charberus said:

"combi tool" core book page 150

'Forced Failure'. When failure isn't just AN option, it's THE option.

I know this post is seriously out of date to the OP and i think it needs to be brought up. 'Forced Failure' is seen everywhere. Games, books, movies. It's a way to progress a plot in which the protagonist has become a juggernaught <sp?> or even random Joe Schmoe off the street and sets them at a state where they unarmed, unloved, friendless, and likely to die at any second if they don't do something *right now*.

Personally, I hate 'Forced Failure'. I hate it most when I've already been riding a railroad of not quite successful. I'm looking at you "Witchfire Trilogy". I would say that the GM in the OP pulled 'Forced Failure' off in the best manner he could have for the situation, otherwise the cultists you escaped could have shot the not out of you with artillery and mopped the wounded and dying up afterward. Would you really want to be in that pit Seriously wounded or edging on Critical damage?

'Tattered Fates', unless you re-write the start, requires 'Forced Failure' for the opening sequence and I feel for the poor players in my game when we start and I run them individually though their abductions... completely random strangers, for once, not starting in a bar.

I agree with you Phantom about how our GM dealt with the issue... to a degree.

****Spoilers****

Once I found out this was a pre-published adventure I was less inclined to be ticked off at my GM about the lame start. There were still some elements that were changed for the worse by the GM (like the Psyker having an implant that inhibited his psyker abilities rather than the drug that wears off in 1-4 hours like the adventure suggests.) He also disabled all of the tech priests biomechanical implants and we didn't get an opportunity to fix any of it for several sessions (leading to a fairly frustrated psyker player heaped on top of the frustration from the loss of his "Holy Grail" Lathe-forged Force Weapon.)

The loss of equipment for most in the party was not an issue, but since this adventure was started so long ago, we still have nothing better than basic weapons and flak armor.

BTW...after nearly 4 months of play in this adventure, we're still in the first book of the Haarlock trilogy and have received 450 xp total each during this time. We are NEVER getting to ascension at this rate.

Recently, we arrived in the city above the underhive we first appeared in and found we needed to find some cash and gain better equipment. After a few failed attempts to get money we managed to wrangle a writ of purchase from a local Adeptus Arbites Judge. With writ in hand, we proceeded to be turned down by every merchant in the city because they could not verify the veracity of the document (unnecessary roadblocks added in by our GM). We eventually decided to find a shady merchant, wait until he resisted our writ and then we executed him "in the name of obstruction of agents of the Inquisition.)... We find a cache of special weapons in the weapon dealer's back room, but the two of the 3 best weapons are still not usable by anyone in the group (2 Plasma Guns). We're going to barter them for lesser weapons that we can use. The GM was surprised when he found out our Tech Priest could use the Melta Gun he put in the stash. I think those items were meant for us to barter with for lesser gear as opposed to us being able to use them.

We're now re-equipped, but we were forced to break the law to do it.

We are in a LONG downward spiral heading towards open rebellion. The equipment we gained last night had to be forced from our GM's hand grudgingly. It took two hours of arduous role-play to re-equip. That's all we ended up doing for the entire evening of play as our sessions regularly start an hour late and the store we play in closes three hours after our supposed start time.

Anyway, I welcome other's thoughts on this. Sorry for the long vent.

LeBlanc13 said:

What you've described sounds an awful lot like the guy we had as a GM (he took us through Illumination and Shades on Twilight (from Purge the Unclean)) would do. I could go into his player-killing antics, but that's another rant, however, he pretty much refused to let us get any form of income so we couldn't really improve on what we started with (he was never going to let the Inquisition help us out, or even let us get gear from any other means).

The solution we had was: I took over as GM (my first ever GM session started with Edge of Darkness, and everybody had fun. I consider my job done on that one, now we're currently part way through my own follow-on to EoD), and the guys have actually gotten paid their monthly wage, and bought new gear. Apparently our old GM was a bit miffed when I had an NPC running around with a good quality Bolt Pistol, and a Power Sword. XP's never really been too much of an issue, just the lack of gear, and the "my job as GM is to kill the players" attitude we had to put up with (This started way back in Shadowrun).

If no one in the group is enjoying themselves with this adventure, you're best off talking to the GM about it. He might be willing to tweak things to make it more enjoyable for you.

Thamilus said:

Our frustration is evident. Our players have outright questioned him during the game about his rulings, decisions and/or GM style and even after the game in either small numbers or in one on one conversations. When we confront him in any way, things change for a session or two and then it devolves back into his style of play again. Our characters have only been paid our monthly income once in the 1.5 years of real time we've been playing the game. In the campaign a couple of years has gone by as well to the best of our reckoning. We also always get overcharged for gear while we're not getting any new money without roleplaying for it. Income is a necessary part of the game system. Especially when we're working pro-bono for the Inquisition as well.

Also, we're still only just breaking into rank 6 after 18 months of play. No xp per session for us. We get it at the end of the adventure or at some random stopping point after a few sessions.

Since feedback and discussion has not worked, I am forced to think revolution might be our best option down the road. We do have two or more guys willing to GM at this point.

In the past, players have been alienated from our game for GM play style as well. The first player we lost used the excuse that college homework required him to be away, but summer has arrived and amazingly he has not commented that he'd like to come back (still see him around the game store with some regularity). Most recently, another player has not played in the last several sessions since his character died. He's shown up one night to create a replacement character, but hasn't actually played and has previously spoken several times about wanting to leave.

The other issue is that we like the GM on a personal level, but I can see him taking any sort of revolt as personal based on his reactions to feedback provided in the past. Outright replacing him as GM could permanently alienate him from us in this process. That is something we DON'T want to happen.

It's a fine line we walk, but after 1.5 years, some of us are truly approaching the end of our ropes.

How the hell can that adventure be stretched out into 4 months of playing, much less only just now having gotten into the city unless you guys are, at most, playing once a month? This might come as a bit of a downer for you, but you've just finished part 1... of three parts. Looks like your year is booked.

I ran my players through this one when I needed some padding while I worked on the next big arch, but I think we spent three sessions on it, four at most, and only one of those was in the Red Cages. That is the most frustrating portion of it and so had to be kept to a minimum, though the rest of it was still fairly lack-luster. It was good mindless padding though and, sadly, better then some plots I cobbled together only to see completely fall apart at the table (not every session can be good I reckon).

As your game is concerned, I would seriously have a talk with your GM and state that it's time to switch rolls. He's been GMing for over a year now, it's time he took his turn as a player and a player took his turn behind the screen. He should seriously have been listing to you guys all along, but then again, you guys should be telling him, point-blank, what is working for you in a session, what is not, and why. I know it's hard to do that, but you really need to. If the players don't say something then the GM might never know and if they do say something, the GM needs to listen . Everyone should be on the same page and if they're not, then perhaps the GM needs to be a player for a bit and reset.

I make it a habit of asking my players after every session what worked for them, what didn't, and what they'd like to see next session. Granted, for my trouble I usually only get various non-comentmental sounds with the one thing they'd like to see next session being them not dying (they're a real helpful bunch) but if they have a genuine problem and voice it (one usually dose and that's good!), I do my damndest to fix it and make sure it is not an issue by next session. I've also been GMing this game for a gawdaweful long time and would gladly step down (I could seriously use a break from the work) if one of the others ever wanted to step up to the plate -that's what any decent GM should do. You might need to convince yours of this. If he's a friend, he'll listen if only to keep being friendst and having fun with you guys. I doubt he wants to make you guys miserable on purpose, so talk frankly with him, and tell him it's time for one of the players to take the responsibilities and workload of the GM and for him to relax and enjoy himself as a player for a bit.

Graver said:

We play 2 hours a week every week, so 8 hours per month on average. We have been in the city for a bit so we're probably through part 2 or near it's end. We sometimes go weeks without combat encounters. We spend a lot of time roleplaying through things (not necessarily by choice.) Sometimes, I'd like to say what I want my character to do and let the dice fall where they may, but I'm required to say my exact lines to him in order to get him to react.

As for wanting to make us miserable... I don't think he "wants" to do that, but he's really good at it some days. He's a competative War Gamer and sometimes he lets that creep into the RPG environment. Seriously, we spent our 2 hour session last night just trying to find new equipment to replace the stuff stolen from us in the beginning of Tattered Fates because he kept throwing up road blocks to foil our endeavors. We had some pretty darn good ideas too (including getting a writ of currency from the local Arbites Judge.) Not to mention that we tried all sorts of legal ways to get the supplies before we were forced to break the law and murder a shifty shop keeper for standing in the way of an Inquisitorial Investigation. In all the shops we were goaded to fight which we resisted up until the last. Apparently there are a ton of weapon dealers that don't care about the Inquisition's goals to root out heresy or to get paid well with a writ of currency from an Arbites Judge.

We will have a talk with him soon, I'm sure about changing things up, but with his competative side, I can see him trying to make things difficult for the rest of the party and GM if he's forced out.

Ouch! Sounds like things are getting a bit rough. My games are on average about twice a month, but tend to run over about 15 hours give or take. Tattered Fates still took several sessions. Granted, I added a few scenes to the Red Cages and they took a while in part 2 getting up to all sorts of fun and exciting things. The group is pretty large (seven people if all make it) so it takes a little longer to get through stuff. I use lots of GM tools and supplies to speed up game play and organization though. A few of them were a bit grumpy and feisty for part 3 so I sped things up a bit for that part... The sad part being they missed a few clues and scraps of info from the mansion (And our group is usually quite thorough about that stuff!). Yes, the only one that truely hated the Red Cages portion was our Psyker. Filidan (our Techpriest's player) took it in pretty good stride, though he did take a special glee in taking the axe he found early on to any Beast House member he could get ahold of. No, the biggest traumas by far in TF were the drama with our Psyker in town (the Adept was CONVINCED she was posessed, and the Psyker really did NOT help her own cause with badly timed shifty behaviour) and our Techpriest's loss of "THE rope". "THE rope" in question is a sh*tty hemp rope that was tossed out by an uncaring Sepherus Secundus PDF quartermaster on their very first mission. Judicious use of the rope managed to save several of the team from horrible death by falling (first the person who fell, then some of the people attatched to the line that were pulled down when the first fell....). Ever since, Psi has carried that crappy rope around like a Holy Relic. He also had a pretty huge collection of flashlights, though he is not so upset about the loss of those. The player has already informed me that if he EVER manages to recover THE rope (or even a fragment of it) he will immediately invest the XP in the Hidden Compartment talent so he can have an internal reliquary for the thing! Every Beast House member the team has ever captured and questioned since the start of this mission has been asked "have you seen this <holo projection starts> rope?!" at some point in the interrogation. Should he ever hit the 30 IP threshold I know EXACTLY what derangement he will be getting. I Frikin' LOVE my players!

I would offer you guys seats since you are local and pretty cool, but sadly my group is still pretty darn full. It looks like I am minus our Cleric for a few months for health reasons, but other than that they are rather fanatical about the game.

I am currently updating Harlock part 2 to be a low-level Ascention mission, so I am glad to know I am not the only one avoiding the rush to finish the story arc in a few sittings. Three of the characters are Ascending at the end of their current mission (Filidan's own sequel to Rejoyce!) and the rest are rank 7-8 now, so they are officially BADASS!

ZillaPrime said:

Thanks for the thoughts Zilla! In actuality, I'm sure I'm being more brutal and harsh than necessary. When it comes down to it, I think there are some GM/Player style differences that have been grating on a few players nerves, mine included. Our GM has even conveyed to us a few concerns with our player habits that grate on his nerves sometimes. Some, even valid.

Most of the issues I discussed in this forum are fixable with some work between the GM and players. I think another issue is that several of us are former or current GM's in other RPGs. We all have our opinions on the best way to run a game and that could possibly be coloring our perceptions of what is going on here.

What I really need to do is learn not to post the day after playing while everything is still fresh in my mind.

A majority of the evenings we play are downright enjoyable and I love spending time with all of the people in our group including the GM. If I wasn't, I'd have left a long time ago. My rant was over the top... all points were valid... but, it was still over the top. Last weeks game was more of an aberration than the rule.

Anyway, we've spoken to the GM about letting us take a short break every 4th week or so to try other RPGs. That should provide us with a little diversion and possibly a new perspective.

Reading up on the recent posts I'm inclined to agree that the GM is taking the 'worst-case' scenario and making it an 'impossible-case'. I empathise with LeBlanc13 in this. I can only agree that your GM is forcing the hardest road possible and given the time you've invested into the game He'd better have a Santa Claus around the corner for you. Red Cages is meant to be rough, but you should be able to leave with something passing decent, and how is a Writ of Credit for the local powers that be not good enough for the local merchants?

Good luck sir. You have more fortitude than I.

LeBlanc13 said:

I honestly think that given your personal relationship with the GM outside of game makes the day after game the BEST time to post. I think your friendship softens your perspective of the issue if you give it time, but only because your memory of the issues fade ... until you're back at the table.

My first WH40K GM was a lot like this. Never gave us money. XP was sparse. What was worse is the that encounters and skill tests were always imbalanced. Most tests were taken at a minus ten to thirty. At rank 1, 2, and 3 we were fighting Arch-Daemons with a fear aura that we had to make WP -30 tests on. That particular fight most of us had a 10% chance to avoid being paralyzed with fear while the daemon ate us. It was a TPK. He didn't seem to care, so we kicked his ass to the curb. Most of us hated that GM, and are glad to be rid of him. We were never successful in any mission.

One of the players stepped up, and now we all have a lot of fun (mostly), and I'm very glad that we moved on.

My point is, LeBlanc, is that you can't spend your free time stressed out, frustrated, and not having fun. If this is what is going on, I suggest that you guys should be honest with your GM. You've tried working with him, but he hasn't responded well. Maybe it's time to shake things up in a way that allows all of you to have fun, instead of be at his mercy, which it seems like that's what he's really after.

Cheers!

-Dak

Thanks Dak! Some of your frustrations from your prior game have definitely spilled over into ours. Just to detail some of the issues we've been having over the last 18months.

1. Inordinate amount of negative penalties (most tests start at -10%), with very few positive modifiers (and only on tests where it wouldn't really matter anyway.)

2. Being required to act out or roleplay our characters actions or in-game conversations, even if that is not our style of play.

3. Rules changing arbitrarily during play to suit the situation, such as NPC's getting to dodge before their action in the first round of combat eliminating the possibility of surprise.... then recently finding out that applied to our characters when previously we played by the RAW.)

4. GM confusing character knowledge with player knowledge. If I don't know the info OOC, my character doesn't know it in-game. Most times I ahve to ask if I can roll to know something.

5. For some reason, NPC's make roughly 90% of all dodge attempts and roll and amazing number of criticals.

6. XP awards are almost non-existent (18months of play and barely at rank 6)

7. Income system having been dropped after the first 6 months of play and even then only got one lump sum of pay for having 6 months of in-game time off.

8. NPC's cool gear tends to short out or break in the final round or two of combat. Last battle our enemy had a refractor field and it shorted out on the shot that hit him just before we killed him.

9. Roadblocks put up to shut down creative ideas presented to circumvent the current predicament our characters are in.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it starts to get my blood pumping again.

You are correct about memories and frustrations fading over time.

I do think our situation can be salvaged, but to me it will require us to spend our precious game time to resolve it. That is if we want everyone there to be involved in the conversation. As it is, we get little enough time to game on a weekly basis. I don't want my 2 hours of weekly RPG time spent arguing over the best way for a game to be run.

Generally, I don't think anyone in the group is really afraid to say anything, although it's possible that is the case for one person in the group. Most times, we're pretty blunt with comments and reactions when we don't like something going on. When something is said, it's not always phrased in the most constructive manner either in the heat of the moment.

I think we'll be able to work through this with the current GM... I'm hoping, at least.

Just an aside, but the way your GM is doing #3 is by the RAW unless you mean that NPCs get to dodge while surprised during an ambush, such as a man who's eating dinner dodging a sniper bullet or a guard dodging a blow to the back of the head delivered by an assassin after a successful silent move test to get up behind him unnoticed.

In fact, 2, 3, and 4 don't seem that bad. Heck, I'm a bit of a stickler on #2 my self but I reckon for you, it's just a case of two different styles grating together. #3, like I said, sounds like it is the RAW. Did he house rule the RAW and then go back without telling you guys? And #4 is quite understandable. I sure as heck can't keep track of what my players know and don't know I (and I only have 2-3)... I know what their characters ought to know for the most part, but the player are a whole different can of worms. When a player thinks his or her character ought to know something but they, as a player, don't know it, they'll bring it to my attention at which time, I'll usually give them the basic info that I feel their character should know about the topic (if anything) and give out additional info based on a lore test. A GM really can't keep track of what a player dose and doesn't know.

Now, 1, 6, and 9 seem troublesome. There's harsh difficulty to insure that the victory is all the sweeter and then there's just frustrating with no hope of victory... of course, this system is a bit different then most where the default should be a hefty-sack full of bonuses unlike most other system. Sounds like he hadn't quite caught on to that. 6 is definitely troublesome as the players do need some kind of reward for playing, a carrot to chase, or some such. That's what XP is for, player reward and incentive... that';s something that shouldn't really be skimped on. 9 is the worst in my book; creativity should always be rewarded, no matter how insane. Heck, the more insane it is, the better it ought to work, especially once it crosses the "so insane it just has to work!" line. That's what moments of pure awesome that will be retold by the players for years to come are made of!

Your other items are iffy, but I'll go out on a limb and say that 1, 6, and 9 are the only real problems you have out of that list. If those three are corrected, the other listed parts wouldn't be that big of a concern or will themselves be corrected. What would be problem of lacking of an income system (I personally trashed that thing a long time ago my self) if your "cunning plans" to get needed items worked instead of being quickly put down? And if you had an easier time with your rolls, you'd get things done easier, you'd have better stats for when your cunning plan actually did fail, and you wouldn't be too worried about NPC equipment fritzing out because your Tech-Priest could come up with a WTFRUSMOKIN" idea on how to put it back together for just a short while to execute "cunning plan #9" and a moment of pure awesome would ensue. Heck, would you mind rping your encounters as much if you got extra xp for doing such?

Bring those three items (1, 6, and 9) up with your GM and see if you can bring him around. It's just three things so it shouldn't put him off and, besides, he should be interested in insuring you're having a good time of things. Waits a session doing such if you must. After all, if you don't enjoy the sessions (and I think 1, 6, and 9 are the reasons why) then you'll be wasting all your sessions by not bringing it up and getting it fixed. 1 < all ;-)

Thanks Graver. Some of the items like item number 2 are really more a pet peeve of mine. I don't think its the GM's job to tell me how to enjoy my game. If I don't want to roleplay in the way he wants, he shouldn't make me do it. Now, he's fully in his rights not to award me RP experience bonuses if he chooses, but it should be my choice how to play.

I do also agree with you that 1, 6 & 9 are the biggest issues.

As for number 3, after reviewing the rules for Dodge, your rules interpretation seems accurate. The issue is we are ALWAYS surprised in the first round even when aware of our enemies ahead of time, whereas the NPCs always get Dodge in the first round. We have a sniper that can sneak in and snipe enemies with head shots and they ALWAYS dodge and dodge successfully. It seems that enemies dodge at a ridiculous success rate. In our game, getting the highest initiative is a hindrance rather than a benefit because your first attack/shot/ whatever will always miss.

Another thing is the sniper is always detected even though he's hidden, has the special equipment to get bonuses to avoid detection and has silenced weapons. Immediately after his first shot, he's targeted without any rolls to detect him going on behind the screen. In contrast to that, when faced with snipers, we never seem to be able to spot him no matter how many degrees of success we get on the roll other than gaining a vague shifting shape off in the distance. There are many other examples of this type of divergence in how the rules apply to us, but not him or his characters.

Regarding number 4. This isn't a situation of Players knowing too much. If that were the situation, I'd agree with you that it's hard to decide what the character knows because the player has too much out of game knowledge. In this case, I'm not necessarily up on everything that my character knows. I never studied Imperial Creed, nor do I know what a Noble of the Imperium would know, yet my character would. When given hints about things, the hints mean nothing to me because I as a player am not aware of the information myself. Usually, obscure references to the "accent of a character indicating he came from the schola progenium" don't help me in figuring out how to deal with them better.... Luckily there are other players in the group that help me because otherwise, I'm clueless. I try to keep up on all of the fluff in the game, but with a busy life, wife, kids, job, etc... I don't have time to read every novel and memorize everything in the rulebook for myself. If I as a player, ask a question, I need more than a vague response to help me figure things out.

At this point, we have a plan in place for how to deal with things. We will have a discussion at the appropriate time and feel it will not alienate him from our group.

Anyway, last night something pretty funny happened. I spoke with my group before game and after reading the errata found out my Iron Discipline ability will actually allow me to convey a reroll to them on fear tests, but only if they convey to me the title of leader in the group. Now, I have no intention to run the group or really tell anyone what to do, but they refused it. A free reroll on fear tests and they didn't want to take it because we haven't had a leader in the entire time we've been gaming, why start now.

I was kind of amused. My character is a Cleric and has a 50 fellowship. I've got almost every people skill in the game maxed. It kind of makes sense that I would be eligible for that role. There are others where it would make sense too (like the adept or the tech priest), but my character is just as viable as theirs.

It really could have come in handy last night too. We faced off against some daemons with fear rating 3. It hobbled all our melee monsters (Guardsman, Arbites and Assassin) That left the Techpriest, Adept and my Cleric to take down 4-5 Pink horrors. We actually did really well and the Assassin snapped out of his cowering at the end to kill steal the last daemon.

LeBlanc13 said:

Hey, my Adept has limited social skills because he usually has his nose in the tomes and wall carvings everyone else is too afraid to even look at. That said, I have been slowly working on training those skills recently. And my Fel of 38 isn't too shabby when you consider it is on of the three characteristics I have not bought a single advance for yet.

Dæmonic Presence has a radius associated with it; in this case 20 meters. Those within that area suffer the penalty to WP while those outside it do not. I don't know if he was just applying the Horrors' Regeneration automatically or disregarding it entirely, because I am pretty sure he wasn't testing for it each round. Also, seemed he was ignoring their Warp Instability as well. Hard to say. But they sure as hell had more wounds then they are published with.

Our GM was not happy when I pointed out the Scatter rules to the other players, like LeBlanc13. Those of us who were fighting were either using combat shotguns and semi-auto firing or autopistols and full-auto bursting the damnable things.

Ooh, yes, that's right. Forgot to mention we have some more firepower in our hands now. What a cacking hassle that was.

-=Brother Praetus=-