Have you ever just said "To hell with this" and left a campaign?

[Tasha]

I just walked out of a game today. Not permanently, I hope. I went to my regular 4.0 DnD campaign to find that the GM, having found a complete set of 1st edition "Basic" DnD materials had 'temporarily' translated all our characters to that version so we could play in the module he had acquired. So, my 16th level elven Ranger/Cleric became a 10th level Elf in a different campaign world...
After 2.5 hours of boredom, I told the GM I was leaving, and that I'd see everyone next week when we would resume are normal campaign.

Now that is something I can't understand. He put in all of the effort to convert all of the PCs to the older edition, but somehow couldn't plug 4e monsters into a old school module? I just have to shake my head at that. Sounds like he has a bit of the "I can't change published stuff" meme that infects many D&D gamers.

[Ian Mackinder]

Dunno why he didn't convert the module to 4e. Seems to me like that would have been a lot less trouble all round.

[archermoo]

I can't think of a game that I have ever walked out of. But then again I seem to be pretty unusual in that for the most part all of my gaming has been done with people who were already friends of mine. Basically gaming has always been something that I have done to spend time with friends.

[Hermit]

A few times, I've had to quit online games. It's harder to communicate there, and misunderstandings about expectations can go very wrong from the get go. Sometimes that's been more my fault than the GMs. Though I suppose the phrase "it's not you, baby, it's me" is probably suspect

[casualplayer]

Dunno why he didn't convert the module to 4e. Seems to me like that would have been a lot less trouble all round.

No lie. Maps are maps, storylines are storylines. Plug in 4th Ed. monster stats or nearest equivalent and go.

[Ian Mackinder]

No lie. Maps are maps, storylines are storylines. Plug in 4th Ed. monster stats or nearest equivalent and go.

Exactly.

Heck, I've lost count of the times I've seen GMs "recycle" modules and material - not just from one system to another but totally different genres as well. Stuff from 'Top Secret' used for Traveller, a D&D dungeon adventure in Champions, 7th Sea ship plans for a Pulp HERO treasure hunt, and so on.

[Prestige]

It probaly(the DMing converting the characters back to Basic D&D instead of the adventure to 4th) more to do with the nostaligic feel of the game back then for anyotyher reason. I can understand that.

[Nolgroth]

It probaly(the DMing converting the characters back to Basic D&D instead of the adventure to 4th) more to do with the nostaligic feel of the game back then for anyotyher reason. I can understand that.

I can understand that as well. On the other hand, unless everybody in the group was so inclined, then you are going to have one or more players that do not share that understanding. They came to play a specific game with a specific character and (from what I can tell) this was a last minute switcheroo. Those kinds of games can be enormous fun for the GM to tell a story, but more often than not, disregarding the expectations of the players is a bad idea.

I think the GM should have been more inclined to ask the players if they wouldn't mind playing an old school D&D game as an alternate game rather than foisting it upon them. The poster who left the game may well have been more inclined to participate. Don't know for sure, but I know I would be. At least I would have known ahead of time if overruled by the desires of the group.

[Shadow Hawk]

I can understand that as well. On the other hand, unless everybody in the group was so inclined, then you are going to have one or more players that do not share that understanding. They came to play a specific game with a specific character and (from what I can tell) this was a last minute switcheroo. Those kinds of games can be enormous fun for the GM to tell a story, but more often than not, disregarding the expectations of the players is a bad idea.

I think the GM should have been more inclined to ask the players if they wouldn't mind playing an old school D&D game as an alternate game rather than foisting it upon them. The poster who left the game may well have been more inclined to participate. Don't know for sure, but I know I would be. At least I would have known ahead of time if overruled by the desires of the group.

Hi, I think you're refering to my post.
It was a total surprise to all of us, including his fiance.
While I have no nostalgia for Basic DnD (I started in 1980 with Advanced DnD and never played Basic), if asked I would have particpated in a one shot. I'd even play a premade character if that was easier. But...
This was my character, made into something he wasn't against his/my will. My character 'design' was a specialist archer, a 'one trick pony' so to speak (I shoot it with lots of arrows, does it die?) with psychological issues (he liked to kill things, but didn't want to kill the wrong things... a lawful good psychopath). Transfering that character into Basic DnD changed his abilities and focus, and left his psych issues somewhere else.

So. Yes, if asked, I would have played a different game. Even one I had never played before. I don't know if anyone else left early. I don't know what (if anything) happened after I left.
I tried not to make a scene, and left when we had our first break after about 2 hours of play, so I didn't walk out in mid game.

[Nolgroth]

Hi, I think you're refering to my post.

Yup. Seemed as if the last few posts were referring to it, but the one I quoted seemed to directly reference your post. I'm not going to quote your whole post, but you confirmed what I suspected. In my experience, being honest with the players is a priority. If I tell my players that we are going to run a Dark Champions game with their characters being part of an elite Special Forces squad and have them build characters, I better be straight with them. I start it out and suddenly they get kidnapped by aliens and whisked away to an alternate universe where their firearms are useless and not a one of them has relevant skills or backgrounds than I should expect my players to collectively give me the bird and refuse to play.

[Prestige]

I can understand that as well. On the other hand, unless everybody in the group was so inclined, then you are going to have one or more players that do not share that understanding. They came to play a specific game with a specific character and (from what I can tell) this was a last minute switcheroo. Those kinds of games can be enormous fun for the GM to tell a story, but more often than not, disregarding the expectations of the players is a bad idea.

I think the GM should have been more inclined to ask the players if they wouldn't mind playing an old school D&D game as an alternate game rather than foisting it upon them. The poster who left the game may well have been more inclined to participate. Don't know for sure, but I know I would be. At least I would have known ahead of time if overruled by the desires of the group.

I agree with you. It was handled poorly...and confirmed by the OP of that post...I was more replying to the posters who did not understand what the DM was doing. And I don't blame Shadow Hawk on temporarily bowing out of the game.

[Nolgroth]

...I was more replying to the posters who did not understand what the DM was doing. And I don't blame Shadow Hawk on temporarily bowing out of the game.

Cool deal.

[Tasha]

A few times, I've had to quit online games. It's harder to communicate there, and misunderstandings about expectations can go very wrong from the get go. Sometimes that's been more my fault than the GMs. Though I suppose the phrase "it's not you, baby, it's me" is probably suspect

Now I have had to walk away from a couple of online games due to my expectations being much higher than the game could give.

[Nolgroth]

Now I have had to walk away from a couple of online games due to my expectations being much higher than the game could give.

Sorry to hear that. May I ask if they were chat-based or PbP?

[Tasha]

Yup. Seemed as if the last few posts were referring to it, but the one I quoted seemed to directly reference your post. I'm not going to quote your whole post, but you confirmed what I suspected. In my experience, being honest with the players is a priority. If I tell my players that we are going to run a Dark Champions game with their characters being part of an elite Special Forces squad and have them build characters, I better be straight with them. I start it out and suddenly they get kidnapped by aliens and whisked away to an alternate universe where their firearms are useless and not a one of them has relevant skills or backgrounds than I should expect my players to collectively give me the bird and refuse to play.

This bait and switch as a campaign start was something that came up in my thread on building characters. I can't understand why a GM would have a Player spend all of the time and energy building a character and a background based on what the GM said that the campaign was all about. Then switch to something completely different using the same characters. It's like the GM doesn't understand the fish out of water sub genre that well. In that trope/subgenre the Protagonists are thrust into a world radically different than their own (ie Modern characters thrust into a Fantasy world). The thing is that in Genre, the characters almost always have skills that are appropriate to the new world (ie Fencing or SCA training, interest in archaic arms and armor, History etc).