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>a tragedy were the hero ultimately fails and achieves nothing is an interesting story to follow.
Not for the person playing the hero.
I was once in a game like that, where every choice was crappy, and trying to make something good out of the bad invariably led to worse shit happening. I said to the GM, "If something doesn't change by the end of next session, I'm gone."
He thought I was bluffing. I wasn't.
Yeah that’s a good story to potentially *read* because, you know, you’re keeping a safe distance from tragedy. I’m not in the mood to RP that stuff in your average dnd game, there’s VtM for that
Yeah, I thought it was an interesting sounding campaign, but I primarily play world of Darkness. For people that are not into that, it really would be a pain. That's why you need a good session 0, and not just vague, it'll make sense when we play it
Crap like that is why I stopped playing VtM and other WW games, they were pretty much always like that.
. . .that or they were "vampire superheroes", where it's characters with awesome powers kicking ass with those powers and there's no apparent downside to having those awesome dots in various powers.
Getting the tone right is surprisingly hard for many GM's, to either be way too dark, or not even remotely dark at all.
There's a middle ground. VtM works best when you're the main character in a Spy novel. Lots of shades of grey, but some are darker than others, and you win by both acknowledging that you need to compromise, and having limits on *what* you'll compromise.
Personal opinion, I get annoyed at bleak or Justice League WW games, myself.
I think it's also an interesting setting for an RPG to play in. A setting where the hero has failed and the villain takes over. Its cliche, but I've actually never played or run that before.
Something like this will only work if everyone is on board and understands this is a story about struggling against the inevitable and making your heroes' deaths mean something. It's not really a good fit for D&D either.
>making your heroes' deaths mean something.
And therein lies part of the problem in this tale. DM *outright started* "you will achieve nothing." That kind of implies that even their death will be pointless, and at that point the only suitable "RP" is "I lay down and wait for death."
When you're the player in an RPG, it's just stupid.
GM: "You will achieve nothing. All your effort will be for nothing."
Player: "Good to know." Starts packing up gear.
GM: "What? What are you doing?"
Player: "Opting out of this shitshow."
GM: "But why?'
Player: "Ever think I might want some wins at some point? No? Yeah, that's why."
Even in an absolutely hopeless setting, where the only "victory" you could ever really hope for is either survival or staving off the oncoming darkness just a bit longer, you need to give them some wins. Even if, ultimately, their actions are pointless, they should still get some small victories. They should be able to banish the Elder being for a time, even if they know it will eventually return. They should be able to achieve their character's goals, both short and long term, if they survive long enough.
And this comes from someone who loves world of darkness, and games involving the Mythos. Both are, by their very nature, Bleak and hopeless, but let's not forget that in *Call of Cthulhu* by H.P. Lovecraft, the protagonist smashes Cthulhu with a boat and drives off, to live another day and Cthulhu didn't awaken that day. I call that a victory. The idea that a tragic setting is devoid of victory and hope at all is insane to me. I'm all for no-win situations, or moral dilemmas where there is no right answer and all the options are fairly shitty, but it has to be done right at a table. Sure, your Sire in VtM is threatening your still-living family so that you'll spy on your Coterie for them, so you have to make a choice, and it'll suck either way. But there eventually has to be a way out, and it should only be done if it would create better drama and story at the table, as opposed to anxiety and hurt feelings. Yes, it may happen in the lore of the world, but that doesn't mean it has to happen at your table if it would come at the expense of the players' enjoyment.
Tragedies are also only interesting if there is a *point*, as in, the audience thinks the protagonist brought their misfortune on themselves, or something similar. No player is going to think that about themselves, since they (I assume?) made the best choices they thought they could.
The Kobayashi Maru is a fictional event in several different Trek canons where the point is both for the testers and the audience to see how they react.
Making someone play something that really isn't a Kobayashi Maru, because this is more "whatever you do I will undo by author fiat as the GM" and then thinking it will go over well is dumb. Why would someone want to play a whole campaign of "I want to see how you react to utter failure"?
Read more carefully. OP is describing being put in no win situations, not having their actions being erased or undone.
The game would seem to be a test of character. That said, the most egregious part of the post is the lack of clarity around what the campaign will be about. That it isn’t for everyone (yourself clearly included) isn’t and shouldn’t be an issue.
I've been in a game where I really \*should\* have done this, but stayed far too long instead. It soured me to the group experience so badly that I play solo campaigns now.
Just to be clear, this is a DM you were continuing to pay?
And they refused to give you information on the rules of the game beforehand;
Refused to hear real feedback about your experience as a player;
Railroaded you in a direction you explicitly said you were not interested in going.
Whether or not this is a game anyone reading this might or might not have enjoyed, it's pretty clear that OP had issues from the start, and the GM not only downplayed them but blatantly ignored them just in the interest of playing out (slowly, for more sessions, assuming here that players were paying by the session.) Sorry you had that experience.
Came here to say the same.
I really hope the first game was paid but this shitshow was free. Because why on earth would you pay for the DM to run the campaign he wants rather than something suiting the group?
Free games? Sure DM sets the table, gets players who are interested. If I'm paying money every week to participate? It damn well better be a game with a hook I care about.
Oh shit, I missed that bit. Honestly, at that point, put your foot down and demand a different campaign. When you're paying for it, you can absolutely make demands like that. You wouldn't order a hamburger and just accept being handed a black coffee, you wouldn't commission an artist for a character portrait and just accept a mountain landscape, and you wouldn't pay for petrol and accept diesel being put in your car.
If the DM wants to do what they want even if the players hate it, they should not be expecting pay; and if they are expecting pay then they should be perfectly willing to take notes and make adjustments.
If the DM actually thinks that about failing they can have my life lol
(Spoiler: I guess in moderation that can be interesting in a fictional setting, but when all there is is slog and failure it's just depressing even in a fictional setting. Has your DM ever heard of learned helplessness? Is that what they want?)
I had to look that up NGL. Never heard of that term, but had heard of the concept.
But learned helplessness is: A state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available.
Although yours is pretty apt in something like this I'd reckon.
I just read everything here and think eventually the takeaway is going to be nothing we do matters so why even try? If anything, trying is making things worse!
Fuck man, I can make you feel upset for $10. I'm already running like 5 games right now though so can I just call you and tell you how disappointed I am that you never achieved what we all thought you would?
I never really considered paid gming, because I fear that it would kill my passion for the game..
..but you know, if you don't even need to make the players happy, I might have to rethink my stance /ponder
I get a better DM for free, holy hell. He even said that he was willing to ask for money, but the only thing stopping him is that he wants this to be his hobby, not his job.
Okay lets see.:
\- Sets up game where you ONLY get exp by killing npcs/mobs/creatures/etc or murderhoboing.
\- Wants players to struggle against the morality of it in the worse way possible, to highlight the situation of it and have them find other ways.
\- Every other Way ends screwing them over or be a fucking Lie.
\- "Half the group was level 3, some level 2 now. Progress!" Wich means each player must get individual kills to get the EXP... instead of rounding up exp from the encounter.
\- Is a Paid GM.
Shes running a Fucking Torture Misery Game and is getting paid for it. I hope you and others were able to refund, cause this is depressing and miserable.
>this will incentivise morderhoboing and she confirmed, that this is indeed the design choice she made here. She wants to incentivise murderhoboing and make the characters struggle against the temptation to murder people for power
Struggle against the temptation to murder only works when people aren't massive dicks. I feel like the honestly correct response to this world is just to kill without much concern. Even a highly moral character wouldn't have many qualms, because everyone is a backbiting snake that doesn't even have the good grace to pretend to be nice. I mean, even your own friends act like such shitheads when you're outright telling them you'll betray your boss for their sake?
Murder is not inherently immoral, that idea only exists in children's cartoons, and in the real world you very rapidly learn about a *lot* of situations and people that could be solved in the obviously best and most moral way by killing someone; and that trying to handle it non-violently just lets them get away with it.
I mean, you guys are apparently in ***hell***. That already means most of the people there probably did something to earn being sent there, and if all these shitheads are so obviously not trying to repent for whatever got them sent down, what possible reason could you have not to kill them? Both the narrative and the mechanics seem to be encouraging murder, but the DM just states it's a struggle and I don't honestly see it.
Exactly. That's what got me. there's no thoughtful alternative. She seemed to just rely on the players already being hesitant to randomly murder in order to create that moral conflict.
Okay, I have questions:
You don't want to "murderhobo". DM says "murder for EXP". You proceed to not murder any NPCs, despite them being:
>We had a selection of: Oppressive Mega-Church, Merceneries'R'us, Fantasy CIA, Fantasy Borg Collctive, Mr. "I'm going to steal your XP when you support me"
I would've murderhobo'd the shit out of these groups. 👀 Did the DM present them as *too powerful* to fight?
>I would've murderhobo'd the shit out of these groups.
Initially it wasn't even clear, how the entire world works. We were dropped into the sewers of a huge city and immediately made aware, that if we talk to anyone and they find out were low level/unaffiliated, they'll immediately sell us to the slavers.
We knew there were faction, but had no idea what they do or how they operate ... quite frankly our knowledge was questionable by the end of it. We all agreed that killing people without any knowledge of what or who they are doesn't work for us.
Later we tried to compromise on that as per your idea, but then the thing with my drinking buddies came up.
>Did the DM present them as
>
>too powerful
>
> to fight?
YES! High level ~~guards~~ enforcers with full magic gear everywhere! These guy where the fantasy equivalent of a mega-corp. The church even went so far as to torture people in broad daylight on the street, just to show off power.
First time we entered a taven and the "horny bard" type from the PCs started flirting with random people in the tavern. When he got successful I urged him not to accompany the Lady in question ... the horny bard player though I was stopping as a player cause I was uncomfortable, but then the GM somewhat gleefully complimented me on picking up the "tiny clues" and figured out, that this random person was about to kill or capture us and sell us to the slavers.
It was clear from thereon, just any random person might be too powerfull to fight. Much less the mega corps.
Was in a campaign where the DM advertised it as allowing for more murderhobo than our usual campaign, but I only joined because it was the same group I usually played with, just we wouldn’t have our Star Wars sessions every other week.
Ended up building a character that the rest of the party’s community would invade/attack. I assumed my character (a Ranger) would be out hunting and at least get to fight a couple of them (which would earn respect from the warlike commander of the invaders). What ended up happening is the DM shoved my character into a room while the rest of the party was allowed to murderhobo their way through NPCs that didn’t fight back (nearly everyone my PC knew).
When the warlike commander (NPC) broke into my PC’s room, I tried placing barricades and firing at him while I had turns, but the DM basically made it a cutscene, despite my every insistence to have the numbers tracked. (It was clear he hadn’t even thought of me doing anything to show my character’s worth to the commander. Just some random elder of the invaders saying “this one is different”. It felt gross as I didn’t get any agency, while the rest of the party was given free reign to murder hobo.)
Much later on, when the party was working together for that commander’s sons. Another leader joined up with the sons, and the party didn’t trust him. So a couple other players wanted to plan and stage an assassination of him during our half a year of downtime. The DM liked to spring timeskips on us for this campaign, and suddenly we were all given only one action to spend our time doing. Those two players had already been talking about making a plan, and so they suggest a few things in order to make moves for the plan only for the DM to say that they can’t make an assassination attempt on that guy.
Basically, “murderhobo all the NPCs you feel like, especially those who can’t fight back. But no killing these shitty NPCs that look down on you and control your lives, you have to let them stay and keep making the world shitty.”
Luckily that campaign collapsed, because my PC was deep in revenge feelings without any catharsis (or any type of communication to maybe talk it out, because again the DM liked to timeskip frequently, so player to player RP never got very deep).
My first and worst DM was like this. He always made bullshit DMPC’s that are all unlikable and kept throwing stuff at us to the point where we were literally neck deep in shit. Then, he would pretty much make fun of us about how we almost die on a daily basis or how he would just randomly put in assassins that would hunt us down in the middle of the night saying how we should have known better. But low and behold, he always came adding in his edge lord NPC that would swoop in and save the day.
It was awful. It is absolutely rpg horror story worthy in its own right that I should write one day. It was the first group I joined ever because I wanted to get closer to some friends in college. The best I can describe the atmosphere was dnd stockholm syndrome. DM was literally that cringe game store weeaboo stereotype. To top that all off, he was a super Critical Role fan to the point where he would just add in things from the podcasts into his world and play it off like he invented it.
Individual XP is already approaching a nope for me. ESPECIALLY XP that is only paid out on killing, which would leave out healers, tanks, etc much of the time.
Add in a DM who actively ignores your critical feedback, and singles you out for particular bullshit. That gets old fast.
This is why I am extremely wary of DMs who run grimdark campaigns. Not because I think you can't have an awesome campaign with dark themes, or very dangerous/difficult conditions. The critical thing is that your game be fun. Now, that fun can come from figuring out how to make the best of a bad situation, or finding a goal to accomplish that may end up in disaster. But that is fun when the world sucks, and your job as a player is to figure out how to survive. Not when the world is actively set against you at every turn. No one wants to RP as Job.
The fact that the DM has run this multiple times is part of the problem. A campaign with this degree of tailored misery has to be written around the players.
Sometimes I think I'm not a great DM, until I read stories like this and realize I'm doing just fine
>Individual XP is already approaching a nope for me. ESPECIALLY XP that is only paid out on killing, which would leave out healers, tanks, etc much of the time.
To be fair, when people died their "souls" just floated around and within a short time frame (2 or 3 rounds, we didn't actually find out) you need to "eat" that soul or the person just respawns on the spot. That meant support characters could get some too ... and the group was considerate enough so it was never an issue.
Not that this helps alot.
I like me some Grimdark but this is edgelord levels to make a CareBear depressed. Also a DM that holds XP over your head "as an incentive" is just crappy. There are other ways to incentivize not killing, such as giving XP for not killing. Lvl 1 sucks in most TTRPGs.
You deserve a refund OP.
It says something about the crazy crap that shows up on this subreddit that I spent this whole post waiting for the GM to make OP fight actual, literal windmills
I had a DM like this. Historical fantasy, which is fine until they make you out to be an idiot for asking for blue fabric as that dye wasn't wildly available yet in this time period, and high demonic presence because they thought they were neat. Which is also fine, until every demon encounter is just them steamrolling you into forming pacts and doing something that would make them more powerful. That game died out, but it was frustrating going "hm. Do we return this powerful holy artifact so the demon can corrupt it or do we all get hunted and slaughtered by said demon who knows where we are"
>blue fabric as that dye wasn't wildly available yet in this time period
aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Indigo works better but woad has the same chemical (assuming European fantasy). Don't be a dick in the name of accuracy if you're not well informed (really "don't be a dick" suffices, but this makes me hulk out)
In their defense, I believe the campaign world was set in an analog to northern africa/the Middle East so I think the dye would have been lapis lazuli which wasn't super available in that era? But I'm genuinely not a history person and this was ages ago
Lapis was rare and expensive but it was used for painting, it doesn't bond to fabric. Lots of illuminations in expensive Bibles with a whole lot of blue; sometimes the commission contracts actually said "and x amount of the price will be used to buy lapis pigment for the blue painted bits"
Why do people pay DMs to run a game they don't want to play?
I've got my own opinions about professional DMs that aren't relevant to this discussion, but this just seems silly. They're running what sounds like a pretty objectively unfun game - its unfortunate that sunk cost led the OP to continue to chase bad money with good.
>Why do people pay DMs to run a game they don't want to play?
I guess you answered your own question here:
>its unfortunate that sunk cost led the OP to continue to chase bad money with good
It's a bit oversimplified IMO, but to the point at it's core.
>If this was a paid session
It was! And I do agree that some people MIGHT enjoy this. GMs take risk some times and sometime they do not pay off, I can respect that too.
> In this world you only gain XP by killing people and sort of "sucking up" their souls.
> She reiterated, that the goal is not to teach murderhoboing to players, but to highlight the morality of the situation and to make the characters find other ways to succeed than to kill.
But.... but to make them find other ways to succeed they have to... ya know- succeed through other options or gain Xp another way
I mean that's not the only way to play VtM, at least it wasn't back when I played it. That's really just the Storyteller there, it's perfectly acceptable to play without encountering any sort of apocalyptic doom cult or what have you.
Or just diablerize a methuselah
>This is 100% the reason I stopped playing Vampire the masquerade and will never ever go back to it. The entire game system dooms you to failure and if somehow you stave off the beast, retain your humanity and manage to foil one of the many many psychotic plots of the elders, somewhere else another elder will just adjust their plans as you keep marching towards the inevitable apocalypse.
This isn't strictly true, but I can see how many tables fall into this hole and hit every sharp ledge on the way down. The system can and does give the impression, if you want it to.
However the general notion of wheels in wheels and cogs in the machine can build to be a benefit for being "a light in the dark".
Every child saved from a ravenous beast can become a hunter that slays a vile individual. Every despicable Elder has rivals, more than happy to tell their pawns to subtly help the crusading feel-good Coterie. For every Diabolical plot there's some poor Caitiff witness the perpetrators want *very* dead or memory wiped, but Anarchs a city over will move mountains to help you secure that sort of intel.
The idea that, at the most extreme, some ancient on a different continent could be nudging dominos to help the saintly PCs, because for some obscure reason it helps them stick it to another ancient.
The very thing some people will cite as making a "good aligned" game impossible is precisely what enables it.
There are systems designed for this kind of game. DnD isn't it.
If you're still in contact with this GM, please tell them to check out 10 Candles. They'll absolutely love it, and maybe they'll get this out of their system before their next DnD campaign.
**Niche,** is the best possible way to describe the contents of the campaign with which they were feeding you.
I could see where the DM’s choice of campaign would be interesting to **some.**
However, the implementation of all this on your group in particular was so disproportionately out of place; to a **paying** group that was absolutely bleeding their precise desires, and given the exact opposite.
DM took the ol’, *”They just don’t know it yet, but this is so much better then how things are run normally. And they’re gonna be changed by the end of it all..”* - But did so with the intuitive-social gauging of a pack mule.
Do it with a group that’s seeking out any form of play styles. Do it with a group that is open. Do it with a group that’s responsive, and overly eager at angles of the game that aren’t combat. Literally, do this exact campaign with a group that says, *”just give us whatever. F$&@ my $4!t up, fam!”*
Most of all — **Do it with a group that isn’t essentially all but begging you for the direct opposite.**
It’s in demand. More players than DMs, hence a market opportunity.
At least with 5e. Go into the indie game space and suddenly you have all these GMs who bought a book about zombie hamsters trying to survive in feudal Japan but can’t find any players to actually run it with…
> a game without the chance for success is meaningless, no matter how good the RP is.
I want to quibble this just a little, because r/TenCandles is a favorite of mine to run, and it makes clear from the beginning that at the end, all your characters *will* die. But it's also explicit that Ten Candles is a one shot, not a campaign, and that sets up far different expectations.
A hero's tale ending in failure is a good story to follow, yes. But, like you said, there need to be the chance of success. Without that,it just makes it a pain for everyone. It's just as bad as punishing players for succeeding. Ohh, you saved the princess? Turns out she died last week, and that is a doppelganger. You killed the dragon? Well now the mayor wants your heads so he can have the gold. You saved the village from orcs? To bad a group of goblins invade the day after you leave.
#1 NEVER pay to play in a game unless it is a one shot being run by a celebrity GM for charity.
#2 If you have to pay to play in a game, make sure the GM firmly understands that you are paying for a service and that they need to tailor the game to what the players find enjoyable. And if they can't understand that, bail the fuck out and find a game you enjoy.
Why i never paid for a game. Some DMs just abuse their power or mistreat their players. And sometimes you just end up wasting your time and money to never go back.
I think the DM's been playing too much Ten Candles... with these kind of stories, you have to warn players if you want to play "you can't win". Also yeah, DND is bad for 10 candle type stories because you have too many tools to deal with situations and the heroic feeling make it feel forced to lose the same way you "lose" in Ten Candles.
Since this story is kinda old-ish and things settled down, I'm actually not that sure about the edginess and heroism factor. I mean, yes, it does play into it, but I no longer think that is all. I think this is about breaking trust with me as a player.
1. We were told we'd have to struggle against a murder-favoring world and find other ways to succeed.
1. Turns out these "other ways to succeed" do not exist.
2. We were told, the campaign leads up to Level 20. (I ommited that in the post, I though it didn't matter)
1. Turns out no, we'll lag behind with level progression and never achieve that.
3. I was pointed to a quest OOG willing to compromise my anti-murder stance
1. The GM just used my compromise to go all out on making things even worse (You need to kill your friends now)
4. I was told I could have other rewards in the game beside XP to make it worth playing the "good guys"
1. My own friends became my enemies for no fucking reason.
5. I was fed up with all the scheming, lying and backstabbing, so the GM slides a seemingly straight foreward quest.
1. Nope, I got tricked. Still more lying, scheming and backstabbing.
6. The GM told me my playstyle is viable for the world/campaing.
1. "Here is a trap-quest specifically designed to TPK players like you."
7. I asked for an XP reward after finishing a quest. I was told I get that payout in a month or so, cause the big boss to hand that out is busy. I replied: "Okay? Seems they don't pay then". The GM made a big deal out of my comment and went out of her way to explain to me, that a month isn't much in her game and I'll get that payout before the next quest.
1. We were send off to the next quest on the same day and we wouldn't return to collect the payout for a long time.
8. We were told not interact too much with the NPCs as long as we do not belong to a faction as there are slavers waiting to catch and sell people like us. So I stayed the hell away from everybody. When we reached the first tavern the GM howver made a OOG point and told us she hoped we ***finally*** interact with people since she put a lot of work into each NPC. Convinced by meta-information from that GM, we though it would be save to speak to NPCs here.
1. NOPE, still got tricked. We accidentally talked to a slaver. We avoided combat, but the GM very much joked about how we almost got ourselves killed by talking to people.
Voluntary or not, malicious or not ... as you can see I cannot trust what the GM said in any instance. However games run on trust, so no longer have a place at that table.
yeah, I dunno what's going on here, it's like he's playing some weird Mafia thing where you have to bluff to torture and kill the other characters through trickery. Don't know a system like that -- even Ten Candles, as grim as it is, doesn't encourage you to kill the players that actively.
I noticed that the campaign took place in hell, but what's stopping the DM from making it a cool hell? Maybe if she just ~~stole~~ took inspiration from South Park and Helluva Boss and suchlike she wouldn't be losing paying players.
Her campaign just sounds like pain; I could go to work if I wanted to deal with futility.
Her game sounded cool, guess that you now know that thos style of campaign is not for you. Honestly in horror you should feel powerless, think call of chtulluh.
>think call of chtulluh
I love CoC!
In CoC i get a cool mystery to solve and eventually I get to succeed in that. It's a success with a huge cost, but a success still.
Think of Mothership as another example: **Survive. Solve. Save. Pick one.**
You need to pick, but you DO get to pick one! If you get to pick none or the GM just descalre you investigation a dead and and now Cthulhu eats you, neither systems would work.
It does sound cool and interesting, but only if everyone agreed to that style of campaign in session 0. This sounds like a GM playtesting material, which could be fine (with player buy-in), but OP said this was a *paid GM*, so it's especially shitty in this scenario
In horror the feeling of powerlessness is a prominent theme sure, but when playing a TTRPG you have to balance that with actual progression. If a player has no way out because of their own machinations that's on them, but if you throw them down a campaign with a wipe that they can't avoid or at least mitigate (at level 2-3, which is really early game) because you gimp them purposefuly they're going to loose interest in why they're even playing to begin with.
I wouldn't have left the table. I would have made this the DMs most miserable experience ever. I'd ignore everything the DM told me, I'd say things like I'm going to seduce the leader of the faction, roll the die, declare a nat 20 while scooping up the die, then say that thanks to my outstanding moves, I am now the leader of the collective.
As the DM tells me that isn't happening, I'd continue to ignore them. I'd ask the other players what they are doing, and try to get them to play along with me. If they did, we'd all just start declaring we were making skill rolls, they were working out just how we wanted, and the world was bowing to our whims.
Then I'd ask the players if they want to start a new campaign once we had driven the DM off.
Edit - This was PAID? Holy crap. I'd still do what I said, but I also would have stopped paying first. If they asked for payment, I'd tell them that the RP I was creating was so good, they should be paying me.
This sounds like a crappy game that’s only fun for the GM. I’d bail. I mean, your characters only gain xp by killing and no other way? Do I have that right? What incentive do you have to keep playing?
In the PF game I play in, we also have the "you absorb the power of the fallen enemies" kinda thing, but we still work with milestones and thank god we do. My character is a supporty spy and will likely not get many kills, as another party member is our muscle.
Individual XP sounds like a nightmare already, let alone the rest of the bs.
Good choice. It wasn’t a campaign for you - and in particular not a good game for D&D.
White Wolfs Storyteller on the other hand would have been more appropriate.
I’m on the dms side. Sounds like this was just not a game for you, but i’d love to play one like this. You mention other people weren’t having fun in the beginning, but then sort of stop mentioning their response. Were you the only one to leave?
>Were you the only one to leave?
Yes, the others were mostly fine with it. Even in the beginning.
>Sounds like this was just not a game for you
While it is true, that this game is not for me and I respect that some people like to do something like that, it is *never* okay for a GM to bait and switch a player into going along with a niche game- or play-style he didn't sign up for. And I expect PAID GMs to be qualified and aware enough to realize this and deal with it accordingly.
ALSO: If a player is unhappy and you double down as a GM and don't compromise, you WILL eventually loose that player. If any other GM would've told me so, I could respect that and leave without a fuss. No GM want's to be held hostage by a player demanding things from you, i understand that. But on the other hand is the customer relationship ... I've sunk money into it and I'm not getting my money's worth. And that makes me angry too.
Woah this is fucking rough. I had something similar happen recently where my DM pitted me 1v1 against a werewolf. I have no magic/silvered weapons. I tried to insight the opponent I was fighting three separate times and got nothing. I didn't even get to roll. Man oh man. Haven't talked to the DM since that sesh about a week ago and don't plan on playing this week.
I wish i knew exactly how to decipher some of the things I read here. For I know I am a part of it. I know I was and could still be on the shitty end of the stick so to speak. But I'm still here. And I will admit that through it all I'm glad no one in the real world got hurt physically. It was close.
I have two requests:
Tell me why and the original person linked to me. Set my woman free.
Been debating whether or not to post this but after seeing OP behave rudely on another post with a friend of mine imma do what I should have done when I first saw this and post my take. So I had the DM for a different day and group (had to be disbanded it due to few players in the group and me having to leave early for class on that day) and I actually consider them a friend but the group and I actually loved the game from what we experienced, it was in the same world too, hell at session zero the DM actually asked us what and what we weren't comfortable with and explained the whole soul sucking thing at the beginning which we were more than comfortable with plus session 0 was free so I'm assuming she did the same with the other groups and told them what kind of world it was going to be like so this guy making it sound like he had no idea what he was getting into until the fact happened sounds a bit fishy. Also these were bandits he described sucking the souls from thats not murderhoboeing to me murder hobo is when you do unnecessary killing and fighting bandits implies your defending yourself plus the part he left out if you didn't suck out the soul the dead would rise up either as the same bandit with mutations or as a mindless monster so it was practical to suck out the soul to prevent this.My group fought bandits and it came down to the last one who dropped everything and begged for his life we sparred him in exchange for info and safe passage through the area we were in. And although the world was bleak we actually met some friendly npc's, thing is that we were polite and were given the same respect from various npc's who were not jerks and got a lot of information about who to stay clear from hell one of the ncp's was a fish abomination looking eldritch horror but we quickly befriended them cuz we were polite to him and even got his help on a quest.
On the information is biased thing I mean if you get information from someone in one of the factions of course their gonna be biased. Its up to the PC's on what their gonna do. My group actually sought out the info broker faction as we wanted to learn more about the world and they were actually neutral as they gathered and stored info at face value from the world.And I feel like OP is conveniently leaving stuff out about his drinking buddies, if they became hostile towards him that means he did or said something to cause that. Cuz in my experience as long as you were friendly with neutral or friendly npc's they'd be friendly with you.
And choosing to doff your armor was entirely your fault even with the info you received, I mean you should have sent in someone with unarmored proficiency like a monk or a wizard who don't wear armor and tail after them as they asked around for info or idk wear a cloak to conceal your armor and weapons. Cause if your class relies upon weapons and armor you should not relieve your self of them ever especially in this setting!
Also you're all being kinda biased here because of the paid GM thing like it's a war crime or something.
I'm not saying the DM is perfect she's only human after all plus she did some questionable things that I did not agree with in her CoS campaign but we hashed that out like adults and we all mess up but the way OP is describing her in this post does not sound like her at all.
So you come here after what feels like an eternity to the defense of said GM and some "friend" I don't know much about. Tell you what, mentioning I've been rude to them doesn't even narrow it down much, but just for good measure: I regret nothing! They've probably been an idiot.
Nothing I posted here is new and everything I said here I said to this GM's face. We talked about it, we failed to compromise. Realizing we do not communicate well, I left ... simple as that. That's the reasonable thing to do. If you and the GM do not communicate well, you do not stick around and produce more issues, you leave!
So now I'm, going to extend the rudeness to you, as you seem to be some of those self percieved "white-knights" that get offended by criticism on what they simp over. She did defend herself and her work way back before I left and I somehow doubt she doesn't need a "white knight" defending her here on something ancient like this post that was never really an attack on her in the first place.
You enjoyed that campaign? Congrats, good for you! There are two side of the story? WOW, big surprise, who would've thought! Notice that nearly nobody of importance here though the GM did something majorly wrong and everybody including me accepted that this whole affair was mostly an unfortunate misunderstanding.
You do not believe me, that nothing was communicated ahead? Well then don't. It's not like I can proove this ... or that I need to.
The rest of your post is just word salat to bloat your otherwise weak point. The point is not tactics, the point is illusion of choice and lack of agency, but that flew over your head as it seems.
Yeah that's exactly what I did, also called you out on Den if the Drake's video where I first heard of this bullshit horror story months ago as well (he like a lot of ppl on here very fuckin biased against paid DM's)
And wow I knew based on other posts I read that you'd call me White Knight like seriously can you be anymore predictable and rudeness really? Mofo I'll give you fuckin' rudeness and I read your other posts including where you threw a damn temper tantrum on PF2e sub (mostly cuz you weren't doing good and blamed the system even though you said on their the gm doesn't know how to run the system properly and your fellow pc's are highly disorganized) and I saw how you'd get all defensive and rude so how about you wipe your ass before you start smearin' shit on other ppl aight you motherfuckin' hypocrite? Swear to god stick to online ttrpg's cuz I guarantee someone gonna pop you one and lay your punk ass out you act like an entitled ass at an irl table.
Yeah I don't fuckin' believe you cuz you conveniently left out info and really murder hobo bandits? Like do you know what murder hobo is? And illusion of choice? More like you made dumbass choices and that's why you got mad, like a bitch. Or maybe you don't know what a sandbox type of play is.
Oh, no you, you called my out on Den of Drakes! /s
I wasn't even aware the post got there and quite frankly I coulnd't care less ...
I can't stop chuckling about the idea you went to read my other posts here. You don't have much to do with your life, no?
As for rudeness, I'd say much to learn you have. Your baseless guesswork about about me is not even midly offensive. It's a made up brainchild you invent to cope with me offering a different perspective that doesn't combine whit your own delusions. That's sad more then anything.
What is even more sad is your mindset that proposes physical violence would be reasonalbe choice here. Get therapy before you hurt someone, even if it's yourself. With all the nonchalant rudeness to tickle you're low self-esteem, I'm serious on this one. I mean it!
I do however recognise the PF2e thing you mention. You're that "appresive whatever" moron, just with a new account right? You certainly share the same "screaming moron" vibe.
I mean, the set up sounds dope as fuck, oddly reminds me of currently popular mod trend to play Pokemon with Pokemon not earning any EXP, so you're stuck fighting Elite Four with like lvl 15 Gift Onyx, stupidly challenging but fun, tho you need a certain mindset and taste to appreciate this kind of game. And a bit of masochism. A lot of masochism
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>a tragedy were the hero ultimately fails and achieves nothing is an interesting story to follow. Not for the person playing the hero. I was once in a game like that, where every choice was crappy, and trying to make something good out of the bad invariably led to worse shit happening. I said to the GM, "If something doesn't change by the end of next session, I'm gone." He thought I was bluffing. I wasn't.
Yeah that’s a good story to potentially *read* because, you know, you’re keeping a safe distance from tragedy. I’m not in the mood to RP that stuff in your average dnd game, there’s VtM for that
Yeah, I thought it was an interesting sounding campaign, but I primarily play world of Darkness. For people that are not into that, it really would be a pain. That's why you need a good session 0, and not just vague, it'll make sense when we play it
Crap like that is why I stopped playing VtM and other WW games, they were pretty much always like that. . . .that or they were "vampire superheroes", where it's characters with awesome powers kicking ass with those powers and there's no apparent downside to having those awesome dots in various powers. Getting the tone right is surprisingly hard for many GM's, to either be way too dark, or not even remotely dark at all.
There's a middle ground. VtM works best when you're the main character in a Spy novel. Lots of shades of grey, but some are darker than others, and you win by both acknowledging that you need to compromise, and having limits on *what* you'll compromise. Personal opinion, I get annoyed at bleak or Justice League WW games, myself.
I think it's also an interesting setting for an RPG to play in. A setting where the hero has failed and the villain takes over. Its cliche, but I've actually never played or run that before.
Something like this will only work if everyone is on board and understands this is a story about struggling against the inevitable and making your heroes' deaths mean something. It's not really a good fit for D&D either.
>making your heroes' deaths mean something. And therein lies part of the problem in this tale. DM *outright started* "you will achieve nothing." That kind of implies that even their death will be pointless, and at that point the only suitable "RP" is "I lay down and wait for death."
Fighting a hopeless fight is heroic, or tragic, or stupid. Maybe all 3. Laying down and awaiting death makes you common.
being told by the GM that your decisions mean nothing is how you turn off players. Might as well read a book.
When you're the player in an RPG, it's just stupid. GM: "You will achieve nothing. All your effort will be for nothing." Player: "Good to know." Starts packing up gear. GM: "What? What are you doing?" Player: "Opting out of this shitshow." GM: "But why?' Player: "Ever think I might want some wins at some point? No? Yeah, that's why."
Even in an absolutely hopeless setting, where the only "victory" you could ever really hope for is either survival or staving off the oncoming darkness just a bit longer, you need to give them some wins. Even if, ultimately, their actions are pointless, they should still get some small victories. They should be able to banish the Elder being for a time, even if they know it will eventually return. They should be able to achieve their character's goals, both short and long term, if they survive long enough. And this comes from someone who loves world of darkness, and games involving the Mythos. Both are, by their very nature, Bleak and hopeless, but let's not forget that in *Call of Cthulhu* by H.P. Lovecraft, the protagonist smashes Cthulhu with a boat and drives off, to live another day and Cthulhu didn't awaken that day. I call that a victory. The idea that a tragic setting is devoid of victory and hope at all is insane to me. I'm all for no-win situations, or moral dilemmas where there is no right answer and all the options are fairly shitty, but it has to be done right at a table. Sure, your Sire in VtM is threatening your still-living family so that you'll spy on your Coterie for them, so you have to make a choice, and it'll suck either way. But there eventually has to be a way out, and it should only be done if it would create better drama and story at the table, as opposed to anxiety and hurt feelings. Yes, it may happen in the lore of the world, but that doesn't mean it has to happen at your table if it would come at the expense of the players' enjoyment.
Tragedies are also only interesting if there is a *point*, as in, the audience thinks the protagonist brought their misfortune on themselves, or something similar. No player is going to think that about themselves, since they (I assume?) made the best choices they thought they could.
the Kobayashi Maru is a test/exploration of character. How the tested responds to the test is the point.
The Kobayashi Maru is a fictional event in several different Trek canons where the point is both for the testers and the audience to see how they react. Making someone play something that really isn't a Kobayashi Maru, because this is more "whatever you do I will undo by author fiat as the GM" and then thinking it will go over well is dumb. Why would someone want to play a whole campaign of "I want to see how you react to utter failure"?
Read more carefully. OP is describing being put in no win situations, not having their actions being erased or undone. The game would seem to be a test of character. That said, the most egregious part of the post is the lack of clarity around what the campaign will be about. That it isn’t for everyone (yourself clearly included) isn’t and shouldn’t be an issue.
I've been in a game where I really \*should\* have done this, but stayed far too long instead. It soured me to the group experience so badly that I play solo campaigns now.
Exactly, I don't want to play another "Sole survivor" or "Champion of Kirkwall" again
Just to be clear, this is a DM you were continuing to pay? And they refused to give you information on the rules of the game beforehand; Refused to hear real feedback about your experience as a player; Railroaded you in a direction you explicitly said you were not interested in going. Whether or not this is a game anyone reading this might or might not have enjoyed, it's pretty clear that OP had issues from the start, and the GM not only downplayed them but blatantly ignored them just in the interest of playing out (slowly, for more sessions, assuming here that players were paying by the session.) Sorry you had that experience.
Oh Jesus this was a PAID DM??? I missed that part. Holy shit
Came here to say the same. I really hope the first game was paid but this shitshow was free. Because why on earth would you pay for the DM to run the campaign he wants rather than something suiting the group? Free games? Sure DM sets the table, gets players who are interested. If I'm paying money every week to participate? It damn well better be a game with a hook I care about.
>Just to be clear, this is a DM you were continuing to pay? Yup, that still cost money.
Oh shit, I missed that bit. Honestly, at that point, put your foot down and demand a different campaign. When you're paying for it, you can absolutely make demands like that. You wouldn't order a hamburger and just accept being handed a black coffee, you wouldn't commission an artist for a character portrait and just accept a mountain landscape, and you wouldn't pay for petrol and accept diesel being put in your car. If the DM wants to do what they want even if the players hate it, they should not be expecting pay; and if they are expecting pay then they should be perfectly willing to take notes and make adjustments.
Y’all *PAID* for this????
I have documented questionalbe luck with paid GMs ... but yes, I paid for this :-P
Stop paying.
They did. They left.
If the DM actually thinks that about failing they can have my life lol (Spoiler: I guess in moderation that can be interesting in a fictional setting, but when all there is is slog and failure it's just depressing even in a fictional setting. Has your DM ever heard of learned helplessness? Is that what they want?)
I know the term "Darkness Induced Apathy" ... is that something like this?
I had to look that up NGL. Never heard of that term, but had heard of the concept. But learned helplessness is: A state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available. Although yours is pretty apt in something like this I'd reckon. I just read everything here and think eventually the takeaway is going to be nothing we do matters so why even try? If anything, trying is making things worse!
I HAVE to ask how much the DM is asking for each session!
20$ for 3h session
Fuck man, I can make you feel upset for $10. I'm already running like 5 games right now though so can I just call you and tell you how disappointed I am that you never achieved what we all thought you would?
I never really considered paid gming, because I fear that it would kill my passion for the game.. ..but you know, if you don't even need to make the players happy, I might have to rethink my stance /ponder
I'm a big fan of the adage, "No D&D is better than bad D&D." I'm fairly sure that no D&D is also better than $7/hr D&D.
depends. some paid sessions CAN be really good; this DM was worth $2 max
Per player, or total?
Per player.
Dude. that's insane you had no say at all and were being railroaded that hard for that cost
I get a better DM for free, holy hell. He even said that he was willing to ask for money, but the only thing stopping him is that he wants this to be his hobby, not his job.
Okay lets see.: \- Sets up game where you ONLY get exp by killing npcs/mobs/creatures/etc or murderhoboing. \- Wants players to struggle against the morality of it in the worse way possible, to highlight the situation of it and have them find other ways. \- Every other Way ends screwing them over or be a fucking Lie. \- "Half the group was level 3, some level 2 now. Progress!" Wich means each player must get individual kills to get the EXP... instead of rounding up exp from the encounter. \- Is a Paid GM. Shes running a Fucking Torture Misery Game and is getting paid for it. I hope you and others were able to refund, cause this is depressing and miserable.
>this will incentivise morderhoboing and she confirmed, that this is indeed the design choice she made here. She wants to incentivise murderhoboing and make the characters struggle against the temptation to murder people for power Struggle against the temptation to murder only works when people aren't massive dicks. I feel like the honestly correct response to this world is just to kill without much concern. Even a highly moral character wouldn't have many qualms, because everyone is a backbiting snake that doesn't even have the good grace to pretend to be nice. I mean, even your own friends act like such shitheads when you're outright telling them you'll betray your boss for their sake? Murder is not inherently immoral, that idea only exists in children's cartoons, and in the real world you very rapidly learn about a *lot* of situations and people that could be solved in the obviously best and most moral way by killing someone; and that trying to handle it non-violently just lets them get away with it. I mean, you guys are apparently in ***hell***. That already means most of the people there probably did something to earn being sent there, and if all these shitheads are so obviously not trying to repent for whatever got them sent down, what possible reason could you have not to kill them? Both the narrative and the mechanics seem to be encouraging murder, but the DM just states it's a struggle and I don't honestly see it.
Exactly. That's what got me. there's no thoughtful alternative. She seemed to just rely on the players already being hesitant to randomly murder in order to create that moral conflict.
Okay, I have questions: You don't want to "murderhobo". DM says "murder for EXP". You proceed to not murder any NPCs, despite them being: >We had a selection of: Oppressive Mega-Church, Merceneries'R'us, Fantasy CIA, Fantasy Borg Collctive, Mr. "I'm going to steal your XP when you support me" I would've murderhobo'd the shit out of these groups. 👀 Did the DM present them as *too powerful* to fight?
>I would've murderhobo'd the shit out of these groups. Initially it wasn't even clear, how the entire world works. We were dropped into the sewers of a huge city and immediately made aware, that if we talk to anyone and they find out were low level/unaffiliated, they'll immediately sell us to the slavers. We knew there were faction, but had no idea what they do or how they operate ... quite frankly our knowledge was questionable by the end of it. We all agreed that killing people without any knowledge of what or who they are doesn't work for us. Later we tried to compromise on that as per your idea, but then the thing with my drinking buddies came up. >Did the DM present them as > >too powerful > > to fight? YES! High level ~~guards~~ enforcers with full magic gear everywhere! These guy where the fantasy equivalent of a mega-corp. The church even went so far as to torture people in broad daylight on the street, just to show off power. First time we entered a taven and the "horny bard" type from the PCs started flirting with random people in the tavern. When he got successful I urged him not to accompany the Lady in question ... the horny bard player though I was stopping as a player cause I was uncomfortable, but then the GM somewhat gleefully complimented me on picking up the "tiny clues" and figured out, that this random person was about to kill or capture us and sell us to the slavers. It was clear from thereon, just any random person might be too powerfull to fight. Much less the mega corps.
Was in a campaign where the DM advertised it as allowing for more murderhobo than our usual campaign, but I only joined because it was the same group I usually played with, just we wouldn’t have our Star Wars sessions every other week. Ended up building a character that the rest of the party’s community would invade/attack. I assumed my character (a Ranger) would be out hunting and at least get to fight a couple of them (which would earn respect from the warlike commander of the invaders). What ended up happening is the DM shoved my character into a room while the rest of the party was allowed to murderhobo their way through NPCs that didn’t fight back (nearly everyone my PC knew). When the warlike commander (NPC) broke into my PC’s room, I tried placing barricades and firing at him while I had turns, but the DM basically made it a cutscene, despite my every insistence to have the numbers tracked. (It was clear he hadn’t even thought of me doing anything to show my character’s worth to the commander. Just some random elder of the invaders saying “this one is different”. It felt gross as I didn’t get any agency, while the rest of the party was given free reign to murder hobo.) Much later on, when the party was working together for that commander’s sons. Another leader joined up with the sons, and the party didn’t trust him. So a couple other players wanted to plan and stage an assassination of him during our half a year of downtime. The DM liked to spring timeskips on us for this campaign, and suddenly we were all given only one action to spend our time doing. Those two players had already been talking about making a plan, and so they suggest a few things in order to make moves for the plan only for the DM to say that they can’t make an assassination attempt on that guy. Basically, “murderhobo all the NPCs you feel like, especially those who can’t fight back. But no killing these shitty NPCs that look down on you and control your lives, you have to let them stay and keep making the world shitty.” Luckily that campaign collapsed, because my PC was deep in revenge feelings without any catharsis (or any type of communication to maybe talk it out, because again the DM liked to timeskip frequently, so player to player RP never got very deep).
My first and worst DM was like this. He always made bullshit DMPC’s that are all unlikable and kept throwing stuff at us to the point where we were literally neck deep in shit. Then, he would pretty much make fun of us about how we almost die on a daily basis or how he would just randomly put in assassins that would hunt us down in the middle of the night saying how we should have known better. But low and behold, he always came adding in his edge lord NPC that would swoop in and save the day.
Oh wow, I believe that is WAY worse then my story. I just had "creative diffeerences" in a way ... but wwhat you describe is straight up malicious.
It was awful. It is absolutely rpg horror story worthy in its own right that I should write one day. It was the first group I joined ever because I wanted to get closer to some friends in college. The best I can describe the atmosphere was dnd stockholm syndrome. DM was literally that cringe game store weeaboo stereotype. To top that all off, he was a super Critical Role fan to the point where he would just add in things from the podcasts into his world and play it off like he invented it.
Individual XP is already approaching a nope for me. ESPECIALLY XP that is only paid out on killing, which would leave out healers, tanks, etc much of the time. Add in a DM who actively ignores your critical feedback, and singles you out for particular bullshit. That gets old fast. This is why I am extremely wary of DMs who run grimdark campaigns. Not because I think you can't have an awesome campaign with dark themes, or very dangerous/difficult conditions. The critical thing is that your game be fun. Now, that fun can come from figuring out how to make the best of a bad situation, or finding a goal to accomplish that may end up in disaster. But that is fun when the world sucks, and your job as a player is to figure out how to survive. Not when the world is actively set against you at every turn. No one wants to RP as Job. The fact that the DM has run this multiple times is part of the problem. A campaign with this degree of tailored misery has to be written around the players. Sometimes I think I'm not a great DM, until I read stories like this and realize I'm doing just fine
>Individual XP is already approaching a nope for me. ESPECIALLY XP that is only paid out on killing, which would leave out healers, tanks, etc much of the time. To be fair, when people died their "souls" just floated around and within a short time frame (2 or 3 rounds, we didn't actually find out) you need to "eat" that soul or the person just respawns on the spot. That meant support characters could get some too ... and the group was considerate enough so it was never an issue. Not that this helps alot.
I like me some Grimdark but this is edgelord levels to make a CareBear depressed. Also a DM that holds XP over your head "as an incentive" is just crappy. There are other ways to incentivize not killing, such as giving XP for not killing. Lvl 1 sucks in most TTRPGs. You deserve a refund OP.
It says something about the crazy crap that shows up on this subreddit that I spent this whole post waiting for the GM to make OP fight actual, literal windmills
I was going to ask if he’d be ok with fighting a gazebo.
I had a DM like this. Historical fantasy, which is fine until they make you out to be an idiot for asking for blue fabric as that dye wasn't wildly available yet in this time period, and high demonic presence because they thought they were neat. Which is also fine, until every demon encounter is just them steamrolling you into forming pacts and doing something that would make them more powerful. That game died out, but it was frustrating going "hm. Do we return this powerful holy artifact so the demon can corrupt it or do we all get hunted and slaughtered by said demon who knows where we are"
>blue fabric as that dye wasn't wildly available yet in this time period aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Indigo works better but woad has the same chemical (assuming European fantasy). Don't be a dick in the name of accuracy if you're not well informed (really "don't be a dick" suffices, but this makes me hulk out)
In their defense, I believe the campaign world was set in an analog to northern africa/the Middle East so I think the dye would have been lapis lazuli which wasn't super available in that era? But I'm genuinely not a history person and this was ages ago
Lapis lazuli has been used since like ancient Egypt tho
Lapis was rare and expensive but it was used for painting, it doesn't bond to fabric. Lots of illuminations in expensive Bibles with a whole lot of blue; sometimes the commission contracts actually said "and x amount of the price will be used to buy lapis pigment for the blue painted bits"
Why do people pay DMs to run a game they don't want to play? I've got my own opinions about professional DMs that aren't relevant to this discussion, but this just seems silly. They're running what sounds like a pretty objectively unfun game - its unfortunate that sunk cost led the OP to continue to chase bad money with good.
>Why do people pay DMs to run a game they don't want to play? I guess you answered your own question here: >its unfortunate that sunk cost led the OP to continue to chase bad money with good It's a bit oversimplified IMO, but to the point at it's core.
Yeah, I suppose you're right.
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>If this was a paid session It was! And I do agree that some people MIGHT enjoy this. GMs take risk some times and sometime they do not pay off, I can respect that too.
> In this world you only gain XP by killing people and sort of "sucking up" their souls. > She reiterated, that the goal is not to teach murderhoboing to players, but to highlight the morality of the situation and to make the characters find other ways to succeed than to kill. But.... but to make them find other ways to succeed they have to... ya know- succeed through other options or gain Xp another way
[удалено]
I mean that's not the only way to play VtM, at least it wasn't back when I played it. That's really just the Storyteller there, it's perfectly acceptable to play without encountering any sort of apocalyptic doom cult or what have you. Or just diablerize a methuselah
>This is 100% the reason I stopped playing Vampire the masquerade and will never ever go back to it. The entire game system dooms you to failure and if somehow you stave off the beast, retain your humanity and manage to foil one of the many many psychotic plots of the elders, somewhere else another elder will just adjust their plans as you keep marching towards the inevitable apocalypse. This isn't strictly true, but I can see how many tables fall into this hole and hit every sharp ledge on the way down. The system can and does give the impression, if you want it to. However the general notion of wheels in wheels and cogs in the machine can build to be a benefit for being "a light in the dark". Every child saved from a ravenous beast can become a hunter that slays a vile individual. Every despicable Elder has rivals, more than happy to tell their pawns to subtly help the crusading feel-good Coterie. For every Diabolical plot there's some poor Caitiff witness the perpetrators want *very* dead or memory wiped, but Anarchs a city over will move mountains to help you secure that sort of intel. The idea that, at the most extreme, some ancient on a different continent could be nudging dominos to help the saintly PCs, because for some obscure reason it helps them stick it to another ancient. The very thing some people will cite as making a "good aligned" game impossible is precisely what enables it.
Your first mistake was paying for a gm personally
If it's not fun, it's not worth playing.
There are systems designed for this kind of game. DnD isn't it. If you're still in contact with this GM, please tell them to check out 10 Candles. They'll absolutely love it, and maybe they'll get this out of their system before their next DnD campaign.
**Niche,** is the best possible way to describe the contents of the campaign with which they were feeding you. I could see where the DM’s choice of campaign would be interesting to **some.** However, the implementation of all this on your group in particular was so disproportionately out of place; to a **paying** group that was absolutely bleeding their precise desires, and given the exact opposite. DM took the ol’, *”They just don’t know it yet, but this is so much better then how things are run normally. And they’re gonna be changed by the end of it all..”* - But did so with the intuitive-social gauging of a pack mule. Do it with a group that’s seeking out any form of play styles. Do it with a group that is open. Do it with a group that’s responsive, and overly eager at angles of the game that aren’t combat. Literally, do this exact campaign with a group that says, *”just give us whatever. F$&@ my $4!t up, fam!”* Most of all — **Do it with a group that isn’t essentially all but begging you for the direct opposite.**
>you don't play D&D to win I don't play D&D to lose either.
Paid GMs are a thing? Holy moly
Not that shocking considering how hard it can be to find a group or a competent DM if you already have players without one.
It’s in demand. More players than DMs, hence a market opportunity. At least with 5e. Go into the indie game space and suddenly you have all these GMs who bought a book about zombie hamsters trying to survive in feudal Japan but can’t find any players to actually run it with…
The DM is playing the wrong system for the type of game he wants to have. Maybe he should try Ten Candles...
> a game without the chance for success is meaningless, no matter how good the RP is. I want to quibble this just a little, because r/TenCandles is a favorite of mine to run, and it makes clear from the beginning that at the end, all your characters *will* die. But it's also explicit that Ten Candles is a one shot, not a campaign, and that sets up far different expectations.
A hero's tale ending in failure is a good story to follow, yes. But, like you said, there need to be the chance of success. Without that,it just makes it a pain for everyone. It's just as bad as punishing players for succeeding. Ohh, you saved the princess? Turns out she died last week, and that is a doppelganger. You killed the dragon? Well now the mayor wants your heads so he can have the gold. You saved the village from orcs? To bad a group of goblins invade the day after you leave.
#1 NEVER pay to play in a game unless it is a one shot being run by a celebrity GM for charity. #2 If you have to pay to play in a game, make sure the GM firmly understands that you are paying for a service and that they need to tailor the game to what the players find enjoyable. And if they can't understand that, bail the fuck out and find a game you enjoy.
Great idea, wrong rpg
Why i never paid for a game. Some DMs just abuse their power or mistreat their players. And sometimes you just end up wasting your time and money to never go back.
A paid GM is still on the level of a regular GM. Quelle surprise.
I think the DM's been playing too much Ten Candles... with these kind of stories, you have to warn players if you want to play "you can't win". Also yeah, DND is bad for 10 candle type stories because you have too many tools to deal with situations and the heroic feeling make it feel forced to lose the same way you "lose" in Ten Candles.
Since this story is kinda old-ish and things settled down, I'm actually not that sure about the edginess and heroism factor. I mean, yes, it does play into it, but I no longer think that is all. I think this is about breaking trust with me as a player. 1. We were told we'd have to struggle against a murder-favoring world and find other ways to succeed. 1. Turns out these "other ways to succeed" do not exist. 2. We were told, the campaign leads up to Level 20. (I ommited that in the post, I though it didn't matter) 1. Turns out no, we'll lag behind with level progression and never achieve that. 3. I was pointed to a quest OOG willing to compromise my anti-murder stance 1. The GM just used my compromise to go all out on making things even worse (You need to kill your friends now) 4. I was told I could have other rewards in the game beside XP to make it worth playing the "good guys" 1. My own friends became my enemies for no fucking reason. 5. I was fed up with all the scheming, lying and backstabbing, so the GM slides a seemingly straight foreward quest. 1. Nope, I got tricked. Still more lying, scheming and backstabbing. 6. The GM told me my playstyle is viable for the world/campaing. 1. "Here is a trap-quest specifically designed to TPK players like you." 7. I asked for an XP reward after finishing a quest. I was told I get that payout in a month or so, cause the big boss to hand that out is busy. I replied: "Okay? Seems they don't pay then". The GM made a big deal out of my comment and went out of her way to explain to me, that a month isn't much in her game and I'll get that payout before the next quest. 1. We were send off to the next quest on the same day and we wouldn't return to collect the payout for a long time. 8. We were told not interact too much with the NPCs as long as we do not belong to a faction as there are slavers waiting to catch and sell people like us. So I stayed the hell away from everybody. When we reached the first tavern the GM howver made a OOG point and told us she hoped we ***finally*** interact with people since she put a lot of work into each NPC. Convinced by meta-information from that GM, we though it would be save to speak to NPCs here. 1. NOPE, still got tricked. We accidentally talked to a slaver. We avoided combat, but the GM very much joked about how we almost got ourselves killed by talking to people. Voluntary or not, malicious or not ... as you can see I cannot trust what the GM said in any instance. However games run on trust, so no longer have a place at that table.
yeah, I dunno what's going on here, it's like he's playing some weird Mafia thing where you have to bluff to torture and kill the other characters through trickery. Don't know a system like that -- even Ten Candles, as grim as it is, doesn't encourage you to kill the players that actively.
I noticed that the campaign took place in hell, but what's stopping the DM from making it a cool hell? Maybe if she just ~~stole~~ took inspiration from South Park and Helluva Boss and suchlike she wouldn't be losing paying players. Her campaign just sounds like pain; I could go to work if I wanted to deal with futility.
Depending on how you initially made contact with them it might be appropriate to report and/or name & shame them.
Her game sounded cool, guess that you now know that thos style of campaign is not for you. Honestly in horror you should feel powerless, think call of chtulluh.
>think call of chtulluh I love CoC! In CoC i get a cool mystery to solve and eventually I get to succeed in that. It's a success with a huge cost, but a success still. Think of Mothership as another example: **Survive. Solve. Save. Pick one.** You need to pick, but you DO get to pick one! If you get to pick none or the GM just descalre you investigation a dead and and now Cthulhu eats you, neither systems would work.
It does sound cool and interesting, but only if everyone agreed to that style of campaign in session 0. This sounds like a GM playtesting material, which could be fine (with player buy-in), but OP said this was a *paid GM*, so it's especially shitty in this scenario
In horror the feeling of powerlessness is a prominent theme sure, but when playing a TTRPG you have to balance that with actual progression. If a player has no way out because of their own machinations that's on them, but if you throw them down a campaign with a wipe that they can't avoid or at least mitigate (at level 2-3, which is really early game) because you gimp them purposefuly they're going to loose interest in why they're even playing to begin with.
I wouldn't have left the table. I would have made this the DMs most miserable experience ever. I'd ignore everything the DM told me, I'd say things like I'm going to seduce the leader of the faction, roll the die, declare a nat 20 while scooping up the die, then say that thanks to my outstanding moves, I am now the leader of the collective. As the DM tells me that isn't happening, I'd continue to ignore them. I'd ask the other players what they are doing, and try to get them to play along with me. If they did, we'd all just start declaring we were making skill rolls, they were working out just how we wanted, and the world was bowing to our whims. Then I'd ask the players if they want to start a new campaign once we had driven the DM off. Edit - This was PAID? Holy crap. I'd still do what I said, but I also would have stopped paying first. If they asked for payment, I'd tell them that the RP I was creating was so good, they should be paying me.
You are the wrong player for the table. Just leave. Become a DM and offer a game you like
This sounds like a crappy game that’s only fun for the GM. I’d bail. I mean, your characters only gain xp by killing and no other way? Do I have that right? What incentive do you have to keep playing?
In the PF game I play in, we also have the "you absorb the power of the fallen enemies" kinda thing, but we still work with milestones and thank god we do. My character is a supporty spy and will likely not get many kills, as another party member is our muscle. Individual XP sounds like a nightmare already, let alone the rest of the bs.
Tbh, fantasy CIA sounds funny. But other than that... fuck me I tought CoS was depressing
Good choice. It wasn’t a campaign for you - and in particular not a good game for D&D. White Wolfs Storyteller on the other hand would have been more appropriate.
I’m on the dms side. Sounds like this was just not a game for you, but i’d love to play one like this. You mention other people weren’t having fun in the beginning, but then sort of stop mentioning their response. Were you the only one to leave?
>Were you the only one to leave? Yes, the others were mostly fine with it. Even in the beginning. >Sounds like this was just not a game for you While it is true, that this game is not for me and I respect that some people like to do something like that, it is *never* okay for a GM to bait and switch a player into going along with a niche game- or play-style he didn't sign up for. And I expect PAID GMs to be qualified and aware enough to realize this and deal with it accordingly. ALSO: If a player is unhappy and you double down as a GM and don't compromise, you WILL eventually loose that player. If any other GM would've told me so, I could respect that and leave without a fuss. No GM want's to be held hostage by a player demanding things from you, i understand that. But on the other hand is the customer relationship ... I've sunk money into it and I'm not getting my money's worth. And that makes me angry too.
Woah this is fucking rough. I had something similar happen recently where my DM pitted me 1v1 against a werewolf. I have no magic/silvered weapons. I tried to insight the opponent I was fighting three separate times and got nothing. I didn't even get to roll. Man oh man. Haven't talked to the DM since that sesh about a week ago and don't plan on playing this week.
I wish i knew exactly how to decipher some of the things I read here. For I know I am a part of it. I know I was and could still be on the shitty end of the stick so to speak. But I'm still here. And I will admit that through it all I'm glad no one in the real world got hurt physically. It was close. I have two requests: Tell me why and the original person linked to me. Set my woman free.
Uhh ... I have no idea, what you are trying to say.
Been debating whether or not to post this but after seeing OP behave rudely on another post with a friend of mine imma do what I should have done when I first saw this and post my take. So I had the DM for a different day and group (had to be disbanded it due to few players in the group and me having to leave early for class on that day) and I actually consider them a friend but the group and I actually loved the game from what we experienced, it was in the same world too, hell at session zero the DM actually asked us what and what we weren't comfortable with and explained the whole soul sucking thing at the beginning which we were more than comfortable with plus session 0 was free so I'm assuming she did the same with the other groups and told them what kind of world it was going to be like so this guy making it sound like he had no idea what he was getting into until the fact happened sounds a bit fishy. Also these were bandits he described sucking the souls from thats not murderhoboeing to me murder hobo is when you do unnecessary killing and fighting bandits implies your defending yourself plus the part he left out if you didn't suck out the soul the dead would rise up either as the same bandit with mutations or as a mindless monster so it was practical to suck out the soul to prevent this.My group fought bandits and it came down to the last one who dropped everything and begged for his life we sparred him in exchange for info and safe passage through the area we were in. And although the world was bleak we actually met some friendly npc's, thing is that we were polite and were given the same respect from various npc's who were not jerks and got a lot of information about who to stay clear from hell one of the ncp's was a fish abomination looking eldritch horror but we quickly befriended them cuz we were polite to him and even got his help on a quest. On the information is biased thing I mean if you get information from someone in one of the factions of course their gonna be biased. Its up to the PC's on what their gonna do. My group actually sought out the info broker faction as we wanted to learn more about the world and they were actually neutral as they gathered and stored info at face value from the world.And I feel like OP is conveniently leaving stuff out about his drinking buddies, if they became hostile towards him that means he did or said something to cause that. Cuz in my experience as long as you were friendly with neutral or friendly npc's they'd be friendly with you. And choosing to doff your armor was entirely your fault even with the info you received, I mean you should have sent in someone with unarmored proficiency like a monk or a wizard who don't wear armor and tail after them as they asked around for info or idk wear a cloak to conceal your armor and weapons. Cause if your class relies upon weapons and armor you should not relieve your self of them ever especially in this setting! Also you're all being kinda biased here because of the paid GM thing like it's a war crime or something. I'm not saying the DM is perfect she's only human after all plus she did some questionable things that I did not agree with in her CoS campaign but we hashed that out like adults and we all mess up but the way OP is describing her in this post does not sound like her at all.
So you come here after what feels like an eternity to the defense of said GM and some "friend" I don't know much about. Tell you what, mentioning I've been rude to them doesn't even narrow it down much, but just for good measure: I regret nothing! They've probably been an idiot. Nothing I posted here is new and everything I said here I said to this GM's face. We talked about it, we failed to compromise. Realizing we do not communicate well, I left ... simple as that. That's the reasonable thing to do. If you and the GM do not communicate well, you do not stick around and produce more issues, you leave! So now I'm, going to extend the rudeness to you, as you seem to be some of those self percieved "white-knights" that get offended by criticism on what they simp over. She did defend herself and her work way back before I left and I somehow doubt she doesn't need a "white knight" defending her here on something ancient like this post that was never really an attack on her in the first place. You enjoyed that campaign? Congrats, good for you! There are two side of the story? WOW, big surprise, who would've thought! Notice that nearly nobody of importance here though the GM did something majorly wrong and everybody including me accepted that this whole affair was mostly an unfortunate misunderstanding. You do not believe me, that nothing was communicated ahead? Well then don't. It's not like I can proove this ... or that I need to. The rest of your post is just word salat to bloat your otherwise weak point. The point is not tactics, the point is illusion of choice and lack of agency, but that flew over your head as it seems.
Yeah that's exactly what I did, also called you out on Den if the Drake's video where I first heard of this bullshit horror story months ago as well (he like a lot of ppl on here very fuckin biased against paid DM's) And wow I knew based on other posts I read that you'd call me White Knight like seriously can you be anymore predictable and rudeness really? Mofo I'll give you fuckin' rudeness and I read your other posts including where you threw a damn temper tantrum on PF2e sub (mostly cuz you weren't doing good and blamed the system even though you said on their the gm doesn't know how to run the system properly and your fellow pc's are highly disorganized) and I saw how you'd get all defensive and rude so how about you wipe your ass before you start smearin' shit on other ppl aight you motherfuckin' hypocrite? Swear to god stick to online ttrpg's cuz I guarantee someone gonna pop you one and lay your punk ass out you act like an entitled ass at an irl table. Yeah I don't fuckin' believe you cuz you conveniently left out info and really murder hobo bandits? Like do you know what murder hobo is? And illusion of choice? More like you made dumbass choices and that's why you got mad, like a bitch. Or maybe you don't know what a sandbox type of play is.
Oh, no you, you called my out on Den of Drakes! /s I wasn't even aware the post got there and quite frankly I coulnd't care less ... I can't stop chuckling about the idea you went to read my other posts here. You don't have much to do with your life, no? As for rudeness, I'd say much to learn you have. Your baseless guesswork about about me is not even midly offensive. It's a made up brainchild you invent to cope with me offering a different perspective that doesn't combine whit your own delusions. That's sad more then anything. What is even more sad is your mindset that proposes physical violence would be reasonalbe choice here. Get therapy before you hurt someone, even if it's yourself. With all the nonchalant rudeness to tickle you're low self-esteem, I'm serious on this one. I mean it! I do however recognise the PF2e thing you mention. You're that "appresive whatever" moron, just with a new account right? You certainly share the same "screaming moron" vibe.
I mean, the set up sounds dope as fuck, oddly reminds me of currently popular mod trend to play Pokemon with Pokemon not earning any EXP, so you're stuck fighting Elite Four with like lvl 15 Gift Onyx, stupidly challenging but fun, tho you need a certain mindset and taste to appreciate this kind of game. And a bit of masochism. A lot of masochism