D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[Guest 6801328]

Upthread, you yourself posted about wanting the GM to curb your decision-making in the interests of "the plot". As a player, I have had that sort of experience and ultimately it has led me to leaving games or being part of the "sacking" of a GM. As a GM - which for the past 20 years has been far-and-away my predominant role at the table - I don't see that sort of thing as part of my responsibility.

To be clear, I was not advocating the kind of DMing I experienced in that story. I was asking if that's what casualoblivion is worried about. It wasn't (and isn't) sitting right with me, even though I can acknowledge that the DM was trying to ensure a fun game and wasn't just being a jerk. And, yeah, it bugged me having my relatively small powergaming attempt get squashed. That said, I also *want* the DM to have the power to bend the rules to make a better story, even if I whine when he does so in a way that I don't like.

And I don't find that 5e rules particularly enable such "thumb on the scale" DMing. I've seen it in many games, and have also experienced its absence in many games. The difference is mostly the DM, and only a tiny bit because of the rules.

 

[BryonD]

There were then a series of relatively hostile responses to the OP, which to my mind effectively reinforced the concerns that had initially been expressed, by emphasising the extent to which 5e hands control over the fiction, and action resolution, to the GM as compared to the players.

I'd say this point strongly exposes the issue of preconceptions on the conversation.

Again, system vs. DM judgement is huge.


But the preconception of how much control a DM should have in a TTRPG which appeals to the widest mass of players ("the big tent") is critically important.
The OP is effectively saying "if the core system doesn't cater to me it is flawed". But "cater to me" is explained in ways which very clearly call out the way a clear strong section of the market prefer. If you don't read that OP with the preconception that its claim is true, it is very easy to see it as starting off hostile, at very least as "relatively hostile" as the referenced responses.

Again, not "making this about 4E" but as a very applicable analogy, I was never shy about being critical of 4E for being a small tent system. But I never claimed that my personal positions were the definition of what would appeal to the large tent. There were even multiple occasions when I flat out stated the opposite in that a game I loathed *could* be a big tent and that would be a good thing. (To be clear, I don't dispute that I claimed my tastes were more aligned with the popular demand in some specifics)

The OP doesn't take this approach at all. It dives right in with expecting the game to come to him personally.

 

[Ancalagon]

In my case when I was the one going "whohoo monsters!", usually:

1. The planning stage took too long
2. The planners were bad at it and the plan was always too complex
3. The DM wasn't particularly willing to go along

All three at once

1 is a problem that can be fixed, 2 is... a bit problematic. Can you give a brief example of too complex? 3 can only be solved by a frank conversation between the group and the DM

Sometimes I didn't go "whohoo monsters!", particularly when I didn't think we would win a direct conflict. In those cases, I often refused to participate in the plan, and would watch from the sidelines while the plan failed, and rush in to cover the inevitable escape at the last minute.

The "often" part here is very troubling. Refusing to fight but swooping in to the rescue is indicative of a dysfunctional table.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

1 is a problem that can be fixed, 2 is... a bit problematic. Can you give a brief example of too complex? 3 can only be solved by a frank conversation between the group and the DM



The "often" part here is very troubling. Refusing to fight but swooping in to the rescue is indicative of a dysfunctional table.

I'd say about 75% of the instances of this scenario happened within a single campaign, so I'll describe the situation there.

For #2 the 17 step plan where every step had to go exactly right described by the post I was responding to was pretty accurate. For #3 that conversation did, in fact happen, more than once, actually. It didn't change anything.

That being said, the campaign was fairly disfunctional at that point. The campaign was run as a public game by the owner of the FLGS we all hung out at. His policy was that he wasn't going to refuse a seat to a paying customer, and we had a problem player who didn't really fit in well with the game who was the source of most of the problems. The cockamamie plans were almost universally his doing, and he had two players he was friends with outside the game who followed his lead(players the rest of us had no problems with when he wasn't around). In a table of 8 players, it was him and those two, me opposing him with two people mostly following my lead but usually ended up participating in his shenanigans, and two wallflowers who sat on the fence but privately admitted were annoyed with him.

As for the sitting on the fence part, his plans were ridiculous and there was no reasonable purpose to agree with them, as a player or as a PC, so I refused. They often went on and did them without me, by their own choice, which universally ended in disaster because the DM really wasn't willing to play ball. Even after making that clear, he continued do it. It got a little better after his plans failed so many times people often weren't willing to follow him without my participation(I was the most competent player, and had the strongest and highest level character), but it didn't stop things completely. Swooping in was kind of the DMs thing, which became our thing. He didn't want to TPK everybody because one player was an idiot, so he used me as Deus Ex Machina to get them out of stuff. I was completely surprised by it the first time. We kind of limped along for a few months before the game imploded. We started a new campaign with the same people and the same problems and that one also imploded but rather quickly this time, as by now everybody was sick of him including the DM. The DM/owner turned the game over to another DM who didn't own the store, and he was encouraged to go game someplace else.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'd say about 75% of the instances of this scenario happened within a single campaign, so I'll describe the situation there.

For #2 the 17 step plan where every step had to go exactly right described by the post I was responding to was pretty accurate. For #3 that conversation did, in fact happen, more than once, actually. It didn't change anything.

That being said, the campaign was fairly disfunctional at that point. The campaign was run as a public game by the owner of the FLGS we all hung out at. His policy was that he wasn't going to refuse a seat to a paying customer, and we had a problem player who didn't really fit in well with the game who was the source of most of the problems. The cockamamie plans were almost universally his doing, and he had two players he was friends with outside the game who followed his lead(players the rest of us had no problems with when he wasn't around). In a table of 8 players, it was him and those two, me opposing him with two people mostly following my lead but usually ended up participating in his shenanigans, and two wallflowers who sat on the fence but privately admitted were annoyed with him.

As for the sitting on the fence part, his plans were ridiculous and there was no reasonable purpose to agree with them, as a player or as a PC, so I refused. They often went on and did them without me, by their own choice, which universally ended in disaster because the DM really wasn't willing to play ball. Even after making that clear, he continued do it. It got a little better after his plans failed so many times people often weren't willing to follow him without my participation(I was the most competent player, and had the strongest and highest level character), but it didn't stop things completely. We kind of limped along for a few months before the game imploded. We started a new campaign with the same people and the same problems and that one also imploded but rather quickly this time, as by now everybody was sick of him including the DM. The DM/owner turned the game over to another DM who didn't own the store, and he was encouraged to go game someplace else.

Something...hard to pin down exactly what...tells me there's another side to this story.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Something...hard to pin down exactly what...tells me there's another side to this story.

There really isn't. I can try to answer specific questions if you're curious.

 

[Ancalagon]

[MENTION=59096]thecasualoblivion[/MENTION] :

Was the DM not willing to play ball because he didn't want the PCs to mess up his precious encounter, or because the plan was stupid?

And if the plans were so bad, why did everyone else go along?

I don't think you can use such a bad game as a basis on how things should be run, incidentally...

 

[Umbran]

I
There were then a series of relatively hostile responses to the OP, which to my mind effectively reinforced the concerns that had initially been expressed, by emphasising the extent to which 5e hands control over the fiction, and action resolution, to the GM as compared to the players.

It seems to me that it is about the same extent as every other version of D&D.

The idea that a player would be allowed to build a broken game element into his/her PC, and then expected to constrain his/her action declarations in respect of it; or the GM expected to block the use of that element from time-to-time in order to maintain balance (or, if the issue is underpower, "throw a bone" from time-to-time); is something that I see flagged in threads like this, including in this very thread. It's not an idea that I favour in my own RPGing.

You know, of course, that there are genres for which this is a staple element. Superhero fiction, especially, is rife with, "the hero is too powerful, and must be taken down a notch to make this story work" (I'm looking at you, Superman!). There's also lots of, "apparently otherwise ineffectual character somehow has key role to play" elements in fiction as well - pretty much any sidekick character winds up here from time to time.

I don't want to suddenly discover, part way through, that the system has let me down and hence that the stakes actually were not what I had taken them to be, and had signalled to my players.

Well, there's an issue of making perfect the enemy of good, here. You don't want to discover this, but no system is perfect. We must all be prepared to be surprised.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

[MENTION=59096]thecasualoblivion[/MENTION] :

Was the DM not willing to play ball because he didn't want the PCs to mess up his precious encounter, or because the plan was stupid?

And if the plans were so bad, why did everyone else go along?

I don't think you can use such a bad game as a basis on how things should be run, incidentally...

The DM didn't play ball because the plans were stupid. His words, when I talked to him about it outside of game. It also wasn't really the game we had been playing, this player joined about 8 months after the campaign began after a seat opened up when once of us went to away to college.

As I said, he had to guys who were his friends out of game and he was a dominant sort of personality. The rest of the players kind of went along out of solidarity. I'm more of an outsider/loner type in real life, and I was on a serious method actor kick at the time and that sort of stuff was completely against what my character was about.

The story has nothing to do with how the game should be run. The DM and me were on the same page, he just wasn't willing to do anything about it because of the owner/customer thing, which again was something he specifically said to me when I complained to him. This was a player problem.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There really isn't. I can try to answer specific questions if you're curious.

Sure. Can you connect me with the guy you didn't like so I can get his version and post it here?

"Yeah, he pretty much got it right. He was an amazing player, and my plans were terrible, so the reason that group imploded was 100% my fault."