The "bitch about your GM" thread

Yeah, but not everybody acts and thinks this way. Dear god, do I even need to go into this? Fine.

Generalizations do not accurately represent the truth. Fact is, the majority of gamers in my area that I know really aren't like that. There are certainly people out there that are, but come on, at least try to be reasonable about this.

Of course generalizations do not represent the truth. But regardless of if he has this particular fetish or not, the vibe is still gonna be there.

He might not realize that the bunnysuit is creeping one of his players out. Hopefully, he would fix the situation once she tells him that she really isn't comfortable with this at all.

...Which I just realized is what Tomu said on the last page. I need to read better. Oy.

Again, there is nothing indicating any of this in the original post. The poster is merely dissatisfied with the dissonance between the image they have for their character and the way their character is ultimately projected.

Ultimately, a conflict that challenges an essence of a character and forces a player to reassert or re-evaluate it usually makes for good game experience.

Could it be something more? Sure. But there has been no indication of it so far.

I'm all for getting people not to project their fetishes onto their games, but as far as I can tell, there is no indication of this so far.

Which is why I asked. That's what you do when you have a theory. You ask questions.

Some of these things can even be subconscious. On the flip side, there can also be selection bias-so, she might say "Oh hey you're right, that was part of it" not because it was, but because I asked if it was. So, there's a bit of quantum physics BS goin on where you affect the results in the process of observation.

Still, I think that looking at it from an academic pursuit-studying interactions between nerds/geeks/gamers as one of the social sciences-has merit.

Again: it's only a theory. You're completely overreacting.

I believe you are veering off the actual subject matter. Put simply, there is nothing wrong with placing a character outside of the player's preconceived notions. Just because you take an issue with the specific (bunnysuit) does not mean that the notion is somehow flawed.

In this specific example, from what I can gather, it seems like the player took their character a bit too seriously, and was forced to deal with the fact that maybe she wasn't Fluffy, Destroyer of Worlds after all, then gained experience for having acted in a believable manner.

I've done similar things countless times.

I would recommend you not put female player's character's in bunny suits. It may rub some of them the wrong way, and not for no reason.

Otherwise, you may end up being the GM that people bitch about in this thread :P

Never played Maid RPG, I see.

/facepalm

Do I really have to explain to you why Dungeons and Dragons is a fundamentally different dynamic from Maid RPG? Or were you being sarcastic.

Oh yes, I was totally comparing Dungeons and Dragons with Maid RPG in spirit and gameplay there.

Oh if only we could clearly mark sarcasm.

Well excuse me for trying to sympathize with the plight of female players :P

Back to thread topic: My DM canceled yesterday's game! AGAIN! Then again, one of the players was out due to power outages from Irene, and he was basically a puddle of jelly due to military tests and crap. He should almost certainly cancel the campaign entirely, as he obviously doesn't have time for it...

Can I just bitch about my self for a moment here?

My gaming group normally consists of four players plus the DM, while the usual DM and his wife were out of town, for like the third time that month that we were originally going to be gaming, me and two of my fellow players decided that we were going to run a smaller side game, just the three of us. Normally this would mean my friend, who I shall refer to as D, would run us in a one shot adventure or a two shot or whatever of a Star Wars Saga, or a 3.5 game, or even Pathfinder. I had been looking over the Scion core book though, and I was like, "Lemme try."

None of us had ever played Scion, so we were not aware of the... combat complications. So, I bust out a premade adventure released by White Wolf. This story is where Evil A vs Evil B, in walks in the adventurer's. So, they generate characters and we begin. Knowing we only had two out of the normal four, I decided to adjust the adventure a little, just y'know less monsters. First encounter, two Hero P Cs vs two fey-type goblins. My players could only hit them occasionally, and the goblins gave a bit less than they got. This of course is because in D&D terms, every creature, including the P Cs has a AC that requires a nat 15 or so in order to be hit.

Here, the Rules-lawyer/part time DM D, notices, that was wayyy too hard for what were obviously meant to be mooks. I quickly double check the adventure. It was made for characters of 60 xp to begin with, so here I stop the game, and ask my players to adjust their characters accordingly. Naively assuming that this would make the adventure balanced we plod on through. Needless to say, it didn't work out well. I allowed my players to role play with Evil A, and managed to not only convince him to NOT ritually murder innocent townsfolk, but managed to convince him to place a mortal sized Silver War-Axe, and hide it in the woods. The PC's enter the woods to protect children from being ritually sacrificed to Evil B (Werewolves). There to P Cs split up, one character to go fight mooks and the other to fight one on one with the Werewolf leader1. He (D), immediately flees to find the Silver War-Axe. Gets to it in one piece, and proceeds to one shot the big bad. And I fail to realize that's when I am meant to smudge the dice to make it more exiting. In short order the adventure wraps up, and I am informed that while it was a good first try, I need practice.

1Its a pun because the Werewolves are written to be dressed like Nazis and to have their strict efficiency. And as most of you likely know, Fuhrer translates to "Leader."

EDIT: I was lurking on this thread and thought I'd try to get back to around page 1-18, rather than these last few argumentative posts.

edited 31st Aug '11 1:13:27 PM by IHaveAHeadAche

This post was thumped by the Eldritch Flyswatter of Horror

It was still a decent first adventure on your part. I wouldn't be very hard on yourself; sure, you misjudged an adventure and weren't entirely familiar with system mechanics before you started, but at least you ruled in favor of the players rather than arbitrarily causing a TPK over admitting the fact that you've made a mistake.

edited 31st Aug '11 9:47:05 AM by Korochun

Is there any way to get out of that kind of situation gracefully? I've definitely had a GM realize we were heading for a TPK (that was not our fault) and just keep barreling us through it, and I've had a different GM Deus ex Machina us out of too much trouble with his pet NPC. Is the quality of a GM basically their ability to improvise Deus ex Machina's?

Not bad for a first attempt. There's a couple of ways you could have done the first encounter better*

It all depends on the group and the players. While I am personally not a fan of it, sometimes, dice fudging can help you resolve a situation that would ruin a session. A method that's also viable is what Head Ache posted — actually coming clean with your players and admitting that you have made a mistake, if the obvious incoming TPK is your fault. That honestly isn't so bad, and everyone has their moments. The players will often help you out as well by suggesting ideas.

A method that I often use when I realize that the party is badly mauled or not up to the task they are about to face — and not in the heroic, "we're mauled but have a chance of pulling through", but just flat out "oh yeah, these guys will get wiped out in a round" TPK scenario — is to improvise and head them off. Maybe there is an oasis in the desert where they can conveniently stop and gather their strength and interact socially, allowing me more time to re-evaluate where the situation is heading, maybe re-write some of the stats. Maybe the ceiling collapses during the fight with the too big, too bad of a big bad, and they have to find an alternate route while defending from far weaker monsters.

Sometimes you just have to reneg on a rough outline you had going on for the session and do something else.

There are many ways of doing it without hamfisting the plot or making it obvious. It is, however, important to be able to improvise.

As a full transparency DM, I find it very difficult to adjust stuff on the fly without players bitching. It's the major downside of my gameplay style. I tend to err on the side of caution as it pertains to encounters for this very reason.

That typically means fights are too easy though <_<

Yes, Tomu, it did have relevance. This character was not supposed to be sexy. I was not necessarily trying to be badass, but certainly not Fluffy, the Destroyer of Worlds. Female was more of an afterthought.

Someone guessed my character was a Dragonborn Shaman? No, she was of the Dragon Shaman class.

Yes, that did exist

edited 1st Sep '11 3:23:07 PM by Sakan4k

Pfft. Some people just can't think in terms of anything but 4th edition. Dragonborn are a 4E invention, while Dragon Shaman are a 3.5 invention.

And my theory is vindicated, making the last page of pointless arguments totally worth it. Score one for overanalysis!

edited 1st Sep '11 3:05:56 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

I believe there was a form of Dragonborn in 3.5; only it involved a member of another race making a pact with Bahamut and transforming as a result.

That has nothing to do with your arguement of creepy sex fetishes and projecting it on a character. That's just a character being forced out of the parameters their player thought up for them. So basically, what I said in the first post relating to this.

Some people just can't admit when they're wrong :P

We call them "G Ms" in this thread XD

Rule #1: The GM is never wrong.

If you ever believe Rule #1 to be wrong, an anvil drops out of the sky and kills you.

Rule #2: A GM needs players to run a game.

Forget that, and all the work you put into the campaign can and will be wasted once your characters are fed up with your power trip.