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Speaking of fantasy, here is what you came
for.
How the Terrible DM Creates the Most Annoying
Doom Vortex (Part 1)
Let me spin you a tale of the most shockingly
overbearing railroading I've ever been exposed
to; offensive not merely in its scope but
in its cruelty and foolishness, especially
for having been purported by an experienced
DM and player.
This was years and years ago, and ever since
then, the term which I coined, mid-way through
the second session, "the doom vortex," has
become a term which is spoken of in sepulchral
tones in reference to the worst case scenario
of any campaign.
It's a long story, with many stops along the
way, but I promise that each of them will
be as darkly entertaining to you, dear listener,
as it was miserable for me to experience them.
As for the characters,
I came in at the beginning of the second session
of what would ultimately be a three-session
campaign.
Playing a lawful neutral human fighter and
the son of a wealthy merchant-lord whose family
manufactured and sold weapons and armour.
Ray was my best friend, who invited me to
join the game.
Playing an elven sorceress.
The homebrew setting's cosmology had all sorcerers'
powers coming from specific extra-planar elemental
beings.
In her case it was from some fire spirit whose
connection with her was waning and she was
on an adventure to rekindle that connection.
Tinpot was the one and only warforged in this
setting.
Imagine the most mawkish-possible version
of The Iron Giant, at human size, and add
nothing, and you get this character.
I would later learn that he played this character
in essentially every campaign.
Zap was a warlock who was a ten year old girl.
Yes, you heard that right.
If there was an in-character reason why she
was a part of an adventuring party, I never
learned it, but I doubt there was.
She was played by the sort of fey young man
who constantly worked overtime to affect every
stereotypically gay mannerism he could, and
each and every time he had his character use
those warlock powers to attack, he would make
little finger-guns and imitate this classic
Simpsons bit.
Every.
Single.
Time.
And to the best of my recollection, this was
the sole bit of characterization the character
ever got.
Doombo the DM - The = DM (naturally) and villain
of the story.
Twenty-four years old (which will prove to
be relevant at the end of the story).
Running a homebrew campaign setting of his
own devising.
I'll let the telling of the tale inform you
of everything else about him worth knowing
for the sake of this story.
Here's what I know about the first session.
The three original player characters are gathered
up by the DMPC, a character controlled by
the DM, is a bard named Theron who was much
higher-level than them, informing them of
mysterious signs and portents that they would
just need to trust which would guide them
to some sort of grand destiny.
For Ray's character this involved restoring
the waning connection with her powers.
I don't know or care what it was for the other
two.
They were guided to board a ship from the
setting's main continent towards this crumbling
and soon-to-be abandoned island.
Apparently, part of the world setting’s
premise was that this main continent was continuously
but slowly moving, and in its path it would
come across other islands which would be colonized,
mined-out and then abandoned as they collapsed
into nothingness since they're left in the
wake of the departing main continent.
On their way across the waters, their ship
was attacked and sunk by an orc boarding party,
reportedly from some other unknown land, and
the characters were left to drift at sea on
the shattered remains of the boat.
My character enters in the second session,
and his story, as it's relevant to the campaign,
is that he was dispatched by his father to
investigate reports of Tinpot - this living,
walking and talking weapon - and, if possible,
to acquire it for study and possible replication.
As his first session begins, he's on this
crumbling island already, having somehow beat
them there, as the others are washing up on-shore.
As my character arrives, both the characters
and bits of salvage from the wrecked ship
are being rounded up by the imperial military
- a local garrison answerable to the Emperor
in charge of the main continent.
As my character spots the magical metal man
he was looking for amidst the salvage, he
attempts to investigate, only to be told that
all of the salvage - including the surviving
party members - were now the property of the
military, having been recovered from a shipwreck.
As far as I can tell, this literally meant
"you washed up on a beach and we found you
first, so you're now slaves forever," which,
ludicrous as it seems, actually fits rather
well with the overall theme of the campaign.
My character intervenes.
With some fast talking persuasion, he made
the case that his father's house would like
to acquire this property, and that, acting
as his legal agent in this land, I would be
happy to broker an arrangement whereby they
receive some top-shelf arms and armour in
return for this salvage.
One successful roll later, I've managed to
link my character to the rest of the party.
So far so good.
It's at about this point that we're attacked
by a swarm of red-skinned orcs with flame
powers and there's a huge battle on the beach.
Apparently, these are connected with the ones
who attacked and sunk the party's boat in
the previous session.
We win, and I lead the rest of the party off
from the beach, making introductions and whatnot.
Fairly quickly, we come to an understanding:
They have business to attend to in the interior
of the island, and time is of the essence
issue since the island only has a couple of
months left before it's uninhabitable.
However, they understand that I just saved
them from slavery, so if I accompany them
on this adventure, they'll gladly accompany
me back home so that my character's father
can have a look at Tinpot.
At this point, we're all on the same page.
The party is established.
It's important to keep this in mind going
forward, that we as players did this on our
own without needing DM intervention.
Thus endeth session 1.
Session 2 starts.
My character goes back to the inn where he's
been staying and gets them rooms as well,
and we spend the night sleeping there.
In the morning, my character comes downstairs
to have breakfast in the common room, and
arranges a magical courier to deliver a letter
to his father, updating him on the situation
as it's developed so far (I actually wrote
this letter up between sessions and gave it
to the DM).
He has the courier teleport the letter, and
a half an hour or so later as I'm finishing
my breakfast I get a reply congratulating
him on the work thus far, but cautioning him
not to trust Theron, who was a prince of the
realm who has been exiled.
I note this, going forward.
My character goes back up to his room to gather
his belongings, and finds that the bedroom
window has been broken, and his plate mail
armour has been stolen.
Since he'd only been gone half an hour or
so, this has to have happened very recently.
My character climbs out of the window and
immediately begins to give chase.
Over the course of the next half-hour or so
of play, I engage in various perception, gather
information and such rolls as I make my way
through town, attempting to track what is
described as a very elderly man lugging my
plate armour along behind him.
The rest of the players are completely excluded
since obviously my character didn't have the
time to alert them to what was going on, and
all the while I was feeling both guilty for
dominating the game this way and resentful
towards the DM for putting me in a position
where I felt I had no other option but to
do so.
At last my chase comes to an end when I learn
that the thief has already been arrested and
taken away.
The last half-hour of play was entirely pointless
and wasted for all concerned.
At which point I gather the others to go see
about reclaiming my stolen armour.
We go to the offices of the local military
garrison, where we're told we're just going
to have to wait in line to be helped.
We are also told that our characters stand
around in the lobby for a couple of hours,
before someone eventually comes to talk to
us about the situation.
After explaining everything, we're told that
the thief has been taken away to the local
wizard's tower for punishment and that my
stolen armour will be in the evidence room
there.
FINE.
As a player I'm getting more and more frustrated
that my meaningless, aimless "he came down
for breakfast without his armour on" subplot
is dominating everyone else's time situation,
but I guess we're doing this now.
We go to this wizard's tower and I'm shown
to where my armour is, and am told that I'm
going to have to pay a hefty fee to get it
back in order to pay for the services of the
guards who reclaimed it.
FINE.
As a player and as a character I just want
this to be over with, so my character hands
over several gold pieces and proceeds to put
his armour back on.
And this is when things really start to get
stupid . . .
SURPRISE!
I'm told that I feel a stabbing pain all over
my body as my armour constricts around me.
Turns out that in the half hour or so that
it was stolen, a curse was laid upon it, and
it's now impossible to remove!
I demand to see the old man who took it, and
I’m taken to his cell.
It's this cackling old man who jeeringly informs
me that this is revenge for something my family's
noble house did to him decades ago, and that
in a month or two, I'd be as old as he was,
thanks to the curse on the armour which I
couldn't remove.
My character is flabbergasted that this old
man, apparently without there being anything
very special about him, could have even done
this in just half an hour.
I mean, for him to point out to the jailers
that he has, for all intents and purposes,
just killed me… that I would be dead within
months…
What did they intend to do to this peasant
who had dealt a lethal blow against a nobleman?
"Oh, people around here lay curses like this
on each other all the time," they reply, lazily.
"If we punished everyone who did something
like this, we'd never have time to do anything
else!
We'll give him community service for the theft,
though.
Raking leaves and such."
Now furious, my character tries to leverage
his social standing to insist that if this
old man laid this curse, he must know something
about its specifics, including how to lift
it, and demand that he be compelled to help
me.
"Well, I'm afraid he'll be too busy raking
leaves for that.
And if you try to interfere with his sentence,
then you'll find yourself with the same sentence,
so I suggest you just leave peacefully now
and not cause any trouble."
My character, furious beyond words, informs
the rest of the party that he no longer has
time for their adventure or their goals; he's
going to need to return home to his father
to have him pay a wizard or cleric or someone
to lift this curse.
Every hour spent doing anything other than
getting this curse lifted was months of his
life gone.
He prepared to head home empty-handed, knowing
his father would be disappointed, but that
he would care more about the life of his son
and heir than about acquiring this walking
weapon, and that he could just dispatch someone
else to round him up anyway.
At this, Theron - the DMPC, whom my character
had been told not to trust - told him that
there was an elven village further inland
where they would need to go to help Ray's
character with her magical problems, where
there were powerful spellcasters who might
be willing and able to help.
My character was extremely skeptical, but
kept this to himself.
With some persuasion (some of which was me
as a player essentially metagaming here, since
BEING persuaded was the only way not to have
my involvement in the campaign end then and
there), I agreed to go along, knowing that
I would turn my back on the rest of them at
a moment's notice if this didn't pan out.
They'd spend most of the day on this, and
evening was coming, so we agreed to set out
for the village first thing in the morning.
My character, I decided, would spend the evening
going around to local blacksmiths to see about
having the armour cut off of him.
He even spent a bunch of gold on healing potions,
in case it was necessary to simply destroy
the armour, by means of acid or tongs or whatever
and repair the damage to his underlying flesh.
Doombo the DM decides we need to actually
roleplay through this whole experience, which
takes another hour or so because he has to
make it dramatic.
At the end of the hour, my character was several
gold pieces poorer and no closer to being
free.
Now, if I'd been in his shoes, I would have
just told the cursed player, "You spend the
evening going around to local shops, plying
craftsmen and alchemists to help you, but
in the end, they all inform you that it's
beyond their limited means.
None of them know how to deal with a curse
like this."
I wouldn't have wasted the other players'
time for an hour on something totally futile
which they weren't even involved with and
which didn't concern or impact them.
Meanwhile, Ray's character has had her own
share of problems, which are relevant to the
tale.
She'd needed to go ask some favour from the
local military commander, I think having to
do with getting permission to head inland.
My memory is a bit vague here since this scene
didn't involve me, but I think it had something
to do with imperial citizens being limited
to the coastline in light of the need to evacuate
in the near future.
Whatever the case, she attempts to get this
guy to do us this favour, and he demands in
return that Ray's character agree to marry
him.
Ray is given some sort of knowledge roll regarding
this guy and is given the information that
it's widely-known that he's married something
like ten women in the past year or two and
they've all gone missing on their wedding
nights, and it's only his important position
which has insulated him from a murder investigation.
Ray's character demurs from agreeing, and
the commander makes it clear that he's not
prepared to take no for an answer.
The commander earnestly made the following
demands, or commands, if you will: that they
would be married, right there, right then,
and that he could call in the military chaplain
to do the honours.
One charm person spell later and she'd managed
to convince the newly-pliable military commander
to let her character go free.
Naturally, she was very eager to get going
to this elf village as well when we all met
up again.
So…
We get moving in the morning.
My character is furious and miserable, and
along the way, I ask if there are any rivers
or streams in sight.
Finding the answer to be affirmative, I have
my character wade into the water, pointedly
looking away from the party and have him piss
and shit his pants, because with the non removable
plate armour over him, he's physically incapable
of pulling them down to do his business.
I don't do this to be gross; I'm making a
point of just how utterly miserable this curse
is and the different dimensions of his need
to be rid of it.
He stands there, waiting for the water soaking
through his clothes to wash the filth away
as much as possible before resuming the journey.
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Have you started counting the red flags yet?
Let this be a lesson to every DM out there,
no one likes waiting in line in real life
why would you make your players wait in line
in game?
And this is just Part 1!
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