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Post by Andre on Sept 27, 2011 23:43:47 GMT -5
First off big time apologies to malkav565 (Adam ) and blahness98 (Zane) who are probably going to kill me for this given that Adam just joined the campaign and all the hard work blahness98 put into the game.. BUT... See here's the thing.. I put a LOT of hard work into this campaign.. matter of fact it would be safe to say I put every spare moment I have into the campaign.. and maybe that's a mistake on my part. Here's why.. I have two munchkins, one is eight years old one is almost ten.. and at that age they really, REALLY need their daddy.. this is something that the younger players probably will not understand until they themselves are also parents (sorry to sound like an old fogey .. and I don't mean to sound condescending either .. heck as a young man in my 20's myself I had NO idea how hard it was to be a parent until I became one so I never took the demands a parent has to face that seriously as a young adult .. blahness , being a parent himself, knows exactly what I'm talking about ) .. On the Tuesday nights I run dragonlance I pressure the kids to finish their homework up really fast, bathe them, feed them, and get them ready to turn them over to their mom so I can run the dragonlance game.. their mom works mind you, at a rather demanding job as a pharmacist - not to put too fine a point on it but if she screws up people either get sick or die ... and she works for a retail pharmacy so LOTS of pressure, lots of customers going in and out, any one of whom she could screw up royally if she's not careful.. even on her off days she's just.. drained.. which leaves child care up to me.. My two munchkins.. I was rather abrupt with them today, rushing them in order to get to the dragonlance game on time .. and I could see the HURT in their little faces.. " Daddy , why are you being so short with me ? " ... but I figured ok, they can live with that once every two weeks.. Then I got a PM from a player who's been in the group like forever basically saying said player felt railroaded, they weren't going to put any more effort into creative solutions to problems any more on the part of their PC, could I please just kill their PC off , et cetera.. that kind of thing is difficult enough to swallow when it comes from an emotionally immature player who was probably going to leave the group anyways (no NOT referring to anyone in the group right now when I say that, I'm talking about past players who have come and gone), I guess mainly because of all the hard work I put into the campaign.. but when that kind of criticism comes from someone who's been with the campaign forever.. it just hits you, it hits you really hard. So I stayed up late tonight writing a long apology PM to this particular player.. then I realized what was going to happen as a result of my actions... I'd get up early with the kids to get them ready for school - rather than catching up on much needed sleep I would spend every spare moment I had with the kids off at school on the campaign again ... then basically not really be there for the kids because of the lack of sleep, I'd be grouchy and short with them more than likely .. I think.. I might have bit off more than I can chew too early in my children's lives... When my children are thirteen years old and have no interest in their boring old dad because they want to spend all their time with their friends that's different .. but right now.. they need me. I need to take a break from all this for a while.. mind you I will continue to work on the dragonlance campaign even while I'm not DM'ing ... I think if I already have all the info (maps, FG entries and what not) pregenerated and put into the PC already that will make things a lot easier for me but that could easily take several months to accomplish.. maybe several months from now.. maybe a year from now.. I'll be ready to start again.. when I do , you all will be the first people I contact to see if you're interested in picking up where we left off .. make no mistake, the comments of the one player I mentioned hurt.. but in the end that player's a good guy - a REALLY nice guy actually and he was just saying how he felt I can't fault him for that, if anything he's so invested in the campaign that when he feels like his efforts are for naught it hits him hard too so I can understand it from his point of view as well .. no, the fault likes with me for biting off more than I can chew... I feel like over this past year I've weeded out all the emotionally immature players , the ones who throw temper tantrums and who complain endlessly when things don't go their way or who can't put the group's needs ahead of their own if only for one weeknight out of every week ... and the end result in my opinion is an emotionally mature, solid, fine group of players I really enjoyed DM'ing for and it KILLS me having to walk away from that, it really does.. but I think it's for the best right now. I DO plan on continuing to be in solardawn's campaign as a player - malkav565 (Adam) I hope to see you there too solardawn is a great DM ! Blahness98 my apologies you mentioned arranging your schedule to get the Tuesdays for dragonlance off.. I should have seen this coming a mile off on my part so again, my apologies.. you'll probably want to kill me for asking this but - is there any chance you'd be able to join us for solardawn's game instead? I'd love to see Jaysun in solardawn's campaign ! Again my deepest apologies .. it's been a real blast DM'ing for you guys and I hope you had as much fun as I did ... again I will be working on the dragonlance game on my "off hours" and will contact you guys to see if you're free and/or interested the moment I feel it's ready to run again..
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Post by darkalloy on Sept 28, 2011 0:26:13 GMT -5
I'll say it the player in question was me. I'm not ashamed I simply expressed my opinion on the matter. Many of my skills.... Okay basically all of my skills are based in conversation and unless we are dealing with a lesser player generally seem to do no good. Many other times things we do are rendered ineffectual on the spot. For instance, Solar had been told a long time ago that Archons can't be summoned however that wasn't really mentioned today until after the fact. Many of us have gotten do overs for things on either out mistake or Andre's however this wasn't given the do over. Maybe not say choose a different spell do over but at least a different creature would have been good now Serinda is out a sudden quickened and a summon spell. Both of which could have been useful during this fight or later on.
I also never said I want him to just kill off Rin I'd never get mad or frustrated enough to kill my PC off. I might offer to kill him if I feel he is causing Drama, however that is different as I partly laugh and feel guilty about drama. I said if Rin is badly hurt just end it for him as I would rather play someone more useful. I see no point in keeping a silver tongued devil around if that silver tongue just gets less useful as I get more powerful, that actually contradicts itself. I'd rather play a full blown cleric or someone who can get on the front lines and protect the squishier PC's from the enemies. Much like the back up I'm working on for if either Rin or Sumlanna my alternate die.
As for creative solutions to problems well. For instance when my Shout spell did the weird propelling me thing I was picked up by Loopy and wasn't going to get out. Given enough time we could have stopped the dragon army dead in it's tracks, however once Loopy got me it was all over and we had to go back to the others and leave the dragon army only mildly inconvenienced. Much like when Rin decided to go to the tower, Rin was willing to go to the tower as he thought he might be able to get some help be it in the form of equipment or even a mage or two. However, no one would talk to Rin or Serinda and the only thing that got us there was Serinda's Quickened Teleport. Had it not been for that many things would have gone wrong... Both Serinda and Rin would probably have been marked for death by the tower and had many hunters sent after them. I mean no offense by it but solutions that are non-canon aside from Rin hurting himself and wasting a spell to heal himself seem to be met with resistance. I can understand a bit of railroading, like beefing an enemy up so we can't kill him because he survives as recurring enemy, but that was kinda shot back when we kicked the crap out of toade and he came back as an ally.
Anyway that's what I have to say, didn't mean my PM to Andre to turn out like this. I figured he would like to know when something upsets one of his players so he could address it and clear things up so it wouldn't boil over. And as such I let him know, as the player that was upset I felt it was the right thing to do. I do apologize to Andre as my intention was not to hurt his feelings or anything with the PM.
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Post by Andre on Sept 28, 2011 9:31:46 GMT -5
One heads up I should give everyone in advance when I contact you again to see if you're interested in picking up the dragonlance campaing where we left off (which will probably be a long while from now (see my post above) ... given that this is a series of pre-published modules there will be a certain amount of railroading.... the Ack-Chak the wyvern thing was a mistake and I'll reprint my reply to darkalloy below in the PM I sent him, so in the future won't railroad that way .. but as far as being able to stop the dragonarmy cold in their tracks (though I'd argue that even as powerful as Serinda and Rin are I don't think they could have stopped literally thousands of soldiers coming after them) , the modules simply don't allow for it ... I would go further to argue that if Loopy,Rin's rope monster , hadn't grabbed Rin and hauled him away, even with Serinda being able to toss iceballs that do that much damage (yep it really is 100 points on average - not lying honest ! If that's not the case then let me know Serinda but that's the average damage I see when one goes flying - not that this is solardawn's fault at all I DID say I was ok with powergaming) that Rin and Serinda would have been overwhelmed .. but yeah, if the two PC's wanted to stay and fight I should have let it happen - in game Loopy represents Rin's prime, uncontrolled subconscious - I basically RP'ed it as Rin's survival instinct kicking in.. my other big concern is that when two PC's head off and do their own thing it leaves the rest of the players twiddling their thumbs waiting impatiently .. I'm not trying to say Rin and Serinda did a bad thing by going off on their own I'm just saying that as a DM I'm likely to try to prompt them to rejoin the group as quickly as possible so we can focus on activities that involve all the players.. and apologies there too I should have made that clear up front.
Basically what it boils down to is this - darkalloy wants more from me than I can give. I wish I could give it I really do.. but I'm burnt out ... like I said earlier every spare bit of energy I have has gone into the campaign. Obviously darkalloy didn't know I was this close to "the edge" and about to fall off so obviously it's not his fault by any means.. having said that... Darkalloy no offense but when you say " If Rin gets hurt and is near death, just finish it please, I might as well have someone who is useful and not just a bag of wind when it comes down to it. " in a PM to me I'm going to assume that you want Rin killed off.
Also no offense but when I look at the post above... " I'm not ashamed I simply expressed my opinion on the matter" , " And as such I let him know, as the player that was upset I felt it was the right thing to do ".... I do get that you're upset.. but again it boils down to the same thing... I'm getting the impression you want more from me than I can give. Even months or years from now when I'm ready to resume the campaign I simply won't be able to , I can't do it ... I was already giving 110 percent, giving to the point where it hurt and then giving some more.. not to make you feel bad or anything or attack you darkalloy but.. I can't , I'm sorry, I just don't have any more to give. You did do me a big favor though - this was the wake up call that I needed to come to my senses and realize I was getting obsessed with this campaign big time to the point where I was sacrificing my own kids (not that it's the players fault I did so, obviously it's mine of course)... . So thank you for that.
Here's a copy of the PM I sent darkalloy and cc'ed solardawn on , hopefully this should clear some things up - it's clearing it up sort of posthumously mind you since the dragonlance campaign is pretty much over at this point , but ... as an FYI in the last part of my PM below when I refer to certain players who lack emotional maturity I am NOT referring to any of the players who are currently in the group ! That's a reference to players who have already left the group - sad as it is to say I think we've all probably noticed at this point there are a certain number - fair number I would say - of immature FG gamers who throw tantrums when things don't go their own way and/or who flake out and don't really bother to put the time into their PC/the game when asked - but none of the players in the group right now fall into that category at all ! ...
(solardawn sending you a copy of this too as it's possible you might also have been upset over how things went tonight- if so my apologies to you as well ! .. this is a PM I sent to darkalloy) Ok I apologize I didn't mean to upset you.. there were probably some things i should have made clear in tonight's FG game ..
...the thing with the wyvern.. basically I looked at it this way..
1) Serinda makes her spot check against the invisible wyvern but fails her init roll 2) wyvern attacks using flyby attack feat to attack in the middle of it's move then keep moving - PC's use up their attacks they would normally have vs wyvern to try and keep their balance by making the reflex save 3) wyvern flies off magically teleporting away
I think my mistake was letting Zane getting the shot in with the arrow for, as he put it, "shits and giggles"... because then that opened the door to Serinda wanting to attack too which in turn made things rather "iffy" at that point - with Serinda doing 100 points of damage on average per attack (literally, no joke, really 100 points of damage on average with the iceballs and the feats applied to it ) I knew for Ack Chak the wyvern to survive and fight Rin another day he'd have to get away before Serinda could plaster Ack Chak.. I will admit that I would prefer that Rin at least have a chance to get a single hit in on ack Chak before Serinda blows him away since he is sort of "Rin's " enemy, would be kind of anticlimatic if Serinda casually finished him off .. Serinda not blaming you here I DID say powergaming was allowed so as a DM I'm going to have to deal with the consequences..
But yeah now that I think about it , it could be seen as railroading.. I probably shouldn't introduce major NPC's like that without the PC's at least having a chance to kill 'em off as opposed to the NPC simply escaping without a scratch .. it was meant to be a dramatic "Adam returns" sort of incident , Adam grabs Rin as he's falling (mind you Rin could have easily saved himself with the feather fall ability ) and so forth after Ack Chak knocks Rin loose .. and as mentioned I want Rin to get at least a crack in at Ack Chak during some sort of final climatic battle with him ... Ack Chak was under the effects of a bull strength spell too upping his strength beyond the "19" strength a wyvern normally has but I can see how it would be discouraging for Rin to roll an "18" on his strength check and still fail the opposed str roll against Ack chak's bull rush attack move ... I probably won't approach future RPG situations like that then , the last thing I want to do is get a reliable player who's been a great RP'er and who's been with the campaign this long to get that upset !
The summoning angels thing .. I probably should have posted it as an official "house rule" I thought there was a general understanding about it.. waaaayyy back when, don't know if you remember a while back, FG game sesion a long time ago .. someone took a swing at the Harvester devil.. their weapon passed right though the Harvester devil as if it wasn't there and the Harvester then proceeded to gloat about how , since the demons and devils haven't entered the dragonarmy war on the side of Takhisis to physically attack anyone yet, the angels likewise cannot attack anyone either ... not sure but I think Serinda was there for that speech on the Harvester's part..later on solardawn sent me a PM asking what would happen if Serinda summoned an angel and I responded that the angels really aren't able to fight in the war since their demonic/devil counterparts are not.. I should have been more specific ... when I say " angel" I mean not only anything listed as "angel" in the monster manuals but also any celestials, any archons - any spiritual type beings that reside in the upper planes - are bound by the same non-involvement contract ..
Of course being evil beings ,people like the Harvester are going to respect the "letter of the law" and not the spirit .. The Harvester spends a lot of time whispering in people's ears and spreading information and trying to tempt people and so forth.. but he doesn't actually use any of his magical/spiritual powers to aid the bad guys however .. for example he wouldn't sit there smugly in the middle of combat and use some sort of "protection from good" aura emanating from him to help his bad guy buddies out when the PC's are fighting dragonarmy forces .. something that blatant is simply against the rules for him..
You'd also expressed concerns about the pyrohydra from the dragonlance module not being vunerable to cold in my campaign vs the "original" write up of it where it is vunerable to cold in the module.. again (and not to blame Serinda here) if I'd left it vunerable to cold Serinda would have been able to take it out on the first round ... Generally speaking when the PC's get to the power level you guys are at I have to toughen up the opposition .. however I can see after the fight with the iron pyrohydra (in which you had to retreat),the fight with the stone golem grabbing Rin by his equipment (which would not have gone well between the stone golem's magic resistance and his damage resistance) and now the umber hulks confusing the heck out of everyone .. I can definitely see how players would get discouraged and start to feel as if they're being railroaded.. if it's any comfort the stone golem and umber hulks were being played pretty much exactly as they appeared in the original modules though again I will admit to tinkering with the iron pyrohydra.
The impression I'm getting is that I'm probably toughening the opposition up a bit TOO much to the point where people feel like they're being railroaded so I'll try to ease up on that .. and no more NPC bad guys running away without the PC's at least having a chance to make street pizza out of them
This any better .. or are there other concerns I need to address? I'll be honest if it's someone that I don't see as having that much emotional maturity (certain other players whose names I shall not mention here ) I'm not likely to take it as seriously because -well because of the lack of emotional maturity - how seriously would you take a 5 year old hollering because things didn't go his or her way? But if YOU have concerns then that's different , I'm going to be much more concerned..
So talk to me (and thanks for bringing this up too btw ), anything else bothering you ?
And I figured darkalloy wouldn't mind if I reprinted his reply below so here it is, if nothing else so he gets" credit" for it so to speak - I know I know sound silly but by reprinting it I'm trying to show he was attempting to come up with constructive solutions and what not ... he does have a point, in future games I'll probably up how much RP points it costs to buy feats (maybe 300 RP points for a feat instead of 100) and reserve the right to ask a player to have his PC "drop" a feat if it makes the PC too powerful - again NOT intended as an attack on solardawn, I DID tell him powergaming was ok and he spent RP points on Serinda with that in mind - in retrospect that was probably a mistake on my part..
I do have some concerns however I want to cover Ack-chak first. Serinda did spot him(Ack-Chak) and by all rights had him. Second I do believe Serinda's average Iceball damage is more like 40-50 unless empowered then it's more like 60 and empowered and maxed is like 80 but I don't think she can empower and max it yet. Lastly Rin doesn't really care who kills Ack-Chak.
As for my concerns it's about the overpowered PC's and your attempts to ramp the enemies up. I fear for our lower level PC's especially when we go into the split with the two most powerful PC's going separate ways and probably being Lvl 11 by that time. Chances are the others won't survive very long considering they will be level 9 and RP point buffless. I would seriously look at slowing down the RP point acquisition or we are going to wind up even Rin and Serinda dead in one hit from the ramped up enemies. Or at the very least allow a point transfer for out back up's/alternates so they aren't killed in the first combat because it's ramped up so Serinda or Rin can't just walk in and nuke them all..... No that's not me trying to get the point transfer I asked for a while back. It's more a concern about the fact that if all the combat ends up being a slaughter because the enemies are immune and in some cases benefit from our attacks all the time, or that Rin and Serinda just kill everything and we move on it might makes the others mad or upset.
Just my opinion I just hope it makes sense... Yes all pun intended
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Post by solardawn on Sept 28, 2011 10:01:37 GMT -5
For the balance issue, I would have said, as much as I enjoy getting RP points. I think they're a main source of problems. Serinda wouldn't be nearly so overpowered if I hadn't had so many RP points to pimp her out completely. That's not to say I don't like the idea of RP points. But it does open the door to a world of extra power.
So yeah, I agree that RP points can be troublesome, also my iceballs only do 50 damage or so... until I'd gained 1 more level, at which point they would have done 20d6 damage..
As for the rest, I don't really know what there is to say. It's your family life, and I have no basis, no desire, and no place to judge it in either way. While I'm sad that the campaign ends. Really the only thing to do is to respect your choice and move on.
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Post by Andre on Sept 28, 2011 10:22:38 GMT -5
Thanks solardawn I appreciate that .. could have sworn it was 100 points of damage I must be confused again ... but yeah an average of 50 points per attack even still created balance problems - which again is totally MY fault I was the one who said powergaming was ok in the first place ..
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Post by darkalloy on Sept 28, 2011 13:28:12 GMT -5
I know you we're giving the game it's all and I respect that, I was not asking for you to give believe it or not I was asking for the opposite. I feel that you put too much time into the game with the massive back stories and plans to go with them. Too many plans can lead to rail roading, maybe not intentionally but they can. So take your break, have some fun, spoil your kids rotten, and when you're ready to do the DM'n for the game again well I'll be right here raring to go. No literally I'll be right here, making sue the forum doesn't get wiped for inactivity.... Yup no life what so ever. Still all I ask when you come back is that you don't over plan or overthink our encounters.
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Post by Andre on Sept 28, 2011 16:16:13 GMT -5
I know you we're giving the game it's all and I respect that, I was not asking for you to give believe it or not I was asking for the opposite. I feel that you put too much time into the game with the massive back stories and plans to go with them. Too many plans can lead to rail roading, maybe not intentionally but they can. So take your break, have some fun, spoil your kids rotten, and when you're ready to do the DM'n for the game again well I'll be right here raring to go. No literally I'll be right here, making sue the forum doesn't get wiped for inactivity.... Yup no life what so ever. Still all I ask when you come back is that you don't over plan or overthink our encounters. thanks man I do appreciate that ... but here's the problem (and I should clarify below by saying NONE of this is meant as an attack on darkalloy, more of a "warning this is what you're in for if you choose to rejoin the dragonlance game many months from now" sort of thing ) .. Yes I can do my best to avoid railroading as far as the Ack-Chak wyvern issue and any other "original" scenarios I come up with .. but if it's a scenario that's part of the original module I can't .. see, here's the deal.... The prepublished modules tend to have an established "path" one goes through with all sorts of material written up for it already , " if the pc's do this then this happens" et cetera.. when PC's veer off the "path" then I don't have any material to lean on ... I wish I was good at coming up with stuff on the spur of the moment but I'm not I'm afraid .. normally the solution would be for me to write up additional material to supplement the module in case the PC's go in a different direction - the problem is I don't have time to write up the material ... I find it to be even MORE time consuming than writing up the personal RP forum type of threads actually, it's just not an area that I excel in.. So the thing with the dragonarmies and Serinda and Rin taking them on and Ropey the rope monster and so forth .. to be honest even as powerful as Serinda is I still believe Serinda and Rin would have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers (again literally thousands of soldiers) so I , honestly, do not think Serinda and Rin could have "stopped them cold"... as far as Ropey dragging Rin back to the others - again to be honest I'm simply not the kind of DM who believes in spending a lot of time on PC's who have seperated from the rest of the group.. I know, that sounds really strange but I just personally really don't like the idea of spending a lot of time on one or two PC's while the rest of the group sits waiting patiently, it just seems like not that much fun for the other players .... I can avoid having plot devices like ropey drag the PC's in question back to the other PC's - but to be brutally honest in a situation like that I'd be likely to flat out ignore the smaller group of PC's and concentrate on the majority of PC's instead then wrap up events with the smaller group of PC's on the forum RP threads or something like that... and even then the smaller group of PC's would probably feel "railroaded" anyways because I'd have this whole FG game session I'd already gone through with the rest of the PC's and have this whole series of events that already took place that are "established history" at that point - if the smaller group of PC's do something to try and change that established history it would create a "time paradox" and mess up the campaign as a whole. Not trying to say that players who split off from the rest of the group are "bad people".. I'm just saying I tend not to focus on them if it means neglecting the rest of the group. So basically.. going off on your own is fine for little things, if you try to do a big thing it's not going to end well.. I apologize for that but it is a DM'ing preference of mine.. so that would be something to think about if any player decides to rejoin the campaign later on - can you (and when I say "you" I don't mean just darkalloy I mean everyone) live with the DM either ignoring you or plot devicing you back to the other PC's if you split off from the main group? The other thing to consider, again , is if you're ok with the occasional railroading ... darkalloy mentioned a scenario with Flamestrike and how it got another player (now gone from the group) rather upset because she felt she was being railroaded... basically Flamestrike was a huge , powerful red dragon.. the problem is the "flavor text" in the module that I copied and pasted into FG painted her as a pathetic old thing that wouldn't put up much of a fight and when she did the player-who-is-now- gone got rather upset. There will be more than one encounter with dragons, often dragons too powerful for the PC's to defeat if I follow the original modules (which I have to, see above) - the question is, can players live with this sort of thing? And with railroading in general when it does happen in the campaign? (hopefully not too often but you will see it from time to time even with me completely avoiding any railroading not called for by the original modules - which I will try my best to do but .... ) .. If not obviously I completely understand but much as I hate to say it this might not be the campaign for you and you might be better off with a DM who's better than me .. The one area in which I do have at least a little bit of expertise however is the forum RP and personal threads , I like to put whatever meager writing talents I have to good use .. I'm not so good at coming up with supplemental material if a PC veers off the path presented in the modules but like to think I am halfway ok at forum RP ... and while I do appreciate what darkalloy had to say , no , I can't see myself giving that up - again just part of my DM'ing style.... I DO think that it will be a lot easier for me to do that however once I've had enough time to input all the dragonlance material into FG in the form of maps (often maps I have to recreate from scratch using the dundjinni program since the maps included in the modules SUCK ) , flavor text, monster stats (draconians , other NPC's who aren't found in the monster stats "included" in basic FG program) ... The thing is that's eight modules worth of stuff it could easily take me several months at the very least to input all of that so the campaign will definitely be on hold for a LONG time....something to consider in the meantime though when I issue invites to the campaign again in the future.. Another thing you'll have to decide - are you ok with me changing the stats for the monsters in the modules? Here's the reason why.. darkalloy expressed some concerns about the iron pyrohydra being immune to cold rather than vunerable to it as originally presented, I told him that I did this mainly to balance Serinda out against the monster in question given Serinda's power levels ... but looks like I went too far the opposite direction and made the iron pyrohydra TOO powerful, which is something I'll try not to do in the future.. having said that... the dragonlance modules were written under first edition rules - under those rules it takes a LOT more XP to advance in levels than it does under the new rules.. on the one hand I want to award XP per the new rules since people are used to that..my original group of players way back when in I think Sept of 2010 , some of the players were grumbling to each other via whispers about the lack of XP when I tried to award XP the way the modules tell me to (I don't think the players, both of whom were new to FG , were aware the DM can see whispers from player to player too ) ... which is understandable, that prompted me to start awarding XP per 3rd edition rules ... but of course that means the PC's level up faster than the module intended and I need to rachet up the opposition's power level to compensate as a result. (though again I will keep an ear open for feedback if players feel the monsters are getting TOO powerful - though bear in mind earlier point above, you will come face to face with dragons from time to time, dragons that are often too powerful to defeat without at least one or more PC's dying if you choose to stay and duke it out with said dragon instead of retreating when you have the chance ... ) .. Also once I pick the campaign up again, if someone wants to continue with an already written up character I'll probably do the following : - no more feats outside of the ones found in player's handbook, which I think will address a lot of the power balance issues , and I'd closely scrutinize Serinda's PC build afterwards with the option of requesting changes for her if she proves too powerful (no offense to Serinda ! Wizards in general just tend to be powerful - again my fault for telling solardawn that powergaming was ok in the first place, totally my bad ) .... this would basically mean that malkav might want to replace Adam the monk completely with another PC since a lot of his feats come from book of exalted deeds (but the new PC WOULD get all of Adam's old RP points since this isn't a voluntary change Adam's player is making on Adam's part , and would spend them as per under the old rules , see below) ... Existing feats that PC's currently possess not in the player's handbook would need to be "swapped out" for feats found in the player's handbook - otherwise assume that each feat is worth 100 RP points to be used towards either ability score increases under the old rules (spend 300 RP points to get a 1 point bump in ability scores and/or 20 RP points to bump up a skill rank) .. but newly earned RP points would be subject to the new rules for RP points (see below) - RP points will still be around but changed - 300 RP to buy a feat, 500 RP to buy an increase in ability score points and 100 RP points to buy an increase in a skill rank... So those are my thoughts - again we'll revisit this ... um I guess many months from now.. At that point I'll redirect everyone back this thread to read it over and decide at that point ... Again I strongly encourage people to join solardawn's campaign if you haven't already - he's a great DM and I think you'll have a lot of fun .. Thanks again for the kind words darkalloy that makes me feel a lot better ..
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Post by darkalloy on Sept 28, 2011 17:22:14 GMT -5
That sounds fine, things to consider about all the feat changes though.... Tani would never have existed, Udry would probably have to be a basic druid, none of his Alternate feature stuff not saying that hey are bad or feat but I think his feats are based around that, Serinda would no longer be able to cast ice style spells aside from some of the basic ones losing her ice princess flair in the process, Zane well I'm not quite sure about him, Adam well that been stated already. Many of us might have to reconsider almost completely remaking our PC's, just a heads up about that, as well as the fact that that alone could do the time paradox thing.
As for ignore or plot device, I'm alright with both so long as the plot device isn't in the form of a sledge hammer ans you seem to be fond of I mean no offense. I do know that this is pre-written but even pre-written stuff can deviate slightly, for instance just because the original party ran from the Hydra doesn't mean that we would have to. Even if Serinda wasn't buffed up like she was there is a chance she could have killed it anyway. As a question if you had been awarding XP like the books state and Serinda managed to kill a normal Iron pyrohydra what would you have done? Even on pre-written things you some times have to lean on your imagination for what is going on as PC may not always follow the plot device directly. Another example being me and Serinda going off like we did. Had we all, well most as some one had to lead the dwarf back, Anyway had we all gone to try and stop/hinder the dragon army what would you have done?
Just a couple of things to chaw on when you work on the game.
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Post by Andre on Sept 28, 2011 17:39:16 GMT -5
Yeah.. again this is where we run into difficulties with players wanting to veer off the path of the modules ... the hydra being killed and getting xp for it - basically results in more powerful PC's and I still have to up the power level of the opposition meaning changes from what you're used to in the original modules .. true, in original module PC's are expected to run from pyrohydra not fight it ... stuff to mull over - maybe leave it as is without the cold resistance and see if PC's can kill it? As written in the original module though it's a tough, TOUGH beast.. far as everyone trying to take on the dragonarmies - basically a group of PC's against literally thousands of soldiers - you would have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers I'm afraid ... you see , " I do know that this is pre-written but even pre-written stuff can deviate slightly " - how do you define slightly ? Without a concrete definition it becomes very difficult to come up with something that will make everyone happy .. so we're basically back to the original situation - can players live with being railroaded from time to time? If not then this basically isn't the campaign for you and you need a DM better than I am who can come up with stuff on the spur of the moment .. I can improvise to a degree but there's no way I can improvise a solution to taking on thousands of dragonarmy soldiers without doing the plot hammer thing - which in turn really seems to upset players So again , back to the original question , no way to get around it I'm afraid - are people ok with the occasional railroad? Given it's a pre-written module I'm afraid it's pretty much a " yes" or " no " answer I just don't see any other way .. Serinda wouldn't be the same without her ice stuff true .. thinking now I'd probably let PC's keep just one feat outside the PHB book (so Serinda gets to keep her ice thing going ) .. and yep could see other players totally re-making their PC's as a result.. I dunno maybe reboot back to the beginning , module one?
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Post by pirateking on Sept 28, 2011 17:42:28 GMT -5
I would think only allowing PHB feats would be a very bad choice, while reducing rp acquisition and increasing the price would be favorable, The feats in the the supliment books are not overpowered in themselves, it's when you have enough RP to buy them all that it becomes overpowering, If a player was only able to get the normal amount of feats this would not be the case.
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Post by solardawn on Sept 28, 2011 19:25:21 GMT -5
I think you should continue to allow people to get all the feats, but just remove the option to buy feats with RP points, stat increases and skill points are plenty. Stat increases are powerful, but funnily enough, not as powerful as all these feats.
As for the railroading part, I understand that since it's coming from a module, you have to follow a certain story. But I do agree that there needs to be an impact players can make. Because if we can't die, we can't alter the story any. And we can only kill things at the appropriate time. Then I would say, using D&D is actually holding things back.
It's not a criticism, but personally I think if the story is too constrictive, and can't really be influenced except for flavor. Then you should just drop the game system and go free style. Because if the rolls really only determine how long an event takes, then it's taking up valuable style. And that's not a negative thing, some free-form games are fantastic, real good roleplaying. Free-form also allows you to have complete control over the world, and avoids a lot of these problems.
It just sounds to me like all this rolling and plotting character builds and choosing spells, is really just fluff, and just making things go a 'lot' slower. Fluff can be done freeform too. I fully admit I already kind of took on that attitude, I hadn't spend 1600 RP points, mostly because it didn't really matter what my stats were, the story was the story, and my char sheet didn't seem important.
Anyway, i don't mean for this to sound overly negative, or to be criticism, I still enjoyed the game and it's a shame it's over.
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Post by darkalloy on Sept 28, 2011 19:28:52 GMT -5
I could actually see a ReBoot working for the most part, aside from frustration of starting over and the oh wait we know how to do this fast parts. As I said I'll keep playing and I'll take the railroading in stride. I may not play Rin though if we do a reboot, his usefulness in anything but verbal sparring is thanks to the feats he has from other books remove those and he literally is just a big wind bag, who really can't do much more than talk the enemies ears off. That would also mean I'd have to remake sumlanna as all her feats are non-PHB feats and in fact she gets a Non-PHB feat or two for just being a soul knife. Edit: First I hate PB as it doesn't let people know about posts other make half the time. Second, Solars idea actually makes a ton of sense, Dnd itself is more made for non-linear play when you think about it as the spells, feats, skill and all that are more useful for creative solutions than predetermined ones. Freeform can be used to tell a linear story easier and possibly a lot faster. Combat for instance generally takes up 75% of our play time it seems so this in itself could allow us to cover much more content in a shorter amount of time. It could even eliminate the need for a bunch of the maps which would also speed things up as we would have to wait for them to load or stop crashing people.... Bad FG Bad .
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Post by Andre on Sept 29, 2011 11:08:38 GMT -5
I can see why people wouldn't want to give up the feats they already have but I have to disagree - I think the out of PHB feats PC's have simply make everyone too powerful for the game, then when I rachet up the opposition to compensate people get upset .. Looking at the above posts I'm going to have to draw the conclusion that people are unhappy with following the general plotline in the dragonlance modules ... I totally understand why , I can see how railroading would be irritating but.. much as I hate to say this.. this effectively terminates the dragonlance campaign completely in it's current incarnation... simply put if I run it again people will get upset at the railroading built into the modules and it will create problems all over again ... When I have the game ready to go again I will re-issue invites to blahness98 (Zane), deepfrey (Draug the werewolf) and malkav565 (Adam) and pick up from where we left off or possibly reboot the campaign from the beginning (I'll ask them what they prefer) , only because none of them had any objections to the campaign the way it was being run before .. but at this point I think it would be a mistake for darkalloy (rin) and solardawn (Serinda) to rejoin the campaign because it will just create future conflict with them.. don't get me wrong I'd LOVE to have those two players in the campaign, they're awesome RP'ers and have been great on the forum boards ! .. but darkalloy just got through telling me how much he hates plot hammmering in a PM on solardawn's other forum for his game.. and I could kind of tell from solardawn's in game comments during FG game sessions he wasn't happy with the plot hammering either .. judging from darkalloy and solardawn's above posts they simply aren't going to be happy with the kind of campaign I'll be able to provide and it will only create problems in the future.. far as pirateking (Udyr) he'd have to decide if he's willing to write up a brand new PC with only the feats from the player's handbook and one (just one) feat from outside the PHB - if not I don't see this campaign working out for him either. I know that sounds terrible , like I"m trying to exclude you or trying to be petty, believe me I'm not ! .. but put it this way - I just got through with a long explanation about how much I was sacrificing for the campaign (see first post) and what I'm hearing from darkalloy and solardawn's posts is that they won't be happy with the campaign the way it was before if I resume the campaign with it still being that way.. to me that indicates they are REALLY unhappy with the railroading that will be built into the modules - to the point where it would be a disaster of epic proportions just waiting to happen if they were to jump back into the dragonlance modules later on.. simply put I'm just too afraid of the potential consequences if darkalloy and solardawn are in a campaign relying on pre-published modules.. not trying to be petty .. I just don't want another disaster messing up a campaign that I'm working so hard on. If solardawn and darkalloy suddenly have a massive change of heart and decide " yes I'm ok with railroading" then by all means welcome back to the campaign, just let me know and we'll go from there ! But judging from their posts above somehow I don't see that taking place ... I also think darkalloy and solardawn will be rather unhappy with my policy of not focusing much on PC's who split off from the rest of the group given how often they do this sort of thing - not to say they're bad players for doing so ! It's just that this sort of thing works to your detriment in my campaigns and if it's the kind of thing they're prone to do often I can see that getting them upset as well ... the other reason I'm taking such a firm stance on this is I just got through saying that i need time to spend with the kids and instead to me it feels like I'm on here arguing with darkalloy (mainly) and now solardawn regarding the campaign - so forgive me for being short but again - I've given until I've bled, then given from more and what i'm hearing is ... it just isn't good enough for you guys .. I get it ,I understand I do , you need a better DM than me but.. it sounds like I'm not the DM you're looking for I don't blame you guys at all mind you I totally understand , solardawn and darkalloy are probably used to DM's way better than me, I totally get where they're coming from .. basically I'm just simply not the DM you're looking for since I can't really come up with the supplemental material everyone wants and I'm not that good at coming up with spur of the moment " okay the PC's veered off the path so I'll do this instead" type stuff. Anyways a lot can change in 8 months, the current group of players might all find themselves too busy on Tuesdays at that point in time to rejoin me to begin with (sad but possible ) , we'll see what happens from there.
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Post by pirateking on Sept 29, 2011 15:30:45 GMT -5
I think you have the wrong idea about feats and rules outside of the core books, they do not make PC's overpowered, it's the RP that was doing it. given that throughout lv.1-20 the average PC only gets 7 feats. (serinda had taken extra spell slot 15 times this would not have been possible without rp and she'd be alot more picky about when to cast spells, making her less overpoered, she probably wouldnt even had taken the feat once without having so much RP... without the RP feats are precious, and you have to choose them wisely, but with 1500 rp to spend you just grab everything as fast as you can) you gave them the power to get 5times or more of that. when PC's are able to get every feat they dream of, thats when it becomes overpowering, I would suggest possibly dropping RP points all together, and going with bonus xp for RP'ing. Limiting PC's to core rule books take out alot of RP flavor that could be in the campaign. All in all I think you should drop the RP buying of feats, allowing all feats, the only reason PC's got out of hand was the RP in my honest opinion. I wouldn't mind rolling another character tho restricting to just core wouldn't be favorable, I'm fine with railroading.
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Post by malkav565 on Sept 29, 2011 16:44:04 GMT -5
My 2 cents:
1) Andre's style. Andre, your style is your style. I think GMs "solidify" into a particular style of game, and it's not always everybody's cup of tea. It's perfectly normal for people to play in a game and get upset about difference between their expectation of the game and the reality of the GM's style.
From what I've seen Andre, you are very "narrative", meaning that you are looking to tell a story more than focus on the nitty-gritty. Many D&D players tend towards "simulation", which means the nitty gritty over the story. I am a more simulation-based GM, and tend to enjoy those games, but knowing your style, I have fun as well.
Personally, I think your downfall is trying to be the personal author of (number of players) personal dramas all at the same time. That's more work than an author does, and approaches the amount of content an MMORPG (e.g. WoW) needs to generate to keep people occupied 24-7.
I would suggest moving forward that you could tone down the sheer volume of posting, narrative for each PC, etc. and focus on the game sessions. It'd be a bit of a shame, but it would cut back your work and enable you to balance game-life.
2) PC Power and Game balance: The PCs in the Dragonlance campaign are bloated in power about twice the amount of a normal PC of the same level. While this makes players temporarily happy and helps the narration, it screws up PC-to-enemy balance, which almost always leads to complaints.
Making the monsters harder actually compounds the problem. Adding more can be a minor tweak, but doesn't solve the problem.
A better solution is really to keep PCs within reasonable power tolerances for their level, or just up the level of the characters and the CRs of the monsters. D&D really does have it right for the most part.
3) Non PHB feats: There is nothing wrong with non-PHB feats, in general. Books like Complete Warrior or other source books give a lot more choice to players without breaking game balance.
Having said that, adding critical hit (groin) feats and allowing anything from Book of Erotic Cheese is a mistake. I haven't found any 3rd party feats or classes I didn't think were pretty imbalanced or crappy.
As much as I hate to say it, the Book of Exalted Cheese is right out as well. Out of all published D&D 3.0/3.5 books, this one has the most breaking content. Vow of Poverty/Peace/Non-violence is pretty frontloaded, expecially when the GM encourages exalted behavior in the first place.
4) Pacing: Somewhat tied to #1, above, I would also focus the campaign and time spent in game on a filtered version of the module content. Those modules are big, and were written back when D&D players would lose weekends running them. As adults, we have about 20% of the time of a teenaged group. As a player, I get bummed when I don't level every 3 or 4 sessions maximum. And you've run these modules in so much detail that we are still in Book 1 after 2 real years.
I tend to aim for a campaign to last 6 - 8 months of real time, based on regular gaming sessions. Every two weeks, maybe double that.
None of the above is a criticism. I came back knowing full well how you run your games (it's fun!). But I can see some relatively minor changes making the game run smoother for everyone.
Anyway, that's my two (20?) cents.
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