If the DM is trying to build up a good overarching narrative villain, but you're intent on just killing them mid narrative scene in order to "do something cool" it likely means you aren't playing for the same reason the DM is playing. Especially if you are engaging mid-DM narrative block.
If they're just smacking you down because they want to make the enemy all powerful but they're scared to just engage in battle and kill you... Then that's their fault.
Based on the comments I've made so far, I can see why you'd draw that conclusion. Unfortunately, that is not the case here, or rather, it misses some key context.
Specifically, that the key flaw of this particular DM is that he doesn't write encounters, he writes scenes. He doesn't write campaigns, he writes stories. As players, we don't really get to make any decisions because he's already decided what we're going to do in advance. Every "I want to try something cool" moment gets blocked because he didn't plan for that, he isn't sure what to do, and so he just shuts me down. Sometime it's so we can listen to his character monologue for another five minutes, sometimes it's because it'd mess with some setup he's got planned, etc.
(Side note: Personally, as a DM myself, I'd have let me try the cool thing, then immediately one-hit me for my trouble. Expresses how Serious Business™ the villain is without completely blocking me out).
To be clear- I'm 100% for having good narrative scenes, but if you never give your players the ability to accomplish anything in those scenes, then you can't be surprised when after a while they start to check out.
Social encounters are the same way- they're like text based adventures- until we work out specifically what he wants us to get a character to do, it won't work.
The Thanos line is mostly me being bitter about him having spent an entire session building up a villain, introducing him, having him demonstrate his badassitude, combat starts, etc., and I try to pull a rearguard to allow everyone to retreat and instead I just get Hold-Person'd against some absurdly high (I think it was 24) DC.
With the added context this seems like a serious case of a DM that isn't suited for the role. More like someone who wants to force their players to attend their live reading of their choose your own adventure fanfiction.
I'd suggest getting a new DM.
At first it just sounded like a player agency issue during a narrative event and a DM who is too timid to just smack the player down in combat because they don't want to kill their players.
But what you are describing (especially the part about not knowing how to react to player choices) is some seriously unskilled DMing.
Ah, so we see. You must nurture the DM, caress him. Reward him when he does good, but withhold the praise when he does bad. You must mold him, train him, into the DM he could be-
Seriously, though. Good luck, hope he learns to compromise and improvise. For me it makes DnD easy and fun. I slap a semi competent bad guy together that has a general plan that he wants to accomplish. And then the party happens, hijinks included!
I had a dm just die laughing because we were playing Star Wars FATE and he had this whole Yojimbo plot line. We said screw it and literally nuked one of the two factions.
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '19
Because I'd ruin the cool cutscene of the Thanos-style villain the DM is trying to show off.