Powergaming Part 2

Those who have played games like D&D know that good DMs/GMs are in short supply. Far too often, you get a heavy handed DM who tries to force the players to follow the plot. Or, he simply doesn't pay enough attention to gauge monster encounters to the party's true strength. I feel I don't fall into this category, but that I still suck as a DM, so I try to put that duty on someone else if I can.

Not too long ago, my wife and I lived with two roommates, John and Cassie. Both of these people played D&D at one point or another in their lives, and were eager to play again. Being the pack-rat that I am, I still had my books tucked away, so I pulled them out. Feeling that four people wasn't enough, well called in two more people, my friends Tom and Drew. We talked it out for a bit, and we all decided that we'd play a standard fantasy campaign, and that Tom would DM.


After my wife gave me a metric fuckton of shit about wanting to play yet another Fighter, I opted to play the party Wizard. My wife was our Rouge, John was the Fighter, Drew played a "Priest" (Priest is to Cleric as Sorcerer is to Wizard). Cassie didn't come into the campaign until later. My wife proceeded to give me even more shit for the name I chose for my wizard:

Jameson Flamesmith

It's a stupid name, I know. However, most everyone in a fantasy scenario has a retarded name (Elminster, Gandalf, Drizzt, etc), and I felt accomplished actually having a first and last name, unlike most of the party. And it fit, being as I focused on fire magic, so I had no qualms with it.

So, I mentioned how some DMs can be very heavy handed with how they run a campaign.

Tom is a VERY heavy handed DM.

By the end of the first dungeon, our fighter had be gender-swapped via polymorph (and he lost all his gear), I had lost my soul to this worlds version of Satan, and we had horrible offended a lich, by stealing it's phylactery, without realizing that's what it was. Said phylactery was bargained away by us so that we didn't have to fight an NPC rouge thrice our level.

The lich proceeded to hound us across the continent, killing anything around us indiscriminately. We ended up evacuating two separate villages, and leading the refugees to a third city, where we had to fight off a siege against thousands of summoned undead. At this point Cassie had joined us, along with her boyfriend Mike (Cassie was another wizard, while Mike played a Paladin).


It continues in the same manner, fighting elder dragons at level 8, contesting greater demons, yadda yadda yadda. Constantly getting beaten, chased, sieged, betrayed; I decided I'd had enough.

My wizard multiclassed.

To be continued...