When is it no longer heroic fantasy?

[Maggan]

The first I rescued, and brought to the doctor. The doctor declares him to have an incurable disease and decapitates him.

I'm terribly, terribly sorry but this was one of the funniest things I've read in a long, long time. Straight out of Monty Python, that one. I understand that it might not seem that funny to you, but to me that is comedy gold.

Not gaming gold, though. So I sympathise with your predicament.

You might try and go to a con together, and play with the DM as one player in your group. That way he can see how another DM runs the game, and you will all be a lot more secure critisicing or praising the DMing, make it "legit" to talk about it in a way you might not be able to do since you're frineds.

Showing is better than telling, IME.

/M

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

Since D&D is primarily about combat, and Call of Cthulhu about investigation, what do you want to play and what does your GM really want to play?

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Do you know what happened? The first I rescued, and brought to the doctor. The doctor declares him to have an incurable disease and decapitates him.

1.) That definitely has some Monty Pythonesque humor value, at least in my sick mind.

2.) You're right, there's nothing Heroic about it. I think he's one of those people who just doesn't get what Heroic means. Instead all he wants to do is DM Call of Cthulu or something of roughly the same survival horror genre. Only way it's going to get better is if you point out what's happening. So long as you're reasonable and not insulting it shouldn't cause trouble, and like you mention the other guy is in the same boat as you. Maybe a compromise of sorts could be agreed, like alternating campaigns.

 

[WayneLigon]

Don't get me wrong, he's a great storyteller and a great friend, but I just have a hard time stomaching this brand of D&D. Is there something wrong with me?

There is nothing wrong with you, and it actually sounds like your DM is a terrible storyteller. Even in a dark fantasy, a good storyteller knows how to craft an appropriate atmosphere and sense of tension or even hope. Even Call of Cthulhu has hope and sacrifice and the ability to have a happy ending... just not in the long term sense. But you can certainly have a great deal of success staving off The End for at least the length of your own lifetime. It almost sounds like your GM has read too many bad or shallow accounts of dark fantasy works and thinks that what he's doing is actually how the genre should work.

Is it even heroic fantasy anymore?

What you're describing isn't what I'd call heroic fantasy, but dark fantasy. A perfectly legitimate form of fantasy, but it doesn't sound like what you signed up for and it's not something that D&D does particularly well without severe tweaking and some pretty hefty buy-in from the players.

 

[pawsplay]

Hello all. I'm in a rough spot with my DM, and I'm looking for some advice. I currently hold the record for most characters killed by him, for two reasons: First, I don't build for the sake of being optimal, I try to build to be interesting to me. Second, I lose interest in the character I'm playing fairly quickly.

Those two things are probably related. You might enjoy yourself more if you invested in your characters. Take a concept you like, and optimize toward that concept. And think big enough for the level of play you're at; if your concept absolutely does not include enough competence to compete, your concept needs to be reworked. Heroic fantasy requires competence, and in game play, everyone should try to pull their weight.

As for heroic fantasy itself, few things work out. Boromir committed suicide by orc. Gandalf died and was revived by deus ex machina. The One Ring was destroyed by a minor NPC. In Elric's stories, a lot of what he accomplishes depends on his artifact weapon and actions by the gods. And a lot of it goes wrong. In Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser's first adventure, their girlfriends get killed by evil cultists, only a handful of whom they bring to justice. In the Trollslayer series, the trollslayer loses an eye. In Excalibur... well, I hate to tell you this, but Mordred wins and Arthur loses, but Mordred dies, too.

 

[Switchblade]

Heroic fantasy game? That doesn’t even sound like a game, let alone heroic.

I have played in a few “games” like that (fortunately not for a long time), where all you want to ask is if the GM can hand you the script to rehearse because you sure as hell don’t have free will and all you are there for is to roll dice if you are lucky. Which will be ignored if you don’t get the role the GM was after. If the GM wants to tell you a story fine, as long as you want to listen, but if you want to play a game and the GM doesn’t want to run one can get old fast.

Bottling it up is not going to change anything, if anything it will get worse if the GM doesn’t know there is a problem because they might think they are on the right lines. I’d have to advise having a word with the GM and let them know you are not having fun, that way at least there is the possibility of improvement (from your point of view). Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that. If that fails then you have do decide if you’d have more fun playing as is or quitting and spending your time doing something else. If all you are there for is hanging out with your mates you can quite easily do that down the pub without the distraction of keeping track of some pesky plot.

Personally as a GM I’d quite like constructive feedback so I can know if I’m doing anything wrong as we are all there to have fun but all my blasted players are far to polite. Or have low standards. The second one is more likely come to think about it.

 

[shilsen]

Five words:

Talk. To. The. DM.

 

[prospero63]

Hello all. I'm in a rough spot with my DM, and I'm looking for some advice. I currently hold the record for most characters killed by him, for two reasons: First, I don't build for the sake of being optimal, I try to build to be interesting to me. Second, I lose interest in the character I'm playing fairly quickly.

CDD - Character Deficit Disorder. Know that you are not alone. It's a common ailment among gamers.

I finally realized why for both reasons today: I can't find any bit of "heroic" in the heroic fantasy game. I can summarize the last three campaigns I've played with him as DM with one plotline. There's a big evil about to take over the world, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Once we were involved in "battling" pit fiends and balors at level three. Then we were placed against a full on army at level five in the next campaign. Finally, the latest has us "fighting" vampires. We're level one. The reason for the quotations is that we never actually do any fighting. We're expected to run away, and are told as much. The fighting we do is never actually connected to the big evil in the world, we're just reminded of how inferior we are whenever they show up.

Ah yes, the ITS (integral to storyline) bit is set to 1. I've had this happen as a player before as well. It's actually quite frustrating. I've been of the opinion that, by and large, the DM provides the framing of the story, and the player drive it. Short of talking to your DM about this, I don't know what you can do really. In our case, we decided that someone else in the group needed to take over DM duties.

 

[Bacris]

Sounds to me that what he really wants to do is write a gritty survival horror novel, rather than run a D&D campaign.

My thoughts exactly.

What you have is an extemely severe case of railroading to meet the DMs idea of how the plot should progress. I have heard worse, but not by much. (Friends of mine played with a DM who actually said, "Ok, let's rewind by ten minutes because that's not what's supposed to happen.")

 

[Davewolf]

Had exactly the same thing happen with a party of six players, we kept at it for about seven months then had a quiet word with the GM about how we felt (pretty much as the OP). Said GM threw the biggest 'hissyfit' I've ever seen in 30 years of gaming, told us we were ruining his story, told the one person who didn't complain that 'he hoped the player was happy for forcing him to stop the campaign' and stormed out. GM refused to talk to any of us for more than a year afterwards, and the uncomplaining player had to be talked out of giving up playing by the rest of us.
To the OP, Talk by all means, but be aware that you're probably not going to find him sympathetic and may well be better off just not playing for a month or two.

Regardless, best of luck!