Didn't think I'd be doing this
This is completely unrelated to my comic so if you somehow came here from the comic page there's nothing here for you.
Something has lately come to a head that I thought was over. I'm not making people guess at names or who I'm talking about because there's no point. I don't expect this to be read but if it is, eh, who cares. I'm just blowing off steam at people who aren't going to listen to me.
Specifically Sparrow has restarted her D&D game, which I have ceased to play. This annoys me because I had hoped it was over and that the mantle of DM would be passed to Robin. Sadly this game will not be ending for a good many months, leaving me without a D&D game. Why must the only game that survives the summer school break be the game that I was not having fun in?
I would like to state that going forward in this post I will refer to what Sparrow does as "DMing". This is not to imply that she actually knows how to DM, but merely a placeholder for having to type "The game Sparrow is attempting to run", "The game sparrow thinks she's running", "Sparrow is theoretically running a game but anyone who knows anything about D&D can see she hasn't a clue beyond the act of building the world" or any other snide and snarky comment you feel is appropriate. I know this attitude won't convince anyone of anything, but the time for being polite and understanding ended a long time ago at Sparrow and Robin's request. I'm just plain ranting now.
I will start off by clarifying. Sparrow does not DM. She world builds and enacts favoritism. Beyond that the game is run by which ever player has the strongest drive to play the way sparrow would play their character. Why, why does this matter at all? Because it annoys me that I specifically asked at the start if the campaign would be evil and got a direct "No." from Sparrow. Yes, I should not have assumed things from this, but a month in I find out that I'm the only good character in the group, one evil, one neutral. I should have realized something was up when Komiyan said "uh oh" when I let everyone else know that I had a good alignment. Keep in mind I was perfectly ready and willing to play a character of non-good alignment. Another month passes and guess what? The major plot hook NPC is a lawful evil half demon. Of course this somehow warrants a "not an evil campaign" response from Sparrow.
This is where Sparrow chimes in about how "things change" and "The DM doesn't know how the players are going to play" or a similar excuse for her inability to provide the slightest bit of direction for the campaign as a whole. Also there will be an insult to my maturity and/or roleplaying skills since I "can't play a good character in a party full of non-goods without it causing problems because I'm taking it too seriously that everyone is out to ruin my fun".
Which is really damn funny because every single forum thread I read on the main D&D forums and OotS forums about DMing mixed alignment parties falls into two responses. "Don't!" or "Be very careful and make sure you give them all a reason to work together and not kill each other in their sleep" Go figure she does neither of the above and doesn't even have the courtesy to tell me. As I said before, I was ready and willing to play a non-good character to not cause problems, but she never said a word even though she knew Robin was playing an evil character.
This particularly annoys me because she assumes I knew what she meant by her "no" answer. Funny, when I assume anything about her at all she gets snippy and nasty with me. Oh but I'm just sure there's a good reason and I should assume the best of her even though she assumes the absolute worst out of anything I say or do. It's really sickening.
This illustrates the continuing pattern of Sparrow DMing. Robin can do whatever the hell she pleases while I have to damn beg and plead to get Sparrow's attention for 5 minutes even though she told me outside of game that she thought what I wanted to do was awesome. Yes, I am exaggerating about how little Sparrow says no to Robin and how much she's negative towards my roleplaying. This doesn't at all remove the fact that Robin has several times "Fast forwarded" over times I was roleplaying, forcing me to deal with the situation as she determined it and not as I would have roleplayed it.
For example I made a habit of fetching mushrooms and placing them in a circle around our camp on my watch when everyone was asleep. This rarely took more than a few minutes of real life time. Of course since Robin had nothing to do during the night she declares she is waking up a few real life minutes after we make camp in game leaving me stranded away from camp because Sparrow didn't deign to pay attention to me until it was too late. At this point a good DM would pause the game for a few moments to let me finish my thoughts and RPing. What happens? oh OF COURSE, the world according to Robin must stand and I have to think fast to explain why I'm not back yet or how I get back to camp without blowing my secrets wide open. Mind you I am not adverse to thinking fast in situations where there is a good roleplay reason for the bind I'm in. When it's the direct result of another player ordering the DM around like her personal plaything I get annoyed.
This isn't even the end. Over the course of the game, my character's racial abilities are curtailed because according to Sparrow's gut feelings they're not balanced. It has been pointed out to me that mechanical effectiveness isn't a huge deal in an RP heavy game. To which I must point out that Sparrow specifically said my character had to have drawbacks. Apparently +4 LA resulting in gimpy hp isn't enough. I personally think it's because I actually started using the racial abilities wisely and she was annoyed that I would be able to get the drop on Robin's character if I wanted, which of course would be the entire end of the world. That or the fact that I got two lucky rolls and ended a rather tough encounter with mechanics instead of some RP idea. Also if RP is much more important than mechanics, why does it matter if there's a little discrepancy between the character's power levels. It's not like the combat we run into has much to do with the plot anyways.
At this point I will bring in the metagaming issues. I do anything that looks even slightly like metagaming and Sparrow's giving me a grand inquisition. Robin straight up admits to metagame thinking in front of all the players and the DM. Sparrow just laughs and later tells me she doesn't think robin metagames. Right. Playing the DM's favorite race with a class that the DM would love the flavor of, with the DM's favorite alignment is absolutely positively not in any way attempting to manipulate the DM into favoring your character over all the others. This is why Robin makes a good DM, lots of metagame thinking. It also makes her an absolute pain to play with as a player. I suspect that if she was called on all the metagaming she does and forced to stop, she wouldn't be able to RP at all.
On to RPing issues. Sparrow does not and will not respect my ability to roleplay or create a character. She has made this very clear in the way she tells me my character would or wouldn't do things, in the things she allows my character to do, and in the sheer volume of time she invests in Robin and Komi's character's character development and the huge amount of ignoring she puts into mine. She will of course complain that I'm not "RPing strongly enough" or some other worthless excuse to cover for the fact that the first time she gave me something worth working with that I didn't come up with was near the very end of the game before we broke for the summer.
IT IS NOT THE PLAYER'S JOB TO COME UP WITH THEIR OWN PLOT HOOKS! IF YOU WANT TO CALL YOURSELF A DM YOU HAVE TO PUT PLOT HOOKS IN FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE PLAYER'S WHO PLAY THE WAY YOU DO!
I should not have to wait over three months before my character is finally given a plot hook that isn't a cheap attempt by the DM to make me feel awkward and/or violate the alignment of the character I'm playing. I do not play good characters because I enjoy hideously contrived moral decisions or forcing a good morality on the entire party. I play a good character because I don't want to fuck over the other players and I want everyone gaming to have fun. I hope that Sparrow someday learns that wanting everyone to have fun is an important trait for a DM to have but I'm not holding my breath.
On to skills. I take mental stats and social skills to make up for the fact that I have trouble lying or be deceptive in real life. I do enjoy roleplaying lying and deceptive situations out but anyone who DMs me must understand that I don't have 22 charisma, 20 wisdom, 20 intelligence, and full ranks in Bluff in real life since those are beyond the maximums for humans. I should not be penalized or shouted down for not being able to roleplay those stats and I certainly shouldn't be forced to stand in the shadow of Robin's character simply because she can lie better in real life(i.e. she metagames her mental stats and of course Sparrow does nothing about it). HAVE THE DAMN NPCs DO A SENSE MOTIVE CHECK ON HER ALREADY! Just because she's playing in the style Sparrow likes doesn't mean I should be penalized for attempting to roleplay and use the skills to make up any difference between the character's abilities and mine instead of just roleplaying. And she shouldn't get a free pass to have all the NPCs trust her completely and utterly without question ever! It's gets damn annoying to be shouted down because Robin knows Sparrow wouldn't ever roll sense motive on her character unless she tells an absolutely outrageous lie.
Sparrow also has no clue how to keep a group together without the players metagaming and resolving their character problems out of character. For example she expressly encourages the group to split up by rewarding the most RP experience to the person who wanders off from the group and catches her attention the best. She also fails to provide any reason at all for the players to work together, they have to come up with that on their own. Mind you this only applies to character's that aren't mine. If mine try to do RP things off on their own they I am told "no no no no no! unless you can find time for it" because apparently that would impact the other player's play time and fun. Of course, Sparrow has made it plenty clear that my fun is no concern of hers.
About now you're all wondering why I didn't talk to Sparrow and Robin about this. I did and neither of them really listened. I tried to talk to Sparrow about how I don't play exactly to her play style and how I thought she was playing favorites. She didn't take it well. She got defensive before I even got through my first point and blamed me for not having fun since "I wasn't roleplaying strong enough" i.e. I wasn't playing the style she wanted me to and also told me if there were any problems with Robin getting so much RP time over everyone else that I would have to talk to Robin about it. Then Sparrow started cussing at me when I didn't roll over and play dead like I usually do and it devolved into a shouting match. Eventually we merely stopped talking for the day.
A day or two later I talk to Robin. She was "reasonable" and assigned the blame equally to myself and Sparrow. She did point out a few things I didn't know but ultimately nothing came of talking to her.
I don't care if Sparrow and Robin find and read this because it's not for them. This is a rant for me to blow off steam and relieve stress. If they can't handle that and get all "Vort's so immature, etc." after reading it then so be it.
Something has lately come to a head that I thought was over. I'm not making people guess at names or who I'm talking about because there's no point. I don't expect this to be read but if it is, eh, who cares. I'm just blowing off steam at people who aren't going to listen to me.
Specifically Sparrow has restarted her D&D game, which I have ceased to play. This annoys me because I had hoped it was over and that the mantle of DM would be passed to Robin. Sadly this game will not be ending for a good many months, leaving me without a D&D game. Why must the only game that survives the summer school break be the game that I was not having fun in?
I would like to state that going forward in this post I will refer to what Sparrow does as "DMing". This is not to imply that she actually knows how to DM, but merely a placeholder for having to type "The game Sparrow is attempting to run", "The game sparrow thinks she's running", "Sparrow is theoretically running a game but anyone who knows anything about D&D can see she hasn't a clue beyond the act of building the world" or any other snide and snarky comment you feel is appropriate. I know this attitude won't convince anyone of anything, but the time for being polite and understanding ended a long time ago at Sparrow and Robin's request. I'm just plain ranting now.
I will start off by clarifying. Sparrow does not DM. She world builds and enacts favoritism. Beyond that the game is run by which ever player has the strongest drive to play the way sparrow would play their character. Why, why does this matter at all? Because it annoys me that I specifically asked at the start if the campaign would be evil and got a direct "No." from Sparrow. Yes, I should not have assumed things from this, but a month in I find out that I'm the only good character in the group, one evil, one neutral. I should have realized something was up when Komiyan said "uh oh" when I let everyone else know that I had a good alignment. Keep in mind I was perfectly ready and willing to play a character of non-good alignment. Another month passes and guess what? The major plot hook NPC is a lawful evil half demon. Of course this somehow warrants a "not an evil campaign" response from Sparrow.
This is where Sparrow chimes in about how "things change" and "The DM doesn't know how the players are going to play" or a similar excuse for her inability to provide the slightest bit of direction for the campaign as a whole. Also there will be an insult to my maturity and/or roleplaying skills since I "can't play a good character in a party full of non-goods without it causing problems because I'm taking it too seriously that everyone is out to ruin my fun".
Which is really damn funny because every single forum thread I read on the main D&D forums and OotS forums about DMing mixed alignment parties falls into two responses. "Don't!" or "Be very careful and make sure you give them all a reason to work together and not kill each other in their sleep" Go figure she does neither of the above and doesn't even have the courtesy to tell me. As I said before, I was ready and willing to play a non-good character to not cause problems, but she never said a word even though she knew Robin was playing an evil character.
This particularly annoys me because she assumes I knew what she meant by her "no" answer. Funny, when I assume anything about her at all she gets snippy and nasty with me. Oh but I'm just sure there's a good reason and I should assume the best of her even though she assumes the absolute worst out of anything I say or do. It's really sickening.
This illustrates the continuing pattern of Sparrow DMing. Robin can do whatever the hell she pleases while I have to damn beg and plead to get Sparrow's attention for 5 minutes even though she told me outside of game that she thought what I wanted to do was awesome. Yes, I am exaggerating about how little Sparrow says no to Robin and how much she's negative towards my roleplaying. This doesn't at all remove the fact that Robin has several times "Fast forwarded" over times I was roleplaying, forcing me to deal with the situation as she determined it and not as I would have roleplayed it.
For example I made a habit of fetching mushrooms and placing them in a circle around our camp on my watch when everyone was asleep. This rarely took more than a few minutes of real life time. Of course since Robin had nothing to do during the night she declares she is waking up a few real life minutes after we make camp in game leaving me stranded away from camp because Sparrow didn't deign to pay attention to me until it was too late. At this point a good DM would pause the game for a few moments to let me finish my thoughts and RPing. What happens? oh OF COURSE, the world according to Robin must stand and I have to think fast to explain why I'm not back yet or how I get back to camp without blowing my secrets wide open. Mind you I am not adverse to thinking fast in situations where there is a good roleplay reason for the bind I'm in. When it's the direct result of another player ordering the DM around like her personal plaything I get annoyed.
This isn't even the end. Over the course of the game, my character's racial abilities are curtailed because according to Sparrow's gut feelings they're not balanced. It has been pointed out to me that mechanical effectiveness isn't a huge deal in an RP heavy game. To which I must point out that Sparrow specifically said my character had to have drawbacks. Apparently +4 LA resulting in gimpy hp isn't enough. I personally think it's because I actually started using the racial abilities wisely and she was annoyed that I would be able to get the drop on Robin's character if I wanted, which of course would be the entire end of the world. That or the fact that I got two lucky rolls and ended a rather tough encounter with mechanics instead of some RP idea. Also if RP is much more important than mechanics, why does it matter if there's a little discrepancy between the character's power levels. It's not like the combat we run into has much to do with the plot anyways.
At this point I will bring in the metagaming issues. I do anything that looks even slightly like metagaming and Sparrow's giving me a grand inquisition. Robin straight up admits to metagame thinking in front of all the players and the DM. Sparrow just laughs and later tells me she doesn't think robin metagames. Right. Playing the DM's favorite race with a class that the DM would love the flavor of, with the DM's favorite alignment is absolutely positively not in any way attempting to manipulate the DM into favoring your character over all the others. This is why Robin makes a good DM, lots of metagame thinking. It also makes her an absolute pain to play with as a player. I suspect that if she was called on all the metagaming she does and forced to stop, she wouldn't be able to RP at all.
On to RPing issues. Sparrow does not and will not respect my ability to roleplay or create a character. She has made this very clear in the way she tells me my character would or wouldn't do things, in the things she allows my character to do, and in the sheer volume of time she invests in Robin and Komi's character's character development and the huge amount of ignoring she puts into mine. She will of course complain that I'm not "RPing strongly enough" or some other worthless excuse to cover for the fact that the first time she gave me something worth working with that I didn't come up with was near the very end of the game before we broke for the summer.
IT IS NOT THE PLAYER'S JOB TO COME UP WITH THEIR OWN PLOT HOOKS! IF YOU WANT TO CALL YOURSELF A DM YOU HAVE TO PUT PLOT HOOKS IN FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE PLAYER'S WHO PLAY THE WAY YOU DO!
I should not have to wait over three months before my character is finally given a plot hook that isn't a cheap attempt by the DM to make me feel awkward and/or violate the alignment of the character I'm playing. I do not play good characters because I enjoy hideously contrived moral decisions or forcing a good morality on the entire party. I play a good character because I don't want to fuck over the other players and I want everyone gaming to have fun. I hope that Sparrow someday learns that wanting everyone to have fun is an important trait for a DM to have but I'm not holding my breath.
On to skills. I take mental stats and social skills to make up for the fact that I have trouble lying or be deceptive in real life. I do enjoy roleplaying lying and deceptive situations out but anyone who DMs me must understand that I don't have 22 charisma, 20 wisdom, 20 intelligence, and full ranks in Bluff in real life since those are beyond the maximums for humans. I should not be penalized or shouted down for not being able to roleplay those stats and I certainly shouldn't be forced to stand in the shadow of Robin's character simply because she can lie better in real life(i.e. she metagames her mental stats and of course Sparrow does nothing about it). HAVE THE DAMN NPCs DO A SENSE MOTIVE CHECK ON HER ALREADY! Just because she's playing in the style Sparrow likes doesn't mean I should be penalized for attempting to roleplay and use the skills to make up any difference between the character's abilities and mine instead of just roleplaying. And she shouldn't get a free pass to have all the NPCs trust her completely and utterly without question ever! It's gets damn annoying to be shouted down because Robin knows Sparrow wouldn't ever roll sense motive on her character unless she tells an absolutely outrageous lie.
Sparrow also has no clue how to keep a group together without the players metagaming and resolving their character problems out of character. For example she expressly encourages the group to split up by rewarding the most RP experience to the person who wanders off from the group and catches her attention the best. She also fails to provide any reason at all for the players to work together, they have to come up with that on their own. Mind you this only applies to character's that aren't mine. If mine try to do RP things off on their own they I am told "no no no no no! unless you can find time for it" because apparently that would impact the other player's play time and fun. Of course, Sparrow has made it plenty clear that my fun is no concern of hers.
About now you're all wondering why I didn't talk to Sparrow and Robin about this. I did and neither of them really listened. I tried to talk to Sparrow about how I don't play exactly to her play style and how I thought she was playing favorites. She didn't take it well. She got defensive before I even got through my first point and blamed me for not having fun since "I wasn't roleplaying strong enough" i.e. I wasn't playing the style she wanted me to and also told me if there were any problems with Robin getting so much RP time over everyone else that I would have to talk to Robin about it. Then Sparrow started cussing at me when I didn't roll over and play dead like I usually do and it devolved into a shouting match. Eventually we merely stopped talking for the day.
A day or two later I talk to Robin. She was "reasonable" and assigned the blame equally to myself and Sparrow. She did point out a few things I didn't know but ultimately nothing came of talking to her.
I don't care if Sparrow and Robin find and read this because it's not for them. This is a rant for me to blow off steam and relieve stress. If they can't handle that and get all "Vort's so immature, etc." after reading it then so be it.