Frustrated with friends in gaming group

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Wondering if I should lay off my gaming group for a bit, or cut down on time spent?

TL/DR -- I found an infinite money trick in D&D 3.5 that no one else in the world has put on the internet. My friends think I'm stupid or something by telling me things so obvious about the trick I'd have to be brain dead to not know it. I have DM'd and played in games before. I'm not a noob. This isn't the first time this has happened between my group and me.

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So. I play D&D 3.5 with friends. In this one campaign, I'm a kobold specialist wizard in conjuration. I crowd control, and in one case used Xong-Yong Energons to rape a vampire in preparation for the Ranger to take it out. While researching for better or interesting creatures to summon, I came across the Chain Devil. It's fairly good at crowd control. Underpowered at higher levels, but dipping into Cosmic Descryer allows summons with higher HD.

During this research, I discovered an Infinite money trick in D&D 3.5 that was never officially fixed through errata or published version changes, and no one seems to have discovered this that I can find. Someone posted on reddit about using chain devils in really useful ways, but not infinite money.

It basically goes, you take a 10ft chain. Have a smith break it into small two-link lengths of chain. You now have quite a few effective zero length chains but quite a few of them. I estimate 40 of them. The Two links should still constitute a chain. You summon a chain devil, and when it can it activates the dancing chain ability and extends the length of chain by 15ft. It can do that with four chains at once. The ability is so poorly worded. There is no limit on times of day to use the ability. No limit on how many times you can extend the length of the chain, nor is there anything about the length added on disappearing at the end of use. Only that you can do it when you activate the Dancing Chains. At the end of the Dancing Chains ability, the Chain Devil uses its move action to drop the chains. Repeat. With the right feats and build, a 20th lvl full CL spellcaster can keep a Chain Devil in play for 40-60 rounds. Multiply the qty of chain devils by however many spells and spell like abilities summon them and some metamagic, and you can make really long chains. I figured it out and with the build I made, turned 3 chains(90gp cost, plus maybe some overhead to pay the smith to break them up) into 10500 gp worth of chain in less than 9 minutes of game time.

Repeat every day for a year, and the gp adds up. Go Epic lvl, and I figured a build that uses a human, vampire & vampire lord templates, and becomes a red wizard at some point, can use Red Wizard circle magic with a combination of epic feats like spell stowaway, and improved spell capacity and the other circle magic participants casting the right spells, to summon so many Chain Devils over time, that the amount of chain being made is absurdly high. Then if you make the chain material something valuable like platinum or thinaum(weapon only, but a chain is a makeshift weapon), you're making billions of gp every few weeks of game time.

Time to open an inter-dimensional multi-plane hardware store that sells all the kinds of chain you need. -- Chance Chapman's Inter-dimensional House of Chain, or some other cheesy name.



But that's not what's important. It's just what it triggered again. This isn't the first time, I've become frustrated with my gaming group and friends.

The very first person who I explained this to, once I did the math, responded back that a DM would not allow it to happen. DM Fiat would prevent it from ruining the game.


So as someone who has RP'd since I think about 11 or 12, and has DM'd herself a few times, I felt like I was slapped in the face. Could someone please explain to me what DM Fiat is... because apparently I don't know what it is.... Except I do.

I responded with the phrase, No s**t.

And they just rolled on saying I'd ruin the in-game economy where the new currency would be chain(which was funny), or inflate everything.

And I just wanted to have Nicholas Cage there doing his You Don't say thing. I wanted to yell at them that they're Captain Obvious. But I refrained from it. I instead said. I don't care about the in game aspects. This is just a purely mechanical, by the rules exploit. What someone tries to do with it, isn't my problem. I just discovered this and no one else had figured this that I can find a record of. Others have responded the same way.

I just wanted a pat on the back. Acknowledgement of my logical ingenuity for finding an exploit no one else did.

I felt good that I figured this out. That I alone came to this conclusion, and everyone I game with is treating me like I'm stupid.

This isn't the first time it's happened. I've found other things in game that completely f**k the game play because it's worded so poorly. I'm not trying to use them to f**k the game. I just want to share them with everyone, and I get shutdown everytime because the DM won't allow it. I'd understand if I try an exploit in game and the DM shut me down by Fiat, but this isn't in game. I'm not stupid enough to purposely break the game and ruin it for everyone. This is just so frustrating that this is the response I get.

DnD isn't about winning. It's about hanging out with and more specifically drinking beer with your friends. If you "win" the game to the extent that you have no further goals in need of achieving, what is the point of playing??? It will disrupt the social dynamics of the group of friends.

I've never played DnD, but as I understand it half the fun is the chance for imminent catastrophic failure. Infinite gp takes away that "risk" and thus the element of fun. I had a friend who got to max level in maple story. It required months and months of grinding one set of mobs. Once he got max level he solo'd a few mid and high level bosses and promptly quit the game: there was nothing left for him to achieve.

Coming up with a nifty math trick is a fun pursuit to me as well, as it involves learning the rules well enough to know how to break them without actually breaking them. However for most people thats just an extra level of meta that is besides the point.

You may feel like this discovery is praiseworthy and you were hoping to be rewarded/respected for your find, and it might make an interesting story so long as you preface it with "lets not actually do this."

It's sort of like playing Counterstrike. I had a friend who used wall-hacks and auto-aimbot. his toon would literally just spin in place and kill anyone anywhere on the map. He found it endlessly amusing and would laugh about people complaining in chat or how he brought a sever from full to vacant with rage-quiters. TBH, it was no more fun to be on his team than the other one because you didn't deserve the win. Compare that to my other friend I played battlefield 2 with. We were both fairly good and while we couldn't always turn the game around single-handed we got accused of hacking a lot, even though we were not. That was fun, because we were winning because of our achievements and felt we deserved the wins.

So using an infanite-money cheat is like aim-botting. It's winning without deserving the win, even if it's technically legal. DND is a social game, i.e. the point is the socialization and the game is merely a medium, not an ends onto itself.

I love finding stuff like that, sounds like it was fun to find out. Go back to having fun with your friends and try not to abuse that too many times Believe me, it's hard to leave the only group of people on the internet who will play games with you ._. I keep crawling back to mine because I have no-one else and it's hard to be on servers full of 1,000's of people or more and feel alone. The internet is such a horrible place to try and make friends. Smart people act like idiots which attract real idiots and sooner or later someone real comes along and everyone is too fascinated with acting stupid that they look down on the person who is their self. I really need more of a life than this >.<

I'm not sure I made it clear, because both of you did the same things my friends did.

I completely understand that it's bad to break the game in play with others and ruin things for them. That is not what I want to do. I thought I made that evident in my post.

I have NO desire to actually use this in game or any other things like infinite XP, Pun-Pun, etc...

My problem is that my friends treat me as if I don't understand that I won't be allowed to use it in game. For some reason they feel they have to spell it out and remind me.

I don't need to be told it would ruin the game.

I KNOW it would ruin the game if used while playing.

The friends act like I'm to stupid to realize this.

If this was a one off event of them treating me like I'm not aware of the problems this would occur, no big deal. But it's not a one time thing. This has happened before and I have no doubt it will happen again.

I don't like being treated like I'm stupid. I'm not stupid.

This might sound like an obvious question, but have you tried communicating what you have here, with them? Have you told them that you just wanted to point it out and maybe someone would give you recognition that you discovered it? Maybe a laugh alongside knowing the fact that it's silly and game-breaking?

But it might be that your group is just socially inept, like me and other aspie's. So maybe they're just not getting it, and not accusing you of being stupid. Therefore it might be best to just drop it and move on.

Yes

I'm thinking dropping it like you said is the way to go. Moving on, may be a bit hard. I rely on this group of a large chunk of my outside of work social interaction. More and more I feel like I don't want to game with the group anymore because of this and other occurrences along these lines. Another girl quit gaming in the group because of how she was being treated, which was similar but not exactly the same. I may have to do the same.

I just need to find something else to do with my time.

Sorry, but I just realized I'm just being really bitchy right now and have gotten worked up over this. There is probably an underlying reason. I've been sick for the last 2.5 weeks with something. I've gotten crap sleep.

As soon as this clears, I'll probably have my mindset change and laugh all this off.

Nothing really came across as bitchy to me. I don't think it's wrong to search for a group that you're more "in tune" with, for lack of better vocabulary.

It's not really directed to anyone here specifically, just everyone in general. I realized what I was doing and ended up over at a friends house to talk it out.

I realized that there was a history of this. Past jobs, friends, and family.

My friend and I couldn't narrow it down to why except it may have something to do with my presentation. Having Aspergers may be the cause. I'm not sure.

I actually feel quite better today, but whatever I was sick with, has had a few days where it seemed gone, and then came right back. So that's a wait and see.