Mine was a battle against a rival gang (we are working with them for backstory reasons), they had a manticore and we are level 3 so it was intense. Most of us finished with 2 or so hp! But looking forward to finally be level 4 after a year.
Mine was a battle against a rival gang (we are working with them for backstory reasons), they had a manticore and we are level 3 so it was intense. Most of us finished with 2 or so hp! But looking forward to finally be level 4 after a year.
Honestly I think I’m done with DND. The whole session was nominally a fight, but almost all of it was the bad guys running away and us dashing to keep up. And then setting off like 5 lightning bolt traps in a row with no way to detect them really in a narrow hallway. (Apparently I should have tried dispel magic on the glyph, but how was I supposed to know it was a non-standard glyph of warding that keeps firing??)
And our wizard… mixed bag. He’d split off from the party and, to his credit, figured out an alternate route that put him ahead of the baddies. But he wasn’t able to stop them. Couple rounds of action and they got past him and escaped.
Though to the wizard’s credit the main baddie happened to have legendary resistance so the wizard’s portent + polymorph did nothing. Which sucks. Legendary resistance sucks.
So it wasn’t great. Two hours of “I dash” and the baddies got away.
But even aside from that I’ve reached a point where like every piece of DND has something that annoys me. Time to find a new system. One that’s not a close relative. If I never see another d20 or traditional six stats in a game, I might be okay with that.
@jjjalljs @Phantaminum that mostly to me sounds like you’re done with that GM? Which is very reasonable…
Have you considered running?
Sometimes it seems like DMs think tabletop roleplaying is a competition with the players.
Like, this sounds really frustrating and boring, wouldn’t most people hate it?
The other three players didn’t seem too upset, but hard to say if they were being more polite. I tend to be the most critical player, but I think the fighter and bard both made some concerned noises.
Like I said in my other comment, this guy is usually pretty good. Maybe it was just an off week.
Wow, your DM should learn some design best practices. I have started to look for a new system a while ago, my main problem has been that my party is not as deep as me in RPGs. Im a fate guy and them are dnd because its their first game
@Phantaminum @jjjalljs I enjoyed Fate more in concept and rules book than as played. My GM was a firm believer in giving me as many opportunities to earn fate points as possible, and “constantly failing” didn’t feel good
Why were you constantly failing? The few times I’ve been able to play Fate I felt like I succeeded on all the stuff I wanted to, and picked my poisons on troubles.
It was really satisfying for my Space Nazi Hunter to invoke like four aspects at once to really make sure the space Nazi leader got his head blown clean off. Also satisfying to get fate points by starting nonsense with my “faked own death to escape corporate espionage charges” trouble.
Might’ve just been lucky with a good gm
@jjjalljs kinda exactly? “Hero” a-la Snow Crash obviously had a “best swordsman in the meta verse” aspect. But did he have to spend a fate point to win the swordfight when he was challenged in a bar early on?
In my game, my character was supposed to be talky-McTalk face, and I failed to talk my way into a bar because I wasn’t willing to spend a fate point to do so. I shouldnt have had to.
I made a mistake when I tried to run it for one group of setting the difficulties too high, which can give results like you experienced.
I also found that when it went well, the players pushed for more “this aspect gives me permission without even having to roll”. So if someone was playing “smooth talker” and the gm said to roll to get past a bouncer, the player might push back.
The time it went worst I think the players didn’t really offer any creative input. Failures just turned into “I give up” instead of like “what if I convince him to let us in by lying that I’m someone famous, and then the real person shows up?” or whatever. I think it’s hard for some players to zoom out from just their character and get more into the writer room space.
@jjjalljs I was focused more on the direct role-playing and less on the writers-room aspect… So by the time I was going “wait what?, I shouldnt need to roll?”, the RP had already gone off the rails because the GM declared the bouncer pulled out a magical face id thingy and declared some trivial lie of mine was false
I.e.: failure always unless I spent fate points
That sounds like your GM wasn’t one I’d enjoy, and wasn’t following the “the table should buy in to whatever’s happening” premise. Sorry your game wasn’t good!