Waterdeep has a population of 348,000 and one potion shop? I *Call Shenanigans!*

The group in the first story SUCKS. I hate adversarial DMs. There are ways around high perception/investigation if you REALLY want to hide something. Invisibility, the Astral/Ethereal plane exc. can allow ambushes/surprises if you really want them, but as a DM I typically want my players to succeed. I don't hide something without the intent of it being discovered. The other players are at fault too. Were they really paying such little attention that they did not realize they were attacking their own party member? Either ignorance or malice are both bad. The OP is right for just leaving the group.

@annageorge8406

5 ай бұрын

I let (in my first time DMing) be a ghost. I had to do a bit of homebrew for her to play the character.

@brianjohnson1509

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, you just straight up say 'you don't see anything.' See, characters can't see through walls, right, so like. Stick it *behind a tree.*

"Whenever the thing you built your character around would matter, you don't get the thing."

The first story reminds me of something that happened to me too. I've recruited an Owlin Mage into this new group. The first thing I'm allowed to do is make a saving throw against a dragon's frost breath. I didn't manage it and the damage was high enough to kill instantly. I wasn't in the game for 10 minutes and the game master killed my character immediately. The game director then told me that I should make 5 characters in the future because I have no idea how to play an optimized character, he said. and if I want to play such "weak characters" in the future, I have to prepare some because they die off regularly. The other players played an Artificer with absurdly high AC named Iron Man, a Paladin with absurdly high AC and a Rogue who immediately runs away and hides and doesn't do anything in fights because he could die. This group was advertised as "role-playing heavy" and that there was an emphasis on role-playing and not fighting

DM Targeting: Absolutely, screw that DM! That's BS. I would leave even if I were one of the other players in that session. Imagine being shown that the MOMENT you miss ONE session, the DM can and will not just control your character to walk into a checkmate situation but he'll "accidentally" force them to do stuff that gets them hit by the party as well to make sure it happens. Then, after all that, he blames YOU for it. That's just scum personified.

When you are uncomfortable ooc, you stop it OOC. Not in character. Stop playing until the problem is resolved.

1st story is a failure on the DMs part. They saw OP's character had busted high perception and instead of working around it they killed their character

@ashtonfox2264

6 ай бұрын

And the perception checks are run like how the dm came up with. Anytime your put under stress you can not take 10 aka passive and will need to make a roll. Sure you can passively pick a lock and take 10, however its a much different thing when your party is holding off a monster and your trying to get the door open.

That first story reminded me of a stealth scout-type character whose DM made every enemy have superior senses that made it pointless.

As someone who had a super perceptive character, I'm forever grateful for how my DM handled my character. Put simply he would rely on having my character either being alone or when he spots something he would have my other players also roll the check and if they didn't see it they would rule that my character is seeing things. this culminated in me getting a mask that gave me true sight up to 30ft but being completely blind beyond that. it made for some hilarious moments like my level 15 Life cleric having to 1v1 an invisible assassins in an alleyway because I was the only one that could see them.

Dog talk time! My only real issue with the first story is WHY WAS THAT FIGHT SO LONG (ah, there's the update. DM was being a jerk)

@kiearawagner7901

6 ай бұрын

I mean, fights can go on for a while. I'm in a D&D campaign where we were in a combat arena and had to fight through five unique sets of encounters, each one more challenging then the last which lasted roughly four, four-hour sessions. (We were level 13 with five players, and one of them, me, is playing a summoner who can have up to three spirits/summons out on the field.) So, combat can take a while, but I do agree that it was bad on the DM to essentially kill the PC right there on the spot and not have them at least start working on a temp PC to bring in mid-combat.

Every time I heard "Fine, I can work with this" in the first story I cringed. OP really was ok with being treated like a doormat?

Omg Doge! That pronunciation of Beaux was so cute!!!

Passive perception is not a constant roll of perception at that level in my games. Always rolls for perception so chance for variety. Passive perception works nicely in scenarios when characters are sleeping or cluing them into a need for roll like insight or religion

@Kirk9019

5 ай бұрын

Passive perception is not a very well written game mechanic. It's supposed to represent how good a character's perception is when they aren't paying attention, but given that it's basically an average roll for a perception check, that's not how it works out. A rolled check has a 45% chance of being WORSE than a player's passive perception, and observant makes this worse by only increasing passive perception, making it a 60% chance to roll worse than your passive. I like the idea of passive perception being 5+bonus, making it a worse option than just making an active perception check. Observant is technically better now, but doesn't break passive perception anymore.

That last story, dm was a failure

That microtransactions story is pretty much what WOTC wants to turn D&D into...except without the game store as the middleman.

@Spartan135

4 ай бұрын

must have been EA's or Ubisoft's influence.

Having DM'd the full course of the Tyranny of Dragons, I hated hearing how that DM ran it. That was just awful. Even if he wanted to eliminate the captured cult leader, there are so many fun ways to do it that are written into the campaign itself.

Player:"Lets see...with every that my character has the way I built them, I believe my Rogue now has a minimum roll of 23 to Stealth. Nice! I can't wait to use this to help the Party." DM:"So...its gonna be hard...for monsters to see you coming?" Player:"I mean for most enemies, yeah." DM:"Uh huh..." *Throws the Tarrasque, Tiamat, Aspect of Bahamut, and an Ancient Time Dragon at the Rogue.* "Ohhhh, sorry...Roll up a new character, that one was too good at one thing..."

My game has the rule of the Godess Ayephkay (AFK) will put you in a magic bottle and keep you safe when you miss a session. If a player leaves on good terms, she pours out the bottle and gives the soul life as a magic creature of the player's choice. If you get kicked/banned, she drinks the soul of your character and destroys it completely, erasing you from all record. She has only drank 1 bottle in my 6 years of hosting.

In regards to Observant story. That's simply a really bad GM with 0 communication or game skill. The simplest thing to do is *MAKE USE OF* the fact that one of the characters is most likely to notice something, and depending on the character that means they'll be likely to *GO LOOK AT THE THING* and you can bait them into situations where being too observant or curious *IS A FLAW*

@Evoker23-lx8mb

5 ай бұрын

DM’s obviously never heard the phrase curiosity killed the cat.

A good DM should always be prepared for their players to complete a whole section of a session My group is almost Level 4, and we're already 9 sessions in, because we actually know what it is we're doing

Screw that DM in story 1. Killing a player just because of a feat choice. Just say that feats like those aren’t allowed to be taken in a session 0, it’s that simple. Not that there’s any reason to ban a feat like observant, it’s not that broken. Spending real life money to buy imaginary items? Last I checked without the context of DnD that’s literally a scam. Hell, I’m pretty sure that even with that context it’s dangerously close to a scam.

It's 1:36 am for me loved this video

D&D lootboxes: it's basic microtransaction economy. You give people fun, but not too much fun, and make the setting oppressive of you don't give the loot box a spin. The way you described it is EXACLTY like a trashy lootbox fremium mobile game.

Nipsey does love that ball

I'm not a DM yet, but I'd rule the fire damage stops upon falling unconscious

@kereymckenna4611

6 ай бұрын

So I can become immune to fire if I fall asleep? ;)

So I know beaux. I’ve seen the screenshots of what happened. He sadly had to deleted his Reddit and other socials due to being harassed by individuals of that game store. I will not name anyone who did but there were a few including the store owner and management. Both sides were wrong in how heated it got but the way the store went about it was 100% unprofessional. Even so much to where I heard they created shirts making fun of him calling them a cult. This store is located in Shreveport. I won’t drop an actual name but be weary of what game stores your trust in small towns/cities. Beaux has since dropped the issue I’m not sure if the store has but they need to be held accountable for the way they acted including the players who gaslit and bullied him. the micro transactions aka gambling need to be taken care of also since they’re preying on kids. I should also add they have a second location in Benton Louisiana.

Hey there Nipsy, don't worry buddy I got your back. That last story, the players were too new to realize just how bad the DM was - remember no D&D is better than bad or abusive D&D.

Do you think Nipsy would be Rogue or a Ranger if they were a D&D character? Nipsy seems to do the most hiding among all the cats.

The first story could have been solved by the GM in two ways. First, don't allow or limit feats. It's what I did when I ran 5e games. Second, talk to the player and say "hey, this fest is messing stuff up. Can you consider changing it to a different one or we can alter it?" I get that the idea how the GM could just "change stuff" in the game but that is an issue on its own. It is telling the GM to do more work for free so that a player could have some silly thing. Then we question why GM burnout is a thing or why we have fewer people who want to GM. He should have simply realized that the fear is an issue and addressed it with the player. Any reasonable or rational player would agree to change what they had or make alterations to it as is. But it would also require a reasonable GM to address the issue too.

@Ontomancer

6 ай бұрын

The better way to address it is to think of better ways to surprise players than hidden things found by a high roll. I have a character in one of my games with a 27 *passive* Perception, and I lean into it! Have things only he can spot, include loot to boost it more, have dynamic encounters that have the party far away from each other so his skill is missed when he isn't there, stuff like that. Don't be scared of capable characters, and don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to counter them if they become strong. Shoot your monks.

@Doodle1776

6 ай бұрын

@@Ontomancer Passive perception is another mechanic that I outright ignored because it takes the players out of the game. They no longer need to be active players. It also makes a lot of things useless. One doesn't need to have passive perception in a game to allow players to notice stuff but it does kill parts of the game, makes more passive players, and requires more tracking on the part of the GM. To create a game that has threats the GM has two options, run stronger/more numerous creatures or run random encounters to waste resources. This is where I state that when I used to run 5e because I no longer do as it's an illusion of power mixed with more book keeping. The feats, passive perception, short rests, free action, action, bonus action, extra action, legendary actions, lair actions, it all adds up to a single result; the illusion of power. Players become stronger, monsters become stronger in kind, and what you have are stat blocks that take up an entire sheet or two to run for a single creature to counter the players with abilities that you will almost certainly not run them all or be able to run smoothly either. Then combat becomes a slog, long, drawn-out, and far more complex than it needs to be. GMs then have to work extra to create situations that produce some form of a challenge to the players. It doesn't make the game better, it makes it drag and slow down. When I finally dumped 5e and went back to a more classic game it's amazing how much easier everything is to run and how much faster and more nerve racking combat is again. When a single page contains three or four monsters who each have one or two scary or cool abilities versus the stat block bloat, with the only exceptions being stronger monsters who might take up 1/2 to 3/4 of a single page, it all works so much better. Then I don't have to worry about limited feats or having to go over the top to create fun adventures that actually challenge the players.

@Ontomancer

6 ай бұрын

@@Doodle1776 I mean good for you and your group I guess, but you're experiences are hardly universal. If you can only think of increasing player power as an impediment forcing you to have increasingly powerful monsters with the same net result you're kind of telling on yourself that you only know how to run one kind of encounter and you just bump the numbers up. Sounds like a skill issue, tbh. I *love* having more powerful players, I get to throw crazy over the top encounters at them like volcanic geothermal reactors going critical because of a rampaging dragon, massive moving airship battles against sea monsters, and dynamic combats across entire cityscapes. These just aren't the things you can run with low level characters where just the ability to fly is considered game breaking. High level DnD requires more effort from the DM, but I argue that's a positive, not a negative! You get to have cool high stakes action scenes that decide the fate of nations! But sure, stabbing goblins and dire wolves is cool too, I guess.

@Doodle1776

6 ай бұрын

@@Ontomancer yes, a "skill issue" to point out the obvious issues with the system. Tell me, when it the last time that you cracked open a Basic Fantasy book, an AD&D book, a C&C book, a DCC book, a DnD BECMI book? To see how much increasing the power of the PCs has only resulted in having to increase the power of the monsters, resulting in zero better play. And then you prove my point by stating that yes, the PCs are overpowered and you have to throw high level, high power monsters at them. Yet for my more classic Basic Fantasy or C&C games I have to merely throw basic monsters at them to make them feel scared without making combat a boring slog. Where the player takes three to five minutes each turn per each player to go through all of their actions. Is that really more fun or just more work to get the same result? Hell, C&C dragons make 5e dragons look like babies in power yet their stat blocks take up only half a sheet of paper. A 5e wight takes up an entire page to be less of a threat than a C&C wight that takes up maybe 1/3rd of a page. My point being, in which you first claimed wasnt real then confirmed it, that more powerful PCs doesn't make the game any better, it just results in more work and more time to do the same thing.

@Ontomancer

6 ай бұрын

@@Doodle1776 Thank you for confirming you only know how to make one kind of low effort encounter. I genuinely hope your players are happy running endless variations of the same boring encounter, and I mean that. Maybe I'm just cursed with creative, engaged players that enjoy the hero's journey of going from neophytes to champions of the realm. See, I actually *like* being creative and inventive, and I don't particularly want to go back to the bad old days of AD&D where one bad save is the end of a character. I want my players to have backstories, not backups. It's pretty clear you're a grognard with a specific vision of what constitutes a "good" game, and that kind of nostalgia isn't something that easily tolerates a difference of opinion, so we're probably done here. It feels like you can't even grasp what I'm talking about; you aren't capable of imagining dynamic combats with multiple objectives and creative environments, just the same tired grid with the same tired monsters. I'm having a blast with superpowered characters, and I'm hardly alone. I have no issue challenging the players in creative, inventive ways that don't just lazily rely on "number go bigger". So yeah, skill issue. I can't do my kickass set pieces with level 5 dorks, and I want to have them alter the course of history, slay gods and found nations! I think ultimately the difference is that I'm playing a combat heavy role playing game, and you're playing a tactical combat simulator.

The first story hits me as I am a new DM running Mad Mage and all traps and secret doors have a 20 dc and the monk with observant at level 4 has a passive perception of 20 so treat it as if have the party meet the DC the room is suspicious but needs an active roll to sus out why

That microtransaction story sounds a lot like another story where the store owner was trying to start doing the microtransactions. Apparently there was a lot of stuff in that vending machine besides items. Like not 20 tokens and double attacks and stuff. Real game breaking things. If I remember correctly, crit crab covered that story.

I used to play at a game store where the owner wanted me to honor microtransactions he wanted to sell to my players. I immediately told my group that we were going to move to another lgs and haven't looked back. Charging for dnd is something I would only do if the money was strictly for buying more game supplies.

Yay thursday story time

I come for the DND Doggo and drama, but I stay for the Nipsy

Changing the rules in the middle of the game is cheating no matter who does it, period.

@TheMightyBattleSquid

6 ай бұрын

Wondering if I should leave a game for this very reason. Things seem to be ramping up but it keeps bugging me how the DM tries to nerf basic character abilities and actions *every* session. Some examples off the top of my head: Detect magic will NEVER detect anything. EVER. Even if the DM literally describes someone using magic, detect magic will not pick it up. Can't help action unless you're proficient with the thing you're helping with. Not proficient with that weapon they're attacking with? Too bad! If you're under the affect of ANY kind of condition, it just full on skips your turn until you make the save. Feet stuck in place? No turn. Enemy fear effects, which show up the most because of the "things that go bump in the night" theme, are buffed even further. Not only do you get no turn, you also take an immediate free action to run away (which triggers attacks of opportunity). Except, in ONE instance where the DM gave an enemy a ranged fear they could use at the start of every turn. They were melee attackers so he changed the rule for that encounter just so that he could get more hits off. 🙄 Players trying to do anything similar, of course, works worse than RAW. I've even been chastised, in-story, for using my character's combat spells in combat. I want to give this the benefit of the doubt but the other stuff makes me reluctant to. It feels more like the DM telling me not to use my spells...

@marybdrake1472

6 ай бұрын

@@TheMightyBattleSquid Try talking to the DM out of game first and see how that goes, then if nothing improves or the DM flat out refuses to listen, then, yeah, leave. No D&D is always better than bad D&D. You might also try talking to the other players first before the DM. I suspect, you're no the only one feeling disgruntled by all of this.

the game store being like EA got me good lmao

D&D beyond already gets my yearly subscription money lol they don't get anymore I'm more than happy to use the Homebrew options on the

now i want to play enderal, damnit!

Honestly... those Fs felt like FU instead. Like seriously. He just got back and got insta killed? That is BS.

I'm curious which part of Louisiana OP had this issue. I'm guessing one of the bigger cities. Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Shreveport, etc.

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

It was Shreveport. Close to barksdale

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

Oh I forgot to add they have another store in Benton. Same owners and everything.

As a gacha player, what this OP sees as a cult, I see as whales who have sunk too much money into the system to see the red flags

@siobhanroberts2329

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, it's all loot bags. I can't play gatcha games because the gambling part of my brain gets really lit up by them. They're basically scratch and win tickets for all ages and I'd bet that many of the whales are minors with rich parents. Since the games are designed to keep players engaged and spending as long as possible, they inch a lot of people along into a gambling addiction. I'm glad most players can keep that under control, but the business model relies on the whales, kind of like actual casinos.

@aimeeroseirl

6 ай бұрын

As someone who is actively playing in this game all of the balls have items of varying value and are mostly just flavor items that can be bartered with to npc’s for items. The world of this campaign was destroyed 200 years before so there’s very little actual money and most things are bartered

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

@@aimeeroseirlstill gambling which is illegal without proper license especially for minors 🙃

@aimeeroseirl

6 ай бұрын

So would you consider all of those types of machines gambling? Because they are kinda everywhere; grocery stores, movie theaters, etc.

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

@@aimeeroseirl when you know what you’re getting no lol. When it’s mystery items that you have no idea what you’ll get and it’s for a fantasy game so it has no actual material value. Yes still gambling. Everyone literally agrees that is gambling but you lol.

1st story... do you have more than a death saving throw, guys???

The DM from the first story should never play aDnD Again. They can't be trusted and apparentlt don't mind ruining a session for a player entirely on purpose just to try to weasel them into pkaying a different character.

But... I WANT my players to notice things.

Short DnD question: Is there an way to turn an enemie's challenge rating into player character level?

@easiestcc6451

6 ай бұрын

Theres rules on doing that in the DMG but I think the short version is to subtract 4 from your party (not actually, but you get what I mean) and you'll have your CR

Story# 1 - I have no doubt that there would have been perfectly legal ways to deal with the 'Observant' trait. I certainly do NOT believe it was so infallible as to make a Level 8 Character impossible to surprise. DM could have tried actually sitting down and reading the rules, instead he went the way of The Complete D##k. But I do question if this was the only reason for what happened - could there have been other issues? Story #2 - Not so much a cult as a raging case of 'Sunk Costs Fallacy', I'd say. Not that there's a lot of difference. This game store has quite the scam going, and enough Players have literally "Bought Into" it that any kind of opposition is automatically seen as a threat. Just stay away, far away. Story #4 - The big mistake here was in letting this DM carry on with this cr#p for as long as he did, both ingame and overall. Story #5 - Railroading, definitely, and not even COMPETENT. I feel like the smartest thing the Players could have done was just get up and walk away. If you MUST railroad the Party, then at least give them a direction to go in, and preferably let them actually do something. Forcing them flail around like this, roadblocking them whenever they try something you don't like or aren't ready for, that is one of the worst kinds of DMing.

Last story, all I could think was "Potion Seller, I'm going into battle and I need your strongest potions!" "My potions are to strong for you traveller." It all makes sense now. Potion Seller wanted to add the traveller to his undead army!

First stories a DM willing to pull that sort of scum is not to be trusted and OP was right to leave and should have been much harder on the DM. Unless it's part of a charity one-shot, any attempt to add micro-transactions to a tabletop rpg is absolute degeneracy.

In the first story I don’t necessarily think op cheated more like they forgot and/ or didn’t know. The story’s title is a bit misleading two saves but technically four fails if a enemy hits you while your making saves it you fail two death saves.

Since everybody else seems to be talking about the micro transaction story, I’m gonna mention the first two with the player that was purposely targeted by the DM. If the DM didn’t like the that one feat because it ruined any kind of tension or surprise why didn’t he just ask the player if he could pick a different feat? Instead, he had to do this passive aggressive bullshit of “accidentally” making the character seem like an assassin to the other players, and let them kill him as soon as he comes back. It a douche bag thing to do.

Doge, Beaux is pronounced "Bow" as in bow and arrow.

Beeyuks lablanc 😂

I don't understand DMs that opt for in-game solutions to very obvious out-of-game problems. Is the Observant feat too strong? Just tell the Ranger "hey Ranger you having the Observant feat makes it very hard for me to make surprise encounters. Can you please change it out for something else?" A reasonable player will say yes and swap, and if they weren't reasonable then you can kick them out for being a jerk.

The gamestore story leaves me suspicious. If the game is as bad as OP says, why would there be "hundreds of players" rushing to defend it? Smells like OP is very thoroughly twisting the account of what happened.

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

There were multiple people in the arguements. Including players that were on his side. There’s ton of screenshots of what happened. This smells like a comment of one of the store players coming to twist the story 🤔

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

Also it wasn’t hundreds of players defending it. He was singled out in a discord of hundreds of players. Only about 6 or so of them were attacking him and gaslighting him.

@Plaguetattoodoctor

6 ай бұрын

On top of that. The lengths y’all go to protect horrible game stores amaze me lol it’s almost like y’all don’t have a brain of your own.

@zenithas4785

6 ай бұрын

@@Plaguetattoodoctor No idea about the screenshots, since they weren't included in the video as I could tell. As for personal investment, that's a bit of mental gymnastics. There's plenty of stories like this, with OP doing nothing wrong and the other person eating babies, and then everyone claps. It takes effort to make a game last, after all. In reply to another of your replies, I'm not invested into the game store. Like I said, if a game runs well, then it takes effort: game store or private run alike. Lastly, in reply to another of your multiple replies, I apologise for the misunderstanding. I thought from the reading that hundreds of people were bombarding OP, not that a handful were. That makes it sound more realistic. Sorry for somehow triggering you into some volatility, but re-reading back over, I'm going to suggest that you take time to invest into self-care as I'm not sure that accusing me of "not having a brain" is an appropriate response for a disagreement. You deserve to be able to interact with others without having a spike of anger or fear, and if you're not in that place then get support. There's no shame in it.

DnD is just video games without the video, right? Add in the microtransactions!

It says no views…. Am I the first here?

@CooperAATE

6 ай бұрын

You weren't

So with the first story we get DM was mean and targeted my character… where is the back story as to why it got that bad is all I’m saying and the second story… dude you don’t get the bestest items get over it and I bet the whole spell caster crap sounds bogus as hell

Any DM who puts irl micro transactions is pathetic AF!

First guy seems upset for the wrong reasons. The main problem is that he was practically killed offscreen. Him not given a new character to jump into is more understandable as it can sometimes be harder to work in a new character in the middle of combat.

Dungeons and Dragons and Microtransactions...Oh, My!

Doge please learn how to pronounce Louisiana/Cajun French terms correctly, that is not how you pronounce Beaux at all XD

Second story: beaux is pronounced beau or bow. Native son here.

Micro transactions and pay walls kind of ruin the game

Microtransactions should be forced to every game and ads in videos should check if the person is watching.