D&D, A Frustrating Dm.

[Rman88]

Hey, i know this is a odd thing to bring up. But i am at my wits end with one of my players. He offered to run a 5E campaign and me being a Forever Dm. Well i hoped onto that like a fish out of water. Only to wonder if that water is cool or boiling. As i am now 3 sessions in and debating if i should even stay. As i will say this, he is a new dm, but the issue he is facing isn't with role playing or story telling. It is him Insisting this game is a game purely about Investigation where combat is suicidal at best. Yet he hasn't really giving us any clue to the mystery at hand. And well this is a D&D game with no combat encounters. As i am playing a sword and board ranger. and out of the nearly 21 hours i spent in his story. Yes he likes to run his sessions from 5pm to midnight. I haven't had a chance to Make a single attack.

Now you might be asking what is this story? Well, The kingdoms most loyal trade ally has suddenly went dark. No one who goes to the great city has ever returned. So the king has tasked us to figure out what is going on. Turns out that someone Created a Totalitarian police state ran by Clones of the same guy. Yep all the guards are clones of each other. And they are to put it bluntly Insanely overpowered. So you may be thinking how we are suppose to progress. Well turns out death has no meaning in this story. As their is some Wibbly wobbly ground hog day scenario going on. So each of our characters gets to experience the pleasure of Dying over and over and over. For example my guy got to experience what it is like Getting his Heart ripped out.

But hey, i hear you saying to yourself. O the guards cannot be that hard to deal with. Just a bunch of Town guards. Let me give you what stats we learned these guys have.

Speed, 40ft.
Ac 20,
Hp 95.
at least 20+ in all stats.
Resistance to all physical attacks.
resistance to all elements except radiant damage.
Immunity to all mental effects including fear.
And one single melee attack. A +8 to hit that deals 2d20+10 damage.

Just to put this in perspective, that is all we know. They could have more super powers as this guy is Constantly tweaking them to become harder and harder to fight.

Were third level, with no access to magical gear. So fighting these things head on is nearly impossible. That said you might be saying to yourself. O that is something you need to take on in the end game. Their are probity other things to fight. And i would tell you you are wrong. Their is no other forces to fight in the city. No orc, goblins, bandits, undead, dragons or Anything. Hell, we manage to break into the sewer only to find what i would assume was Sewer bandits. I almost leapt from joy from my computer. As i thought i could finally cave in some bad guys skull. Turns out they were all good people and were protecting some sick old guy who lost his daughter. An old guy who then proceeded to have a panic attack and Got half the party murdered by the guards. The other half Hid in the sewers abandoning the rest to their deaths.

this of coarse is making the players a wee bit frustrated. As this game is already one where you cannot really recuperate from a fight. As once the clock hits 12 we all wake up back at our camp regardless if were alive or not. So Fighting an entire town worth of soldiers seems like something we could never accomplish. You know the whole action economy thing. So i ask him, At what point dose he expect us to defeat these things? Like we have to be able to fight and kill these things. As how do we stop the big bad guy who is controlling them? Hear is his response.

"you will never be able to fight them" "they will always be better then you as the entire point of the game is Investigation"

Speaking of investigation, What do you think we learned after spending almost an entire day in this setting? Well turns out we didn't really learn anything. We still have no idea why their is some ground hog day thing going on. We don't know who the big bad guy is. We don't know how were suppose to defeat the guards. And we have no leads we can use. As the only characters we have talked to. Are An innkeeper who tells us to leave. A bandit who complains about being stuck in the city for 3 days. A blacksmith who complains about a thief who stole something from him. And lastly an Eldritch monster who sells us magical items for a Price. Like for example ripping off a dragon born tail so he can bring items back with him every loop. Or removing our wizards Eye so he can get it replaced with a magical eye. Both of which reduced their stats. And sadly none of the items actual helps us in any real way to defeat the bad guy.

So short recap. Were in a city where we are meant to die over and over. where our party refuses to fight the only enemy we can fight. So were not really working as a team. Going after a mystery, which he hasn't even given us any kind of clues. So were kinda just stumbling threw the darkness with no real goals, Outside of Something something save day. And a lot of players are getting fed up with it. Hell we lost one player who decided to bow out after her dragon born survived a messily 2 rounds. Before getting her head caved in with a stick.

and mind you i pleaded for him to make them weaker. To allow us be able to fight them to a certain extent. As in the end we cannot fight an entire city worth of guards. It dose not matter if they are super human or not. But he keeps insisting that this would Ruin his story. To the point where the only way he would change things. Would be with the caveat of making things harder. Like for example, he will reduce their clubs damage from 2d20 to 2d10 at the price of Doubling the amount of guards you face in each encounter.

Worst bit is, i suggested that if he really wanted to do this. Then he should just Skip combat so the sessions could go quicker. As really their isn't any real chance of us winning. Unless we get insanely lucky with the dice rolls. But he kinda took offense at me even suggesting this. Insisting we should fight even thou he tried to convince us to be Terrified of these guys. So ya i am at my wits end debating if i should even be in this game anymore. As i like the guy but as a dm he for his first game created one of the Most Frustrating games i have ever been in. As i just want to roll some dice and slay some monsters. Not role play how my guy gets his head caved in for the 10th time.

So any thoughts, and further more am i out of line? As i feel bad for even suggesting this. And sorry about the wall of text. I wanted to go into as much detail as possible.

Ps. forgot to mention this. He told none of the players about this idea of his. We all went in blind not knowing about what the game was suppose to be. as i wont lie, i might have backed out if i knew it was going to be this frustrating.

[Netaddict]

Could be either way, in my opinion.

That said, there are some things which stand out.

"As this game is already one where you cannot really recuperate from a fight. As once the clock hits 12 we all wake up back at our camp regardless if were alive or not."

That sounds like a situation where death is a slap in the wrist.  Maybe you can use this?  When I read this it's like 'oh, that's why the guards are invincible, because there are no consequences to the players losing a fight with them.  They don't seem to stay hostile between loops, too, hmm..'

There's a lot of information that I'd like to know here.  Is it a proper groundhog's day loop where everything is reset, or is it just the party?  If so, what happens if you, say, wreck a building?  Can you set up a decoy or incite a riot or something and see how things respond to that?  Can you sneak into forbidden areas, knowing that there aren't going to be any permanent penalties to getting caught?

The biggest question I have, though, is about the other players.  Who are they?  What are their characters?  What do they like to do?  D&D is a team game and involves a team.  Whatever you want to accomplish it's better if it's done as a team game.

'As i just want to roll some dice and slay some monsters. Not role play how my guy gets his head caved in for the 10th time.'

There's nothing wrong with trying to slay monsters.  Maybe you shouldn't try to fight everything, though.  Since you were GMing before, did you ever make situations or threats where there were options for the players other than fighting?  Nothing too tough for them where they might need to find allies, or friends, or resources?

It sounds like you had a player in your GM sessions that wasn't getting what they wanted, that is, more complicated problems outside of ones which are just bashing, and wanted to run a very different session than the ones you were running for them.  And now you're in the reverse position, inside a game that isn't giving you what you want.

D&D's a team game, and it's always a mutual association between the entire group, both the GM and the players.  People want different things out of it, and finding the right balance and satisfying everyone is always challenging.

Your suggestion that guards should auto-win if they're invincible sounds reasonable, unless you're just entering the city and attacking one immediately.  "Describing your character's death in detail" might be something your GM is doing to try and discourage that behaviour.  I don't think I'd try that myself, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely wrong.

I would recommend asking on the Order of the Stick forums, but I do have one recommendation:  Know who the other party members are, and describe them, too.  There's always a give and take between "My GM is incredibly railroady and only has interest in making people explore a Magical Realm" and "This is a player who disrupts the game because he can't go five minutes without getting his hit of combat/roleplay/romance, etc."  It's a constant conflict and one very common in all games.  They've seen it, and the OotS forums has lots of people who give good advice on the problem.

Not knowing (or caring), who the other players are is a very bad look.  If you don't pay attention to your fellow party members you might be the one not paying attention to their needs.  Particularly since it sounds like you were the GM for these people.

[Rman88]

Well, first things first. As i guess i wasn't clear on the whole groundhog day thing. It is your typical ground hog day scenario with a little caveat. Certain characters seem to be able to ignore it. And certain characters seem to be Stuck in a different timeline? Like take for example Paul the bandit. He knows their is a loop going on but he thinks it 3 days before the day of the loop. Why i don't actual know but regardless it is your typical ground hog day scenario. O also the characters who can ignore the effect. Do not care about anything that is going on. So they are not willing to help us at all.

Now, on the topic of Dying over and over. Sure it is a slap on the wrist if you want to look at it mechanically. Least until he adds some kind of negative to it. As he is still Kinda working out the quirks of the whole thing. That said from an RP perspective it is a living nightmare. To experience in vivid detail Dying over and over. Great example of this is our bard who drowned. Only to wake up with his lungs filled with water after getting to experience his life fading from him. In short none of our characters want to experience dying over and over. Regardless if it gives us some kind of advantage. Because in the end it is Still getting to experience the pain of death over and over. 

On the topic of Party members being part of a group. We has a group has had 0 time to really interact with each other. Hell no one even knew who my character was. And with my guy being a bit of a local Myth. You can tell how much of a team we are. Which in all honesty we are not a team. This is why we are More then willing to let our own party members die. If it means saving our own necks. This is freaking horrible for team building. But as i said before were not a real team. Were a bunch of strangers who all made camp in the same spot. No one knows anything about anyone's characters.

And moving onto the topic of Picking out fights. Ya you are correct that this is a great skill. Issue with this is we don't have any other options. Its either fight the guards or wait for them to find a reason to kill us. If we had some kind of other option. I most likely would have never made this topic. But as it stands their is Nothing else to fight in this city. So playing a combat focused character with no social skills. Means that I really have nothing to do.

On the topic of What we can do with the townsfolk. Everyone is Too terrified to do anything against the guards. The guards are everywhere so we cannot Make a rousing speech without them trying to kill us. In short i don't think we can actual do anything without Getting into conflict with the guards. And if we did manage to create some kind of underlying rebellion. We only have 1 day to actual accomplish it. as anything we do will be reset at midnight. O and to hammer in this point. Their is a curfew at 8pm, which drive everyone to enter their homes and Lock the doors. We tried asking for shelter from one of these homes. Only to be told to go away. As they are so terrified that they would rather let us die then risk breaking a rule.

Side note, I only know one of these players. The rest are the friends of the Gm. And while i would Love to do some proper role playing and get to learn their characters. The gm is Very insistent that we Move on. In fact he gets irritated when we discuss what were going to do for the day. As i said before, We had no time to actual Build up our relationships with each other. And i should add to this how he dose it. In short if were Talking to each other to much. He will Interject every 5 to 10 minutes saying the time in game. Not to subtlety hinting that Hey your wasting time talking. Get to work exploring the town.