When your game starts turning into Velveeta

[Iron_Chef]

My advice, short of finding new players or severely tweaking the rules on your own, would be to try a magic rare low fantasy setting and rules set like Conan or (gasp!) HarnMaster. Also watch for the upcoming A Game of Thrones RPG.

It's almost impossible to find the kind of cheesy power gaming when the rules and setting don't permit it, at least nowhere near the same degree as D&D does (admit it, WoTC encourages this kind of cheese). I enjoy D&D and high magic as much as the next guy (at least to a certain degree), but I prefer grim and gritty. Switching over will be a real eye-opening change of pace for you and your players...

 

[pogre]

I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest you do go on and play in the epic levels. You do have some wonderful positives in your group it sounds like:

1st - You seem to know your players - they are power gamers - they love stuff - they love options and they love to control and dominate the game with cool equipment tricks. It's all part of what makes the game fun for them.

2nd - They think about the campaign and are involved - sure it is motivated by cheese, but still you keep them coming back and they keep cookin' up new tricks.

My advice:
Let them run wild. Allow more things instead of seeking ways to limit the game let more in. Let them fight deities, destroy cities, and rule nations - they are going to love you for it.

Now if you cannot have fun running a game like this - I have another suggestion: Why not run the epic campaign every third or fourth session while you run your scaled back campaign during the other times? You can always say the epic game just takes more time to prep for - undoubtedly true - and your uberpower players can still flex their demi-god muscles from time to time. There's nothing wrong with playing a cheesy game as long as you can find some fun in it. Good luck!

 

[Ravlek]

My advice:
1. start over at 1st level
2. give out 1/2 the listed XP awards
3. use only the core rules unless you have had sufficient time to evaluate additions
4. work on your adventures to make them interesting - find ways to entertain the players other than throwing gobs of goodies at them

#3 bears repeating-
3. use only the core rules unless you have had sufficient time to evaluate additions


It's better to be too stingy than too generous. You can always give more later. Taking things back doesn't always go over so well.

 

[Eye Tyrant]

Nope. At least not in 3.5.



It used to be a free action in 3.0.

So, two disks retrieved per round, max.

Thanks for that! I think that is something of a problem in my game, some players remembering 3.0 rules vice 3.5 and getting them (and us) confused.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Thanks for that! I think that is something of a problem in my game, some players remembering 3.0 rules vice 3.5 and getting them (and us) confused.

Of course, Handy Haversacks are limited by weight, and that is a very small amount IMO.

 

[eris404]

My advice:
Let them run wild. Allow more things instead of seeking ways to limit the game let more in. Let them fight deities, destroy cities, and rule nations - they are going to love you for it.

Now if you cannot have fun running a game like this - I have another suggestion: Why not run the epic campaign every third or fourth session while you run your scaled back campaign during the other times? You can always say the epic game just takes more time to prep for - undoubtedly true - and your uberpower players can still flex their demi-god muscles from time to time. There's nothing wrong with playing a cheesy game as long as you can find some fun in it. Good luck!

I love this advice and I think you are right. I can definitely see both sides of this, that what the player(s) came up with can seem abusive and powergamerish, but on the other hand, the players were being creative and ingenious, something you don't want to punish them for. I remember an article Monte Cook wrote some time ago about running high level games and one of the tips I liked best was simply to let the PC be badasses once in a while. Maybe you could come up with some encounter that depends on them using those discs in order to solve the puzzle or beat the bad guy; that way they get to shine.

 

[painandgreed]

Byron's Ghost - They only carry them around, they haven't attempted to use them from their sack/bag and I think they always intended to retrieve the plates first... and for the haversack that is a free action IIRC.

painangreed - I have informed them of this as well (most recently in the case of the spell Spell Vulnerability from the Planar Handbook which someone else has a thread on).

IMHO, it sounds like everything is under control. They've adventured and gotten soem old spells and items that give them the advantage but don't seem to be abusing them.

What's the point of putting the effort into getting neat items and being creative enough to put them to good use, if everything gets retconed to 'balance' out the game again? I was in one campaign where we had a person who was good at finding ways to apply various spells or using various, usually unremembered powers of said spells in neat and creative ways. The DM kept altering the rules each time that there had to be a book of errata to keep track of the changes he made. After awhile, it became frustrating because no matter how creative you were, how you planned it out, what you did to give yourself the advantage (even if you sacrificed other things), the game was always changed to the point that it was 'challenging' again. In other words, nothing the players did could make a difference.

 

[Eye Tyrant]

I appreciate all the feedback, there are a lot of great points made here. I definitely don't claim to be the world's best DM, even if I have been doing it for almost 20 years, it is a position that no one else I game with wants. I think the biggest problem for me right now is that I'm burned out on it, burned out on trying to pose definite challenges to my players and being "one-upped" every time. I will keep all this in mind when I start my next campaign. This campaign is nearing the end and so I will likely not ban anything that I have already been allowing. I'll simply let them enjoy their Velveeta sandwiches and inform them that the next campaign I run will include a VERY long government-cheese line.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Sounds to me like you're best bet is to wrap up the campaign quickly and go on to something totally different.

A good way to get the players out of the powergaming mindset is to run some Call of Cthulhu, especially the old BRP system where their stats never go up and every "power" that they get ends up severely hurting them. That'll show 'em!

Anyway, hope things get worked out with your group.

 

[Rackhir]

Yeah and don't forget to make food too expensive to afford. It's hard for charcters to accumulate much power if they have to spend all their money on food. If you make a meal as expensive as a large iron shield they'll never be able to afford anything good. I had one DM who actually did this, fortunately we never managed to reach third level so we weren't accused of being munchkins.