January 6, 2007

No more D&D gaming

For now I have decided to give up on playing D&D. I went ahead and deleted my old D&D blog.

I've been slowly getting worked up by this, so I thought I'd blog my http://www.kenzerco.com/forums post:

Goodbye to D&D (yes it's in the right forum)
Let me preface this presumably long post by typing that I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to accomplish here. Probably something along the lines of a classic gripe & moan session, or maybe even some validation.

It’s no big secret that my favorite RPG is HackMaster, but it’s not the game I get to play the most often….er it wasn’t. For a couple of years now my wife and I have been in a D&D 3.5 group that meets pretty much every other Friday night, with a couple extra Friday’s thrown in. I was getting pretty fed up with the game and was going to quit, but the largest source of my grief (the GM…., er DM) seemed to be lightening up and he told us that he’d be leaving the country in May. I figured I could make due until then.

We had a session Friday and Saturday the DM stops by for a visit to say he simply can’t game with me anymore. Since I was planning on quitting several weeks ago I felt it easier to quit, but he did offer to step away from the group himself.

Why I was willing to quit:
We were playing in two different campaigns. In the first campaign everyone had a PC….including the DM. The DM’s PC was a fighter/thief who was consistent bossing the party around and took pretty much every opportunity to pocket loot that should have been divided amongst the group. In 4 levels of advancement my PC had received one minor magic item and less than 500 gp of treasure. His PC, on the very first division of loot got a magic book that increased his DEX by 1. Now, to be honest, during that division we did dice off for the good stuff and I was on the losing end. My point was that his PC was (quite often) in a position to take from the group. The next couple of times we had stuff to divide the DM wanted his PC to get the best stuff. Whether this was in character or not I didn’t care….I made sure to bring it up that a) That PC has previously gotten the best item (quite frankly the best item we’d ever seen) and b) It was a good idea to spread the magic around and give stuff to those who can use it the best. We had two minor divisions of treasure and there were no problems. This last time the DM made a big deal about my PC getting two items so I should basically shut up…….I got two items, one of which was cursed, because I voluntarily took last pick so everybody else could get what they wanted (I really didn’t care so much even though there was some good stuff). Even though nobody (else) even questioned my PC getting the second item I took and sold it, dividing it almost evenly amongst the group. Seemed like the right thing to do….now, maybe not so much.

The other campaign we gave up on since we couldn’t even think of finishing it on time (the DM’s May departure). If we did continue….I would’ve quit immediately. We had a smaller group of 5 players and the DM. The adventuring group ending up consisting of 5 PCs and the DM’s 4 (or was it 5) “NPCs”. I was playing an Exalted Monk with a Vow of Poverty. It’s nice to be able to play a unique character, but the DM had one too. Thanks for allowing one of your players to even try to have a good time. We were playing the Temple of Elemental Evil and at one point we narrowly avoided having a TPK. The DM had one of his PCs apart from the group (leveling up) and one of his other PCs and mine managed to flee the inevitable bloodbath. The DM managed to bring back all of the dead PCs, except my wife’s, and even brought one of his back more powerful than it was before the death.

One of the reasons I like to play is the social aspect of RPGs. It’s nice to get together with friends and have a good time on a Friday night. I definitely wasn’t having that good of a time, but the DM seemed to be lightening up and evidently I’m the only one who had an issue with how things were being run. I figured I’d just “suck it up” until May and call it good. Out of the blue the DM brings up old issues and tells me he won’t game with me anymore. I think I’m PO’d because the DM plays too fast and loose for my taste and the first time I totally stand up to him in-character (his PC was being bossy again) he decides he can’t play with me anymore………of course he hasn’t talked to the rest of the group yet.

This group is very much a hack-n-slash group, but they have absolutely no interest in even trying HackMaster. Basically I have nothing to do on Friday nights (unless I can get a new HM group going)….I hope quitting was worthwile. Yep, I think I’m fishing for validation.

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