My DM Is a Moron

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:42 pm

DM: Increasingly I find myself not really caring about 3.5. I'm looking forward to the big conclusion of Planescape, really.
(6:22:53 PM) Getter Poseiden: And why is that? The not caring
DM: I'm just tired of 3.5
DM: There's so many other systems out there.
DM: Shadowrun! Exalted! Rifts!
DM: Glorious Rifts!
(6:23:21 PM) Getter Poseiden: Ugh
DM: I'm made to run a Rifts game!
(6:23:24 PM) Getter Poseiden: Rifts is shit
DM: GLORIOUS shit!
DM: Even d20 modern would be a nice change of pace.
DM: Tri-Stat makes me smile

(6:27:35 PM) Getter Poseiden: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49560
(6:27:40 PM) Getter Poseiden: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=29458

DM: This guy misses the point entirely.
DM: Rifts is the cure for all this balance bullshit in D20. It is GLORIOUSLY unbalanced and silly! FUCK THE NUMBERS! CHAOS!
DM: You can take *HOBO* as your character class! Doesn't that indicate something?!
(6:32:53 PM) Getter Poseiden: Yeah, that you failed your roll and are going to be useless for the remainer of your character's life
DM: Only if you think you need to be able to roll high on things to have fun.
DM: Which, in Rifts, you don't need to.
(6:33:25 PM) Getter Poseiden: No, people expect to actually be able to do things
DM: You can have character scores of 1s across the board and you can be the deadliest thing imaginable!
DM: Because it's RIFTS! POWER FOR EVERYBODY
18:35
(6:35:21 PM) Getter Poseiden: So you say
DM: Dude. It describes Mega-Damage right there on the sheet.
DM: You cannot somehow think I am wrong.
DM: Rifts is delightfully randomized, too. It's like D&D 2e.
(6:37:22 PM) Getter Poseiden: It's stupid, and the author was an idiot who couldn't design his way out of a paper bag
DM: You're silly and I pity you.
DM: Plus Rifts has the best fluff in any RPG universe ever.
(6:38:20 PM) Getter Poseiden: Fluff, sure
(6:38:24 PM) Getter Poseiden: But the system is crap
(6:38:30 PM) Getter Poseiden: As in, unplayable
DM: The same way Paranoia is unbalanced and arbitrary and unfair!
DM: And therefore hilarious and entertaining in the same way
(6:41:13 PM) Getter Poseiden: To you, perhaps
(6:41:19 PM) Getter Poseiden: But many feel otherwise
DM: Oh come on.
(6:41:30 PM) Getter Poseiden: Paranoia I can see as being fun
(6:41:33 PM) Getter Poseiden: Rifts? No
DM: 'Many feel otherwise'. Sir, that is weasel talk
DM: Either your game is totally off the wall silly and entertaining in that or it is 'balanced and fair and playable'. And 'balanced and fair and playable' is starting to bore me.
DM: Plus awesome fluff
DM: Canada consists of a single giant french-speaking fortress that manufactures laser-immune powered armor with gigantic boom-boom guns, and The New Mounties ride psychic cyborg other-dimensional horse mounts and fire hand-held railguns at hive-minded bug-aliens.
18:45
DM: Sam Steele has been raised from the dead. He has no cyborg or magic or psychic enhancements at all. He's just that. Badass.
(6:45:31 PM) Getter Poseiden: How can "balanced and fair and playable" bore you?
DM: Because I've done it nonstop for five years
(6:45:57 PM) Getter Poseiden: Pfft
DM: As mentioned above, why anyone would wanna play Joe Human with Tricks in a world with actual magic, actual psionics and melee guys relying on chemicals, brain augmentation or bionics is beyond me.

-This is why people play IG in the Warhammer universe, silly man.
18:50
DM: I'm kind of surprised you don't automatically like Rifts. It must be this silly forum post coloring your opinion. Look at all those character options! Look at them. You always like more character options.
Me: Options don't matter if they're garbage
DM: Then why is Marvel vs. Capcom 2 so popular?
DM: Three playable characters out of sixty
(6:53:47 PM) Getter Poseiden: Because people buy shitty games
DM: Now you're just being silly. You think every character has to be absolutely perfectly optimized against every other potential character.
DM: If that was possible you would have zero character options.
DM: Besides! ORDINARY GUY in the suit of nuclear Powered Armor
DM: The IG principle
DM: I happen to like playing unoptimized D&D builds, I'll have you know.
(6:57:31 PM) Getter Poseiden: Which is why Agni was always about to die
DM: And when he died he died gloriously
(6:58:10 PM) Getter Poseiden: Bragging about being unoptimized is like bragging your car gets half the mileage of another car of its type
DM: Now you're just being silly and spiteful.
DM: Come on, he was a Spellcaster who did melee combat. Living life on the edge.
DM: I want to see a wizard actually stab someone with a dagger some day
(6:58:58 PM) Getter Poseiden: Why? It'd be suicide
(6:59:02 PM) Getter Poseiden: And stupid
DM: Now you're trying to tell me that you did not consider poor Agni badass in any way whatsoever.
19:00
DM: I take umbrage at your insult, sir.
(7:01:36 PM) Getter Poseiden: He was badass, sure. But he'd have been more badass had he not shot himself in the foot, namely with AC
(7:02:01 PM) Getter Poseiden: And possibly HP. Not sure there.
DM: It's not impressive if there was no risk to it, is there?
DM: He rolled decent for HP.
DM: I never did get the money to upgrade his armor, though. Or the time to craft his Dragonskin Greatarmor
(7:02:39 PM) Getter Poseiden: Didn't you get offered K-armour and refuse for some reason?
DM: (He needed Samurai armor eventually, no matter how awesome Biker jacket was)
DM: Because it was an Iori ploy to talk me into letting him use tons of silly overpowered K-nonsense in Planescape.
19:05
(7:05:44 PM) Getter Poseiden: Hah, no
(7:06:15 PM) Getter Poseiden: K and Frank's stuff is actually balanced, if you read it and playtest
DM: Fuck balanced. Haven't you been listening? I want silliness
DM: I want utter unfairness!
DM: I want normal men fighting alongside power armored giants and dragon hatchlings
DM: I want SIX PACKS OF CLONES so I can kill PCs on random whim!
DM: I want secret societies based around the philosophy of Rock and Roll
DM: And lots of slipping Quantum Leap style through time/dimensions/planes.
(7:08:01 PM) Getter Poseiden: Yet these ideas can be done in balanced systems
DM: Paranoia is balanced only in the manner of 'Nobody can be more powerful than anybody else, because there are no rules, and the DM decides everything that goes on, preferably in a playing-favorites, arbitrary fashion'.
DM: I think I need to run a Paranoia game or something to get this out of my system
19:10
(7:10:09 PM) Getter Poseiden: Perhaps you should
DM: Kirb would love me
(7:11:17 PM) Getter Poseiden: The point is that party members shouldn't be gimped because they fucked up rolls at character creation. Every party member SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO CHALLENGES OF THEIR LEVEL. If they're not able to do that, they're crap
(7:11:28 PM) Getter Poseiden: Which is why I take issue with Rifts
DM: Psh. Backstab the guy who rolled all 18s in his sleep and make him reroll then.
DM: It's not like characters have a long lifespan with Mega Damage being thrown around.
DM: ...come to think of it, Rifts would work excellent for a Paranoia-style game
DM: Just on that basis!
(7:13:18 PM) Getter Poseiden: The whole reason the tomes were made is to make all the characters actually be able to meet challenges of their CR. And now they do. Usually it's a 50/50 thing, but it can be situational.
(7:13:29 PM) Getter Poseiden: And it generally makes interesting characters
DM: Let's take combat out of the game.
DM: Boom, everyone's equal. Problem solved!
(7:13:48 PM) Getter Poseiden: Bullshit
DM: Now your only challenge is one-upping the other PCs.
(7:14:03 PM) Getter Poseiden: Everyone won'
(7:14:32 PM) Getter Poseiden: t be equal, because there will still be magical crap, and people with more skill. So wait, no we remove skills? Then how about races, so everyone is the same?
DM: Good.
DM: Now you understand
(7:14:53 PM) Getter Poseiden: It's retarded
DM: For what you want, there has to be no options at all.
19:15
(7:15:11 PM) Getter Poseiden: Not really
DM: So let's roll percentiles and blow shit up with nuclear-firing pistols and power armor at level 1
(7:15:31 PM) Getter Poseiden: You don't understand game balance at all, clearly
DM: You don't understand that your numbers seriously don't even matter in the Rifts system, because you think in terms of D&D.
DM: Characters with 1s across the board are fine.
(7:17:57 PM) Getter Poseiden: K-classes can be used effectively right out of the box. No optimization required. And that's awesome. They've given them to people who have never played RPGs before, and they love it. They're simple, effective and make for fun characters
DM: So let him write his own game and stop playing D&D in the first place.
(7:19:04 PM) Getter Poseiden: They do
DM: All this silly bootstrapping of a system he doesn't even like.
DM: GOOD.
DM: I'm tired of D&D anyway. Five years of it. I need a change.
DM: And so we come back to what opened this conversation
(7:19:29 PM) Getter Poseiden: And they do like D&D, which is why they do what they can to make it work better
19:20
DM: Our record was a ninja group of mutant wolverines from the moon who had power armor that was also from the moon. I played a lava warlock mutant anthro-wolverine in power armor. From the moon.

-Username17 himself
DM: YES
DM: HE GETS IT
(7:22:34 PM) Getter Poseiden: Yes, they had fun because they played a theme party
DM: And it was kickass
(7:23:30 PM) Getter Poseiden: Yes, because they could do their job competently
DM: Ohhhhh. I see your problem.
DM: You think that the game should have dragons and hobos be totally equal because you think they're going to be in the same party together.
DM: What are you, nuts?
19:25
DM: New Gnomish Republic. Yes
(7:25:35 PM) Getter Poseiden: There are ways around it. Namely specific tiers certain characters can be played it. For instance, Koumei's d20 40k thing has two tiers: Assault (average people) and Siege (Space Marines, Sisters of battle)
DM: That's nice.
DM: CYBORG FAIRIES AND DRAGONS AND WOLVERINE PSYCHICS FROM THE MOON
DM: *with powered armor*
(7:26:27 PM) Getter Poseiden: As logn as everybody can do something cool and do their job competently, it's balanced. Which is my point.
DM: Give the Hobo one of those giant-sized walking weapons platforms and boom, he's instantly as competent as a dragon or a heavily-armed cyborg
DM: And in Rifts, it's not exactly hard to find a giant walking robot.
DM: Probably built by amphibian alien slavers from Atlantis
(7:27:51 PM) Getter Poseiden: Assuming he meets the stat requirements of a Glitter Boy or whatever, go for it. But he still won't be as good as an actual pilot
DM: Doesn't matter.
DM: Mega damage.
DM: Pilot still blows up good.
(7:28:05 PM) Getter Poseiden: And at which point, why didn't he just play a damn pilot?
DM: Why play IG in Warhammer?
(7:28:25 PM) Getter Poseiden: IG are able to do their job competently
DM: Seriously. Rifts does not have these sort of silly 'balancing' things that your impassioned judgments are based on and that you expect because you're used to them in D20.
DM: Hobos get mega damage rifles that can take down dragons.
DM: And there's no arbitarily high wealth limit per level
DM: Surprise a Glitter Boy and he goes down hard. As well as the city block he's standing next to.
DM: And at the end of the day, you're a psychic cyborg fairy wizard.
DM: With Space Marine armor
DM: From the Moon
(7:29:41 PM) Getter Poseiden: There's clearly no point in talking about this further, as you don't get it. Rifts is a terrible blight on the landscape, and you should feel bad for liking it.
DM: Your lack of imagination saddens me
19:30
DM: psychic cyborg fairy wizard in space marine armor from the Moon
DM: Fighting alongside the Macross, and the Ninja Turtles.
DM: ...the Ninja Turtles in Vertech fighters. Yes.

---

Just...I give up. There's no talking to this idiot.

Also, Iori is my other DM (The one with the devil siege), this fellow runs my Planescape campaign.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:59 pm

Yes, as well you should. This guy is moronic beyond belief.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:33 am

Your DM likes Rifts.

Rifts can be fun.

I'm in a really high powered game, playing a godling; along with other pretty powerful characters.

I'm also in a really uh... torturous low powered game; where we're the pawns (rats) in a Genesplicer's lab.

One character is powerful enough to be the god-emperor of man (maybe, just maybe); the other is uh... well a fire axe can seriously kill him, or a baseball bat.

The thing is that your DM is a fool....no, moron.

He sees what's wrong, but doesn't realize that it's wrong, nor does he try to pick apart and find ways to improve Rifts.

Only when strictly enforced tiers and pre-defined character roles are in place can a Rifts game work.

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:45 am

Yeah, but ... psychic cyborg fairy wizards in space marine armor from the Moon fighting alongside the Ninja Turtles in Vertech fighters could be an awesome team.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:48 am

Sure, as long as they can do their job effectively. That's all I ask, in any system.

koz · Post by **koz** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:24 am

The thing is, Rifts CAN be balanced. It just requires an extremely knowledgeable GM, half the content to be marked unusable, and the players to agree to not smash the game to pieces.

Oh yeah, and clarification on what is a rule and what isn't. As JE found out, even the rules for ATTACK ROLLS patently contradict each other in Rifts.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:01 am

Well... they got ... they got changed in one book, that wasn't the 1st or the most recent book; it was the "gm's guide", full of item and gear lists, so it was more of a moment of confusion than anything else.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:19 am

Yeah, the basic rules such as "Does first level count for +X per level?" and "What is the minimum needed to hit, assuming no parry or dodge?" are contradicted between books.

It doesn't help that various Palladium games are *almost* identical at the core, but have tiny differences (see: Rifts PCs get 2 attacks, then add attacks from having a HtH skill, in other games you don't get the base of 2 for being a PC. It's "by HtH skill" if you have one, and 1 if you don't).

That all being said, as you noted, it can be fun if approached with the right mindset and everyone is on the same page. Just saying "FUCK BALANCE, I WANT RANDUM" is like making a cake with whatever is in the Chem lab and expecting it to turn out delicious.

I play in the low-powered experimental one JE is in. I rolled shit on stats, so picked a whole bunch of Physical Skills (which were appropriate anyway: I was playing a farm girl of the "denim overalls, straw hat, chews on a piece of straw, has pigtails" variety). Then the GM said "Here, you can use this set I rolled", which was superior, so I took that. This made my character... well, against MDC creatures, she'd have no hope at all (unable to do MD, 3 points of MD would send her to the afterlife), but by human terms, probably a good bet for winning the MMA tournament of your choice, and with a stupidly high Physical Beauty.

And with not even a pitchfork to stab people with - luckily she trained in the arts of Redneck Jiujitsu (typically learned in the sacred dojo of Hooters).

First challenge, the GM turned her into a dark fey bondage queen, and I swear, the GM doesn't even know me. Is there a sign on my IP address or something?

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:45 am

Fuck do you live in Sydney by any chance? I know someone who sounds exactly like that, right down to being that retarded. (To Miekle)

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:52 am

Nah, I live in Canada, my DM lives in the USA.

And don't get me wrong here, he's my friend. I've known him for like, 9 years now. But just the same, he can be a total retard about some things.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:03 am

Eh, just let him play a 'wacky fun' game. He'll get it out of his system; experience is the best teacher.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:46 am

One can only hope...

koz · Post by **koz** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:54 am

Meikle641 wrote:One can only hope...

Quite. I would suggest introducing him to Tome. Who knows, he might even fall in love with it.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:17 am

Oh, he knows about the Tomes. He just feels they're overpowered, blah blah. And after all he's "tired of D&D", for his crazy reasons.

Either way, there's not a chance of him going for a Tome game. Hell, he refuses to admit there's anything wrong with the PHB monk, despite everyone else in the group disagreeing (from experience).

Then there's this one idiot in the group who keeps screaming that that one Grand Master style that disintigrates people is overpowered. Oy vey...

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:24 am

Wait, doesn't he want crazy overpowered? Isn't the Tome as he perceives it exactly what he's looking for?

koz · Post by **koz** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:27 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Wait, doesn't he want crazy overpowered? Isn't the Tome as he perceives it exactly what he's looking for?

That, and why hasn't anyone volunteered to run him through it as a player?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:36 am

I think "balanced" is what he was complaining about, and the Tomes are that.

Oddly enough, the Monk is the only Tome class I've seen people complain about outside of the old WotC boards. They all looked at the Grand Master fighting styles and considered the save-or-die/disintegrate abilities to be too good (but everything else was apparently fine, even though Stun == Death).

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:40 am

Honestly, I don't see it as a big deal. It requires an attack roll vs normal AC, for one. Plus, why *shouldn't* a fighty type be able to insta-kill somebody at those levels?

koz · Post by **koz** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:49 am

Meikle641 wrote:Honestly, I don't see it as a big deal. It requires an attack roll vs normal AC, for one. Plus, why *shouldn't* a fighty type be able to insta-kill somebody at those levels?

Tell that to people who think fighters shouldn't get nice things.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:52 am

Yeah, this DM seems to be of the old school of thought that the DM is supposed to boost the weaker characters by handing out uber items, similar to the fighter with the artifact sword.

But he's stuck in the past conceptually. Modern games have figured out way better solutions to make better games than what this guy is proposing. Not to mention he seems to ascribe to the "No true scotsman" fallacy, because he's apparently a fan of nerfing himself for the hell of it and is unable to comprehend why anyone would want an effective character.

Rolling randomly at char creation to see if you suck or pwn isn't good. It just means you waste time as PCs swallow the suicide pill in the opening scene to roll up new characters. Because people will just keep dying or making new characters until they get one they like.

And as far as this guy liking Rifts, honestly the fluff to Rifts has never impressed me. It's a system where the designers just put down a bunch of bullshit with no rhyme or reason. Yeah it's crazy, and it doesn't make sense, and running it is equivalent to throwing the storyline and the rules out the window.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:42 pm

I honestly had an argument last night with someone who thinks that F&K are terrible designers, the classes are stupid (he especially hates both the samurai and the fighter), melee has already been brought onto a par with magic by the Tome of Battle, etc. etc...

Edit: Oh, yeah. He complained that the Tome response to broken magic is to 'make everything broken'.

Which is true enough. It got martial classes playing the same game as the rest.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:56 pm

Maxus wrote:Edit: Oh, yeah. He complained that the Tome response to broken magic is to 'make everything broken'.

Which is true enough. It got martial classes playing the same game as the rest.

That's actually a valid complaint though. Tome rules get rid of a minuscule amount of caster power and then bring the rest of the classes up to that level. Now if I remember correctly tome classes are supposed to be balanced against monster CR and even basic testing with a tome monk showed them as being a bit too powerful. Heavily optimizing tome classes may well push everyone to a level of power where DMs are reduced to throwing challenges at the players which have a CR far in excess of the group's level. So complaining about everyone being in crazytown now makes sense to me.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:57 pm

That can indeed be true. But if you wanted a game of Tall Poppy where everyone got cut down to Fighter level, that'd never sell, because it'd be utter shit, no-one would like it. What would they do, make rogues "Sneak Attack is small stabby things only" and make all spells PEW PEW and make "+1 to hit with your favourite weapon" a good deal for a feat? Garbage.

OH SHI-

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:27 pm

It is a valid complaint. If you don't like the power level of magic, you won't like bringing the martial classes up to par.

But I like Tome classes because I can play one and NOT need to optimize excessively to keep up. Also, playing a decent melee in normal 3.5 means I have to go through a bunch of splatbooks to get the feats. Which I'd spend hyperfocusing on one maneuver.

In Tome, I can give a character breadth as well as depth, thanks to the scaling feats. If I want him to kick ass with a bow, I give him Point Blank Shot and Sniper and that's when I start looking at melee stuff.

If I want to give a guy a spear as well as a bow, I can take Phalanx Fighter and get some cool stuff for that.

So, yes, I really appreciate the fact that I can give a character because I think it's cool and have it be worthwhile.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:28 pm

Honestly, I find myself growing more and more attracted to running or finding a game where balance between PCs isn't really important. Say, a game where a level 7 Tome warrior, a level 6 sorcerer with all utility spells, and a level 4 rogue with a greatclub as his primary weapon can group together and not worry overmuch about the challenges they face.

Then again, I generally Magical Teaparty enough in my games that people's stats don't do much beyond determining what goes on the "Things you can do and how well you do them" list. Maybe I should just make things explicitly MTP loosely based on the D&D setting. Instead of having statistical representations of characters that never get used, we'll have a list of abilities, a list of things known, and a description of the character. I should pitch this to my group next time we get together.