We Accidentally Blew up a Country and Doomed the World with Memes:

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Apparently, by choosing to investigate the pirates and the sea monsters in the beginning, we had jumped aboard the eldritch/cosmic horror storyline, not the fey-themed storyline that the group unanimously voted for. Supposedly, the GM wanted to complete the eldritch/cosmic horror storyline quickly, but we instead prolonged it.

The GM elaborated that these "blood gods" and their cultists were empowered by people knowing more about them. This was why the pirates and the sea monsters were growing stronger: because we kept on learning more about the "blood gods" and sharing our discoveries with our allies.

The NPC we had defeated knew plenty about the "blood gods," but knew that said "blood gods" were empowered by people knowing about them. She was trying to kill everyone in that city to prevent knowledge of the "blood gods" from spreading. By psychically compelling her to tell us everything she knew of the "blood gods," our new knowledge caused the "blood gods" to reach critical mass, blow up a country, and doom the whole world.

The only warning we ever received about this was that whenever we corresponded with our allies to tell them our discoveries, our allies would also report that the pirates and sea monsters were growing stronger. Never mind that they could have been growing stronger for any other number of reasons.

In other words, what we were "supposed" to do was simply beeline straight for the pirates and sea monsters, kill all of them, and never even learn about the existence of the "blood gods." By choosing to investigate and learn more, we were doing the wrong thing; we should have just gotten our murderhobo on.

And so, the GM announced, the world was irrevocably doomed beyond all hope, and the campaign was over. We would restart soon.

Which does not seem particularly satisfying. Why even punish players for choosing to learn more, let alone make the punishment "the world is doomed"? We never even asked for the eldritch horror storyline!

(Continued.)

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>>52151811
>Why even punish players for choosing to learn more, let alone make the punishment "the world is doomed"?

Your DM is shit. His ideas are shit. And worst of all he's probably like every other shit DM where he thinks everything EXCEPT his own ideas are shit. Not sure what you're hoping to hear for an answer this time that differs from the previous thread. You can't fix a bad DM, the only answer is to put someone else in your group in charge of DMing or find a new group.

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The GM initially defended this with lines like:
>Well, you managed to break off the rails in the specifically right way to destroy the world. Any other way would have saved it, and staying on them would have saved it.
and
>There were lots of way this COULD have ended quickly, but you didn't choose them. One disconnect we may be having is that I don't push my players towards the "right" answer. I let them pick mostly whatever they want to do. And you guys got unlucky and picked the one thing that ends the world.

Later, however, the GM gave a more detailed defense.

>Remember at the very beginning when I asked about mobs, it was going to be a couple mobs of pirates and their captain, and one sniper from the upper masts, with [friendly NPC] helping out.

>Regardless of that, it was supposed to be an "Eldritch Horror" plotline.

>In order for it to be an Eldritch Horror, your opponent has to actually be scary and difficult to understand. I figured I wouldn't be able to stop such powerful players from doing whatever they wanted (Which was confirmed after my first session with [you]), so the only idea I had was an opponent which gets stronger the more successfully and determinedly the player carves away at the mystery. It was supposed to be classic "nice-job-breaking-it-hero" plotline, where the heroes' stubbornness/curiosity unleashes great danger and then they have to solve it.

>However, I didn't count on you guys being so determinedly non-lethal and effective.

>You were supposed to get your next hint when you went to the cult base, and learned that the sea monsters are indeed being controlled by the blood gods. You'd then relay than information, and then suddenly [friendly NPC] would tell you "Now the sea monsters are four times stronger and attack us in tandem with the pirates".

(Continued.)

>>52151811
>>52151744
Not bad, actually. You made the decision to stand around jerking off with investigation prior to fighting the enemies. Because holy fucking shit:

>We held off from fighting them directly, and instead traveled the world to uncover more about these "blood gods."

>We spent several sessions traveling the world and piecing together information

How fucking annoying is that? Imagine that you are the DM, set up some adventures, and... the PCs spend "several" (I'm guessing 2-3) overthinking everything.

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>>52151841

>That was when you were supposed to realize maybe you had been doing the wrong thing the whole time, by combining that with when you told them the pirates could heal and they suddenly got stronger and healed in battle.

>Alternatively, killing [NPC who tried to incinerate a city and that NPC's friend] would skip that bit and go straight to the memelogical power reveal, and increase their power, but not so much that the world be doomed.

>Also, I had explicitly stated that the Eldritch Horror was supposed to be combat heavy, and then you avoided the combats. And then won the one combat you did have so hard that [NPC who tried to incinerate a city] couldn't get away to save everyone's lives.

>Another hint you were supposed to have gotten was that the cult you found was based all around secrets, not blood. Basically, the power of a secret to them is both how important it is and how well it is hidden. So, if they give knowledge away, it's worth nothing, but if they hide it super well, and people find out about it anyway (what you guys did), they gain tons of power.

However, there are still so many holes in this.

Why did we get placed aboard the eldritch/cosmic horror storyline when unanimously voted against it?

Why did the GM not just plant information that would push us towards confronting the pirates and sea monsters directly?

Why punish the characters for actually doing heroic things and trying to solve the mystery?

How were we supposed to connect "the 'blood god' cultists are growing stronger" to "they are growing stronger because we are learning more about them"?

Why did we receive no other warnings and foreshadowing?

If secrets are power to these "blood gods," then why are they empowered by people revealing the secret, thereby making it no longer a secret?

Why does a small group of people learning more about these "blood gods" cause said memetic entities to reach critical mass, blow up a country, and doom the world?

(Continued.)

>>52151849
>It's a bad thing that my players take my world seriously and interact with it instead of just leeroy jenkinsing everything

I suspect OP is doing his best to make himself look good and the GM bad, but of all the things you're going to attack, it shouldn't be that.

>>52151888
>>52151849
Also, for that matter:

>ask your players what they want to play
>woops you chose the wrong choice with no clear indication which was which, enjoy playing what you didn't want to

It's like I'm ten years old reading shitty CYOA books again.

>>52151875
>Why does a small group of people learning more about these "blood gods" cause said memetic entities to reach critical mass, blow up a country, and doom the world?

Well Adslahnit, you were actively relaying your discoveries to your "allies" and purposefully spreading the information. Perhaps all it took was people actively trying to spread the information.

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>>52151875

I have posed all of these questions to the GM and still received no answers. In all likelihood, the GM will continue to defend this storyline.

I would dearly like to get the GM to realize that this was a poor idea and learn from it, so that when we restart the campaign, the GM can avoid similar mistakes. How can I best present this point?

>>52151888

I am trying to give verbatim quotes (with group-specific references edited and excised) to avoid bias, but there will probably be bias anyway.

If there is anything that needs clarification here, I would be happy to provide it.

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>>52151910

This is also another point. When we were given the in-character choice in the beginning, at no point did the GM even hint that one led to "the fairy storyline" while the other was for "the eldritch/cosmic horror storyline."

If the group had unanimously decided on the former, then why did the GM even give that in-character choice?

>>52151915
Aaaand they were supposed to know that how?

Aaaaand you refused to run the game they requested after giving it as an option for what reason?

Aaaaand you rocks fell everyone dies instead of giving them a way to fix it or at least continue playing because?

I'm willing to bet good money that the answer to all of those is 'Because I, the GM, wrote my game out like a visual novel before we even started'.

>>52151910
I dunno dude, "disappearance" strikes me as code for "fey bullshit" (that's kind of the MO behind the fey splat) and sea monsters strike me as code for "eldritch cthulhu tentacle bullshit." Not there aren't tentacool disappearances and ocean fey, but...

OP is extremely autistic and seems to take pride in misinterpreting things as aggressively as possible (or merely emulating Adslahnit), so who knows what the truth is, but seems logical.

>>52151949

>refused to run the game they requested

Seems like it was presented in character.

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>>52151915

We did not receive a chance to relay information by the time we psychically compelled that NPC who tried to incinerate a city.

The moment we succeeded at psychically compelling that NPC to share the information, that was apparently enough for the "blood gods" to reach critical mass, blow up a country, and doom the world.

It was a sudden and nonsensical leap from "pirates and sea monsters are growing stronger, not that we had any way of linking that to learning more about our enemies" to "a whole nation has been reduced to dust, and the world is doomed," with no warning signs in between.

>>52151951

Since the group had unanimously voted for the fey-themed storyline, we were under the impression that both initial plot hooks were fey-related.

We were given not even the slightest indication that the eldritch/cosmic horror storyline was still active and on the metaphorical table.

>>52151951
Okay but.

>Hey guys, do you want fey bullshit or cthulhu bullshit
>fey please
>okay btw the first option you take in the game has you deciding between fey bullshit and cthulhu bullshit
>yeah I know I already asked you
>but muh rails

There's not a lot to misinterpret here, unless OP is lying about literally everything that went down this game.

>>52151888
I dunno man, 3+ entire sessions of doing stuff you didn't want to do (that wasn't even of the offered storyline you didn't want) seems enough to infuriate people. Hell, many GMs will do a TPK after a single session where the players do stuff they don't like.

>>52151981
So, what would you have suggested the players do?

What system is this, anyway? I'm going to guess nMage.

>>52151990

Probably go do the thing? You gotta remember, this is 3+ whole sessions of Adslahnit and friends doing nothing but gathering information. If this is with nMage, probably with spells. While the GM wasn't really being nice, I can definitely imagine 3+ whole sessions of that shit being enough to make me terminate the campaign.

>>52152036
Which thing, though?

And why couldn't the GM just go 'okay you've learned all there is to know out there', especially if people are actively working to keep this information hidden? Or, you know, talk with his group and tell them that they're overpreparing? Or just not use the cthulhu stuff at all?

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>>52152036

We were using Strike! with a series of house rules to make the (shoddy) noncombat rules concrete and consistent.

If the GM did not want us going on a wild goose chase for information, the GM should have planted information that led us to a direct confrontation with the pirates and sea monsters, like a docking location and a hidden material weakness.

Telling us, "These pirates and sea monsters are constantly regenerating," is an indicator that perhaps the enemies should not be confronted without more research.

>>52152036
If only the GM had some way to communicate with his players and tell them he would like to move ahead with the story...

>>52152054
>Which thing, though?

Fight the pirates, I'm assuming.

> Or, you know, talk with his group and tell them that they're overpreparing?

Adslahnit aggressively misunderstands *everything* and reinterprets it with maximum perversity, from social cues to rules. This makes his reviews and stress testing of RPGs incredibly entertaining, but there is genuinely no telling what happened.

Its also quite possible that the GM didn't realize how incredibly frustrating the system would be. Again, 3 sessions.

>Or just not use the cthulhu stuff at all

I can definitely imagine destroying my campaign through any means necessarily (probably just "this turned out to be surprisingly unfun, bye") after 3 sessions of 20 Questions spells cast over and over again. In omage and nmage 1e, you can generally cast info spells forever, unlike in say D&D.

The way that PCs tend towards omniscience (short of a Seer casting "no you don't" 400x) in Mage strikes me as incredibly unfun and prone to making the ST feel like his hands are tied, and I think in retrospect I may have contributed to the death of a chronicle precisely through Time based 20 questions effects on everything.

>>52152070
>>52152076

Fair enough.

But yeah, I would guess the GM just decided he had no interest in the direction the PCs wanted to go.

>>52152106
System's Strike!, as seen above. Also, why the fuck would you think it's mage if it involves fighting pirates and sea monsters? What the fuck kind of Mage are you playing?

Also, what possible reason would you have to guess "nMage"?

>>52152106
Who the fuck is Adshlanit? Were you another player in the OP's group?

>>52152106
1) You ignored the point where I asked why the GM couldn't just go 'nope you don't learn anything else'.

2) You ignored the part were he gave the players a 50% chance of a game they did want to play and a 50% chance of a game they did not want to play, and apparently refused to communicate anything until rocks fell.

3) You seem to be projecting pretty hard from a past game there, senpai. Sorry OP brought up bad memories.

>>52152129
>Also, why the fuck would you think it's mage if it involves fighting pirates and sea monsters?

Mind compulsion spell. Also, its certainly no weirder than zeppelin battles upon the rings of Saturn (yes, different mage).

>Also, what possible reason would you have to guess "nMage"?

3 entire sessions of intel gathering sounds like the sort of dithering I expect of nMage, plus Adslahnit historically abuses WW/OP games a lot.

>>52152139
>the GM couldn't just go 'nope you don't learn anything else'.

GMs very often TPK/cancel when they run out of ideas, you will notice that DM/that player threads are 99% solvable by frank discussions with the players.

>You ignored the part

I did not. The point is that he could very well decide to destroy the campaign either way once losing interest. Probably found himself way, way over his head.

>projecting pretty hard

Don't have much information as to what was going on so have to speculate.

>>52152220
>Mind compulsion spell

Are you literally retarded? D&D has mind compulsion spells, and fits in much better with the idea of fighting pirates and sea monsters. Hell, you even admit that zeppelin battles on the rings of Saturn is a different mage all together. nMage is much more grounded.

It seems like you just made a wild assumption as to the identity of the poster (who, by the way, nobody else here knows who is), then projected your own experiences with ruining a mage game on him.

>>52152220
>GMs very often TPK/cancel when they run out of ideas, you will notice that DM/that player threads are 99% solvable by frank discussions with the players.

So, like I've been saying? And like clearly didn't happen?

>I did not. The point is that he could very well decide to destroy the campaign either way once losing interest. Probably found himself way, way over his head.

Also: GM CAN do whatever the fuck he wants with his game, sure, but that doesn't put his players at fault or make him a not shit GM.

>>52152220
Nobody even said 3 sessions.
Where are you getting the 3 session thing?

>>52152240
>Are you literally retarded?

It was just a guess based off OP, who I know best for, primarily, nmage.

>wild assumption as to the identity of the poster

The nmage part is a guess, the identity part not so much.

>>52152261
"Several" sessions.

>>52152273
So, yes.

You're literally retarded. Whoever this "Adslahnit" guy is (nobody else knows, in case you haven't noticed), you seem to have a personal grudge against him. But thus far, all you've done is make wild guesses, ignore everything said in the story, defend your baseless accusations fact, and die on the hill of defending obviously shitty GMing of all things.

Frankly, this Adslahnit guy sounds like much better company than you.

>>52152251
>but that doesn't put his players at fault or make him a not shit GM.

Of course not. I don't think it had much to do with attempting eldritch horror, though.

>>52152240
Also, the implication of fey storyline = disappearances did imply nwod, in the way that exsanguinated hooker corpses implies vampires.

>>52152303
Not fully clear on why you're mad.

>you seem to have a personal grudge against him

Not at all, I'm something of a fan.

>wild guesses

There is virtually nothing to discuss in this thread other than wildly guessing at what happened and what the GM was doing.

>defending

Autopsies aren't a "defense."

>>52152316
>fey storyline = disappearances

Alright. Let's ignore for a moment how snatching people up is kind of the Fae's MO in most stories about them. The Fae in Nwod have these tendencies to leave behind perfect copies of the person in question called "Fetches", and even then don't tend to take many people at once.

And a perfect copy of someone being left behind to live their life typically means you get no disappearance reports.

>>52152354
Obviously it was just a guess.

>>52152340
>>52152391
All of your "guesses" can be sniffed at as being dumb or wildly assumptive with two seconds of thought and logic.

At that point, they're not guesses. They're just you being a jackass and treating it like being Sherlock Holmes.

>>52152340
>Not at all, I'm something of a fan.
You mean a stalker.

>>52151875
Sounds like he was trying to do a dark fantasy game with some large, complicated ideas and it fell flat. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and let it go. Not every GM hits it out of the park every time.

>>52151910
>>52151946

He really shouldn't have. He should have gone for the story he wanted to tell and not offered something else. I can understand how it happens, games often get away from me, but it's a teachable moment.

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>>52153073

Before the game started, I told my GM that I preferred "heroic, high-spirited, light-hearted, optimistic, hopeful fantasy that can still get serious on occasion."

I received no indication from the GM that the game would be quite a departure from that.

>>52153192
Sorry to hear that.

>>52151744
It's hard to say how badly the GM fucked up (maybe you guys fucked up a lot too), though I can pinpoint:
>Asking the players "hey do you want to do the fey thing or the eldritch thing", and ignoring their answer, still making it a necessity they had to blunder into, and not saying anything when they prolonged it
>Failing to hint at the consequences of the party's actions properly
>Setting up the pirates and sea monsters as threats, then making it so learning the reasons behind them causes the "bad end" (how is the party supposed to fight them? learning early?)
>Giving the player answers late, instead of early, as outlined above, and making it so this means they've lost
>Failing to hint at the consequences of people's knowledge of the blood gods (seems like the "now the sea monsters are four times stronger" was not "sudden" enough)
>The party learning about the blood gods and how they work being the tipping point for dooming the world, because seriously, this is a highly contrived coincidence, and kinda fucking stupid (five individuals or so adding to global awareness means they can't be stopped... really?)

I hope you get to have the fey adventure you were excited about. And I suggest you get a better GM to run it...

>>52151849
>Not bad, actually. You made the decision to stand around jerking off with investigation prior to fighting the enemies.
>Because holy fucking shit: How fucking annoying is that?
Investigating what you're against is smart as fuck and you should reward players for trying to learn more about the world, instead of treating it like a cardboard backdrop. And depending on the DM and setting, failing to do research can mean setting yourself up for horrifying death. (See: Shadowrun)

i think your gm saw your campaign as a video game

that would explain a LOT

>>52154339
No, the GM saw this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bye_Bye_Man

>>52152138
This is a damn fine question. Who is adlalala?

>>52151744
Sounds like the DM really screwed up at the point when you were compelling that pyromaniac to tell you everything.

If he had given more time for the critical mass to build because you informed your allies and the info you gave to them was leaked out to the general public then it might have made more sense for you to accidentally a country.

Hey there 2hu/Adslahnit.

Here you are shit-talking a literal saint who was patient enough to run a game for you. I'm 99.9% certain you are misrepresenting what actually happened because you want the validation of /tg/. Great job, pat yourself on the back.

Shame on you.

>>52154674
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

>>52154674
How do you think he's misinterpreting it? I mean, there's nothing there to misinterpret.

>>52154841
>>52154878
Just host a game for 2hu and find out for yourselves. I fucking dare you. Anyone defending OP should put their money where their mouth is and try GMing for 2hu. You'll see what I mean.

>>52155070
You're dodging the question.

>>52152273
LITERALLY WHO
EXPLAIN WHO THE FAGGOT IS AND YOULL LOOK LESS RETARDED
ITS NOT HARD

>>52155143
I'll answer since you're obviously so uninformed.

2hu is autistic and misinterprets everything. He misses the most obvious clues and takes actions that are wildly inappropriate. Then, he gets frustrated, throws a tantrum, and starts blaming others because he does not understand what he has done.

If you don't believe me, take up my challenge.

>>52155202
Okay but

What in what OP's post could he have misinterpreted?

Unless he's not mistaken and is actually lying, there's not a lot to misinterpret about
>GM asked us if we wanted to play a fey game or a lovecraft game
>we said fey
>he ran lovecraft
>he did not inform us he was running lovecraft until it was rocks fall everyone dies

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>>52155070

>>52155324
I look forward to seeing the next thread about you and your game.

>>52155255
I'm certain he misinterpreted tons of social cues from NPCs and the GM that are entirely absent from his posts. He's misrepresenting all of this information by presenting it entirely from his own narrow point of view and intentionally placing all the blame on the GM. Then he's going to use the replies to this thread as ammunition to tell the GM why he's badwrong and he needs to do it 2hu's way. At no point did he ever consider the possibility that he missed something or made a mistake.

If the GM hasn't already disappeared because he can't take any more of this, I have half a mind to send this thread to the GM himself so he can save himself from a lot of drama.

You shouldn't believe everything you see on /tg/ and that includes what I am saying. Find out for yourself and try GMing for 2hu yourself.

>>52155466
Okay, but how the fuck did he misinterpret WE ASKED TO PLAY FEY AND HE RAN LOVECRAFT AND ONLY TOLD US AFTER THE FACT?

Holy fuck you are ignoring the point entirely.

>>52155519
This isn't Lovecraft. This is a butchering of "memetics."

>>52155324
Feel free to join. 2hu is already there.

https://discord.gg/df5eF

>We Accidentally Blew up a Country and Doomed the World with Memes

/pol/---->

>>52155551
>Before the campaign started, the GM offered us two choices of storylines. The first was a fey-themed adventure, and the second was an eldritch/cosmic horror adventure. The group unanimously settled on the fey plot.

I'm sorry I'm using Lovecraft as a shorthand, anon.

Anyway this is going nowhere fast so:

Unless we assume that OP is lying, which is possible but not what anyone actually seems to be arguing, we know for certain that the GM asked the players if they wanted game X or game Y. They said they wanted game Y unanimously, and the GM ran game X.

There is nothing ambiguous or open to interpretation about that. It is also kind of a shit GM thing to do.

I can't speak for the rest of the game or OP's behavior because I wasn't there, but lying to your players about something so fundamentally large is what a shit GM does.

>>52155324
Plot twist: 2hu is actually just this random faggot >>52155589 who is completely unrelated to OP in any way and wants someone to run a game for him

>>52155808
m night shamalamadingdong.gif

To me it seems like the DM told you that you would have the choice of two storylines they meant in-game but your group thought it meant that you would tell the DM which you wanted to play. Then in character you chose the obviously not fey storyline rather than the obviously fey choice of a missing person. The along the elderitch storyline your group fucks up in the worst way possible, doing the exact wrong thing to do. Your DM reacted to the decisions your group made in character and you got mad about them.

>>52156102
>your group fucks up in the worst way possible
>investigating is fucking up
??????????

>>52156133
In the context of the adventure trying to get as much information about elderitch horrors is the worst thing to do. Thus fucking up.

>>52156183
They didn't know they were on that adventure.

>>52156183
They didn't know that doing so would be the worst thing to do.

They didn't even know what adventure they were on.

>>52156198
They should have thought about the options and thought hmm ... investigating missing people -fey, and/or sea monsters-elderitch and chosen accordingly.

>>52156256
Why would they assume that one or the other led to eldritch horrors when the GM asked their input on what game they wanted him to run and no one said eldritch horrors?

>>52155466
If it was 2hu, then why did the whole group get bamboozled by the GM too?

>>52156308
I think that there was a critical miss communication between the DM and the players where the DM said something that could be interperated in multiple ways, something along the lines of "You will chose what you want to play in the adventure.". When the players in character choose the elderitch storyline he decided that he would run that. In short I think that it was a misunderstanding and nobodies fault really.

>>52157454
Even if that happened, the fact that the players unanimously said that they wanted to play the fey adventure means that the eldritch adventure should have been off the table, full stop.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

I get the feeling that most of the arguing against OP is coming from his GM...

>>52152054
>Or, you know, talk with his group
When has that ever happened in the history of complaining about your GM on /tg/, besides threads like this where the GM and player both passive-aggressively flirt with each other while we get to watch?

>>52152138
>>52154527
Touhoufag.

>>52151875
>Eldritch Horror
>combat heavy
why

why would you do this

This is a bad idea made worse by a lousy execution.

The architecture of the idea obviously precludes anyone from directly informing the players about the "their power increases as you learn more about them" phenomenon, although really that's the only sensible thing to learn about them, so if you WERE going to say something, that would be it. So the essential nature of the campaign involves hoping that the players catch on, and do so quickly, because otherwise the world is doomed.

Having created a campaign which absolutely hinges on the players making a particular inference about something that can't be stated directly, the GM then actively misinforms the players about the genre of the game they're playing. This was stupid. But it could have been salvaged if the antagonists made some thematic sense; if, for example, people who learned too much about them became cultists, or lost their sanity, or something else. However, the GM decided to have his "blood gods" represented by pirates and sea monsters, who simply get stronger as the players uncover more about the beings controlling them. Presumably hinting that the "blood gods" were connected to communication or ideas in some way might have put the players on the right track, but, again, the concept itself gets in the way— apparently the game ends if the players learn that they're not supposed to learn about the "blood gods"!

Additionally, it's hard to imagine how this concept could possibly have been satisfying even if it went the way the GM thought it would: "What's that thing?" "I dunno. Let's kill it!" "Yay! It is dead." "And then nobody ever learned anything about the newly-dead thing ever again. The End." I don't even know why the "cosmic horror" subplot was there in the first place; if the GM wanted to hurry up and get it over with, and the players didn't vote for it, why include it at all?

(Continued)

>>52160933
Then there's the aforementioned issue with running a combat-heavy horror game. "Horror" generally implies that combat is going to be very dangerous or outright suicidal. If you have powerful players doing whatever they want, it's not horror. "The hubris of the PCs unleashes a terrible evil upon the world" is not a bad concept, but a direct, mystical connection between the amount of stuff the players know and the strength of their antagonists is just about the dumbest possible way to do it.

Investigation, on the other hand, is usually one of the smartest things you can do if you're trying to stop some kind of terrible monstrosity you can't destroy with force alone. It's something that can be done effectively by a few talented people— whereas you really want a navy if you're going to fight sea monsters and pirates.

In effect, the GM created a scenario where the most sensible thing to do was the thing that ended the world, and then defended it with

>I don't push my players towards the "right" answer

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OP, if this is true:
Stop playing with this DM.
He doesn't sound reliable on the factor on trying to keep in mind what the party wants -or- being able to do an horror plot decently (pulling out a memetic-spreading elder power around to a party that didn't agree to do lovecraftian bullshit? Twat move).
By what you said, he'll attempt to do the same next game. You can probably get to a better game that doesn't punish players for acting more than murderhobos. Or, if you went passive-aggressive on him, just act like a muderhobo on everything like that plot required.
Still, better do the wiser thing, and just talk with him. Tell him that this shit won't fly, and you're not interested in further BS like this one.
He's the DM, and he makes the rules and choices. But just as a DM makes the rules, a player can decide to walk off.

Just to make something clear, I am a second player from that game and OP's is right, this is how this happened. I think it is a result of our GM having lots of loose threads after two other players left the game. The "blood gods" storyline was supposed to be their part but we were given a choice of taking it. I still have no idea why there even was a choice if we just said that we prefer Fey storyline.

>>52161924
What happened to make the other players leave?

>>52161924
Did it seem like they enjoyed getting fucked over at random for no good reason?
And/or were fond of murderhoboing?

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>tfw Touhoufag's shitty reputation is working and he only gets games with increasingly shitty GMs

It is a good day. How long until you start paying someone to GM for you, 2hu?How desperate will you get?

>>52162532
oh, he already did that, I'm pretty sure

>>52162532
Isn't he rich as fuck or something and thus doing so isn't a problem anyways?
Or was that a different person?

>>52160933
>how this concept could possibly have been satisfying even if it went the way the GM thought it would: "What's that thing?" "I dunno. Let's kill it!" "Yay! It is dead." "And then nobody ever learned anything about the newly-dead thing ever again. The End."

Postmodern storytelling.

>>52163777
>MFW every random encounter is actually composed of OP's GM's shitty memetic monster troops.

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>>52151849
>>52153773
>>52155202
>>52155466
>>52155519

To add onto this chain of discussions, something that immediately seems contradictory about the whole thing is the amount of devotion placed into the wrong parts of the game.

>"We want the fey game of course!"
>"A choice about pirates, fuck yeah!"
>Instead of directly tackling the pirates, do the cosmic horror option of hitting up the library and investigating
>Take the cosmic horror option of investigating cults involving massive blood gods
>Take the cosmic horror option of using relatively evil magic to force an otherwise good person to give them information.
>This covers SEVERAL sessions spend several sessions (aka the average of 12-16 hours spread out over the course of a month assuming 3-4 sessions)
>DM: "Well, gee, since you guys have spent a month of your time into this, why don't we just play cosmic horror instead?"
>OP: "FUCK YOU DM THIS IS THE WORST SHIT EVER YOU BETTER BELIEVE THIS IS GOING ONTO 4CHAN!

Side Point of Stupidity: What, OP, you spent all that time doing research on unrelated blood gods, but it never occurred to you to maybe investigate why the pirates got stronger EVERY time you sent a letter to informants? Seriously?

>>52165872
That may well be why they kept investigating. Shit doesn't just suddenly get stronger, after all, not without some outside influence. Like, say, some fey shithead having some fun fucking around with everything because they can.

I know I definitely wouldn't have pegged it as being due to spreading information.

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>>52166176
But it doesn't seem like any of their activities were related to the underlying "why", but rather the information about the cult at general, which is a different mindset altogether.

There's a difference between
"Oh shit, the cult got more powerful!...why? That's odd. We better either deal with them now before they get MORE powerful, or find out more about the source of their direct power and see if we can cut it off."
vs
"Oh they got more powerful? Well, that can wait until we hit up this library instead. Maybe talk to a few peeps in some crazy houses"

I mean, some other anon above said something along the lines of "How is investigation the wrong move???", but isn't the act of investigating in and of itself the wrong move to make considering the players who choose the genre?

>Hey, I want a lighthearted fairy themed adventure
>I also want it to be filled with swash buckling pirates!
>Gee, thanks GM for setting up an entire session about the pirates for us.
>Oh, but we're not going to fight them. Instead, we're going to run into the local town and start an intensive, 12+ hour real time investigation into these guys.

Their actions are making a fat statement, and those are actions of cosmic-horror investigators, not those of people who want fey-themed swashbuckling adventure, are they not? It's not hard to imagine that the DM just slowly started working in the cosmic horror plot into the main game after the first 2 weeks went by with no pirate fighting.

The meme thing would have been hard to predict, but they shouldn't have been doing that much heavy research into it. It wasn't even like Shadowrun style research where they find blueprints of the ships and figure out that the captain is weak for women and ale.

Nothing adds up about the player actions that we know vs what OP is saying and how the DM "unfairly" treated them.

>avatar fagging fucking retarded piece of shit pork eye loser

Wow you really are a heap of human garbage, great thread loser

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>>52165872

>Instead of directly tackling the pirates, do the cosmic horror option of hitting up the library and investigating
We initially gathered information on the pirates and the sea monsters directly. From that, we discovered that the pirates and sea monsters were growing stronger and constantly regenerating, as established the opening post.

>Take the cosmic horror option of investigating cults involving massive blood gods
We were under the impression that we were under the fey storyline. "Blood god" seems like generic fantasy, not mythos.

>DM: "Well, gee, since you guys have spent a month of your time into this, why don't we just play cosmic horror instead?"
The GM had informed us that we were actually on the eldritch storyline only after we had doomed the world.

>it never occurred to you to maybe investigate why the pirates got stronger EVERY time you sent a letter to informants? Seriously?
There was absolutely nothing to suggest that corresponding with informants and the pirates and sea monsters growing stronger were linked.

>"Oh shit, the cult got more powerful!...why? That's odd. We better either deal with them now before they get MORE powerful, or find out more about the source of their direct power and see if we can cut it off."
This is what we were doing.

>isn't the act of investigating in and of itself the wrong move to make considering the players who choose the genre?
No, because "fey storyline" hardly means "no investigation," and if anything, actually suggests just as much investigation.

>Their actions are making a fat statement, and those are actions of cosmic-horror investigators, not those of people who want fey-themed swashbuckling adventure, are they not?
It is spurious to claim that only cosmic horror investigators would actually do research on their enemies and try to piece together what is actually going on.

Why even discourage us by telling us that they had seemingly insurmountable mystical powers?

>>52151744
>In an earlier thread (>>52115909 → #), I recounted an experience wherein our party was performing splendidly throughout several sessions, only to abruptly blow up a country and doom the whole world, all without warning

So you're /pol/

>>52166669
Eh, I got half way through your post and realized how autistic you are. I don't feel like staying up til 3am to teach you how your actions make the game as opposed to your intentions or what you say. Do whatever you like.

>>52166767
>only Cthulhu investigators investigate enemies

>>52166798
kys

>>52166767
Dude, just because you were point-by-point refuted doesn't mean you have to be a little bitch about it.

>>52166808
This.

>>52166815
>Over explaining why they did what they did and using a lot of words
>"refutation"

>>52166830
>refutes in one post what you needed two posts to argue

>tldr lol

>>52166854
>""""refutation"""" means greentext and words
Okay, I think it's past your bedtime, anon.

>>52166865
Same to you.

>>52167663
kys

>>52156183
Oh come one, that would be blatant metagaming. Sure, in Lovecraftian stories learning more about the eldritch drives the main character insane, but in the game the PCs have no reason to think that they're in such a situation.

>>52151744
>Touhoufag spergs out in his usual retarded fashion and >0 fa/tg/uys actually indulge his autismal crap
Everyone who did this should kill themselves and 2hu should commit double suicide.

>>52167759
the porkeye pedo is the worst poster on /tg/ hands down

>>52156183
This isn't even the case, investigating the ancient evil is one of the things that lets characters in those settings stand a chance of fighting back.

>>52168312
But they always go crazy for investigating.

>>52168325
Not always, and they do investigate the cults at the very least.

Otherwise there's no adventure and no story.

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How would YOU have done the GM's storyline better, /tg/?

>>52168827
Fucking kill yourself

>>52163610
Maybe, but he sure isn't working and money is not infinite.

>>52168827
First, i would have kicked out OP.

>>52167663
>literally "u-u too" reply
Not him but it is clear to me who is the bigger autist here

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>>52166467
>"Oh shit, the cult got more powerful!...why? That's odd. We better either deal with them now before they get MORE powerful, or find out more about the source of their direct power and see if we can cut it off."
>vs
>"Oh they got more powerful? Well, that can wait until we hit up this library instead. Maybe talk to a few peeps in some crazy houses"

These are the same goddamn thing, phrased differently. You can investigate the source of someone's power and try to cut it off by researching in a library and talking to people. What's the actual difference between those two choices besides you laying on the hyperbolic "hurrdurr" in one of them?

Seriously your post reads like
>They got stronger? We should investigate the source of their power and why it's increasing
>vs
>DURR THEY STRONG? WE HURR FIND OUT WHY

>>52169169
>You can investigate the source of someone's power and try to cut it off by researching in a library and talking to people.
No, you take them head on in a fight and try to figure out what's going on mid-fight.

>>52169252
That seems like a really good way to get your ass killed.

>>52169252
I mean if you want to investigate regenerating pirates and sea monsters with four times your strength by trial and error with every weapon you have, be my guest.

Or you could go to a library and research possible sources of regeneration and their counters first.

>>52169252
you're retarted

Remember kids, the good thing to do is mash your face against unknown and overwhelmingly powerful foes until you die, because roleplaying is bad and creative solutions are bad

How hard is it to understand? Kill things, take their stuff. Get your quest from the message board and get into the dungeon.

>>52169399
you should open a treasure chest, find a magic sword and use it to fucking kill yourself

>>52169332
>>52169335
>>52169379
It works all the time in JoJo.

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>>52169332
>>52169335
Why did the party, knowing that the pirates/sea monsters regenerated, not just figure out a way to knock out or restrain the pirates/sea monsters?

>>52168827
Made the party realise the nature of the threat they were dealing with. Lay the situation out as they investigate, hinting at it subtly at first and then with more explicit detail later on. Once they realise the nature of the threat they're dealing with, set up the villains and let them work out exactly how they're going to stop the meme gods from coming into existence. Force them to juggle between multiple different solutions which have different requirements, different challenges and the like (forcible repression, creating a grand distraction, spreading some kind of counter-meme, looking into the past and exploring old dungeons to see if there's any evidence of people taking them on before, etc).

Fill up the opposing cult with a cast of colourful/interesting npcs, some of them with interesting combat gimmicks and some of them with interesting non-combat gimmicks, and then have them react to the party's choices as the game goes on.

>>52169702
But if the party learns the nature of the living memes, then the memes will blow everything up.

>>52169758
Then you can't have an actual plot and you throw that idea back to the drawing board because it's a bad joke.

>>52155620
underrated post

>>52151915
>Well Adslahnit, you were actively relaying your discoveries to your "allies" and purposefully spreading the information. Perhaps all it took was people actively trying to spread the information.
>Another hint you were supposed to have gotten was that the cult you found was based all around secrets, not blood. Basically, the power of a secret to them is both how important it is and how well it is hidden. So, if they give knowledge away, it's worth nothing, but if they hide it super well, and people find out about it anyway (what you guys did), they gain tons of power.
By GM's own logic, when PCs spread the news to their allies, it did nothing at all. Allies gained the knowledge without any effort, so it is worthless and does not empower the gods.
Only the knowledge of the player characters counts. Maybe only the OP character's knowledge, as he was the one who directly interrogated the NPC and uncovered her secrets.
Yes, one can argue that allies worked to gain information by helping the party, but that's retarded. By that logic, evil cult can just go and spread out booklets about their gods. A person must have learned to read in order to understand the booklet, and that's a lot of effort spent to earn the information listed, so gods are empowered.

>>52168827
Not run it, because the party had unanimously decided on fey bullshit instead of eldritch bullshit.

>>52151841

...Yeah, if I wanted to only have one specific way to solve a problem, I'd play vidya. Hell, there are even videogames that do better about allowing multiple paths to victory than your DM. Ditch him for being a lying faggot on top of railroading.

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>>52151875
>>Another hint you were supposed to have gotten was that the cult you found was based all around secrets, not blood. Basically, the power of a secret to them is both how important it is and how well it is hidden. So, if they give knowledge away, it's worth nothing, but if they hide it super well, and people find out about it anyway (what you guys did), they gain tons of power.
What?

>>52169650
Presumably "figure out a way to knock out or restrain" would have been one of the research goals. At the fucking library.

Why do people keep suggesting they learn more without learning more?