The stupid expectations of some DMs...

[reapersaurus]

If your prime motive as a PC is to stay alive, grow some apple trees and a open a fruit stand.

This is so wrong I really don't want to waste space pointing out the flaws.

And your blatantly extremist misrepresentation of "If you want the drudgery of everyday life, don't play D&D" (paraphrased) also was not accurate.

There's a big difference between being heroic (Conan, etc)
and suicidal (a DM who doesn't present any reason for the PC's to enter combat)
and boringly cautious (your extreme re-take)

 

[Falcon]

Hey Reaper,

I posited extreme stances to illuminate your own extreme statements. They are, one must admit, decontextualized and rather bleak.

In the last three years, I have been involved as a player in five campaigns (still playing in two--had to quit ohers because of work, or the DM had to step down), and have been DMing a campaign coming close to its one-year anniversary. I have experienced a lot, and from that I have NEVER experienced a DM who was not trying their best to make the campaign work for everyone involved, including themselves. We received emails recapping the adventure, praises, and queries as to how to move the campaign forward and make it work for everyone. And, the DM has had to play facilitator more than once between pissy players. But, we all had fun in the end and do lots of stuff outside of being heroes.

I guess I was lucky.

DMs, in my experience, have always solicited player AND PC feedback, had lives, and were genuinely interested in creating a communal experience of the campaign. And...they were always the DM. As a player, I love a story and a plot and character development, and I respect the effort a DM is putting into creating a social experience where we spend 10-20 hours/month in each others faces, where we live, we achieve glory, and renown, and we die. And we, as people, can go out afterwards or whenever, and have a beer or four, go to a baseball game, hang out, listening to jazz, go hiking, talk about D&D or whatever.

As a DM, I don't like to see a PC go down, and I try my best to engage players. If they are going to refuse to engage in any sort of mutual suspense of belief, and seem to be self-indulgent, myopic, and narcissistic in their gaming orientation, well then, my campaign is not for them.

Gaming, for me, is a social activity based on the assumption that people get together to enjoy each other's company, AND PLAY A GAME. If these are not being met, why continue to torture yourself and bitch about playing for incompetent DMs. Realize who your friends are, and do other things that you enjoy, or become the DM and do your best to create a lot of fun for the people you game with.

 

[JLXC]

This is so wrong I really don't want to waste space pointing out the flaws.

And your blatantly extremist misrepresentation of "If you want the drudgery of everyday life, don't play D&D" (paraphrased) also was not accurate.

There's a big difference between being heroic (Conan, etc)
and suicidal (a DM who doesn't present any reason for the PC's to enter combat)
and boringly cautious (your extreme re-take)

I, as a DM, have had too many players who constantly try to judge what is a difficult fight, and then run away when they think they've found one. They are so worried about their characters dying they don't care about the plot, their CHARACTERS motivations, nothing. They simply want to "Win", which means staying alive, getting XP and Gold, and avoiding any really dangerous combat. Some freaking heroes. Pathetic.

 

[Falcon]

Hey JLKC,

We are neighbors, geographically, and cause we like squirrels, and beer. Good to hear from you here!

 

[S'mon]

I, as a DM, have had too many players who constantly try to judge what is a difficult fight, and then run away when they think they've found one. They are so worried about their characters dying they don't care about the plot, their CHARACTERS motivations, nothing. They simply want to "Win", which means staying alive, getting XP and Gold, and avoiding any really dangerous combat. Some freaking heroes. Pathetic.

While caution can be taken to extremes, I think that cautious players who try to avoid dangerous fights should rarely if ever be condemned for this. Eg I recall a game I was playing recently where the 2nd level party approached a castle... and three ogres came out the front door. Much to the GM's annoyance, I persuaded the rest of the party that discretion was the better part of valour, and we retreated. I rather suspect that the GM hadn't actually looked at the ogre stats (CR2? Yeah, right) before springing that on us.

Conversely, last week in a game I ran, a large bear-like creature (goblin bear from Lost City of Gaxmoor intro, CR 6) appeared out of the trees while the party (ca 4th-6th level) was cooking breakfast, clearly after their meal. They let it start eating, then attacked it _in melee_ from all sides - including the low-AC, low-hp cleric, who promptly got ripped apart by the angry bear. This was a case of overconfidence resulting in death.

PCs should not IMO expect to be able to win every fight that's laid before them, and overconfidence is as big a failing as cowardice.

 

[LostSoul]

PCs should not IMO expect to be able to win every fight that's laid before them, and overconfidence is as big a failing as cowardice.

It can get annoying, though, when the players don't pick up on the DM's hints that "This creature shouldn't be messed with", and the encounter results in deaths; it gets even worse when the DM calls them "stupid" for playing the encounter improperly.

 

[S'mon]

It can get annoying, though, when the players don't pick up on the DM's hints that "This creature shouldn't be messed with", and the encounter results in deaths; it gets even worse when the DM calls them "stupid" for playing the encounter improperly.

I don't call my players stupid.
The cleric belonged to a new, inexperienced player - they didn't know that even regular bears are very tough in 3e. OTOH, in the real world one doesn't go into melee with a grizzly if one can help it, and they knew the cleric was relatively weak and vulnerable - in previous fights they'd kept her at the back providing healing support, but I guess they expected to kill the goblin bear with a round's worth of attacks. Them's the breaks - in the original module this encounter was presented as suitable for _1st level_ PCs - for a group of 4th to 6th it was certainly survivable (possibly by not attacking in the first place). I generally consider attacking big dumb animals for the XP to be rash but not necessarily stupid, given the potential XP gain. After killing it two of the survivors levelled up, AIR. And they did learn something from that fight, so the CR 6 XP award didn't seem unwarranted.

 

[reapersaurus]

I generally consider attacking big dumb animals for the XP to be rash but not necessarily stupid, given the potential XP gain.

I would consider attacking an animal who has every right to be there as they do just for the XP to be the worst kind of meta-gaming garbage.

 

[saduff]

There are alot of good points, but if you make a PC that is not a adventurer in and adventuring game then yes it will not work.

The DM needs to state what kinda of game is is running or agree with the players about what game to run.

 

[Kichwas]

I, as a DM, have had too many players who constantly try to judge what is a difficult fight, and then run away when they think they've found one.
...
and avoiding any really dangerous combat. Some freaking heroes. Pathetic.

When did you start DMing my last group?
"Ack! A commoner with a spoon, run away!"
It was either that or constant discussions on who to sell out to first and for how much.
They didn't just avoid dangerous combats, they tried to avoid anything associated with risk and one of the two players who actually had an 'adventurer' would get railed on out of character constantly for playing 'unrealisticly' or having 'obviously faked personas'. The other guy had enough -presence- that none of them dared jump him -to his face-.