This game is ridiculous -- same problems for years

[ppz]

Heh, It's kinda like when new players decide to start with level 20 characters. Those games will always be messed up, and the players will almost always complain. My experiences...

I'm still fairly new to this whole thing. I started about a year ago with 3.5, and we started with level 5 characters. The party was a somewhat experienced DM with mostly new players (6 or 7 PC's). It didn't work so well. We tried a new party at 8th level and it was even worse. Then our DM suggested we build our characters from level 1 so we can figure out all the basics and learn how to run combat and adventures with much fewer options from which to choose.

We died a lot (like all 1st level parties), but we had a blast. We worked our way up to about 6th level on average (PC's that died came back at ave party level - 1) and I was almost at 8th when my mage bit it to an invisible rogue with see invis and elf bane arrows. Most of us had figured out how to manage our individual characters, but we didn't have much party cohesiveness. So after a half-TPK, we are starting again, with a common race and alignment, to build a more party like adventure.

So whenever I see the cases listed above, the first thing I think is "They didn't start at 1st level, did they." Crawling before flying and all that.

 

[Darklone]

No it's not. Fantasy is about repetition. Play long enough and your players will end up doing the same things all over again and again and again and again...

 

[Mallus]

Problems?

Things like this...

He decided his character would kill Orcus, and after that his character became the new prince of the undead, with an unlimited amount of any undead to control, even an unlimited number of liches. The character also has some star destroyers he uses to fly around in space or to destroy planets.

... sound awesome.

Sometimes I think a role-playing game is a failure if it doesn't reduce your mental age to 12 (or so). That should be the real benchmark.

 

[Darkness]

Wow, if those are normal problems I wonder what abnormal problems look like.

Pun-pun and similar abominations, perhaps.

 

[Winterthorn]

IMHO it is about game management...

What was true then is true now, and can even apply to non-fantasy RPGs: the DM/GM has to be "on top of his game" so-to-speak. That ability, to master the management of a complex RPG, includes managing players as well as the rules - in the name of making it a fun hobby for all - requires experience. (It does help if the game rules are clear... )

I have always thought that the "Monty Haul" problem, and its affilliated issues, was more a fault of game referees loosing control of their game than the rules themselves (albeit there can be serious flaws in some game systems - but it's rare not to be able to "house rule" solutions in a game system if one really wants to play it).

I learned over 20 years to be a better DM from my disasters; not all of my earliest attempts at GM-ing various games systems were bad - indeed I had some good ones and good times too - but it was the bad ones that taught me to manage my game better. Hence my conclusion above...

But while GMs have the largest burden to make things work and not degenerate one way or another, the onus is not solely upon them! Players also have to make an ernest effort to get into the game and respect it's boundaries what ever they may be...

As is true in any successful human endeavour, we have to be communicating well to one another - and in gaming cut each other a little slack knowing that, heck, it's a game!

-W,

 

[jefgorbach]

Off-hand Im guessing the basic question is...Monty Haul really a problem or merely one of an infinite number of goals??

Using a real-world example, Bill Gates would be considered "Monty Haul" by any stretch of the imagination and achieved it by exploiting a loophole in the rules like any good PC "should" ... so is he any more right/wrong than the LE Priest preying on little boys who likewise follows his alignment, theme, but ignored whatever loopholes might apply to his "game".

 

[SavageRobby]

Ah, the good ole days.

 

[Slife]

I agree with the title. By now, this game should have completely different problems!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

What I want to know is how the guy with the Prismatic Sphere around him managaged to eat, sleep, etc.,

Wouldn't the sphere have ruined any food he tried to get as it passed through the layers. The same goes for sleeping. Wouldn't the sphere have destroyed his bed every time he tried to get in it?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Mycanid]

I always recall things like that when I read posts about how munchkinism was born and enabled with 3E and the halcyon days of 1E were free of such monstrocities.

WHoever said that the early days were free of such things must not have a very good memory.

Drove me crazy then and drives me crazy now.

Like Umbran said, some things never change.