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Name: Jason Roberts Comments: Gentlemen, First let me say that your doing an awesome job and my friends and I love listening to the show. We are part of the Seattle Gaming group. That use to participate in your Epic Showdown back when you where with UtahFM. It took us a while to find you again but it seems like you guys are doing amazing without the station. So congrats!! So we have run into a problem in our game and we need help. We love our GM but we kind of feel like we have really been screwed over. Let me explain what is going on. So we are a group of five adventurers that have been assigned a mission from the King of the realms to collect a magical artifact that will help save his kingdom from the plauge zombies that have been attacking at night. We have agreed to go retrieve this artifact. Now this is where things kind of rotten started out. As it is our GM told us that the item was in the Tomb of some old dead guy and that it was rumored that the honored dead guarded it. Now our Cleric wasn't too keen on this idea but the greater good was at stake so he was willing to desicrate this holy place. Well we get to the tomb fight through the undead warriors only to find a hole has been dug into the catacombs and the artifact was stolen. However we did find pools of blood that show that it was stolen recently so we went after the item going deeper into the mountain. Big Mistake! We ran into a gaggle of goblins that were rather nasty and nearly killed our mage. We ran out of torches and our mage pretty much had to use up all his spell slots of magical light and was useless to us in fights. We ended up finding the theives only to find that they were a small band of Duergar and those things were nasty! They killed off our Rogue, but he was brought back to life by our cleric and a lesser restoration scroll he had on him. Thus creating another problem. Because he lost a level his skill checks went down. So after killing the dwarves we came to this giant door that the dwarves were beginning to enter when we attacked. The Rouge checked for traps and foudn nothing. But of course his roll wasn't high enough because of his loss of those valuable skill points. So we pass through the door only to have our way our colapse behind us. So now here we are level 7 characters stuck underground with no supplies for this type of adventure, no torches, a mage that is constantly burning up his spell slots to provide us with light (which is also making us a target), and no idea where this magical item is or a way back. So we decide that they only way we can go is forward. So we continue on run into a few more nasty underdark creatures that nearly take us out (I mean most of us survived by mear single digits) to come to this vast caveren of magma and tremendous heat. And across this lake of magma is an island with a giant red dragon laying atop his horde of treasure. So we are thinking okay we are getting the "Heck" out of there when the cleric makes a percepsion check as everyone is examing their suroundings and of course the Cleric notices that the artifact we are searching for in laying in the dragon's horde. So that was the end of our game last night. Now all of us are kind of feeling like we were just set up and we are not ready to fight a dragon especially in this terrian and were given no chance to really prepare for the this fight and we are stuck with no way out of this situtation because our only way out has been destroyed. Can you help give us some perspective here and maybe some help? A loyal DCR fan to the end! Jason Gamer Forge Response: We talked so much about dangling carrots, now we're hungry for some stew. DCR says about this one: 1. We've said this how many times? When you draw attention to something, players will chase after it. That's clearly what happened here. The DM/GM/Referee/Whatever got a little anxious (or lazy) and kept feeding carrots to the players. Now they are stuck between an immovable object (the blocked path) and an unstoppable force (the dragon). So, the DM/GM/Referee/Whatever should follow one the Ten Commandments and cop to it. This is exactly the kind of scenario that builds resentment towards your storyteller. There cannot be any story if there is no trust in the storyteller. 2. Players: just because you saw the carrot, doesn't mean you have to follow it. Remember your place in this; you had the choice to go further into the cave and follow the blood, or not. But now that you are in this pickle, its time to find a way out. Obviously, the dragon across the river of magma will be too much for you. There's no shame in turning around and reporting what you've found. It is better to leave this to more seasoned professionals. Unless you all agree to get yourselves killed and bludgeon straight ahead. This is a totally valid course of action, but one of many. Accept your responsibility and try to move gracefully forward. There may be a hidden side passage or a long way back out of the cavern. 3. It's totally okay to ask, "What's in it for me?" There is nothing dishonorable in weighing out the possiblity of death. Even the most noble of paladins would be remiss in their duties if they didn't. How can you continue your quest of do-goodery if you're dead? Hopefully, this group has learned a thing or two about choice and options, and next time they will think a bit more on just advancing straight ahead with force. There really should be no alignment or (healthy) mental state that should demand that you go forward without regard to safety. *To get more from your game, remember that alignment is not a rigid thing. Its a code of conduct which your character follows. What needs to be defined is how specific it is, and how loosely you are allowed to deviate from it. No two thieves follow the same code of conduct, nor does any two explorers share the same adherence to the same code.
1 Comment
7/22/2012 10:18:32 pm
Yes it is very good post. Thanks for sharing this, you run a wonderful blog filled with good posts. I have bookmarked it for later use.
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