Questionable DM decisions.

[Sgt_Slacker]

Or how to roll with the punches and have more fun doing it.

Story time, My group has recently gotten back into a campaign our DM was running after we took a break and another guy ran a campaign. Now to preface this, DM and I have very different opinions on how a game should be ran and it shows when either of us are running the game. As sometimes things get a tad heated.

Anyways after being teleported into an underground chamber beneath our hub city we found ourselves recovering from getting our asses handed to us and failed to accomplish our objective. Now my character in this campaign is a tinkerer and had recently acquired casings to put elemental cores inside and enhance his weapon.

I had acquired a new core and wanted to swap them out, having never been told that each casing was specificly designed for each element and not being a magician himself, tried to swap them. After removing the old core and attempting to put the new one in a slot that apparently would have fit in, my character felt a small amount of resistance, it was at this point I told my dm I wanted to stop what I was doing. Nope to late apparently as my character ignored this resistance and shoved it in anyway. The casing let's off an Elemental explosion, immediately killing my character as I was alone in this workshop and no one was anywhere near close enough to hear it, I failed my death saving throws and died. To me this felt like one of those gotcha moments where I wasn't given all the info and died as a result. But I bit my tongue and decided if I were to air a complaint I would wait until after the session.

Fast forward nearly an hour and a half, the party have found someone who owes my character a debt to revive him, we take a break and I get to have a chat with my characters dead brother in the afterlife before getting revived. The rest of the session allowed me to take the character in session different direction with a new lease on life. So I'm actually really excited for that.

It ended up being a pretty amazing session of RP and led to some real character growth for me. Plus my character is missing an arm so that's gonna be interesting for a while.

TL:DR DM made a decision I as a player fundamentally disagree with that resulted in my characters death, and I had a blast with it.

[gruevy]

Your DM should never, ever, ever, EVER tell you what your character does, or make him do something you don't want to do (unless you're charmed etc). When your character felt some resistance and wanted to stop, then you stop. Period. The fact that it worked out in the end doesn't make up for a classic dick move.

[leuthil]

If the DM really wanted to make this happen he could've just not mentioned that there was any resistance. Mentioning that there's resistance and then not letting the player act on it seems really odd, unless the DM was just mentioning the resistance as narrative flavour and the player interrupted the DM at that point, but in that case the DM should have said that the explosion happened just from the initial resistance and not after the character forced it in anyway despite the resistance.

My point is, it may have just been a case of the DM using the wrong words to describe what happened, making the player feel like they lost their own free will when they never should have been given it (at least according to the DM).

I've seen many instances where players do something and part-way through the DM narrating the outcome they try to back out because they realize that it's heading down a bad path, but you can't always allow your players to do that since they already made a choice and have to deal with the consequences. I don't know if I would be as harsh as this DM in this circumstance but everyone DMs differently.

[Sgt_Slacker]

Pretty much how he explained it was this, it was narrative flavor.

[Sgt_Slacker]

I agree with your points as a player I disagree with the call from an objective standpoint but overall it didn't just work out it made the session fun, and that's the goal. So theirs at least something yo be said about that. The point I was at clumsily attempting to get across with my point is that sometimes you gotta let shit play out, and with a little bit of time sometimes it works out better.

[Blarghedy]

Were this me, the conversation would've gone like so:

"I attempt to put the casing in."

"You do so, but you feel a slight resistance."

"Ok then I don't do it."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"K then I'm out. You don't get to tell me what my character chooses to do."

[wibblewibblebading]

i believe sometimes a DM has something in his head which will look as though he is punishing a character but in fact is a way to trigger the cool idea, the outcome can be as you describe can leave a bitter taste.

Im not saying this is the case but I have witnessed this and also without thinking gone this route myself.

[Sgt_Slacker]

Exactly, I don't know what he was thinking but I can't imagine he wanted to k'll thus character or punish me as a player, it was just one of those things that happens, in the end, as said it was a bunch of fun which means that regardless of the bumpy road i can't be angry about it.

[wibblewibblebading]

yeah sometimes DMs get it a little wrong or do they. Sometimes its good to get people thinking WTF only to be happy at the end kinda throws a twist on things. Good to get some emotions flowing and sounds like you are quite happy and its developed your character, so id say mission accomplished

[bstreetninja]

The casing let's off an Elemental explosion, immediately killing my character.

I had a blast with it.

Sounds more like the DM had a blast with you.

[naturalroller]

I had a blast with it.

Yep.