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It Sat Rap
2016-03-31, 08:01 AM
Here we go again! It's one of there threads were you can share your worst gaming experiences. I had a pretty awful session last week and I want to let out my frustration somewhere.

It was the first session in a newly founded group. We were 5 players and of course the GM. Only one player was a friend of the GM (let's call this player "F"), the other players (including me) were complete strangers. The GM told us that his last group fell apart with the exception of F who is the only player from the last group that is still there. The new group will continue where the old group broke up, so F can play his old character again. Nothing wrong with that so far. F was a mage, and the GM ruled that magic is very rare in his world, so there is only one magic user allowed in the party. Okay, that's a bit annoying, but let's move on. One player created a rogue, I and the two other players left created melee-characters. Let the session begin!

We started in a coastal city. The lord of the city was hosting a banquet. The 4 other players got invitations for the banquet, I was a guardsmen of the lord and had duty on that evening. The PCs arrived early at the lords castle, so we had some time for conversations and to introduce our characters to each other. Then the lord himself showed up and was very happy to see F again. Seems like F and the lord are already good friends! He invited F to sit at his side during the banquet, the other PCs have to sit at the other end of the table and I have to stand in the background keeping an eye on everyone. During the banquet the GM and F had an endlessly long conversation about Fs last adventures. Seems like they wallowed in memories about their last campaign. The GM ignored the other PCs, we could only talk to each other, none of the other guests had anything to say.

Finally, when the conversation between F and the GM was over, a messenger arrived. He said that the fleet of a hostile country is heading towards our city. The lord mobilized his military immediately and asked F if he would like to take command of his fleet and attack the enemy force on sea. So F was declared admiral. The lord assigned the PCs under the command of F. Okay, I am a guardsmen of the lord, that makes sense. But the other PCs were his guests, the are not his vassals, why did he think they have to obey his will? Doesn't matter, the GM said that F is our leader from now on.

Then the lord bestowed F with precious magic items to aid him during the battle. The other PCs and I were allowed to borrow any mundane weapons or armor we need from the stocks, but we have to give them back after the war is over. F get's presents, they are his property now.

At this part I was already annoyed as hell! I didn't expect anything good from now on and I was sure this would be my first and last session with this GM! I should have left the table at that point, but I stayed a little bit longer.

We boarded the battleship and putted out to sea. Then the battle with the enemy fleet begun. As you expected, F was the one and only who could do anything useful. He shot fireballs at enemy ships, created vortexes, casted magic fog to block the enemys view, you get the point. I had a bow, so I fired a few shots, but that didn't matter. What is the point of killing one guy on the enemy ship if the whole ship is sunk but F in the next round? The other PCs didn't had a bow or any spells, so they could do nothing. They were playing with their smartphones and didn't care any longer. I was not surprised that Fs character is obviously many levels above the rest of us.

At this point I wanted to quit, but I wanted to quit with style! In my turn I declared that I throw away my bow, pull out my sword, grab a rope, jump off the railing and swing to the nearest enemy ship! The GM was surprised, but he let me roll for it. I rolled very good, and I made the jump! Wow, I didn't expect that to work! Unfortunately, now it was Fs turn again. He throws a fireball at the nearest enemy ship, oppsy, I am on that ship, too! So F killed all the enemies and my character on deck. That was the only funny part during the whole session.

We still had 3 hours left to play and the GM asked if I want to create a new character, but I invented a bad excuse and left the game. And I surely won't return.

There is nothing wrong with single player campaigns. When you want to give a good friend a special adventure focused on him, that's fine. But why invite other guys to that? NPCs are much more convenient. Don't waste my time, please!

What is your story?

hymer
2016-03-31, 08:37 AM
I'm curious, did F ever do anything to include the rest of you? Did he revel in what he did? How was he behaving during all this?

It Sat Rap
2016-03-31, 08:48 AM
He didn't bossed us around, but he didn't care about us, too. He was helping us at character creation and seemed to be a nice guy, but during the game he barely talked to us anymore. If we asked him a question we would only get a lukewarm answer. F had a lot of fun, but either he didn't realized that the other players are bored or he didn't care about it.

Geddy2112
2016-03-31, 09:24 AM
Are F and the DM dating?

I can imagine the other campaign ended for similar reasons.

Inevitability
2016-03-31, 09:31 AM
There's more red flags here than at a socialist party meeting.

I hope your next group will be better. Perhaps invite the players from this group? I imagine they are looking for new people to game with too.

That, and an update of how the story continued after you left might be interesting.

It Sat Rap
2016-03-31, 09:56 AM
Are F and the DM dating?

I can imagine the other campaign ended for similar reasons.

I didn't had the feeling that they are dating or that the GM has a crush on F. In this case the NPCs would try to flirt with F, compliment him for his beauty, and so on. That didn't happen. But I'm also pretty sure the other campaign had exactly the same issues.


There's more red flags here than at a socialist party meeting.

I hope your next group will be better. Perhaps invite the players from this group? I imagine they are looking for new people to game with too.

That, and an update of how the story continued after you left might be interesting.

That's difficult. My only contact in this group was the GM, but I already deleted his number from my phone. I don't know how to contact the other players. But don't worry about me, I still have my regular (and much better) gaming group!

Jonagel
2016-03-31, 10:09 AM
That, and an update of how the story continued after you left might be interesting.

You want to know if the magic user married the King, eventually brought peace to the lands, discovered planar travel, and ascended to godhood?

ellindsey
2016-03-31, 12:55 PM
I think it's not a surprise that the GM's previous group fell apart either.

Obviously, the only reasonable thing for the other party members to do would be to wait till they were out of town, then gang up on and murder F's character and take all his fancy magic items.

Arbane
2016-03-31, 10:42 PM
Obviously, the only reasonable thing for the other party members to do would be to wait till they were out of town, then gang up on and murder F's character and take all his fancy magic items.

I predict an extremely high probability of failure in that plan.

goto124
2016-03-31, 11:13 PM
Obviously, the only reasonable thing for the other party members to do would be to wait till they were out of town, then gang up on and murder F's character and take all his fancy magic items.

I missed the word "character", and thought something much worse :smalltongue:

Quertus
2016-04-01, 09:24 AM
I used to try to broaden my horizons, and game with as many different groups as I could. I ran under one several a lot of DMs like the one the OP described.

One DM had his pet wizard, and RAW, RAI, and consistency be ****ed, nothing was happening to that PC.

Another didn't have a particular pet - each campaign he ran was about someone different. You could tell who it would be, though: namely, the player / character who needed the least help getting the limelight. No one else could ever accomplish anything. If they did anything that would affect the plot, they were just ignored, so that the star could do the plot. If that GM ever focused on anyone other than the star, it was to highlight their disadvantages.

There was a pair who took turns DMing, who would clearly advantage each other's characters, but that wasn't as bad as most.

There was the GM who did the bait and switch, and waited a few sessions before bringing in their special snowflake friend. Actually... there were several of those, come to think of it.

Of special note was the DM who fed us the "magic is rare, so only one in the party" line, so that the PC wizard could betray the party.

---------------

In other worst gaming moments, off the top of my head...

Ok, let's start with me: there was the me who, in a team PvP environment, wanted to make sure all of my team mates' builds were legal, to make sure that we beat the opposing team fair and square. Sadly, one of the least powerful members of my team a) was really pissed off by my behavior, and b) wasn't running a legal build.

There was the GM who really just wanted to tell a story, and for everyone to just sit there and listen to his story.

There was the GM who seemed to have taken arrogance and ignorance as his defining traits.

There was the GM who would continue running the game for his neighbors whenever they came over, leading to huge disparity - and huge time discrepancies - in the party.

There were the pair of players whose characters were constantly at each other's throats (no matter the characters / the game / etc). There were the trio of players whose characters were similarly invariably trying to kill each other. And there were the trio of players whose characters were usually trying to kill off a fourth player's character.

There was the GM who insisted on "fixing" modules, completely mangling them, when the module would have run just fine as written.

There were numerous GMs who similarly mangled systems in the name of "fixing" them. Several clearly did so to make their pet PC / DMPC even more powerful / invincible; I'm not sure what the major malfunction was with the rest of them.

But I'm not sure if there is any one session that stands out as worst session ever.

Chambers
2016-04-01, 08:58 PM
Nice character exit, definitely points for style.

Someone needs to post a link to the real Worst Session Ever story. You know, the one with the police being called and everything.

sktarq
2016-04-01, 09:03 PM
Very nice move. . . and just shows why significant level separation can cause issues. . . .

Hell I'll just repost the epic derail . . . .

Oh my. . . I've sat on this story for years. It was not my finest hour

So I had helped the DM build this world. It was supposed to be a big group game (which would be new for everyone). I was the second person to make my character, a rogue. The first had been a cleric and the third was to be a ranger. It all sounded good. I knew we were starting in a group of isles that were supposed to be a good place for characters levels 1-7 with most of it good for 1-4 with a couple gateway areas of 4-7 level type regions.

So this was going to be a fusion party of the DM's 2 normal gaming groups/pools (which had had some people cross over from time to time). Which should have been okay. But it turned out the other kinda pushed the DM to do al sorts of new things like Psyonics. . . . .which he (the DM and frankly anyone there) had never played with before. I'd didn't know and only found out when the group was assembled which turned out as the following

A: Me: Elf Rogue named Ty with Knowledge Local secondary skills through the roof to since I know the world so well
B: A Fighter: Played by a girl-who apparently the DM had a crush on. . . and who may have had thing for me after this-or it may have been in the GM's head-either way it caused issues. And had never played before in spite of knowing the DM for years.
C: A ranger-with the falconer kit: This guy never rolled below a 15 to hit. few of his characters had any ability scores below 13, and this time had rolled for two wild talents. . . yup two. . . wildshape? and something else -oh teleport-and was attached to circle of wilderness protecting druid/rangers of noble blood.
D: A rogue: Who I had met but never played with-because this was his second game.
E: another Rogue: Who I had never met
F: A bard with the Jester Kit: I knew this player somewhat-he had been a decent player
G: A Psyonicist- pretty normal I guess -never met the guy before
H: This guy had was a psyonisist with multiple personalities - each one had it own alignment and own powers. I had never minded the person but having played with him a couple times found him to be a powergaming nit who always wanted to be something more (he was very like the DM this way)
and the Cleric who was my best friend? He had pneumonia and couldn't come.
The brother of the cleric's player? Not going if his brother wasn't as his mother would not drive only one-especially as he may get sick from sharing a room with said brother
And due to a reschedule another member of our side of the regular game group was away at his father's cult. (sooo wish I was kidding)

So I had basically been put in with one member of my regular gaming pool-C who had actually started in the other pool but moved to ours over time because of timing issues and parental discord.


So during time between meetup and playstart things were BAD. They treated B like crap for being female and wanted to try to play "our", "boy" game (we were 13-15). Things were also not good as it was obvious that the DM didn't know how to actually RUN psionic powers. As in he was reading the rules apparently still confused about what a power check was.

So the game starts with us camped out two or three days north of the nearest town a couple hours from the coast of on an island that the north half of which is one of those places for the 4-7 level characters to go. As the town was the only thing we were told about it was agreed we would go there and then the DM decided to ask "what we each do" to actually start the game. I happened to be first so I said "Break Camp". We had no background, no intro, no reason to be together. Then only about half the group broke camp the other half decided to make breakfast, polish armour etc. So it took a 1/2 hour of game time for everyone to actually decide to break camp and make for the coast so we would have a clear route to hike. On the way E, F, and H started to trip and hit each other. And then hit B and D who didn't hit back. . . so there was a trail of people following me and trying to trip each other on the way to the beach. . . This was not what I had signed up for. So when we got to the coast I said that the was the town to the south was 3 days away and there was a city to the north 5 days away which would probably have better adventure hunting opportunities. . . This was a lie. The north was dangerous. So we went north because everyone knew I knew about this land because I had built it. Technically there was a ruined city 5 days north. So we went north because I was pissed off. When we made camp I went to get firewood after hanging my hammock in a tree. When I came back I found the party had attacked a giant boar because the Neutral good environmentalist ranger "wanted his tusks as they are worth tones of gold". I thought this was just a horrible thing-totally against character. So I just said screw it and went up the tree. . .

In part because a good chunk of the party was off collecting firewood things didn't go well. It didn't help that a round took 20+ minutes with all the going over special weapon rules, new initiative order every round, badgering each other (trying to create status via knowing the rules better -which led to the two newbies being near abused by C and H). B seemed to be trying to do well and was better conversation than C who I was seated between for awhile. I spent the time teaching her THAC0 rules and the like. So when she got taken down to 2hp by a big boar hit I was okay in lowering a rope to save her characters life.

So since I "saved her character's life" and being unused to what the social norms were she was fine when I woke her up and started force marching south in the middle of the night away from the group. I had thought to go alone but she had a good head on her shoulders and having a good sword arm would be nice and only C's was better and since C and I were the two "leader" type of people I figure he would be instantly leader and while probably using loaded dice (or dark magics) he was an okay if totally over aggressive player.

And chaos ensues

In the morning our disappearance is discovered and the Ranger wildshapes via his wild talent (no power check) into an eagle and finds us after several hours (duration issues were brought up but the DM was tired of checking the book he said and didn't like "that chapter") So I level with him that I thought the other group were idiots who couldn't play and bailed hoping to start a smaller more interesting game. So he joined us.

The rest needed his leadership apparently as they all started to do their own thing. One rogue E continues to go north. Everyone else heads south at max speed. Since we were using every optional rule we could lay our hands on (see using rule knowledge to prove status above also see glacial pace of the game noted above) the bard D and the multi-personality psionisist H had movement 15 (due to stats and race issues instead of size) while the final rogue and other psionisist (F & G) had move 12. . . So the fast players left them behind. Even though the psion's neutral good pacifist personality who believes in love and lassos was in charge.

So when my party get to the town we "steal" the two chargers and a spirited horse (see optional rules on war horse quality) which all the horses with bonus es in the horse traders coral (I left him gold (well gems) for mine and B's but C didn't want to pay NG). And took off for the large town across the island the narrow way (it was a thin N/S island).

Now the players who were not active ATM would hang out in another room while we waited our turn. This made it obvious that this mix of people brought out the worst in everybody. Young men who had seemed nice were making jokes about how we must have gotten past the town guards by having B sleep with them. The idea we had two sneaky types and a falcon and chakraam for distraction (B was using a 1st level Xena look alike with a punch dagger hidden in her cleavage as her first character) wasn't a challenge for teenage obsession with sex.

So booking it out of town we get accosted by a couple orcs-my first reaction was to check for an ambush-thus spotting the archer array setting up/breaking cover above us. So I charge the orcs blocking us and gallop through the ambush zone-we have a couple volleys aimed at our back and one horse got hit but not badly.

Around this time (the next night) the Bard/Jester and Psion H got to town. They managed to steal one nag and ride off together on it. To the homosexual jokes of several people (I was really not enjoying myself). They also had to stop for food while we had a bunch of that boar (due to insane encumbrance rules of having C's 18/~70 strength). So I figured our lead was growing Also: The lone rogue E turns around and starts heading South too when he hits jungle and has a couple encounters up there that don't seem "city nearby". The other Psion and rogue thought that camping on a swampy islet in a river was "safe" and got hit with leeches, mosquitoes, a lack of sleep and some version of exhaustion/fatigue.

So by now the DM was starting to break down in his ability to keep track of what was going on and things started to get weird.

Each time someone had to deal with the orcs the orcs got frustrated and brought in reinforcements. The Jester/Bard and (currently evil armored) Psion (did I mention his personalities switched on PLAYER command only) took on the group of ten orcs and just barely killed them. The Psion G and Rogue D rode their stolen oxen (not kidding-the security around the horses was apparently thick) as fast as they could and got pincushioned (but alive) for their trouble. And E we will get back to.

So ABC (as in A,B,&C) saw what appeared to be a griffon flying in the distance on the high grass fields (as in as tall as a horse's eye). The ranger sends his falcon to investigate and the griffon kills it. This sends the ranger in a tizzy because he now has penalties (due to the kit extra connection) and the griffon now sees and spots us. Knowing that griffon's like horsemeat I switch our gear to two horses and send the third away-thinking that was the end of it-but as soon as the griffon goes after the horse the ranger wild talent teleports onto his back and runs his sword through its neck. . . Rolling a 20 on his to hit (because of course he does) for instant kill. Still no PSP's or Powercheck rolls have been used but why not it was a cool image and we canter away after finding a ring that "reeks of magic" in its gullet (we also had found other things here and there-a bunch of tiny rubies I used to pay for the horses for example)


Now the Psion H had a tracking power that takes a PSP per round that after several days was still working. And also space and time give up the host as the Jester and nuts Psion H now have two horses and have somehow caught up to the party ABC despite being slower to start, on a single horse that was 1/2 the speed of our slowest horse after two days and needing time to heal. . . This happens at dusk as we entered a region of the high grass noted for werewolves. So I figure this is all bulldroppings and just roll with it. I draw my short sword for the first time of the game point it to the hill we were heading toward anyway and say "Tallyho" (the Psion H is in evil mode however and uses his infinite Psp's to boost his strength and mace me in the head (convenient as the peaceful bola and lasso using nice personality had been the one tracking me). Any way I die. This causes C to wildshape into a wolverine and take out H -who knocks out C on matched initiative-and during that fight the oxen pull up with the bandaged wrapped shells of D and G. Who get into a slapping contest with the Jester about leaving them behind. And then E shows up with over a dozen arrows from the orcs (two days ride away that he had just dealt with seconds before- timey whimey much?) and in negative HP territory. They stabilize him just as night properly falls and howling can be heard.

I quietly prevail on B to swipe the ring and dagger of fire that E got up north and head in the opposite direction to the group all of whose members are bleeding and have livestock with them. She doesn't have a pack of werewolves on her tail (the others do) when the game ends.

It turned out that the DM had a plan for us starting at level 3 but no adventure planned for the first levels....so I'm not sure this would technically be a derail but more of a nonrailed no-steering-wheel mess but I still think it counts. He also didn't tell anyone what else anyone was playing so that's how we ended up with no divine or much arcane magic (only H's nice side and the Jester had any heal potential even short term) B also apparently liked my playstyle and still wanted to play in the groups that the DM ran with me and my friends but not the other group - he took this as having a crush on me (I don't know but I think not treating her poorly may be the reason she was still interested in playing). I wanted her to join our main group so that the one girl in our group didn't feel so awkward and because she was good company and showed promise as a player. And yes she was pretty but I was holding a torch for the girl in our main group. We did a similar game a year later-it went somewhat better after an old man ran up to give us "the map" (it was labeled as such) to "the dungeon". Better but not good-if he was planning a dungeon crawl type game setting up two people (a cavalier kit horseman and an aarakokra) for outdoor combat seems bad planning.

I am so glad this game happened. Lessons of planning for what you have, shaping character choice for the party dynamic, tracking systems, keeping allowable rule choices simpler as party size expands, finding out seeming nice people can be $#!+ to new players and so many more lessons started in this game. I wasn't without blame myself in this story-I should have done something different to deal with how mean people were being to the newbies (especially B for being new and female *gasp*) instead of have my character run off looking for a better game. . . But that was part of my learning experience too.

quinron
2016-04-01, 11:52 PM
My worst session ever actually started out as a lot of fun.

We were a party of 12th-levels (D&D 3.5): I was a frenzied berserker, and my friends played a bard, a paladin, and a wu jen who was my character's longtime adventuring partner and best friend. The problem was the fifth guy - he'd played the most of anyone in the group (this was my first game, session maybe 5 or 6; we started at level 9), and he and the DM were friends, but no one else in the group knew him. He was playing a whisper gnome beguiler who'd undergone the Necropolitan ritual, and he'd decided he was slowly turning evil.

I should say at this point that we'd been given far, far too much money; something like 3,500 gp per level. So I had invested in turning myself into a half-iron golem, and I'd just purchased a half-clay golem deinonychus as a mount. We'd just won a tournament, the prize for which was 50,000 gp each, plus either a portion of the former champion's armor, or a drawing from a deck of many things. My barbarian is a suspicious sort, not trusting magic unless it was attached to a weapon or his wu jen friend was casting it, so I go with the armor. Everyone else draws - it's very tense, very exciting, but the single card the wu jen draws is the dreaded Void, just as her player has been repeatedly saying would happen.

Her soul is sucked to the Abyss, where Malcanthet holds it. My barbarian is confused, then hurt, then furious; he starts rage-panicking and runs to the cleric who recently turned him toward goodness (the wu jen player's new character), who diagnoses the wu jen with Lost Soul and says we might be able to hunt it down. So we gate through, with the assistance of our employer, and I'm all ready to run roughshod across the infernal planes with my new pet and beat some demons to death to get my friend back. But instead, the beguiler telepathically contacts Malcanthet and gets us teleported into her fortress. I see the crystal holding the soul, and I'm automatically raging and frenzying and spurring my dinosaur toward it, dangers be damned. But right at that moment, the beguiler telepathically contacts Malcanthet again and gets her to stop time so he can negotiate with her.

What follows is a solid 45 minutes of him and the DM back-and-forth-ing as he makes deals, ultimately promising to raise a bunch of cult pockets to Malcanthet around the world in exchange for the soul. She agrees, and we're poofed back to the Material Plane, with the wu jen being restored to life as we arrive. And the session ends there - literally no one but the beguiler got to be in any way involved in rescuing our friend, least of all my character, who had the greatest investment in her return and was willing to fight for her.

I'll paraphrase the Giant himself here: "An exciting failure is better than a boring victory." Especially when only one person gets to be a part of earning that boring victory anyway.

MesiDoomstalker
2016-04-02, 12:24 AM
I've regaled this story on this forum once before, but I am more than happy to share it again.

Some backstory. This is my second game ever, the first being a 3.5 game where to be honest I didn't learn much. That game (3.5 one) lasted only a few weeks as I joined near its conclusion. This game was 4e and everyone but the DM was not familiar with 4e. We have the 2 Wizard Brothers; one playing a Minotaur Fighter and the other a Red Wizard of Thay. (They are the Wiz Bros cause they tend to play Wizards, but we couldn't have 2 in one party). Then we have the 10,000 year old entity of shadow Rogue, whose the DM's absolute best friend. And then me, a Half-Elf Cleric of Corellion. Anyone notice something lopsided here? Ya, we did too. Mr. Shadow is the strong silent type, with a big fat "CN" on the character sheet. For those who don't know, that alignment doesn't exist in 4e.

The game starts and there are immediate problems. The Wiz Bros help me build my character but give me advice based on 3.5, mainly that Cleric's can heal or fight just as easily. This is not the case in 4e (at least for a newb who doesn't know how). So my powers are a mish-mash of power's, which makes me less than effective. I can't dish out damage, lay down any noteworthy debuffs and after my main heals are done, I've got nothing. The DM constantly targets down the Red Wiz Bro, regardless of what were fighting. Apparently wolves know to target wizards first. From how often Red Wiz Bro and Mino Wiz bro go down, I'm the target of Mr. Shadow and DM's ire for not being a good enough Cleric. Nevermind that my healing powers are pretty limited and even if I specced for healing, I'd have trouble keeping the party healthy. The DM is just dishing out so much damage, its ridiculous.

Soon, Mr. Shadow gets some Fey Leather armor, or something. Point is its an Epic level armor, meaning its bonus is +6 above normal armor and totally inappropriate for a party of level 4s. Now Mr. Shadow cannot be touched by regular attacks (and guess what only ever target him)? The game at this point is meandering muderhoboing, no coherent plot whatsoever. I had a whole backstory about being cursed by Gruumush and only the help of another Priest of Corellion saved me, yadda yadda. Backstory is never touched and we have no real direction.

At somepoint, were in a swamp for whatever reason. Probably because thats where the DM said we were that session. We spend the first half of the session slogging through muck, occasionally facing typical swamp enemies. Over the course of the session I repeatedly fall into deep swamp muck, meaning I'm covered head to toe in crud. We run into a Young Black Dragon, just out in the open. We roll initiative. At the top of initiative is Mama Dragon, who was flying above us the entire time. Mama is a Colossal sized creature, so how the bojangles did we not see it flying over head? Mama comes down and scoops me up because "You have the shiniest armor." I was thinking, 'Didn't we just have a 2 hour spree of me falling in swamp gunk? How is my armor still shiny?'

I spend the next 1.5 hour of boss fight on my phone because me, level 5 Cleric, can't touch an Epic level monster (who started fighting a different dragon who was encroaching on her territory or whatever, in midair with me in her grip). Party is getting destroyed on the ground and there is literally nothing I can do about it. They win (barely) and Mama Dragon conveniently drops me. I only survived max fall damage because I fell in swamp muck. Again. Cue Mr. Shadow berating me for being a terrible Cleric and DM for "not trying to tickle her foot. She would have released you if you tickled her foot."

The game died after that, though I unfortunately didn't realize that games like that are bad news owlbears. I gamed with them for 2 more games (all of which just petered out like the first 1). I know longer game with them.

It Sat Rap
2016-04-02, 08:08 AM
@Jenjitsu: Aaaaah, the Deck of many things! I absolutly hate this piece of ****! It has ruined 2 campaigns I have been playing in. Well, what do you expect? It causes meaningless character deaths, great differences in party level, inappropriate wealth per level, incurable diseases, bla bla bla...

If you are a GM, please NEVER EVER use a Deck of many things! Unless you want to wreck your campaign!

Quertus
2016-04-02, 10:44 AM
@Jenjitsu: Aaaaah, the Deck of many things! I absolutly hate this piece of ****! It has ruined 2 campaigns I have been playing in. Well, what do you expect? It causes meaningless character deaths, great differences in party level, inappropriate wealth per level, incurable diseases, bla bla bla...

If you are a GM, please NEVER EVER use a Deck of many things! Unless you want to wreck your campaign!

The Deck of Many Things is fine in "meat grinder" mode. And finding one is about the best thing that could ever happen to a 2e wild mage. :smallwink:

EDIT: one time, I brought a wild mage when I joined a group. Turns out, their party bard had a Deck of Many Things. As soon as he found out, my wild mage traded the bard for the deck, and began drawing. He retired, and I brought a new character. Later, my wild mage gave the bard an extra reward.

Inevitability
2016-04-02, 02:43 PM
My worst session ever? Okay, here you go:

It was a PbP campaign on mythweavers. The DM advertised it as a game where we could play whatever crazy character concepts we could think of, so I create a Dark Skitterhaunt Hairy Spider Warlock (imagine a tiny arachnid filled with shadowy slime).

All the players start off in some kind of hyperdimensional illithid prison encased by walls of force, except the illithid is working together with a bunch of githyanki. I questioned the DM out of game, and he basically told me that if my character didn't have ranks in knowledge (the planes) I as a player wasn't allowed to question the setting.

Of course, he might just have been a great DM with an interesting and compelling world that raises questions with completely satisfying answers, right? Well, no. The DM apparently disliked anyone doing anything that actually mattered.

I try to hide (using Hide in Plain Sight and a crazy skill modifier) and am instantaneously discovered. I try to summon a swarm of spiders outside my cell and discover the guards all have electric forcefields that automatically damage and scatter the swarm. I try to use my acid bite attack to chew my way out of the cell and am told that apparently, it's ineffective (nevermind acid always damaging objects).

Then I got attacked by one of the guards for dealing absolutely no damage to the prison. The guard apparently got to ignore the forcefield.

So yeah, I'm in a prison, none of my abilities work, and attempts to use them are punished immediately. But it gets worse.

One of the other players casts Knock at the wall of force, which apparently dispels it. The prisoners make a run for it only to, I kid you not, see 'a blinding white light to appear and render all of you unconscious'.

At that point, I'd had quite enough and called the DM out on it. He accused me of being a munchkin and a metagamer who was butthurt he couldn't go online and read through the entire adventure. I just had to accept the existence of, as he put it 'genetically engineered Githyanki, hardened Dragonstone and super-advanced drones'.

Shortly after, the DM quit the game, saying that he didn't enjoy DMing this way and was going back to WoW. According to his rambling, the game was going to be about a war-torn world where cybernetic elves and their warforged servants fought the illithid and githyanki, with the entire setting being filled with pseudo-religious references I can't repeat here. The way he was going to determine when to begin this Great and Epic Story? A 'random dice roll for epic style combat'.

I'm really glad he never ran that game.

sktarq
2016-04-02, 02:54 PM
If you are a GM, please NEVER EVER use a Deck of many things! Unless you want to wreck your campaign!

And yet, in personal experience at least, the DM's most enthusiastic about the Deck of Many Things tend to be those with the least tolerance of players acting in ways they didn't expect and who are most tied up emotionally in not "wrecking the campaign". Rule approved spontaneity in careful measured doses appeals to some.

quinron
2016-04-02, 06:24 PM
And yet, in personal experience at least, the DM's most enthusiastic about the Deck of Many Things tend to be those with the least tolerance of players acting in ways they didn't expect and who are most tied up emotionally in not "wrecking the campaign". Rule approved spontaneity in careful measured doses appeals to some.

Yeah, like I said, we had way too much money. I may have undersold that: we started at level 9, and we were each granted something like 35,000 gp per level. That's 315,000 gp; the WbL for that level is 36,000. Turning myself into a half-iron golem - a process that costs upwards of 25,000 gp - was pocket change for me before we won the 50,0000-gp-apiece tournament. When we created our 9th-level characters, the beguiler had enough to buy a runestaff. I had to be true resurrected twice, and that wasn't a blow to the party; it was a mild inconvenience.

Outside the soul loss - which, as I said, was solved in the most boringly efficient way imaginable - the Deck of Many Things had a totally negligible effect on the story; we were too far off the reservation to begin with.

Khedrac
2016-04-03, 02:32 AM
If you are a GM, please NEVER EVER use a Deck of many things! Unless you want to wreck your campaign!
And then there was a certain Dungeon magazine adventure...
A complex where wishes had been used so the only way to open doors was to trigger the DoMT card attached to each door (so the opener could not see it , of course). The wishes had been cast to circumvent the normal rules on number of draws etc. At least one of the character killers was on a door the party had to go through iirc. Even at the time I thought is a terrible idea; now I think it was just a way to enable the DM to force the players to use the nice set of cards the DM had just acquired.This was the month where both Dungeon and Dragon came with quite nice cards for a full Deck, one in colour and one in black-and-white. For some reason the only one time I did offer them my players declined to touch them.