"Hypothetical" Question

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Is there anything a DM could do that's more trust breaking than giving random enemies the ability to make save-or-die attacks, but not even consistently?
I just made death saves vs. fucking dire wolves and got my throat ripped out in an instant. Being the pedantic dick I am, I looked up the entry for them a few minutes ago and found out that dire wolves do not make you make saves of any kind. So my DM literally just killed my character out of nowhere, then told me he was "generous" for letting me have another death save at the end of the fight.
I'm not sure if I can ever care about another character or NPC in his game ever again?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Oh god, I meant to post this in ITT. Fuck. Please laugh at me.

[Zaranthan]

Did he just describe them as large, nasty wolves or did he say "dire wolves"? Have you encountered them before without this instant-kill power? Dire wolves are CR3, is the party higher level and a pack of dire wolves would have been a pushover?

Otherwise, yeah, go ahead and treat his game like Paranoia.

Also, hahaha you dense git.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Both. He described them as 8 foot long, 500 lb wolves, and then he just started calling them dire wolves.
We're playing an OSR game and they're all 4th level. We're about level 2-3. I know "balance" is a laughable concept with these games, but even by the rules of this game, my GM threw an SoD at me for literally no reason. We have never encountered them before, nor has anyone in town mentioned that giant murderwolves could eat an entire family. They've told us that the wilderness is completely fucked, but we've had so many meatgrinder random encounters that I've kept a running tally of how many NPCs we've gotten killed in the line of duty.
The answer is 12. I've gotten 2 PCs killed. Both PCs and about 9 NPCs were lost while travelling to the dungeon.
I fucking hate Keep on the Borderlands.

This asshole actually asked me if I just wanted to do "the classic thing" and use the same character sheet for a new character! Fuck no, not after you've defiled my character like this! Fuck!

[Zaranthan]

The answer is 12. I've gotten 2 PCs killed. Both PCs and about 9 NPCs were lost while travelling to the dungeon.
I fucking hate Keep on the Borderlands.

This asshole actually asked me if I just wanted to do "the classic thing" and use the same character sheet for a new character! Fuck no, not after you've defiled my character like this! Fuck!

I think this might not be a dick GM so much as a GM who didn't explain how his game works before you joined. A meatgrinder with a gentlemen's agreement to not point out the absurdity of Bob the Gnome Fighter dying and being replaced by his four identical twin brothers: Rob, Hob, Nob, and Gob is very much a thing that people did for decades. Heck, back when newspapers used the phrase "World Wide Web", reaching level 5 was called "Name Level"; both because the classes had rank titles for each level and level 5 was simply the name of the class, and because a level 5 character had survived long enough that it was worth the player's time and effort to give him a name and backstory instead of being directly addressed as "cleric, I need healing" or "elf, take a look at this chest".

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I was close to level 3 and had literally just bullshit out some backstory in town before I died. It would be comical if he had killed me without randomly throwing an SoD at me! I know GMs can do whatever they want, but fuck! How do people LIVE out here like this when everything in the wilderness outlevels you and tries to kill you on sight? Every time I play it's like a tragedy where we hobble home after burying a new set of bodies, to the point where people in town are questioning following us anymore.

[Dogbert]

The first thing to do upon joining any game is: Always ask for the house rules.

Always.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

He's never GMed this game before, so he's using optional rules as we go. "You will randomly die" was never part of the agreement.
I mean, it was because I agreed to an OSR game, but I didn't think it would be so literal and direct.

[OgreBattle]

If your DM is open to advice...

In general a high critical damage that one shots a D&D character (usually just in a dying-not-dead state, but sometimes at -10 death) is more acceptable than save or die at low levels.

Like if the large wolf rolled a 20 to hit, and then the big scything fangs have a x3... even x4 modifier, that's easier to accept than "has a save or die effect lol"

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I wish I could say I was invested enough anymore to give him advice.
Also, things like "critical modifiers" are too much for him to handle. If he can't even be consistent when GMing OSR games and fucking FATE, then anything resembling 3.5 would give him conniption fits.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Guess what? We've been playing the original Caves of Chaos module in conjunction with Keep on the Borderlands. That's neat, right?

Except... Basic Fantasy RPG HAS THEIR OWN VERSION OF THE CAVES OF CHAOS! My GM is laboriously trying to convert the original module to BFRPG in the middle of the game even though it's already been done for him! And you know what the worst part is? The BFRPG module is ACTUALLY MADE FOR LOW LEVEL PARTIES! The worst random encounter you can roll in that book is 1d6 stirges or 1d4 wolves! HE WAS ROLLING ON THE WILDERNESS ENCOUNTER TABLE FROM THE CORE RULEBOOK AND IT LOOKS LIKE THIS!



And guess FUCKING what? That encounter marked 'wolves' under Grasslands? 3d6 MOTHERFUCKING WOLVES! He's been rolling on THIS table ever since we started at level 1!

THIS IS WHAT HE SHOULD BE ROLLING ON IF HE WASN'T A BUFFOON WHO PUT THE SLIGHTEST AMOUNT OF EFFORT INTO HIS FUCKING GAME!



Am I just drunk and butthurt or is this fucking stupid?

[Thaluikhain]

That seems more than a bit odd. Though, when you say "been rolling since level 1", does that imply that you've survived a bunch of them?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Uh... sort of. I've lost 2 PCs, and we've gotten 13 of our hirelings killed.
We've just reached level 4 because the GM made some lucky treasure rolls and we made it back to town with a +3 weapon, which he said people would try to fucking mug us for, so we decided to sell it and he got butthurt and started saying he was going to stop doing Gold for XP.

I count my lucky fucking stars if we ever make it through a random encounter without someone dying. Yesterday we were wandering through some hills on the way back to town, and the GM told us we got the drop on somebody... only to tell us that we spotted three fucking werewolves hanging out on top of a hill, and we were able to GTFO before they saw us. "Survival" in this game means "the GM decided to kill an NPC instead of you". We made it back to the keep and went to turn in a quest, only to run into a dozen fucking wererats in an alleyway that ran away because we slightly outnumbered them... are they gonna break into the inn to stab us in our sleep? I'd say yes, except my GM has probably already forgotten the encounter even happened, and even if he did remember, I hate this game anyway. I lucked out and rolled Paladin stats, so I took the class and he's upset at me being moderately hard to kill because my constant 21 AC is just TOO BIG DICK for him.


I feel like I could be having fun with OSR if my GM didn't 100% buy into the dumbest OSR memes possible.

[owlassociate]

We've just reached level 4 because the GM made some lucky treasure rolls and we made it back to town with a +3 weapon, which he said people would try to fucking mug us for, so we decided to sell it and he got butthurt and started saying he was going to stop doing Gold for XP.

This shit sucks. If you've decided to do random treaure rolls, you have be prepared for unexpected changes in the party's power. If you don't want that, don't fucking roll randomly for treasure! Sounds like he's the kind of DM that got into OSR just so he can watch hordes of characters die.

[JigokuBosatsu]

This is why OSR needs to be put in a gritty, tactical catapult and flung into the sun.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Sounds like he's the kind of DM that got into OSR just so he can watch hordes of characters die.

I'd like to think otherwise, but his actions are telling me not to. All he does in this game is roll for shit and read off a module. You'd think at the very least he could read off a module for the right goddamn game. Like, I enjoy some random tables probably more than I should, but it seriously feels like that's a half of his game and I don't like the tables he's using!

This is why OSR needs to be put in a gritty, tactical catapult and flung into the sun.

IT'S NOT EVEN GRITTY OR TACTICAL! We do this shit theatre of the mind, so the only "tactics" is deciding whether or not to cast our spells. The most "tactical" encounter we've had so far is a fight with some weird slime humanoid that seemed to resist all of our damage, but bounced away from us when we hit it, so... I told the other player to help me lure it outside near the cliffs so we could smack it into the void. What kind of "tactics" can you do when the situation is "there are direwolves 180 feet away, they want to kill you, they run 3 times faster than you, they outnumber you, and they outlevel you"? He literally will roll random encounters where he feels like "someone has to die".
NO FUCKING SHIT SOMEONE HAS TO DIE IF YOU'RE ROLLING ON THE FUCK-ME KILL LIST!

The worst part is that I brought this up to the other player and he said it would've been "boring" to have not fucking insane encounters 24/7 and it wouldn't be "realistic". The only way this shit is "realistic" is if every single person in town is 5th level. I bet he's just saying that because neither of his characters have been killed for no reason yet.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Sorry chief, the G&T was sarcastic. "Gritty" means single digit hit points and "tactical" means no rules for anything other than rolling for damage. Just a pet peeve of mine.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I'm not mad at you, I just needed to get that off my chest. You are completely right, the very same session I leveled up and got double digit hit points, I was seduced by a succubus and took some level drain that brought me right back down to 9 HP.
God, I hate how right you are with that "no rules for anything other than rolling for damage" remark... but you forgot the "flipping a coin to see if you hit" part.