Starting to lose the will to play...

[Elixia]

ok,

I'd had my gripes with the game and other problems in the past but I'm starting to wear thin on enthusiasm to play.

the straw that's broken the camels back was my last session. 1 party member died after making a successful reflex save on a broken bridge. then have another two characters one shot'ed and eaten whole by the wildlife (party: 4x lvl6 vs 2 Bulette).

glad i managed to talk the party into running away from the next encounter, given track record i think it might of ended us.

personally, i'm wondering if put too much investment into the characters i make and should instead make more just generic ones that i don't get too accustom too.

just feeling pretty low, perhaps you guys may have some funny stories to pick me up!

[Metahuman1]

My Second game, we started with a Human Paladin, a Dwarf Fighter, a Human Sorceress, and a Halfling rouge. The Dm killed the entire party on the first encounter, a random one against Dire Wolves.

At the end of the fight he looks back and said "Uh-oh."

Upon being asked what was "Uh-oh", he replied that he'd mixed the tables up when he rolled for the encounter. We shouldn't have seen those things for three or four levels.

One of the other players raised his hand and said "Show of hands, who says we all throw dice at the DM?"

Did that help? I've got some others.

[Elixia]

hehehe sure! tell me more :)

[Delcor]

My friends told me that on their first time playing 3.5, they did so bad, that their party of 6 was slaughtered by 3 dire rats.

[RndmNumGen]

1 party member died after making a successful reflex save on a broken bridge. then have another two characters one shot'ed and eaten whole by the wildlife.

Wait, what? Why was he even given a save if we was going to die anyway?

And the creatures that one-shoted two of your members were just animals? Not... bosses or fearsome monsters that have been lurking around, but just your run-of-the mill wildlife?

Something's not right there. Either something is missing from the story or your DM is just being mean.

[Elixia]

my mate had a dire rat land on his back, it stay for the entire encounter! we killed it (and almost him) and now its a running joke :)

[Elixia]

Wait, what? Why was he even given a save if we was going to die anyway?

And the creatures that one-shoted two of your members were just animals? Not... bosses or fearsome monsters that have been lurking around, but just your run-of-the mill wildlife?

Something's not right there. Either something is missing from the story or your DM is just being mean.

yeah i edited my OP it was 2 bulette's, we were a party of 4 lvl 6 players.

edit:
oh and the rope bridge, it was 110 long, snapped in the middle, the dwarf clung on and hit the wall. splat!

[Metahuman1]

I was playing a dragonlance game as a Kender (Wait! Stop! Keep reading, I promise, it's not what your bracing for! Character actually took great pains to not act like a typical Kender and was in it to avenge a Genocide the BBEG's had committed almost a hundred years prior that almost completely wiped out the Kender Race.) Sorcerer with a super high Cha and a thing for enchantment.

Around tenth level were in a tavern celebrating our triumph over one of several recurring villains in the game, and buying Drinks all around.Well, Dm made us all roll fort saves to see if we got intoxicated, and Will saves to see when we said wen. I kept blowing both of them, ended up failing like eight or nine saves in a row before I finally made a save to stop drinking.

By this point my Sorcerer was so intoxicated I had to roll for random actions. the first one I rolled was hitting on a Bar Stool. As in, trying to flirt, with the bar stool.

Anyway, the DM rolled some Dice in Secret, and decided were everyone woke up since the whole party had gotten stone cold drunk. My Sorcerer, Woke up in a room, in bed, with a human Female that had a couple of levels in the Dragonlance PRC that's that settings version of a Paladin (Campaign setting guide says they don't have actual Paladins.), that as part of her WLB had had Enlarge Person and Permanency cast on her before. He let me look at the stats on her. Cha 18, Str 26 with out Items!

[Talonblaze]

Haha I remember this time me and some other players went down into the sewers. Went pretty casually as we were there to simply stop the rising of the flow and access the bandits camp. Well... we had an additional surprise waiting for us at the controls.

A giant sewer crocodile. (Which was lying in wait near one of the pools. DM couldn't resist the urban legend it seems.)

The unfortunate Beguiler was the first to be snatched into its jaws as he went to go activate the lever. Meanwhile he's screaming to get free and the others are pelting it with arrows since they wanted to keep their distance for whatever reason. (lol big jaws possibly).

During this however, one of them gets the bright idea that instead of killing it to tame it. So he's trying to convince the us to stop shooting while the beguiler is getting nibbled on telling them to keep killing it. Everyone in a state of confusion. lol

Miraculously though against all odds he manages to succeed in calming it through various methods. The beguiler was pretty beat up though and grumbled about wanting some leather boots.

The player never let that crocodile leave his side after that. lol (even after numerous looks from other people and scattered citizens.)

[0nimaru]

I was in a game with a couple of friends, classes irrelevant, but one of our friends was a sorcerer. He tends to be.. accident prone when it comes to magic and has been responsible for several TPKs in the past (fireball on the icebridge, tornadoes in the weapon armory, etc.) but we gave in and let him be a caster again...

Along the way through this dungeon at level 5-6 we had gotten some scrolls from the BBEG's private study which we could only figure were "Very powerful necromantic magic." We stash em, and keep moving along.

Next session, we're fighting the BBEG and struggling along taking some heavy hits. The sorcerer suddenly gets a hopeful gleam in his eye and says "I'll pull out a scroll and use it!" A natural 1 on a "UMD: Use blindly" check and a DM with a flair for ad-lib terror later... there is a giant hurricane of Trap The Soul floating in the air covering 2/3rds of the battle. We successfully weakened the boss and pushed him into it, but lost two party members' souls in the process. The sorcerer survived

[Coidzor]

the straw that's broken the camels back was my last session. 1 party member died after making a successful reflex save on a broken bridge. then have another two characters one shot'ed and eaten whole by the wildlife (party: 4x lvl6 vs 2 Bulette).

Sounds like your DM and you don't really have compatible play goals. :/ Either you gotta work out some kinda compromise or kick him to the curb as a DM.

[Cerlis]

well yea, if your DM is one to horribly murder your party relentlessly then i wouldnt make ones i'm attached to.

For me the "eaten alive " thing is at the top of my list for "and now i must scream" situations (even if its only temporary) so i'd be upset too.

-----------------
p.s.

first time we ever played (as in first encounter ever) we didnt understand crit rules so we come out of the dungeon, see 3 kobalds. first round one throws a javalin at the fighter. and then Crits him for 36 damage (no idea how we got that.)

good first impression.

[Elixia]

metahuman, that is an awesome tavern story! i would love to do that! most of my campaigns we tend to be on the run (whatever the groups alignment) so i dont many tavern stories myself :) but i would to try some of those!!

[Metahuman1]

Yes, that is still one of my favorites.

As for the issue you posted initially, I'd suggest talking to the dm and telling him "Look, we get proverbially beat down enough in real life. We play to be Badasses who take names and kick butt. This does not work when the DM is going out of his way to kill us. Work with us here." If he won't, try playing some more optimized builds, and if he still keeps looking for any random way to kill your characters, change DM's.

And also, I don't get how he MADE a reflex save and still died. It's like the DM just flat ignored the rules too kill that character.

[Elixia]

to be honest i get the feeling the dm ignores rules and just doesnt read them because they didnt fit in his story. he's a writer.

for example the bulettes on his orginal description were a herd of 12 grazing, til we the player reminded him, they were solitary and carnivores. a little monster manual reading and ad-lib later and it was 2

[Metahuman1]

Ok, change of plans. I know the "Writer" type. They have a bad tendency to think Core and what ever there favorite campaign setting is are Balanced and it's Splat Books like ToB that mess things up.

(I know, not all Writer Dm's are like this, but the first several DM's I had were like this.)

Anyway,

If first round of attempted negation fails to get him to adjust and STAY adjusted, not just throwing one or two bones so he can go back to business as usual, I'd cut to the Boot him phase.

[TurtleKing]

If I was in that situation just go straight for the boot phase. Had 1 DM like that but the type to "Hey lets play in my homebrew world where I only focused on 1 side of the world even though you want to see the other." The guy was in love with it so anything you did was either a good to go by playing to him or literally <insert expletive here> up. So glad to not be around there anymore he also gave me the creeps. Seriously a 25 yr old male should not be into Hello Kitty.

[Elixia]

adult male and hello kitty ... not a good mix. thats the stuff of nightmares! i thought girls who like that were bad enough!

[Fiery Diamond]

to be honest i get the feeling the dm ignores rules and just doesnt read them because they didnt fit in his story. he's a writer.

for example the bulettes on his orginal description were a herd of 12 grazing, til we the player reminded him, they were solitary and carnivores. a little monster manual reading and ad-lib later and it was 2

Okay, that's just messed up. Why is he the one DMing? Did none of the rest of you want the job or did he just want it so very much? He should totally understand more of the rules and what's in the books that he's using, and he shouldn't be just killing PCs left and right without any reasonable reason.

Second: I hate people who give a bad name to other writers. I'm a writer, I'm a DM, and I don't even railroad (well, except rarely; I let the players decide the direction the story takes - I provide the world around them and offer plot hooks and where they take it from there is up to them. I'm heavy on improvisation, so it works out.), let alone randomly off the PCs to "fit my story."

Ok, change of plans. I know the "Writer" type. They have a bad tendency to think Core and what ever there favorite campaign setting is are Balanced and it's Splat Books like ToB that mess things up.

(I know, not all Writer Dm's are like this, but the first several DM's I had were like this.)

Anyway,

If first round of attempted negation fails to get him to adjust and STAY adjusted, not just throwing one or two bones so he can go back to business as usual, I'd cut to the Boot him phase.

Darn straight we're not. Granted, I'm most familiar with core and had issues with ToB when I first had to DM for it (I'm used to primarily blaster and healer casters, and ToB enables melee to be on even footing with an unoptimized blaster sorcerer plus being able to recharge), but now I've got a list of "banned or limited" things in core and it's "non-core is run it by me first; I'll probably say yes." Core is definitely not balanced, and there's plenty of good splatbook material.

That said: I agree with your advice.

[Das Platyvark]

My friends told me that on their first time playing 3.5, they did so bad, that their party of 6 was slaughtered by 3 dire rats.

I think I may have been in that group, though it wasn't our first time

[jiriku]

Ugh! Writer DM... the rules exist only when they're convenient to the story. The players exist only to be an audience. Hate it.

A better breed of gamer is the roleplay-to-the-hilt gamer. My group, we're all pirates of various sorts in one campaign, including my character who's the most mercenary little thieve's git of the lot. The roleplayer, though, is a down-and-out former town sheriff whose fell into piracy after his town was wiped out. We're assigned the task to collect 100 pounds of silver dust from an apothecary for a hospital, and I fudge the numbers on the requisition a bit and make it appear to say 400. By tasking the honest-faced sheriff to (unknowingly) present the forged document, I manage to run the con and get the 400 pounds of silver dust onto our ship. We're all set to turn in the quest, pocketing 300 pounds of silver for ourselves, when I'm out sick for the next week of gaming. I come back to find that Mr. Honesty has turned in all 400 pounds of the silver to the hospital. When I got back and my character discovered this, the interaction went about like this:

Me: What... what happened to the silver?
Him: We've returned it all to the hospital.
Me: But, but... all that money. We could have been rich!
Him: It was stolen. Returnin' it was the right thing tae do.
Me (exasperated): Of course it was stolen! We stole it! WE'RE PIRATES!
Him (full of righteous indignation): THAT DOES NAE MEAN WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT, SIR!

Good times.

[Fiery Diamond]

Ugh! Writer DM... the rules exist only when they're convenient to the story. The players exist only to be an audience. Hate it.

A better breed of gamer is the roleplay-to-the-hilt gamer. My group, we're all pirates of various sorts in one campaign, including my character who's the most mercenary little thieve's git of the lot. The roleplayer, though, is a down-and-out former town sheriff whose fell into piracy after his town was wiped out. We're assigned the task to collect 100 pounds of silver dust from an apothecary for a hospital, and I fudge the numbers on the requisition a bit and make it appear to say 400. By tasking the honest-faced sheriff to (unknowingly) present the forged document, I manage to run the con and get the 400 pounds of silver dust onto our ship. We're all set to turn in the quest, pocketing 300 pounds of silver for ourselves, when I'm out sick for the next week of gaming. I come back to find that Mr. Honesty has turned in all 400 pounds of the silver to the hospital. When I got back and my character discovered this, the interaction went about like this:

Me: What... what happened to the silver?
Him: We've returned it all to the hospital.
Me: But, but... all that money. We could have been rich!
Him: It was stolen. Returnin' it was the right thing tae do.
Me (exasperated): Of course it was stolen! We stole it! WE'RE PIRATES!
Him (full of righteous indignation): THAT DOES NAE MEAN WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT, SIR!

Good times.

Why did they return the 100 that you were legitimately supposed to get? That's my question.

[jiriku]

The original 100 was to be given to the hospital that had commissioned us. We were on a glorified shopping errand.

[Elixia]

he comes up with the most compelling stories so he allowed him to DM. his stories are brilliant, i do like them. but his execution ..... er, is too ad-libbed or mal-managed, or miscalucated (he swore black white and blue that 2 bulettes were a hard rated challenge rating for us as a 4x lvl 6 party).

i've DM'ed before myself in a homebrew. before the campaign even started i had a map, marked with city, landmarks, terrian and a list of monster, races and aniamals that lived there. all core NPC had stat block, personalities and motives. some animals even had migration patterns!! then dropped my players bang in the middle to go nuts! much fun! at one point they got lost and one of the migration paths actually saved them as a hunting party was there to rescue them (after a 2 weeks and numerous failed survival checks, thank god that made good endurance ones ...).

anyway, the point is i've tried to help him with my experiences on how to plan in advance or to 'cheat' behind the screen. like if you accidently made it too hard unintentionally, lower the AC and maybe drop a few HP's or if its going to easy, feed it more HP's and fudge your damage output without it being noticeable.

but he takes the noble highground, the 'but you survived didn't you?' yes. but it wasn't fun. and it was expensive to res half the party, and now half the party is a lower lvl.

we've nominated a player to discuss this with him, lucky its its best friend. fingers crossed

[Metahuman1]

Here's pulling for you. In truth, it would be better if he would get better at DMing since that way all it took was a conversation and a bit of adult rational.

But again, If he isn't gonna listen or he give it lip service but then doesn't consistently follow through, someone else needs to DM.

[Kenneth]

A player of mine's first action EVER in D&D was to kill another party member. Heavy pick to the party mage at first level becuase he heard something move in the dark and swung at it, means dead clothie.

I did an almost Total party wipe, becuase i snuck attacked the big lvl 20 wizard/fighter/eldritch knight. (not actual rogue +d6s sneak atack but the actual def of it) We survived, well me and the other fighter/mage.(technically the fighter lived too, but he was not good at added up his save bonuses.....) everybody was like 'why did you do that. We all could have died then the campaign would be over, and you would lose your mage!"

I just replied. "so, just a pieve of paper.. ive been playng D&D for decades, if i cried over the.. oh.. hundreds of characters ive had that has died I would probly have very severe mental issues and not play this game at all for fear of having a charatcer die, besides we won, we are spending the money to get the cleric rezzed and now we have a high levle character to loot!"


My best advice is this. D&D is just a game, and your character are just writing and scribblings on paper. DOn't get too attached to them that one dieing upsets you, as trust me, you are going to have a lot of charcater die as time goes on.

[Elixia]

Me: What... what happened to the silver?
Him: We've returned it all to the hospital.
Me: But, but... all that money. We could have been rich!
Him: It was stolen. Returnin' it was the right thing tae do.
Me (exasperated): Of course it was stolen! We stole it! WE'RE PIRATES!
Him (full of righteous indignation): THAT DOES NAE MEAN WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT, SIR!

Good times.

PRICELESS!!

ooooh i'm a roleplayer! i LOVE it. in fact of joining the amateur dramatics in my town (sad i know) some of the best session's i've had have not been in a dungeon but in at the camp or in a city flexing that rp muscle!

[Metahuman1]

I like my roleplay, don't get me wrong. I like my mechanics too though, for some reason a lot of my early DM's though the latter had to be sacrificed for the former.

Me, I always though, "I'm playing the game to be a hero. A hero has to be good if not great at what he's doing to pull it off, and if he doesn't pull it off, he's not a hero he's a wanna be loser."

[Coidzor]

to be honest i get the feeling the dm ignores rules and just doesnt read them because they didnt fit in his story. he's a writer.

Then you need to remind him that you're people then, as it sounds like he's lost sight of this.

[JonRG]

Man, I'm a writer looking to DM a campaign in the Not Too Distant Future. Guess I better work on my improv, or plan for pretty much everything.

Well, this happened during spring semester, and I was very depressed, to the point where I didn't care too much what happened to my characters. This was also the time the DM (same for both games) introduced the Harrow Deck of Many Things . So what's a poor apathetic girl to do?

Draw four for both of them, of course.

Luckily, both games adopted the That Didn't Happen^TM, which is self-explanatory. Good thing too, because my barbarian was nearly geas'ed into questing for the BBEG's resurrection, and my psion almost had his mental stats reduced to 3. Turns out I cared more than I thought. The cards were really awesome after that though. Totally worth it, but probably wouldn't be that stupid again.