DM: Your party is surrounded by complete darkness

Sometimes I'm really put off by Veeky Forums. But today I have found three threads, including this one, that all speak to my frustrations in the games I play at the moment.

I run three games a week for kids to play in, and they pay me a little for it.
My DM has been running longer but not nearly as often. So I try to offer some knowledge of what I've learned recently. And oh boy did he get defensive.
Asked for less quests popping up constantly (Literally every town we go to has one that sends us in the opposite direction we wanted to head), but "You don't have to take them if you don't want to".
*sigh*

Yeah, the spell to make magical darkness, which Devil's Sight can penetrate, is an illusion. If it was such a spell, you should have been able to see.

If it was a spell like Silent Image which created illusory opaque black spheres around everyone's heads, you should have immediately gotten saves to resist.

I do things like this all the time in my campaigns.

I’m trying to tell a story and I’ll be damned if I let you ruin my dramatic tension with your powergaming faggotry.

>go through laborious stealthy process to switch magic macguffins and take off with the valuable one.
>half the party is okay with stealing the good one and bluffing the bad one as it to the npc.
>other half doesn’t care
>to the reasons, make all the rolls, make the switch, and succeed in duping the npc party completely.
>suddenly oc donut steal dmpcs show up and immediately wreck our plans.
>literally step from the shadows and shut our plan down, undoing quite a bit of shoelace rolling and to.
>reflect on it later, realize we were railroaded hard.
>half a year in, passed up other groups, but getting tired of this cock-knockery.

Just realized my phone autocorrects rp to to. Goddamnit.

Huh. I just watched the source scene of this gif on youtube. What a mildly interesting coincidence.

>I'm trying to tell a story
go write a book instead of building a railroad

that's pretty bad, not only pulling some bullshit, but he let you get up to the prize and then tossed you on the railroad tracks. I feel for you bro

Had the same experience.
>have an extremely specific immunity to alcohol related poisoning
>talk about it and laugh that my character can't even get drunk and hates his life
>okay so you guys all black out after drinking too much
>also the dm insert is sober because they're immune to it

Had to listen to the dm talk to himself for like 30 minutes explaining the plot to the insert.

There have been more named npcs and dmpcs in a room than number of actual players several times. They’re setting up events and talking to each other while ignoring us (the party) more than a few times.

I think the dm is trying to come across as setting up something “epic” but is overplaying his hand wildly for the sake of the narrative.

But he’s young too. So I don’t know how much is malicious and how much is inexperience or stupidity.

Tell him what he's doing wrong and why its wrong. If he's inexperienced then its better he learn early, and if he's malicious then you may as well not worry about hurting his feelings and tell him to stop.

> A battery of siege catapults fire in our direction
> DM tell us to roll Reflex
> I make my save, take half damage
> Party monk makes his save, announces he has Evasion so he takes no damage
> DM tells the monk he still takes damage
> But why?
> Insert Bullshit DM Reason
> DM actually says 'Don't argue with me on this, just take the damage'

Are there things in your campaign that really make you question why you still play?

The DM pulls the "You can't do this because it wouldn't fit your CHARACTER!" card all the time.

...

>Are there things in your campaign that really make you question why you still play?

Players whining about darkness.

Every other cunt has darkvision, and you can't even use magical darkness without someone trying to nullify it.

Darkness is a great tool for creating tension etc but its null and void in D&D.

Most darkvision only extends 60ft. Most of the time the only reason to complain about darkvision is if you're a shitter who refuses to let the players do anything until the threat is within 10ft of them.

It also only makes total darkness count as dim light, so they see extremely poorly.

There was a "cutscene" in a campaign I play in where we were knocked out (Given a save but I'm pretty sure it was for show) and when we woke up we got stabbed in the chest and flat out died. This was all so the DM could have us meet another npc that would rez us and set them up for later.

I feel your pain on the railroad; every important npc we encounter is usually stuck up, would be impossible to beat, and are impossible to persuade to do anything other than the preplanned story the DM has written. I have to ask to make charisma skill checks, and even then, and roll of 30+ will only make the npc pay a small amount of attention to what I said

...

Same. I'll actually retroactively add in features to the environment if they do something clever. They'll never know because my session are a mix of preplanning and off the cuff stuff.

made a character in shadowrun that was an ex-military scout/spotter. he had as much senses as possible, via implant or gadgets.

than the gm says, you dont see it. no explanation, no roll. i was pissed. was really tempted to leave but didnt. game died 2 weeks later.

>Dim light
Mechanically it means nothing except disadvantage on perception.
>only 60ft
>only two rounds at base movement speed
>only

Yes, 60ft. What, is being able to only see 60ft some kind of superpower that invalidates any and all suspense? Can you seriously not think of a single way to use the cover of darkness effectively that's not "get directly behind someone and shout BOO?"

This is the same wavelength of GM that decides a character with immunity to diseases would also be immune to a cure that treats a disease designed to target immune characters.

Yeah.
Boy I sure do love to play attentively and not forget stuff like an item I picked a few sessions back and now it would be extremely useful to use it, to the point it might null whathever the DM prepared, so I go right ahead and use it, though I have to remember the DM I have it because he apparently forgot.

But who would have thought? Even though in the first session the item was functioning perfectly, it doesnt work now for some reason, haha, silly me, i probably broke it somewhere, even though I specially didn't use it until now because I was waiting for a better situation to arise. Man, who could prevented such tragedy?

>5eaboos defending every race having darkvision

Disgusting.

>invalidates any and all suspense
Holy fucking shit just add corners if you want things to sneak up. "I can see" does not mean "I am omniscient and can never be surprised".
Or add fucking invisible things.
Or add small things that beat their passive perception. (If they wander around making perception checks every 50 feet then they're properly paranoid)
If darkness is your only tool for suspense then I have no idea what to tell you except you suck at writing.

>All it means mechanically is disadvantage on perception
>All it means mechanically is that you can't see shit
So what's the problem?

>reading comprehension

The worst kind of interaction with your stats.
>resist mind control
>they redirect your willpower against you to make it easier to control you
>targeted by disease
>your CON bonus becomes a CON penalty as the disease takes advantage of healthier individuals

5eaboos isn't a thing. It's not even remotely a pun.

I think Devil's Sight is fucking stupid too, but I would have just told you you couldn't pick it in the first place.

Depends a bit on how the illusion works. Darkness is simply the absence of light, after all, which is a different thing from the illusion, say, filling an area with just the color black.

Yeah, maybe 5thrries

You're conflating a mechanical disadvantage with a thematic one.

Disadvantage on active perception checks is not 'you can't see shit'. It's next to pointless in combat, and only mildly a detriment in puzzles (investigation isn't hindered).

There are gm's so bad that they cant deal with players being able to see in the dark.

It just reeks of the JUST AS PLANNED villains and NPCs that John Wick liked to run in his games.

The one from the disease example was a Lex Luthor/Maxwell Lord type who was the groups sponsor & secretly main villain, who's main advantage was "Know what's on the character sheets" and exploit every possible weakness.

>DM: You encounter huge wild animal!
>Me: I scored a 30+ on my nature knowledge.
>DM: It got claws.

I fucking hate this shit. He was also the type of DM that if you don't roll a 15 or greater regardless how high is your bonus, it fails.

>Player 1: We really need someone with a good charisma to speak in our party
>Me: I have a charisma of 20
>Other Players: THEN WHY DONT YOU SPEAK BETTER
>Me: Cause I can't emulate a person with Max Charisma in real life; that's for the rolls
>DM: Nah, you just suck

I think I'm quitting this group. DM said this was the most social arc of his story, and I have made 1 charisma roll in 3 sessions, and that's only because I asked for it.

This is the same approach that I use as well and it works wonderfully. If a player has a clever plan that has no reason not to work this is the easiest way of rewarding it

From your words, I infer that you don't play with him anymore?

That's when you know it's shit: when the group doesn't understand that people should roll to convince someone else of something, based on their charisma and persuasiveness.

If there are any magic-y classes in your party, demand a demonstration at the table before your DM allows it in game.

Fuck that. My DM let me use time travel of all fucking things to negate weeks of planning because he couldn't see why I wouldn't use what I had access to.

Yeah, but this is a friend group that I usually only get to see on the weekend through D&D, which is why I haven't left. But I just can't keep playing something I don't enjoy or agree with. I feel like a That Guy cause it seems I'm the only one who has a problem with these things.

There is myself and another caster, and if it's combat related it's usually fine. I don't even bother using wisdom save spells on npcs cause it'd probably fail. I used Dream on the party cleric to appear as their God and convince them to be nicer to the group, since there was IC tension, and I was met with resistance by the player and DM the whole way. The player spoke monotone and acted like I was annoying him for doing this

> DM said this was the most social arc of his story, and I have made 1 charisma roll in 3 sessions

I can relate dude, when I joined my new group the DM said it would be a stealth campaign but 7 sessions in I haven't rolled a single stealth check once and the DM has rejected any plan that involves stealth.

Don't play D&D if you want that kind of tension.

>it's a "social campaign" using a game with no social mechanics
>it's a "stealth campaign" using a game with no stealth mechanics

i don't play RPGs, but what the fuck are these "social mechanics" i see peopel talkign about? What kind of rules for talking are better then just roleplaying it and making a roll?

Without those kinds of rules, you can't play character concepts that are based around being a good talker. Of course, you technically "can" do it, but the effectiveness of it will be limited entirely by your personal abilities rather than the aptitude of your character, which is unacceptable during shit like battles, so why should it be acceptable in the rest of the game? Mind you that resolving social conflicts via mechanics does not necessarily involve removing the RP aspect of it like so many people seem to believe. Exalted 3e proves that those two concepts can work in tandem to make a decent resolution system.

>build DEX-based melee character in Pathfinder for new game
>Working with a GM I've played with in other systems before, who's apparently very versed in PF rules
>first combat starts, initiative rolled, attacks are made
>after I attack a goblin and miss by a hair I ask why it wasn't flat-footed, since it hasn't moved yet
>"no user, it doesn't work that way in Pathfinder"
>I look up the combat rules again
>"Oh user, that's just a houserule we use, you've gotta trust me more as a DM"
I didn't drop the game because of that, but the DM was an unstable twat who had a mental breakdown and tried to blackmail half of the group in a (failed) witch-hunt attempt against me days after this. I'm pretty glad to be gone.

He probably should have given a heads up on house rules that go against the actual rules, as that can wreck entire character concepts and playstyles. Glad you got out; was it obvious he was gonna crack?

Is it so hard to include a game mechanic that's already built into the game? Can I ask why you continued in that group? Were the other aspects of the game fun enough to stick around?