The Fine Art of Quitting a Bad Game

[Keifer113]

If your relationship is strong, you won't have anything to worry about. Getting hot and bothered about this sort of thing is an indication, to me, that a DM doesn't have much confidence in the enjoyability of his own game.

I thought before I posted if I was being insecure....I guess the issue is more to teach the original poster to think before acting, and that maybe I and my group were not the problem.

 

[Storm Raven]

I thought before I posted if I was being insecure....I guess the issue is more to teach the original poster to think before acting, and that maybe I and my group were not the problem.

Trying to "teach someone a lesson", either via a message board, or via an RPG game, is almost always a bad idea.

 

[Umbran]

I will not sit here and type out the numerous things that Agent Oracle did wrong at our gaming table. I just want, before everyone else reads these posts, for people to remember there are two sides to every story, and before you empathsize with someone, try and find out all sides to the issue. As an end note, we were trying to find a nice way to let Agent Oracle know he was not a fit in our game club, and that his social and gaming skills needed alot of work.

Welcome to the boards, Keifer113!

While I agree that there are two sides to every story, we don't want the two sides working out their differences here. Given the anonymity of the internet, there is no need or call for you to defend yourself, your honor, or your methods to us. So, please let the subject drop.

Please feel free to look around, though, and see if there are other things here that strike your fancy.

 

[icedrake]

I thought before I posted if I was being insecure....I guess the issue is more to teach the original poster to think before acting, and that maybe I and my group were not the problem.

AO was looking for advice on what to do. Of course everything posted by him's skewed towards his POV, that's only natural. The people responding assumed good faith on either side, you as the DM or AO as the disgruntled player, and offered their ideas on how to politely remove himself from the game. Thank you for clarifying the dues about the gaming club, as its a very curious idea to pay money play in a game group and this puts things in a new perspective.

Simply put, AO needed some outside perspectives to help resolve his internal debate about your game. There's nothing really to angry over except some impolite choice of phrases made by AO. Regardless of the situation, I hope both sides can peaciable conclude this and politely part ways.

 

[Keifer113]

I'd say you have things exactly backwards. Being a good DM requires that you not be a control freak. You must be willing to let go and allow the players the freedom to control the direction of the action, because if their choices aren't the most important element of the game, you may a well be writing a story rather than DMing. BA is puched around by his players because he is a bad DM who is trying to be a control freak. Brian and Nitro are 'legends of DMing" in Hackmaster, a game system that is a lampoon of bad D&D and RPGing to begin with - taking their "control freak" attributes as indicating that is a "good thing" for DMing is sort of like taking Basil Fawlty's character attributes as an example of those that make a great innkeeper.

So you don't believe a DM should control what magic items the party has access to? Which is what I presume you are referring to when you say I am a control freak lol. I let them choose in the game what path they get to take. If anything, I wish they would roam around and talk to more people. I agree about DM's who totally control the game to the point to where they might as well be telling a story.

At the same time, a DM has to exert control to move the plot along. What happens if the players decide to try and climb a wall, and keep missing the DC over and over and over, and then give up, not realizing they have to go that way? As DM, I never give out DC's, so I can juggle and fudge things. Same with combat. No one wants to die when the wandering monster kobold crits you, backs it up, and scores max damage. This is part of being a control freak IMHO.

The groups other DM used to always write adventures where no matter what you did, you always went from A to B to C to D. We as players pretty much were along for the ride. Then he wrote a great Ravenloft adventure, and instead of us doing some investigating, we pretty much waited around for him to move us along. I felt he was frustrated, as much as we were, because we had been so used to the old method.

 

[Storm Raven]

So you don't believe a DM should control what magic items the party has access to? Which is what I presume you are referring to when you say I am a control freak lol. I let them choose in the game what path they get to take. If anything, I wish they would roam around and talk to more people. I agree about DM's who totally control the game to the point to where they might as well be telling a story.

Not really. Sure you can set limits on the types of magic items players have access to, but they should have some input into their own equipment, especially if you are starting the characters at high level. Saying "no magic items for your characters unless I give them to you" is, in my experience, a bad idea.

At the same time, a DM has to exert control to move the plot along. What happens if the players decide to try and climb a wall, and keep missing the DC over and over and over, and then give up, not realizing they have to go that way? As DM, I never give out DC's, so I can juggle and fudge things.

As a DM, I'd say that if the PCs choose a different path, then they should be able to choose a different path. Never put something in your campaign that the PCs "have" to do. Because if they don't, you have to either force them back to do it, or the campaign is derailed. And, as DM you should know what the capabilities of your party are - their Climb skill and other climbing resources are not a mystery to you. So you should decide ahead of time how difficult you want it to be for your PCs to climb the wall - do you want them to be able to Take 10 and climb it? Take 20? Harder, requiring special gear and Aid Another checks? (In the last example, you really should not make climbing the wall a necessary option).

Same with combat. No one wants to die when the wandering monster kobold crits you, backs it up, and scores max damage. This is part of being a control freak IMHO.

I let the PCs die in those circumstances. Everyone is unlucky sometimes, and sometimes it kills you. If you only risk death (or similar negative consequences) under special circumstances, why are you even bothering to play out the other encounters?

 

[FireLance]

So you don't believe a DM should control what magic items the party has access to?

I think my answer to this question would surprise you.

 

[airwalkrr]

I once joined a new campaign for three or four sessions. We all started at level 1. I was a cleric. We had a sorcerer, a druid, and a rogue. After the first session we were all level 3 and had earned about 100 gp in treasure. The DM wouldn't even allow us to sell the morningstars and leather armor from the bugbears we had killed because they were "nasty bugbear equipment." After the third or fourth session of this continuing nonsense and the evolution of a plot involving an epic level necromancer who clearly didn't fit into the Dalelands, I stopped attending. The last session was the first one I didn't attend. Apparently only two of the players showed up, and they both left early. The campaign never continued after that.

It is because of this and many similar games that I now DM 90% of the time. I enjoy playing, but to be blunt, I am a stickler for rules and I simply don't have a good time when I know that the DM knows very little about balancing encounters, creating exciting challenges, and simply good storytelling. I admit I'm hard to please though. I expect my DMs to run a campaign like I would run one and that will never realistically happen so until I pull the major stick out of my ass or find a DM who is totally on my wavelength, I will be mostly sticking with DMing.

 

[d20Dwarf]

As long as the DM doesn't know Krav Maga, just tell him the truth.

 

[Fishbone]

Be polite about it. If asked for reasons give them honestly. Just say it isn't your thing and walk away. Now walking away can be a scary thing at first. Believe, I've been there before. The first time I walked on a game I was terrified. I mean, here I am living in some podunk Wisconsin backwater thinking that it would be months. I was gaming online in 20 days and in a more compatible local group within a month. Dungeons and Dragons is played by so many people that you don't have to be a slave to the group.