope that when we play next, Tom, you don't fret too much about my complaints.