Why the fear and hatred of Disjunction?

[Plane Sailing]

No, I will repond that I think you can only see one type of way to play the game. All your posts seem to be coming from one very rigid inflexiable viewpoint. You seem to have no ability to understand that people might not play like you do. And that people have fun doing so. And to such a degree you actually have to call it names. I find this sad.

Crothian, I don't think this remark is called for, you are getting a bit personal.

I can see that there are disagreements about this, but we want to keep it all peaceable.

Thanks

 

[Endur]

I think this can (and often will) kill the fun even in a story focused game. Being story focused does not necessarily equate to being carefree about loss of expensive equipment.

The trick is to make sure to have a way to recover "story items" from the disjunction.

For instance, Yon party had their vast loot wiped out, but one of the few items to survive, the aged axe that the dwarf inherited from his grandfather survived. Not only that, but the disjunction revealed that the axe is actually an artifact, the hidden Axe of the Dwarven Lords is revealed at last.

Conan, Fafrad, and many other adventurers won and lost their fortunes many times. Gaining and losing equipment over and over again.

 

[Aaron L]

I just know that I had a character once with an ancient family heirloom intelligent sword that was his oldest friend and had been an adviser to his family for centuries. If it had been Disjoined it would have been a tragic event that could have crushed his desire to go adventuring permanently.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I just know that I had a character once with an ancient family heirloom intelligent sword that was his oldest friend and had been an adviser to his family for centuries. If it had been Disjoined it would have been a tragic event that could have crushed his desire to go adventuring permanently.

Unless the bard in your group discovered a legend about a mystical lake in a far land, so powerful that even the deeds of powerful spells could be undone there.

See? We don't need a lot of creativity to transform a terrible loss into a reason to keep adventuring.

 

[KarinsDad]

The trick is to make sure to have a way to recover "story items" from the disjunction.

For instance, Yon party had their vast loot wiped out, but one of the few items to survive, the aged axe that the dwarf inherited from his grandfather survived. Not only that, but the disjunction revealed that the axe is actually an artifact, the hidden Axe of the Dwarven Lords is revealed at last.

Conan, Fafrad, and many other adventurers won and lost their fortunes many times. Gaining and losing equipment over and over again.

It's funny how some people equate fiction with gaming. Gaming rarely goes the way of fiction unless the DM goes out of his way to railroad the storyline or creates a Deus Ex Machina situation (like the Axe of the Dwarven Lords example you just gave):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

In fiction, the author is in total control and can make sure that the situation gets resolve. In DND, this can also happen, but like the Deus Ex Machina examples in that link, it can often feel contrived to players.

For some players, contrivance is no big deal. The DM can pull the most illogical situations out of his butt and some players will not bat an eye. Other players are jarred out of their suspension of disbelief by such events and situations. For them, the game is suddenly not as much fun or even annoying.

And unlike fiction, DND encounter balance assumes a certain amount of equipment. If the DM wipes out 75% of the Fighter's equipment and only 10% of the Cleric's equipment, the player of the Cleric is not feeling the pinch as much as the player of the Fighter. In fiction, it matters not if Conan only has a loincloth. Conan is not a real person who is putting real time into a gaming session.


The difference is that fiction is totally created and under the control of the author whereas DND is a game created by all of the players at the table, not just the DM. If the DM has to go out of his way to contrive a situation such as the one you just described, I know I would typically be jarred out of my suspension of disbelief.

 

[Victim]

I don't even think we're discussing the same things. To summarize some of the issues in the thread:

1. Disjunction's power seems to be out of proportion compared to other 9th level spells. Or not.

2. Item destruction is fundamentally unfair, particularly in how it affects different character types. Or some people are big babies.

3. Disjunction can have unfortunate effects on the story, either from the loss of a treasured item, or plausibility issues from treasure aquisition, etc. Or item destruction can be a launching pad for further stories or whatever.

Obviously, replying to complaints on one aspect of the spell with comments regarding another issue is a rather futile endeavor. Hence the way arguments are going around in circles.

 

[Quartz]

Give a few examples please. I can see versitile, and said so earlier as it is definately better for other things, but more effective at what it does?

Sure: you can wish for someone's magic items to not work (have him be the centre of a reduced anti-magic shell) or wish all your opponents elsewhere (q.v. Crypt Thing) - you're only limited by your imagination.

 

[Quartz]

Uh huh.

In fact, while the DM is at it, he might as well determine before the game even starts which items are destroyed and which are not.

Do you mean to say that when you GM you don't make any rolls in secret? I find it more convenient to have a pre-rolled sheet for all rolls rather than roll dynamically and perhaps alert the players to something (e.g. rolling a Spot check for a NPC). Use it, tick it off the list, use the next value for the next roll. And with regards to Disjunction, players aren't going to know if their characters' items and buffs have been Disjoined until they check, unless the SFX are obvious, like a glowing sword being extinguished.

 

[Sithobi1]

Sure: you can wish for someone's magic items to not work (have him be the centre of a reduced anti-magic shell) or wish all your opponents elsewhere (q.v. Crypt Thing) - you're only limited by your imagination.

None of these are covered in the given possibilities for a Wish, so your DM may choose to screw you over with the wording, or have it not work.

 

[KarinsDad]

Do you mean to say that when you GM you don't make any rolls in secret? I find it more convenient to have a pre-rolled sheet for all rolls rather than roll dynamically and perhaps alert the players to something (e.g. rolling a Spot check for a NPC). Use it, tick it off the list, use the next value for the next roll.

Actually, I do not roll in advance.

I allow my players to roll the vast majority of their rolls and I never roll saving throws for them. I do roll secret rolls for PCs occassionally (and for NPCs if the roll should be secret), but I never do it for saving throws.

As for alerting the PCs to a secret NPC roll, that is easily handled by just rolling a die every 5 minutes or so, regardless of whether an NPC is trying to use a skill or not.


One problem with a pre-rolled sheet is that the DM could subconsciously (or even consciously) throw an extra roll in, just so that a specific roll rolls high or low. Not saying that all DMs who use this technique do that, but it probably does happen. That never happens with dynamic rolls.

And with regards to Disjunction, players aren't going to know if their characters' items and buffs have been Disjoined until they check, unless the SFX are obvious, like a glowing sword being extinguished.

While this is true, the real issue here is that in order to continue combat, either the players have to know exactly which items got disjoined, or the DM does. If it is the players (who are intimately familiar with their characters and equipment), they can make the appropriate adjustments to AC, damage, to hit, etc.

If not, then the DM has to do this for every PC (and NPC) who was in the radius of the Disjunction. That means that the DM has to be aware of every property of every magic item that got disjoined. Plus if he is keeping it secret, he has to have all of this information available without giving hints to his players as to which items got toasted. So, he has to review every single item that got disjoined and know when to decrease damage, to hits, saves, etc.

That's more work and time in game time than just rolling the dice for each item and letting the players handle it.

Sorry, but your "fast" technique of pre-rolling in secret (and not letting the players know which items are destroyed) creates an even larger workload for the DM and is an even greater time waster than just having the players roll and know which items are destroyed. I do not call this convenient like you did. I call it a DM headache.

The only way that your technique of a pre-rolling is faster is if you tell the players which items are disjoined. That defeats the purpose of keeping the rolls secret in the first place and you might as well let the players roll anyway (since for some players, they might dislike a DM rolling saves for all of their items, I know I would dislike that).