The DM: A story of Fear, Sadness and Editions.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:13 pm

Like every good story, this one starts with a simple fact: Some people do not like to lose.

This person did not like to lose anything, whether it was the spotlight as a character or a fight as the DM. I saw this person claim impossible hits on the player side (I watched his dice due to a long history of cheating) and do far worse things on the DM side. This is the story of a party of friends where everyone ceased having fun almost immediately...

4th Edition D&D at level 4 (at least we didn't start at 1...): New DM takes over. We are not running published modules, although we sometimes are. Modules are always modified.

The party consists of a cleric, wizard, fighter and ranger. While two characters are not very optimized, none are gimpy and the optimized ones are pretty much done to the teeth. The party eventually changes, but it doesn't matter.

Our first fight is an ambush, which will quickly become a recurring theme, in the forest. A surprise round is had and the monsters threaten to overwhelm the party early on, which will also become a recurring theme. The party is having trouble with an enemy who is no less than three levels (sort of like the CR system) above us after we dispatch the mook squad before things start going horribly wrong.

The fighter, who has been sticking to this threat which is obviously too powerful for us, suddenly goes from almost-full to unconscious (soon to be a recurring theme) in one attack routine because the monster was special and made multiple attacks. Things like this do not happen in 4e.

My character moves in to tank because my character is like that, and manages to avoid any attacks due to interrupt abilities (the DM does not, at any point, call out actual numbers and I have to ask for him to tell me what AC the monster is hitting to use my interrupts). I begin to suspect the DM, who cheated as a player, is just making up numbers.

We eventually drop the monster in spite of dealing very little damage to it due to having a nigh unhittable AC, the DM later reveals it to be an elite who was three levels above our party, making its defenses retardedly good in comparison to our own.

Oh well, it was just the first combat, maybe something had just gone horribly wrong and he'll learn. A few more combats, that are all remarkably similar, in and we are progressing the plot like a good little party before the session ends.

Next session begins with us going into some fucking cave. A few level 1 monsters are there and they promptly begin blasting the ever-loving shit out of the party during the surprise round. My character has ultra-high defenses and avoids these things easily. They're level 1 brutes, they hardly HAVE attack bonuses. They are still roasting the party even though this encounter is supposed to be laughably easy.

Our fighter rushes one and the DM MAKES UP A FUCKING TRAP ON THE SPOT. No roll, no save, no perception check or anything. The trap just fucking hits him (and it's a comedy trap too, not something dangerous or heroic). The fighter ends up going down in the next round of attacks. See, I told you it'd be a theme. We mop up, heal the fighter and rest.

Next combat comes around and we're getting tooled on by other monsters. Party members are dropping each and every fight, but when the going gets tough the monsters' armor becomes paper and their hp drop to one. As a matter of fact, there is one egregious example in the many sessions we played...

We are in town after having barely survived an adventure by the skin of our teeth. We find the big bad, who gets a surprise round on us, and he teleports onto a spot we can't easily reach. Now, the party's composition has changed at this point and we no longer have a wizard. We're only level 5 and nobody but one character can teleport, though everyone is OK at climbing and shit except for one character.

Teleporting character teleports next to the guy and swings, rolling high but still missing. Fuck, another overleveled monster, we all think. Suddenly the bad guy asspulls a fucking demon and shit starts to get real. This monster is obviously higher level than us and the guy who summoned it is going to be a huge pain in the ass to reach, let alone hit. After summoning the fucker teleports to ANOTHER rooftop. Yes, this monster has at-will teleportation against a party where one character has an encounter teleport due to race. We are never going to reach this guy and only one character is ranged.

Battle goes on and, being the leader, my character is buffing the shit out of the person who is meleeing the demon. The big bad is tooling away at one character (and my heals are not keeping up) as that character chases the bad guy from rooftop to rooftop in vain, as whenever he gets adjacent and swings the bad guy teleports to a different rooftop and fires off powerful attacks.

Our ranged party member is getting an occasional hit on the bad guy, and the combat has been going for about 8 rounds when the demon dies. At this point the character who has been chasing the fucker is almost dead, so he takes cover behind a stall. The bad guy turns his attention to the other melee people in the party, who start to pursue, and blasts us away so we also take cover. The archer is still bothering him, but the archer doesn't do much damage because he's a seeker and seekers are what happen when a really gimpy wizard meets a really gimpy ranger and they have children.

As we take cover and try to figure out a strategy, a fucking SWARM comes out of the stall and begins beating on the poor guy who has been getting boned by the bad guy for most of the combat. We, who are all melee and thus bad vs swarms, begin beating the thing up as the fighter goes unconscious (which has happened almost every combat, often multiple times). We kill the swarm but are out of healing, out of hitpoints and really just hoping the seeker bothers the bad guy to death. We are seriously all in a dog pile behind the fucking stall hoping we don't explode while the seeker plinks away with absolutely no effect.

Eventually I get tired of the whole deal and just decide to try and jump and attack the bad guy even though he is on a rooftop since I have reach and a good athletics score. The DM lets me succeed and I one shot the guy who probably wasn't even bloodied. What a fucking disappointing victory.

Anyways, we adventure more and have people going unconscious every fight, often during surprise rounds that the monsters always get. At one point we are saved by a DMPC and everything is fine until he leaves and we start getting our asses kicked again. Blah blah blah eventually it all ends and every combat is us losing horribly until we fiat-win.

We change editions to goddamn Pathfinder at this point, and, tired of being a modestly optimized and constantly ruined character I go for a divination wizard because fuck losing fights. The DM stays the DM, and our party has a wizard and a sorcerer in it, which bothers the party (not because of power, even though the others are mundane, but because they hate not having a healer).

First adventure sees both casters' spells being horribly ineffective, with monsters routinely passing DC 21 will saves at level 4. I suspect something is up.

We then wander into a cave and my fucking FAMILIAR gets targeted by traps that exist only to hurt familiars. Monsters are going after the casters (who are ineffective as monsters can't fail their saves) even though the casters can hardly do anything. Me and other caster realize something is wrong, and my friend decides to switch characters.

He goes oracle because the party was bitching about not having a healer, and we continue on through the railroad plot of bullshit.

Eventually we pull into a published module, Red Hand of Doom, and I figure things will get better. No, they only get worse. The party is constantly going unconscious (which is MORE obnoxious because now we have to burn actual resources to heal, unlike in 4e) so the oracle does nothing but heal 24/7. Saves still aren't working right, though I switched my character around because me and the sorc had a fucking backstory that we had worked out together that was completely ruined by the party and DM being doucheballoons about having two casters when nobody could heal (protip: Ranger, just make a fucking cleric or something you assclown).

Anyways, I cast a DC22 confusion on no less than 8 goblins and worgs only to see TWO fail their saves. More importantly, the DM does not have 8 D20s behind his screen and he only rolled once. He wasn't even fucking pretending to care. Yes, I would have ended the encounter, but it was a stupid, random encounter anyways.

My wizard ends up dieing eventually because a monster waits for the ENTIRE PARTY TO PASS before ambushing the caster (surprise round!), did damage that wasn't even possible with rolling max damage for all the dice, and was then slaughtered by a party that couldn't even damage it while never bothering to use the combo it used to kill me again.

I get revived, say "fuck this" and ask the DM if I can respec my character (again) and end up changing him to a divination wizard. No more fucking surprises when my character can't be surprised and rocks a fucking +18 to init. At this point we are level 8.

We get to the final adventure in RHOD and everything is going the same. Monsters don't fail saves, we get our asses handed to us and monsters always get surprise rounds (that I get to act in because hahaha fuck you monsters). Things are going better because I can preemptively take defensive measures for the party, but combats are rough and we're never winning. The DM eventually stops DMing and becomes a player, but his character is cheating again.

I am still in this group because they are my friends, but god-fucking damnit I refuse to ever let him DM again.

I'm not asking for advice or anything, I just wanted to rage. This went on for like, six months. There are no other games in the area (me and the other caster tried to find them) so I had no good options. The current DM is fine and dandy, so we're back to having fun even with the cheating character straight-up lying about die rolls and shit. We all accept he cheats and try not to let it bother us, we even met as a group to talk about it.

There are other combats that I left out of the story because my memory gets fuzzy at times. There was one 4e combat where we didn't spot goddamn large creatures on the ceiling with our passive percetions (we had one guy who was rocking at least a 20 on passive and thus would have seen them).

The kicker is the ceiling was 15 feet high and Mr. Perception was no less than 7 feet tall. He was basically looking these large creatures in the fucking face and still missed them. Yes, they got a fucking surprise round. Yes, people went unconscious. Yes, the fight meant absolutely nothing to the plot that nobody cared about since the second session of getting our asses kicked.

Any bad DM quality that there is was fucking shining through with this guy. Items NPCs could use that PC's couldn't use? Check. Railroading plot? Check. Fucking outright lying and fudging? Check. Using monsters way above CR in fights we can't get away from? Check. Bullshit puzzles? Oh, we had one but I don't even want to begin fucking describing the pain and agony it caused, so fucking Check. Targeting specific characters? Check.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:45 pm

You have my sympathy. I've been there, although my shitty DM was so shitty he couldn't go an entire session without being intolerable to the point of half the group quitting.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:18 pm

Yeah..my most recent experience with my DM reveals him going downhill...and I pray every day I'll never experience something like you have.

He decided to go with a Morrowind style "use a skill, gain points" system for our attributes. I told stories all night (intelligence) and got +8 charisma. The brash aggressive guy got +9 strength and +5 wisdom. The quiet, subtle character? +1 dex. The character that was our front-line combatant? +1 con.

Then 2d4 random bonus points, which gave me 3, the guy with +9 str/+5 wisdom 8, and the other two +2 each.

That was the point where we were like "uh, no."

And...he keeps trying to implement "Exp for kill blows" at which point we keep being like "You played EQ. You know that KSing happens, and is shit." and then is like "Oh yeah." Then 2 weeks later "Who got the killing blows for these 3 goblins? They're getting the experience" and we do it over again.

The worst thing is, 4 years ago, he ran a great campaign.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:44 pm

At least you got a great campaign from him 4 years ago. This guy was just complete ass. It wasn't houserules or anything, just him having no idea what fun is. When he's the DM he likes fights to be really close (and thus likes seeing the PCs drop at least once per combat), but when he's a character he can't stand failing a single fucking save.

He plays a fucking fighter and has not yet declared a will save to be below 15. I watch his dice and have seen his sheet (the DM asked for copies to everyone's sheets to try and tone this guy down). He is cheating badly.

I'm mostly confused about how he doesn't understand the players might want to feel powerful sometimes. It's really difficult to feel like a hero when you get knocked out every damn fight. I mean, he clearly can't stand going unconscious ever (he has lied about his HP on multiple occasions to not go unconscious) so why did he think it was fun when we were eating dirt EVERY DAMN COMBAT!?

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:22 am

I have a better question...WHY THE FUCK HAVEN'T YOU GUYS KICKED HIM OUT OF THE GROUP!?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:58 am

I had a group with a GM kind of like that. I left after the first session, because I play D&D to have fun. I am not obligated to play D&D with a GM who has managed the incredible feat of sitting down and playing a game based on social interaction with people I like socially interacting with and then making it not-fun.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:19 pm

We have not kicked him out and I have not left for a few reasons:

1. He isn't kicked out because he's a close friend of one member of the group and friends with the other two (including me). Outside of the game he's a good guy, but inside the game he is insufferable.

2. He brings a lot of things to the game. Minis, maps, books, etc. He's got a lot of swag and swag is nice. The friend thing is important, but damn does this guy have a lot of things.

Reasons I'm still in the group:

1. There are no other games in the area. There just aren't any, and I've looked quite a bit.

2. I am friends with the other members of the group and feel like I would be letting them down if I left. Being as awesome as I am, I fear they may cease enjoying the game if I left.

3. I'm still having fun. As a player he's just annoying, so everyone rolls their eyes when he announces that his fighter's will save was above 20 a-fucking-gain at level 3 and we keep on playing the game. His character may be a boring mary sue, but the sessions can still be fun if the current DM just lies about whatever monster the problem player is up against in order to keep it up.

The game only stopped being fun when he was DMing, and even then it was sometimes fun in a masochistic sort of way. At the very least I got some angry rants out of it.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:39 am

...that's kinda sad, but who am I to judge? My own group is afraid of Tome making melee classes too strong (bullshit, those morons should be thankful for the Fighter no longer sucking!) and one even called the Samurai's "Kiai!" ability bullshit with how strong it is.

Kot · Post by **Kot** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:37 pm

I have a question. The DM cheated as a player, right? Then why in the nine hells do you even play with him?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:50 am

Didn't we just answer this?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:41 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:We have not kicked him out and I have not left for a few reasons:

Reasons I'm still in the group:

there are those, however, that feel it is better to have no game, than a bad one.

IF he really is a friend, then when you talk to him and tell him his actions arent working, then he would change, if not, a friend would understand "Hey we like you and doing all sorts of other things, we just dont want to play D&D with you."

if the friendship cant weather not being able to play D&D together, then it wasnt a very good one to begin with.

some time you WILL have to tell him, you dont want him to DM and thent he confrontation will occur probably without warning to him. what will happen then?

better to plant seeds now that let him know parts of his playing are not working with everyone, before the time comes, when it does end the friendship because of something in game, or liberties he takes outside of it that REALLY go against the group or someone in its beliefs or feelings.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:37 pm

I completely forgot to mention an important part.

He takes criticism VERY poorly. He threatened to pack up and go home once because somebody went to some boards to talk about what to do with the campaign (he asked if modules were really as hard as our campaign was). The DM found it and went off on a rant and threatened to leave the group.

Yeah.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:24 pm

So the real purpose of this thread is to hope he finds this, and threatens to leave, so you can say "Please do."

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:54 pm

And Bingo was his Nameo.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:55 pm

It sure would be a shame if you let his email slip. Y'know, accidentally.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:11 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:He takes criticism VERY poorly. He threatened to pack up and go home once

then just criticize his ass into the ground the next time. dont be passive aggressive about it, show the asshole the door.

next time he threatens to quit just tell him "nobodies stopping you, LEAVE."

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:30 am

Well, if he plays a core fighter and cheats hard, he probably ends up right around a playable tier. Overall, that's frustrating, but not too broken.

For comfort/schadenfreude though, Flatline's story is still worse:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51886& ... c&start=18

As was PhoneLobster's:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51605

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:10 am

Holy bugger, Flatline's GM sounds like he was running a cult more than an actual gaming group. That's the kind of thing that BADD horror stories are made out of.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:30 pm

Why don't you just flat out say "Roll the dice where we can see, you cheating bastard!"

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:10 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:Why don't you just flat out say "Roll the dice where we can see, you cheating bastard!"

Yeah, I had to do this years back because of one player. I first took the non-confrontational approach of having everyone roll in front. Of course, the only one who had a problem was the cheater. Later, I finally had to bite the bullet and flat out tell him to stop cheating (I did this in private).

I can't see why the DM would have a whole group discussion (sans the cheater) and come to the conclusion of "yeah, he's cheating, but that's okay". It seems the only two rational outcomes are:

1) Tell him to fucking stop, or

2) Everyone cheats!

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:48 pm

RobbyPants wrote:It seems the only two rational outcomes are:

Fair. Those are the only fair/equitable outcomes. You can come up with other rational outcomes if your (generic) premises/priors are different than the ones you (specific) have.

Sorry, pet peeve.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:58 pm

True.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:10 pm

RobbyPants wrote:2) Everyone cheats!

Yeah, turning the game into pure MTP seems like the best solution at that point.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:20 pm

Hell, I wonder what his reaction would be if you did go with that option.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:51 pm

Probably upset that he is no longer "winning" D&D. He cheats at board games too apparently :/. It's weird because he still loses and doesn't seem to really want to win.

But he cheats.

It is confusing.

The game has pretty much become MTP at this point because we can't lose combats. I saw this person roll a save, get a 3, then, in a miraculous show of honesty, declare he failed it. However, he did not say he failed the one that mattered, he failed the one against disease instead of paralysis. You know, even though he wasn't told to roll for the disease yet. He just said "failed disease, passed paralysis."

Oh well.