Author Topic: Can I have some help please?  (Read 1483 times)

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Amechra

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Can I have some help please?
« on: April 17, 2010, 05:26:23 PM »
I am currently DMing a first edition AD&D game. I have five players, and I am using a variant magic system where magic uses a focus that was specified by the player at the beginning of the adventure. The group contains the following; a Clockwork Believer Paladin 5 (Basically a warforged powered by belief and granted an extra cleric level), a Goblin magic-user 5 (in my world, goblins have a second pair of variant limbs below their actual arms), a Thin Man Cavalier 5 (Cavaliers are a version of paladins that use arcane magic instead. A Thin Man basically gets a 10' fear effect at all times), a human Mage-thief 5 (Self explanatory) and a Human Cleric-thief 5(Same). My problem comes from the fact that on any given session, 2 out of the 5 will probably not be there. If only one is missing, I have their permission to make use of their character, but if two are missing, I focus on one of the factions (My world is humans versus Goblins, with CBs and TM on both sides.). This may sound OK to you, but the Paladin is obsessed with killing the Thin Man character (actually, just their species as a whole); if that also sounds alright to you, keep in mind that the Thin Man player was not there last session, so the Paladin ended up killing another party member out of shear boredom. He also uses the 2 thieves as body shields for himself. He has also requested that the closest thing to a god in the game kill off the rest of the party over 5 time in less than the same number of minutes. Due to using a variant morality system (Instead of having an alignment, characters have a belief system. He chose "Thin Men are an abomination and must die", and so I can't take away his powers for not following his faith) and the fact that he recently got in-game rustproofing, I can't send him a message in game. I also can't kick him out of the group because he is my groups usual DM, and this adventure is really just a breather-quest between parts of his grand adventure. The other players are usually a lot more tame, although there was that one time where one of them sodomized a dragon, and the other time when theydestroyed a lich's sanity by thinking really perverted thoughts. Also, except for the usual DM and the girl who plays the magic user, everyone in my group treats acting in-character like someone would treat leprosy; i.e. as a disease.
Can anyone help me with this? Our usual DM basically picked me to be DM for this, and I have only ever DMed 3 one shot games. Again, help would be a favorite.
[spoiler]Fighter: "I can kill a guy in one turn."
Cleric: "I can kill a guy in half a turn."
Wizard: "I can kill a guy before my turn."
Bard: "I can get three idiots to kill guys for me."

On a strange note, would anyone be put out if we had a post about people or events we can spare a thought for, or if its within their creed, a prayer for? Just a random thought, but ... hells I wouldn't have known about either Archangels daughter or Saeomons niece if I didn't happen to be on these threads.
Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
might want to put a little disclaimer in the first post.

This is the Min/Max board. We should be able to figure out a way to optimize the POWER OF PRAYER(TM) that doesn't involve "Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu".
[/spoiler]

My final project for my film independent study course. It could do with a watching and critiquing

BruceLeeroy

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Re: Can I have some help please?
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2010, 04:52:57 AM »
*WALL OF TEXT*
Can anyone help me with this? Our usual DM basically picked me to be DM for this, and I have only ever DMed 3 one shot games. Again, help would be a favorite.

Holy fuck. Letting a player kill another player who isn't there? Bad DM'ing, right there. WTF. If one of my players tried that, I'd hit him with the pointy part of the DMG. And then punish him in-game. Possibly with syphilis.

Your player who is your normal DM needs to understand that he's not the DM at the moment and calm the fuck down.

Indigo

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Re: Can I have some help please?
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2010, 02:20:14 PM »
Quote
My problem comes from the fact that on any given session, 2 out of the 5 will probably not be there. If only one is missing, I have their permission to make use of their character, but if two are missing, I focus on one of the factions (My world is humans versus Goblins, with CBs and TM on both sides.)
I don't really understand what is going on ... There are two teams of PCs ? If not, why did they pick races from both sides if these are actually at war with each other ?

Quote
This may sound OK to you, but the Paladin is obsessed with killing the Thin Man character (actually, just their species as a whole); if that also sounds alright to you, keep in mind that the Thin Man player was not there last session, so the Paladin ended up killing another party member out of shear boredom. He also uses the 2 thieves as body shields for himself. He has also requested that the closest thing to a god in the game kill off the rest of the party over 5 time in less than the same number of minutes.
How can he use other character's as body shields ? Can't their player just say no ? Also, I don't understand how he could have the power to order a god to kill his party, without them having epic magic to avoid that ? How did he kill the Thin Man ? Who even played it ?

Quote
Due to using a variant morality system (Instead of having an alignment, characters have a belief system. He chose "Thin Men are an abomination and must die", and so I can't take away his powers for not following his faith)
Why did you even allow that ? It is obviously a character whose only aim is to kill another player's character. As for what you can do ... Well, you always have the possibility of some NPC coming after the fight, picking up the body, raising him and giving him a mission as a payment.

But you should talk with your "DM" about that ... If the game isn't about PvP, making a character such as his isn't fair-play. it's only disruptive to the game, and irrespectful of you. Especially if you are new to DMing, he should be trying to make things smoother for you, not the contrary ...

Also, are the other players having fun ? How did Thin man's player react ?

Amechra

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Re: Can I have some help please?
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2010, 08:30:08 PM »
There are two teams. The Goblin/Thin Man are on one side, and the CB/Humans are on the other side.

Thanks for the feedback. I managed to talk to him recently, and I managed to convince him that it was a bad idea to kill of the other players. The thing is, he didn't kill the Thin Man character, due to the fact that they are currently 100 miles away from each other  :D. The only reason that he was able to use the other two members of his team as body shields is because they were basically acting as his henchman; this will probably change, because both of them can backstab, and one can do it with spells  :lmao. The reason that he was able to petition that "god" was because it wasn't a god (the setting has no gods; indeed, the basic plot is that the Goblin King is going to become the world's first god), it was an immobile collective organism with an ECL of 20. This being tried to stop the fight that caused the death by killing him off, but the guy pledged his soul to it. Damn. I'm thinking of taking away his rustproofing, and maybe including that Rust Elemental I was thinking about  :smirk. Plus, the race he's playing can't use armor or weapons (He would need a priest, an expert clockmaker, and an expert blacksmith to make any upgrades, and they are currently in the middle of a dense, elf controlled forest.), and have a bunch of other, not readily apparent weaknesses :smirk. Plus, I manipulated him into adopting an elven infant (hey, it's a moss, what could he do wrong?), which will go into a month long heat in about a weak. This should learn him. As for the guy who helped him, his character has had his name permanently changed to Sally.

The core of this problem is that my entire group began playing about 6 months ago, and they are all much more used to WOW than they are tabletop anything. In fact, at the end of our last campaign, he began to design WOW type specs for his future adventure (no more wizard for me   :bigeye), and he kept on trying to play a worgen for my campaign. I said no, because they have no place in my cosmology at all. This is compounded by the Thin Man player, who kept on begging me to let him play his homemade, basically-a-FF-Blue-Mage-turned-up-to-11. class. I said no, and he insisted that it would fit in to my world. I still said no, and then he started pouting, and finally just went ahead and played as an arcane Paladin.

The thing that really annoys me about the usual DM is that he insists on getting more powerful stuff, even though he purposely withheld any powerful magic items from me (My most powerful item was a necklace that basically worked like a Ring of Wizardry for all spell levels. The rest of the party got the following: a piece of armor that granted -10 AC, a scythe that created illusions that could fool gods, a book that grants someone vast magical power that he specifically stated can't be used by mages, various very nice swords, and a robe that conveyed 50% magic immunity that could block a god's spells), nerfed freakin' Identify, and basically had one of his big boss guys encase me in a block of ice that didn't melt, even though I was playing as a race whose body temperature hits about 3500 degrees :clap. I guess he did it to balance out the fact that I was the only one who had fully read all of the rules  :(.

The thing is, despite all his flaws, he actually is a really good DM, in that he gave a good reason for nerfs, which I quote, "You''d abuse them (anything more powerful than a twig), we all saw you with that flask-of-oil-nuke trick, and so you'd abuse it." I actually agree with this, and I forgive him, mainly because he managed to accidentally give me PaO as a level 3 spell, and then didn't nerf that. It was a peace offering, and I can accept that. No, the real problem began when he began to to play WOW again, and it sort of took over his game.

In closing, the usual DM is a very good friend of mine, he just roleplays like a dick. And I hope I've brought an end to that.
[spoiler]Fighter: "I can kill a guy in one turn."
Cleric: "I can kill a guy in half a turn."
Wizard: "I can kill a guy before my turn."
Bard: "I can get three idiots to kill guys for me."

On a strange note, would anyone be put out if we had a post about people or events we can spare a thought for, or if its within their creed, a prayer for? Just a random thought, but ... hells I wouldn't have known about either Archangels daughter or Saeomons niece if I didn't happen to be on these threads.
Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
might want to put a little disclaimer in the first post.

This is the Min/Max board. We should be able to figure out a way to optimize the POWER OF PRAYER(TM) that doesn't involve "Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu".
[/spoiler]

My final project for my film independent study course. It could do with a watching and critiquing

Mixster

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Re: Can I have some help please?
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2010, 05:16:32 PM »
First, you sure hell aren't playing the Ad&d I've played. In the one I've played, non-humans can't be paladins, Identify is pretty nerfed from the get go, wizard/thieves and priest/thieves have two levels, and were levels ahead of silly paladins. (thinking about it I might have played Ad&d second edition)
Also, the party must have insane stats to get that set-up what does it take an average of like 13+ to be a paladin? And you've got 2!?

Second, players who are used to wow shouldn't start out with Ad&d, since Ad&d really shines in low-level, low-magic campaigns. It seems like you want to play such a campaign, but your players don't. It would be like playing WFRP when all your players want to be riding dragons, not the right game. Choose the game that fits your group.

Third, Paladins who can't become Ex-paladins would end almost all of my AD&D campaigns before they started. Paladins are insanely strong in Ad&d (almost up there with bards and wizards) for a reason.

What I don't get is that it seems your group is consisting of factions, personally I'd never recommend a PvP game (since one side will always feel they were hosed by Mr. DM, which would make at least half the players angry with you), but if it is a PvP game you are running, there is nothing wrong with players killing eachother, that's what PvP is about (although it is stupid and not a lot of roleplaying if you ask me).

Well, onward to my recommendations:
I don't recommend starting a DM screw-fest with the usual DM, it wont be a very good idea for any friendship to continiously screw eachothers characters over in several games. Let him play like anyone else and make sure most of their loots aren't his type of thing, I don't know the clockwork believer (since we kept to core races and the occasional Sylvan elf or Half-orc) but if he can't use armour, have a lot of the items they find be armour. If he grabs it and tries to sell it, tell him that there aren't many shopkeepers in the world who want to buy second-hand armour. You don't need to screw him over in particular, but since he has a natural limitation on items, you could use that to make sure he is about the same power level as everyone else in the group.

As mentioned before I recommend changing systems, for a more WoW-like feel (yuck, not my cup of tea) 4th edition should be a good idea. You could use 3.5th due to the immense versatility in 3.5 though.

I recommend you start dropping a lot of thief/mage loots, so the three players who don't get much playtime from what I gather have something to argue over.

Alternatively find a new Ad&d group and start playing the low-level campaigns Ad&d is so good at.

(Oh and due to high statness of your group I recommend a tougher ability generation system, since Ad&d is not about being god, but roleplaying yourself in and out of almost any situation.)
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

Meep Meep - Mixster out

Amechra

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Re: Can I have some help please?
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2010, 02:58:19 AM »
Hey, thanks. We're playing by a lot of variant rules. I'll keep all that in mind for next time, because I have convinced them all to play 3.5 (in about a month or so, UDM is taking a while for his next campaign...). Now if I can just convince them to play e6, and save myself a headache...

Thanks for the input.
[spoiler]Fighter: "I can kill a guy in one turn."
Cleric: "I can kill a guy in half a turn."
Wizard: "I can kill a guy before my turn."
Bard: "I can get three idiots to kill guys for me."

On a strange note, would anyone be put out if we had a post about people or events we can spare a thought for, or if its within their creed, a prayer for? Just a random thought, but ... hells I wouldn't have known about either Archangels daughter or Saeomons niece if I didn't happen to be on these threads.
Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
might want to put a little disclaimer in the first post.

This is the Min/Max board. We should be able to figure out a way to optimize the POWER OF PRAYER(TM) that doesn't involve "Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu".
[/spoiler]

My final project for my film independent study course. It could do with a watching and critiquing