Terrible Encounters Session

[Locutus Zero]

Last night I had a terrible Encounters session that I wanted to share. My girlfriend had been wanting to get into DnD, so I figured an Encounters session would be perfect. We go down to my FLGS last night and the DM I had played with last season had a full table, so we played under a DM I didn't know.

The session started out pretty bad, as she quickly, quietly, and with no character, read through paragraphs of dialogue and descriptions. When it came time for us to speak to an NPC, she would, without pause, tell us what we said to the NPC and then give us the NPC's answer. This lasted at least five minutes.

For those who are familiar with the adventure, we ended up fighting the Twigs and the Shadow Bolter. I only know this because I looked up the adventure later. They were referred to in the encounter as "bad guys". We were never given a description of what it was we were fighting, just little black circles on a piece of paper. When it got to my turn I asked "So... what am I seeing?" "That monster is in a tree and.. " "No, I mean like, what are these things we started attacking?" "Uh... plants."

Anyway, we quickly did away with the "plants" and were left with some humanoid, seemingly magic ranged opponent. No description. I know it was humanoid because she used a mini for it. I now know this was a Shadow Bolter. The bolter was attacking from inside a house, so a couple of PCs went in and started fighting her. On my turn I saw that I couldn't get to her going through the front door (I was a melee character) so I asked how tall the wall next to the house was, planning to go around to the back door. I was told the wall was 10 feet high. A wall next to a 3-room cottage. I now know that the wall was supposed to be treated as difficult terrain (it was a small stone fence). The DM started bragging about how she had bottlenecked us. Long story short, I used 3 moves (action point) to go the long way around through the fence door (the 10 foot tall door I guess) and ran, so that I could end up adjacent to her, so my defender stuff could trigger.

This would be the time to point out that every time someone attacked the bolter, they took damage and the bolter did not. I THINK it was only for melee attacks, but the DM was terrible at explaining to us what was going on. She relished our being confused and making the wrong choices, but didn't give us basic descriptions of what was happening.

Anyway, on the bolters turn, she attacked me for crazy damage, used an action point, and attacked me for crazy damage again. In two attacks I went from full plus 2 temp HP, to below negative bloodied value.

I had trouble believing a monster in Encounters could possibly kill a character in one turn, so I found the adventure online and looked it up.

-the bolter does not have an AP, nor does anything in this entire adventure
-the bolter does not have any mechanic where it reflects damage
-the bolter deals a max of 18 damage on a turn, not the 23-30 she was dealing
-the bolter is supposed to flee if anyone enters the house
-the house is not meant to be an unfun bottleneck, the fences are EASILY scaleable (just difficult terrain)

The DM just LOVED that she was winning. I don't see how that's something to be proud of when you design your own ridiculous enemy and put it in a place where half the players can't interact with it.

I guess I'm complaining because this person is representing DnD to new people. Thankfully my girlfriend says this didn't sour her to DnD, but imagine a kid walking in to play DnD for the first time and playing with this DM.

Edit: I forgot to mention, at least twice, maybe three times during the game, the DM asked to see my or my girlfriend's power, because she had trouble believing we could do as much damage as we were doing (it really wasn't much, just things like an at will with an encounter boost, coming from a defender). She spent about 60 seconds each time, reading over the powers. At the end she looked over one of our sheets, I'm pretty sure she was looking for hax. I get doing that if someone is doing crazy stuff with their character, but I can assure you we were doing pretty run of the mill stuff. I just loved that she thought WE were cheating.

 

[Mengu]

Sympathize with your bad experience. But at least, one good thing came out of this. You know who not to play with again.

 

[Lindeloef]

Sounds to me you got a someone new to DMing and playing for the wrong reasons. Sorry to hear. But at least your Girlfriend is still open for DnD.

 

[Ryujin]

Doesn't twisting the crap out of an "Encounters" session go explicitly against the whole concept of the thing? That sucks.

 

[OnlineDM]

I would XP Ryujin if I hadn't apparently done so recently. Yep, making big changes to the Encounters sessions is definitely not what the DM is supposed to do. The DM is specifically instructed about how to adjust the difficulty level of the encounter, such as if the party has more or fewer than 5 players (the default party size) or if the PCs are mostly lower-level (the encounters assume level 2 PCs in the current chapter).

The way the DM is supposed to adjust things is by adding or subtracting some of the lowest-level non-minion creatures in an encounter. In this encounter, that would be the non-minion plant creatures. She is NOT supposed to basically ramp up the level of the highest-level creature in the combat, and certainly not by doubling or tripling its damage and giving it an action point.

So yeah, you ran into a lousy DM. That's a bummer. We're not all like that, I promise!

 

[Saracenus]

As someone who coordinates 6 tables a week of Encounters it is a bummer to hear about such a poor experience with a DM.

When the program began last year we had a lot of this going on because folks didn't understand that this was an introduction to the game of D&D and that running encounters with full tactical and/or upgunning the opposition with new players was a quick way to scare them away.

From day one my judges know that they are to gauge the experience level of the players (not the characters) and make adjustments to their DM style to accommodate it. Those that couldn't no longer DM for me (thankfully I have had few problems in that regard).

Hopefully your girlfriend will not be put off by this and will give it another go (I would make sure that someone you trust is behind the screen if she does).

Please extend my apologies to her from a completely different city and store for a painful first time from a horrible DM (One that I would bounce out the door of the store I run games from).

 

[TerraDave]

Sadly, you can have been playing at any con or event over the last 30 years and had an experience like that.

 

[Mirtek]

I guess I'm complaining because this person is representing DnD to new people. Thankfully my girlfriend says this didn't sour her to DnD, but imagine a kid walking in to play DnD for the first time and playing with this DM.

Then stop complaining and DM yourself. I don't know if your area is the big exception, but since the days of Living Greyhawk the most common shortage is DM shortage.

Oh, how many players do you think we'll be able to host this game day? Exactly how as many as we can convince people to DM.

Thus bad DMs are recruited and people are glad for it, since most think better a bad DM than no DM at all.

People even come back to bad DMs, because the only alternative is usually to go home and not play at all, because all other tables are full and there are plenty of other surplus players glad to take the share.

Of course the other alternative, DMing yourself, is hardly considerd

 

[Ryujin]

Then stop complaining and DM yourself. I don't no if your area is the big exception, but since the days of Living Greyhawk the most common shortage is DM shortage?

Oh, how many players do you think we'll be able to host this game day? Exactly how as many as we can convince people to DM.

Thus bad DMs are recruited and people are glad for it, since most think better a bad DM than no DM at all.

People even come back to bad DMs, because the only alternative is usually to go home and not play at all, because all other tables are full and there are plenty of other surplus players glad to take the share.

Of course the other alternative, DMing yourself, is hardly considerd

Actually there are two other possibilities; be fed up because an ambassador of the game left a bad taste in your mouth, or start a home game and stay away from Encounters.

 

[Locutus Zero]

I do DM, but not Encounters. I have actually been considering DMing Encounters, but next month I move to Chapel Hill, NC, where there are zero gaming stores.