jdrakeh said:
For me, the crucial point is that, despite the player in question addressing the issue inappropriately, the DM not be relieved of all responsibility for creating an environment hostile to the players. I think it is evident that both parties bore a large degree of responsibility for creating a potentially unfun game environment.
The DM for created a campaign that completely deprotagonizes PCs in several different ways (by virtue of encounters that render PCs totally useless, or encounters that relegate PCs to second fiddle status because they require the intervention of NPCs to be overcome). This is confirmed by the several examples provided by Slaygrim. Bully for him if he thinks that this spells F-U-N, though I think one would be a fool to think that this kind of thing is considered fun by most players (or even by a large-ish minority of them).
Jdrakeh, I told you I read the entire thread. Don't tell me "confirmed by the several examples provided by Slaygrim" when it is in fact not. His game sounded pretty cool to me. Obviously one of us is the abnormal outlier whose opinions are not shared by the vast majority of gamers, and I don't think it's me.
I think using a high level caster who has already used many of his high level spells as an opponent is an interesting and unique idea. I'll have to try it sometime. I think throwing the occasional golem encounter at a caster is fair cop. (Especially at a wizard, who can always prepare different spells if his usual selection isn't working.)
Slaygrim probably made some mistakes. He admitted to doing too much railroading, and he didn't do enough to make the group aware of the tactical situation during one particular adventure. (Hidden ally on their side; good possibility the big bad wizard was already out of many of his most dangerous spells.)
That doesn't justify a constant stream of complaints in the middle of the game. If there's any possibility that any of the group is having fun, whining is going to kill it. A bad in-game situation is one thing, but a player who can't stop complaining about their bad rolls or bad tactical situation or dislike of something in the middle of the game is a killjoy of the first order. Whether there's justification behind the complaints or not, nobody wants to listen to it. Save the belly-aching for later.
The player in question apparently addressed this issue of unfun in a similarly inappropriate manner (I say "apparently" because we only have Slaygrim's word for it, and he's shown a willingness to flex the truth elsewhere in this thread by revising his initial posts to portray himself as totally blameless).
Again I read the whole thread, so this smearing of Slaygrim doesn't fly. I know what he said and didn't say.
If you're not going to accept his word that this guy was whining, why even reply to the thread?
Point being, making your campaign all about NPCs or ensuring that PCs have absolutely no chance to be heroic is as much a sure fire way to ruin the game for other players as throwing a fit about the DM's making his campaign all about NPCs or ensuring that PCs have absolutely no chance to be heroic is.
It's like you're posting from some parallel universe. "All about NPCs", "Absolutely no chance to be heroic"? Where do you even get that? It's like you just read Treasure Island and started complaining about how the pirates always win.
Because they had NPC back-up in one battle in one game session of a campaign? Bizarre. I think you're pretty far outside the mainstream of players here.
