A new experience today...

I have been playing in a game here on RPOL that was set up a few months ago (GM and game name withheld). The game hadn't been going very well, with the GM seemingly reluctant to build any real flavour leaving us players wondering what was going on. We get to our first battle with an opponent we can't see (hiding on a ledge above us). We naturally retreat rather than risk getting killed (1st level, only 4hp). So, the GM has the hidden troll jump down and attack.

Now the GM decides he wants us each to take turns in combat. First Player A must declare their action, the GM tells them what dice to roll, they roll, the GM interprets results, then we move on to Player 2. There are 5 PCs so one round of combat takes about 2 weeks. Several playes express concern about the GMs method and I have the temerity to explain how I run combat in a game I run. I'm not saying I'm the expert, but wanted to warn him that he risked players getting bored.

GMs reaction? He quits the game and makes me GM! Didn't ask me, just assigned the game to me and vanished into the ether! WTF?!?

Needless to say I'm not impressed by this behaviour.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of petulance? I've had GMs disappear without trace or delete a game without warning, but never just dump their crappy game on someone else without permission. I wonder if that is even allowed under the rules of RPOL?

I once joined a (X) game, a system which comparitavely across rpol I know little of.  I DO however have experience with the system, and own the book.  As a result I join and begin asking the GM all sorts of what I percieved as sumb questions, I think the GM saw them as intelligent, I soon became a co gm and then GM, the GM stepped down and became player without letting me know their itentions for the game at all, then they told me that they thought I did not like them and so they had given up on the game.  I know had a game to run and write based upon really nothing at all.

In reply to Jarodemo (msg # 1):

Can't say that I have had the same experience, but congrats on your new game!

:)

Let's put it this way... RPoL has no rules against it.  How a GM chooses to run, or not run, his own game is entirely up to him (with the exception that he must comply with various site wide rules (such as the Adult Game Policy, and our rules against distributing copyright material).

Or HER :P  silly BBR

Or her.  Or their.  Or its.  Yes.

I happened to me once long ago.  I can't even remember the situation surrounding the transfers.  What's worse is the GM who dumped it on me, had the game dumped on her after she agreed to help CO-GM to do minor assistance creating threads and the like.  When it got dumped on her, I remember her bitching about it, then just a few months later it was plopped into my hands.  And I wasn't even a CO-GM at the time, or at least I don't think I was.

I love my fellow nerds, geeks and gamers, but many of us can be very tightly wound, and some can have the emotional maturity of a kid who was just told there was no Santa Claus.    Also. You never know what is happening in Real Life, so whatever we do might be"the last straw".


Goodness knows I'm not a paragon of virtue in that regard.    I've over reacted to many things here on rpol, and in Real Life as well.
I'm sorry that original gm didn't say anything (though I suspect we're better off not knowing *smiles*).

I remember becoming the gm of a game here on rpol for the first time in a similar way.   The original gm asked my to be his assistant "just to help with npcs", then he vanished three months later, not to reappear for five years.

To the OP: I have a feeling that was the GM's first experience of GMing (probably even of playing) online.  That method of doing combat may work OK FTF, but by the time you finish even one round online most are bored, and the rest will be by the time you've done the whole combat and it's three months later.

I've ended up with GMing games where the original GM couldn't, for whatever reason, carry on, but no one has ever just dumped it on me without asking, without me being a coGM, etc.  I think I'd have to be really invested, else I'd just post to all the players what had happened and delete the game.  It's not the sort of thing RPoL can really make rules against, but it's rude IMO, and not very practical.  Some allowance to be made of course, if the original GM has some life altering, unexpected happening, but even then if s/he/it can get online to change you to GM, surely there could also be a post giving at least a minimal explanation.

Don't be silly! Next you'll be telling me there is no Easter Bunny :)

In reply to Brianna (msg # 9):

I did point that out. F2F initiative works okay but with PBP with players in different time zones it can be a slow process.

Also, as you said, if something major happened in RL the GM would simply go silent (as I have experienced, including when our GM in another game broke her back at work).

Luckily one of the other players has now volunteered to take over so it looks like I won't be GM for long!

There is no Easter Bunny. Nor is there a Black Peter. Nor does that dude you see in the artist depictions rowing the Kwanza Canoe exist. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln was neither a Vampire Hunter, nor particularly honest.Just thought you should know.

What is this Kwanza canoe?

It's a Futurama joke.

http://theinfosphere.org/Kwanzaa-bot

I've seen games get dumped, even myself having to do just that during turbulent times offline, but I've never seen a game dumped onto another player 'cold turkey'. I've seen requests by a GM for someone to take over, or even certain players requesting to take over, but never it being dropped on them without warning.

That is pretty interesting, though now the weight is on your shoulders and those suddenly in your graces look to you to keep it going, even if you have no intention of GMing, which isn't fair.

That is a product of the play-by-post scene allowing a wide spectrum of peoples and personalities to mingle and clash as they will. I've seen similar behavior from top players in a campaign, on and offline.