Gaming stuff, not explicit, unfiltered

[memnus]

Last night was the first session of the first actual campaign I've played in at school. (There was Sundered Realms last summer, but that somehow didn't feel like a real game.) Steph and Dan, this is certainly no fault of yours, but part of me was subtly disappointed, for several reasons that I think I've found.

The largest groups I've felt comfortable in were groups of five or six players. Any more than that and it gets disjointed and hard to follow - the DMs, however, were doing a damn good job of keeping track of exactly who did what when, so it was helped. It didn't help that several people, instead of shutting up on anybody else's turn, were being ooc chatty and not paying attention.

Maybe I'm arrogant and elitist, but I felt like Arthur was trying to play his sheet rather than his character. Most notably, when I was about to attack a unicorn in a rage, rather than trying to stop me as his character, he asked the DMs if he could roll a Diplomacy check or the like to calm me down. He didn't seem to understand the concept that if he said something to me, I would interpret it as his character talking to my character and respond in kind. I was guilty of the same thing when I started playing, yeah, but I think I got the idea of talking IC into my head pretty quickly. Also, it really bothered me when - without asking - he leaned over and looked at my character sheet.

The party balance is also just plain hideous. Two arcane casters, a druid, a rogue, and four fighter classes. The first thing to notice in this is the distinct lack of cleric. I might still be convinced to remove Tom and play a cleric, but I came into this game wanting to try something new, and I've never played a distinct tank before. Barbarian is very much new territory for me, and I think it'll be fun, but I don't feel right trying to convince other people to change. Also, two of the last three characters I've played with high school friends have been clerics, including one that went all the way up to epic levels and another that may still be active if that game finds time to play; barring that it'll pick right back up this summer. I suppose that after playing the stomp-cleric and the creepy-evil-cleric it still leaves the support-healer-cleric to play, but... well... I dunno. We'll see how the next session goes.

Are there people interested in a game of Illuminati Brainwash tonight? I vaguely want to go into a large and intricate game of it, but I don't want to advertise on Schmack for fear of attracting people that wank instead of playing The Way I Want. But maybe I'm just too picky.

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Comments

[squirrelloid.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what you said (though i am the DM insane enough to run with 9 people by myself, but it worked somehow). However, i dont believe clerics are a neccessity, and in fact, i've considered banning that class from my games. As a DM, i loath massive healing, because it takes the sense of danger out of adventures past about 3rd level. Rather, a carefully moderated supply of healing magic is a much better solution, and avoids the grotesqueness of frequent ressurection at higher levels. There is no other class i dislike for play style reasons, even classes i dislike because of horrible balance (why would anyone play a sorceror?) play just fine in terms of lending the right atmosphere to a campaign.

This said, the last 3 D+D characters i played were clerics cause the party needed them. Maybe its last 4, now that i think about it... excluding random silliness like the 20th level campaign or lori and steph's spring break campaign which lasted all of 1 week. Admittedly my 2nd clerics weren't much good for healing, but Eagle Feather's use of healing was abusive (esp involving Dan's character, ask him about it), and i had the most hp in the party, and was arguably the most effective in combat (Up until Steve's 'all magic missile all the time' mage, which is disturbingly effective). It was really when i realized i had to kill the party cleric in my campaign in order to have player death mean anything though that i truly came to realize how annoying clerics were for a DM. (I dont kill characters lightly, there's generally a reason, and i dont want them coming back if i do unless that is also part of the plan)

What i really want to run is a campaign of all fighter/thief characters at some point. Yeah, i dont see it happening either.

But so theres no cleric. Play smart, play careful, and let the other players lose characters to player (or in-character) stupidity. Its called natural selection. Adventuring is a dangerous business, it should actually feel that way to the players.

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[camlost.livejournal.com]

In 3.5 sorcs get to swap out some spell, though I don't know the mechnic. That probably makes them not suck.

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[scholarjeff.livejournal.com]

At every even numbered level, the sorceror can choose to swap out one of their known spells of any level below the highest they can cast. So over the course of their career, they can swap out 10 of their spells. Same deal with the bard, only every level that is 2 mod 3 for 7 alterations to the spell list. From what I've heard, this has made them a bit better, since there's no need to be certain that every spell you take will be useful later in your career, e.g. sleep.

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[camlost.livejournal.com]

That's basically why I don't like clerics/massive healing. I wouldn't mind spells that accelerate healing or perhaps convert some of the damage to subdual or something (though subdual should take longer to heal).

Maybe if I make it to Northwestern, I'll play in the F/T campaign. Perhaps allow ranger or bard as well? They're not too far off the mark from F/T.