Ok so, recently during COVID, me, my brother, my friend (who’s dm) and their brother. We’ve been playing D&D every day for around 2 hours currently. I just finished the 2nd session and I’m incredibly frustrated about the DMing.
so to start, we resumed at the bar where I ordered a water for myself and a beer for a party member. I tried starting a bar fight which failed, the bartender made everyone leave the bar because he didn’t want anything getting destroyed. I end up getting slammed to the ground by a Goliath and the bartender demands I pay for the drinks. I was annoyed because the DM didn’t even say anything about price or paying so I didn’t think about paying. He said a small comment about how it was “obvious” but I ignored it. I then go to an inn where I look out the window and find a shady stall, I head over there and sell some stolen jewelry and look around... apparently this stall is some complex although I never got an explanation for all this. I find this katana that’s 400gp. I want to steal it because I have little money. Apparently there’s like 6 guards and 3 “unidentified” this gets me really ticked off because whenever I play with them as dm, any unplanned fight is impossible for me to beat. They lead me to a training room where there are some people I can test the sword on. After I fight them, I try switching katanas but apparently “it’s literally glowing with a purple and blue aura with unidentified Japanese runes with a purple handle.” I’m incredibly frustrated because after that they even admit it is IMPOSSIBLE because they designed it to be impossible to steal. I leave the store and head back to the inn, I ask my two other party members if they want to steal the katana with me, my plan was a distraction in the combat chamber while I steal the katana, one agreed the other didn’t want to. We go back at “whoops” there are a ton of guards the dealer says something like “lemme guess you asked your friend if they wanted to pull a heist but they called the guards instead.” I couldn’t hear him very well because they weren’t in voice chat because of an echo of him and the dm being in the same room so I’m pretty sure he didn’t call the guards. Even if he did he couldn’t say where it was because we never told him. It was just a “convenient” way so I couldn’t steal the powerful item. I said “let’s end it early so it can be on a cliffhanger.” The dm agreed and we ended the session.
I’m incredibly frustrated about this. This happens every. Single. Session. They’re dm. They texted me after the session and asked how it was. I don’t just want to lie again and say “good” or something (because I usually just say that after a session.” I’ve really only played an actual good campaign once because the dm when they’re a player becomes power gamer and murders everyone, or just dm’s a session or two and then stops hosting it because apparently we were being bad players. They don’t like their players going off-track or anything.... but we never even get to a campaign....
I want to talk about it to them but I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so how do I talk to them about it?
If your DM is not comfortable going off-script, there is not necessarily anything you can do about that. I was terrible at going off-script for many, many years. I would try to plan out everything I thought the players might do, and they would go veering off into never-never land, and like your DM, I would strong-arm them back into the plot I intended. It's not necessarily meant to frustrate you, but is done because the DM is not confident in their ability to improvise, and is trying to steer the adventure toward what they planned, which is where they feel safe and comfortable.
If you don't like playing this way, you may need to seek a different DM or group. It's not going to necessarily fix anything to try and tell a DM who is uncomfortable with off-the-cuff events or going way off on unplanned tangents that they should try to accommodate it. The DM will not necessarily be able to do any better of a job and maybe a much worse job if you make them do what is uncomfortable for them.
The only real cure for this is time. Over the years I have gotten more confident in my ability to just make stuff up and deal with random tangents of the party, and even then I sometimes still mess up. My players are understanding about this and they appreciate my attempts to go along with their crazy unpredictable schemes... but it is, I am sure, painfully obvious when they do something I don't expect vs. what I did expect.
If you aren't inclined to be patient with this DM, and you think that more spontaneity is in order there is one obvious solution: offer to be the DM yourself. Then you can set the example... let the other person see what it is like and how fun it is to go with the improv and spontaneity, and then when it is their turn again, you can hope that your example will have rubbed off. If not, heck, you can just keep DMing. You might find that you enjoy it.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
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Ok so, recently during COVID, me, my brother, my friend (who’s dm) and their brother. We’ve been playing D&D every day for around 2 hours currently. I just finished the 2nd session and I’m incredibly frustrated about the DMing.
so to start, we resumed at the bar where I ordered a water for myself and a beer for a party member. I tried starting a bar fight which failed, the bartender made everyone leave the bar because he didn’t want anything getting destroyed. I end up getting slammed to the ground by a Goliath and the bartender demands I pay for the drinks. I was annoyed because the DM didn’t even say anything about price or paying so I didn’t think about paying. He said a small comment about how it was “obvious” but I ignored it. I then go to an inn where I look out the window and find a shady stall, I head over there and sell some stolen jewelry and look around... apparently this stall is some complex although I never got an explanation for all this. I find this katana that’s 400gp. I want to steal it because I have little money. Apparently there’s like 6 guards and 3 “unidentified” this gets me really ticked off because whenever I play with them as dm, any unplanned fight is impossible for me to beat. They lead me to a training room where there are some people I can test the sword on. After I fight them, I try switching katanas but apparently “it’s literally glowing with a purple and blue aura with unidentified Japanese runes with a purple handle.” I’m incredibly frustrated because after that they even admit it is IMPOSSIBLE because they designed it to be impossible to steal. I leave the store and head back to the inn, I ask my two other party members if they want to steal the katana with me, my plan was a distraction in the combat chamber while I steal the katana, one agreed the other didn’t want to. We go back at “whoops” there are a ton of guards the dealer says something like “lemme guess you asked your friend if they wanted to pull a heist but they called the guards instead.” I couldn’t hear him very well because they weren’t in voice chat because of an echo of him and the dm being in the same room so I’m pretty sure he didn’t call the guards. Even if he did he couldn’t say where it was because we never told him. It was just a “convenient” way so I couldn’t steal the powerful item. I said “let’s end it early so it can be on a cliffhanger.” The dm agreed and we ended the session.
I’m incredibly frustrated about this. This happens every. Single. Session. They’re dm. They texted me after the session and asked how it was. I don’t just want to lie again and say “good” or something (because I usually just say that after a session.” I’ve really only played an actual good campaign once because the dm when they’re a player becomes power gamer and murders everyone, or just dm’s a session or two and then stops hosting it because apparently we were being bad players. They don’t like their players going off-track or anything.... but we never even get to a campaign....
I want to talk about it to them but I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so how do I talk to them about it?
(sorry about my bad grammar)
Be honest. Ask them to run premade modules.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
If your DM is not comfortable going off-script, there is not necessarily anything you can do about that. I was terrible at going off-script for many, many years. I would try to plan out everything I thought the players might do, and they would go veering off into never-never land, and like your DM, I would strong-arm them back into the plot I intended. It's not necessarily meant to frustrate you, but is done because the DM is not confident in their ability to improvise, and is trying to steer the adventure toward what they planned, which is where they feel safe and comfortable.
If you don't like playing this way, you may need to seek a different DM or group. It's not going to necessarily fix anything to try and tell a DM who is uncomfortable with off-the-cuff events or going way off on unplanned tangents that they should try to accommodate it. The DM will not necessarily be able to do any better of a job and maybe a much worse job if you make them do what is uncomfortable for them.
The only real cure for this is time. Over the years I have gotten more confident in my ability to just make stuff up and deal with random tangents of the party, and even then I sometimes still mess up. My players are understanding about this and they appreciate my attempts to go along with their crazy unpredictable schemes... but it is, I am sure, painfully obvious when they do something I don't expect vs. what I did expect.
If you aren't inclined to be patient with this DM, and you think that more spontaneity is in order there is one obvious solution: offer to be the DM yourself. Then you can set the example... let the other person see what it is like and how fun it is to go with the improv and spontaneity, and then when it is their turn again, you can hope that your example will have rubbed off. If not, heck, you can just keep DMing. You might find that you enjoy it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.