Start my very first game with a new GM

>start my very first game with a new GM.
>he only mentions that the story's set in out home town and that the genre's horror
>figure that a religious character would be useful
>put all stats to shit related to that
>character could physically be killed by the smack of a mitten
>game begins
>it's the fucking clowns
>turns out they're supernatural
>ok demon clowns we got this
>find a cult
>discover they're sons of Kaleva
>not satanic shit or standard European monsters
>fucking finnish folklore
>these fucking shits won't even blink at a silver cross
>proceed to watch as they mop the fucking floors with my little laestadian boy and there's nothing I can do
>because he's literally useless

I am not a good noob.

Poor communication with players, Poor understanding of rules.

What did I do wrong? What should I have done instead?

That's what you get for metagaming

I don't know, I wasn't there.

It seems like the GM and the players had different expectations.

From what you've said it sounds like the GM was an asshat and didn't give you enough information to make a useful character. But then I don't know what system you were using or what all was said other than what you posted.

Proper communication between players and GMs about expectations for a game will save a lot of headaches.

>making a character you think is appropriate for a certain type of game
>metagaming
Pick one.

>Knowing what the game is about
>Make a character according to what I know as a player
>Not metagaming

But won't that ruin the fun if there's no mystery to the story?

I also have no clue how to rescue the poor sod.

>But won't that ruin the fun if there's no mystery to the story?

Again, I wasn't there so I can't say. I can say as a GM that if my player made a character that I knew wasn't going to be able to contribute in any meaningful way I would let them know and if they were new maybe help them make a character they could have fun with.

The OP mentioned putting stats in the right places though so I'm wondering what game they were even using, assuming its not just a pasta or something.

>play priest
>find out that your faith does jackshit against supernatural

Sounds like the DM was going for realistic approach

I'm not sure how much of it the GM made up himself. Most of it, it seems. I don't know.

But still, he's a man. How was he supposed to read my mind and know what I was planning? As far as he knows I could've wanted to make a completely useless character on purpose as a joke.

Is it normal where your from for GMs to not look over people's character sheets?

Question #1

Are you legit inbred and/or retarded?

>But still, he's a man. How was he supposed to read my mind and know what I was planning?

By doing a 'session 0' where the players discuss their character concepts with each other and the GM before anything is put on the character sheets.

A session 0 is also good for:
- Helping players who are new to the system get through character creation, because there are other people around who can help.
- Getting a group of PCs that can work together because problematic PCs can be identified early and the player can be asked to come up with something else.
- Getting players some idea of their PCs personality and backstory because everyone else can ask questions to help them flesh it out.

He looked over it and approved of it.

I got tested for autism once. Didn't have enough traits to qualify for full burger diagnosis.

Okay. We didn't have that. We had some talk in a group chat online about the characters' general dynamics the week before, but nothing like that.

DM made up magic monsters, no reason he couldn't have made up magic monsters that are afraid of made up magic God.

To disregard all your edge, it makes sense the ancient oned wouldn't care for jesus, they were here before that. At the time the local pagans didn't have shit to ward off evil, pissed-off or merely bored entities of the supernatural, they just settled to keeping out of their way.

The main problem here is that you used a system that didn't have clearly defined party roles and didn't clearly define any party roles as a group to plug in that gap. It's fine to play GURPS with its literal thousands of skills, but only if sometime prior to chargen the group sits down and pares that skill list down to a more manageable number somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two dozen, and then anything not on that list is something that people know in advance will not be directly useful but could be fun flavor.

That's a problem for the entire group, not just you. So far as things you, personally, could have done, given the vacuum of information it probably would've been better not to build someone so crazy overspecialized.

The next time I'll make someone crazy overspecialised, I'll make sure to not make him just plain crazy as well.

Thanks pal, now I've read this talk you had I can know apply this knowledge to metagame less!
So in my next campaign, even though it's a cyberpunk campaign, I'm going to roll a paladin! Because if I were to make something to suit the campaign, that'd just be awful metagaming - can't do that!
There's nothing wrong with making a character to fit the premise of a campaign. The GM could have told him the character wasn't going to work without spoiling the reveal, or could have changed the enemies a bit to make the character useful.

Had you known that the monsters had no vulnerability to religion, would you have still made a priest ?

All pagan faiths had shit to ward against evil shit.

He's not a priest, really. Just an extremely sheltered christian boy whose skills I thought would be useful.

Also I thought it'd be funny contrast to the rest of the characters, being three weeaboo girls and an edgelord neckbeard.

What the fuck are you gonna get to ward off Iku-Turso?

Pro-tip: if it is a horror campaign and you're planning a religious character it is good to remember that while prayers and shit is good prayers and shit backed red hot lead is better.

I'll keep that in mind for my second campaign.

A noose. So you can die faster.

Honestly I feel like the GM was an asshat here
Don't react to seeing a cross? Sure, that's reasonable
Don't react to powerful faith and will trying to drive them out?
They're supernatural, they're attuned to emotion and soul power and all that jazz; at the very least make them wince

>hey game's gonna be combat-centered
>making a fighty guy is metagaming tho

Have him make buddies with neo-pagans and read Kalevala so that he at least knows something about what he's fighting against

>hey game's gonna be horror-themed
>making a guy who you expect will have magic powers on account of his backstory in a setting where the GM only specified "horror" is metagaming though

I'm not ripping on OP because he's new to the game, but it was a little metagamey.

Let me specify that a guy who faints out of shock at the drop of a hat (or well, dice) was confident enough in that shit working that he'd CALMLY WALK UP TO A 7 FOOT MONSTER AND PRESS THE CROSS AGAINST ITS SKIN, and it didn't as much as blink before smashing him to a wall.

So, yeah. I didn't fail, I discovered like 39 different demon-killing methods that don't work.

It's a horror trope OP, it makes for a good roleplaying opportunity. Although it sounds like failure to communicate if you were lead to believe your faith would have any sway over these monsters. As puts it, shotgun trumps cross, every time.

Your DM sounds like a fag. If one of my players worked hard to create a character that wasn't a mindless murderhobo, I would find a way to keep them useful.

Here's the thing, no one in this situation knew anything out Finnish lore except for the DM. No game should ever be "Guess what the DM is thinking"

Yeah, he's definitely the one being edgy here.

Go tip somewhere else faggot.

And this is why you should always make sure that your religious character isn't limited to turning the other cheek when faced with hostiles.

There's nothing wrong with rolling a religious character in horror, user. It's a common trope, but you have to learn how to play to your character's design. Chances are you did not gear your character towards any manner of fighting, you are probably weak and not very fast or adept, either. You could pick up some sort of ranged weapon, of which I would recommend something explosive like a molotov cocktail, to just barely supplement the rest of your party, who have hopefully taken more useful physical skills, with some crowd/battlefield control.

Play to your strengths, user. Are you charismatic? You can be a party face and help influence NPCs to assist you in the name of your church; convince them that the Kingdom of (Heaven?) is the only salvation from the Finnish Demon Clowns. Are you intelligent? Maybe you could brush up on your Finnish and study some of the history and lore of the peoples, so as to better understand what you're dealing with. You could also make a good investigator and find some clues, or useful items for the rest of your party. Maybe you can even pick up some abilities that will help heal your party between encounters because nobody fucking remembers to do that, right?

Also, your GM sounds like a total shit because Kaleva isn't even an evil figure from Finnish folklore, he's the hero of the Finnish people who helped to tame the land and settle it for the Finns to live on.

Most importantly: in Finnish mythology, the sons of Kaleva were initially BTFO by the curses of Christian priests, so how about you fucking read a book and figure out how that might work?

Unless you are outside of Finland, which you probably are not because the game featured both Finnish folklore and an L-Positive (laestadian) character, it would be reasonable for a character well versed in religion to know at least something about folklore. You know, if nothing else, then at least Jack Chick -level of accurate depictions of the delusional evil of paganism.