The audacity to say "youre a bad dm" without even playing once, the gall even

@josefbajarias3109

7 ай бұрын

They better choke on a halo of spores

@dazered59

7 ай бұрын

It was absolutely D complaining about the DM to J and saying how the DM was stifling him for no reason whatsoever and therefore a bad DM.

@destrious8133

7 ай бұрын

@@dazered59 oh for sure, it's just aggravating

@demod2080

7 ай бұрын

I hate players like this. I played for and DM'd pretentious pricks who acted like they knew better or they just wanted to make sure the whole game is about them.

@BlackMoonHowls

7 ай бұрын

You said "Gall" and all that occurred in my mind was Speedline Miracle Masterpiece.

J: "You're a shitty DM" Dude, you haven't even let him do a goddamn thing to even have that opinion

@KagemaruHitokiri

7 ай бұрын

I felt like "wait, did I space out while listening? J didn't even make it to the first session, how could they say that with a straight face?" It feels like the most obvious attempt at gaslighting, telling someone they suck at something without any knowledge or experience to back it up

@joshuacr

7 ай бұрын

Yeah the reason they complain is they couldn't poke the at the problem the first place and mention it instead. That is straight out: Blame the DM for other people's problems, including their own.

@alaeacusmcfly4353

7 ай бұрын

@@KagemaruHitokiri I'm going to make an assumption that J read all the "red pen" edits that DM made to D's ridiculous 6 page backstory, and probably didn't like how DM was treating D. J also probably felt annoyed that DM was trying to painfully extract the most basic of back-story from J's Barbarian. I don't agree with J, but that is my best guess.

@mischake

7 ай бұрын

Once had friends over for movie night, put on a cult classic, everyone on their phone and eventually someone says "i don't understand the plot" get out... now

@likky1

7 ай бұрын

@@mischakewait you called for a movie night... and NOBODY watched the movie?

My gf had never played D&D before but wanted to try recently. Our friends who are avid players came over and we played half of a one-shot campaign. She had gotten a bit overwhelmed by all of the stats, abilities, and stuff. So I made her a separate sheet that had fun and short descriptions of what each thing did and it made a lot more sense to her. After taking a back seat through the first couple of interactions, she finally started to get into it and our DM was absolutely amazing in letting her express her character in her own way. She wound up having a really fun time and she has been asking when we will do it again. The group you play with is so crucial, everyone has to be in it for it to be fun.

@taevornreign1869

3 ай бұрын

My cousin runs a game for my family because my niece really wanted to play. He gave her a breakdown that relates all stats to tomatoes. Str: the ability to squish a tomato. Dex: catching a tomato. Con: eating a bad tomato. Int: knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wis: not putting tomato in a fruit salad. Cha: selling a tomato fruit salad.

@choppa8985

Ай бұрын

​@@taevornreign1869fucking amazing

Ax King He was a regular mild mannered King. Then one day he discovered an axe in an alley, and decided to fight crime. He became, Ax King.

@Onehithunder

7 ай бұрын

Nice ax cop reference!!!

@pigeonmanepic

7 ай бұрын

Ax King guy 🪱

@joshuacr

7 ай бұрын

I will visit that realm. Just to always eat birthday cake!

@securatyyy

7 ай бұрын

"I'm not gonna Ax you again!"

@Khornecussion

7 ай бұрын

AXE MAN IS ON THE SCENE-

Player gives me crazy OP backstory "yep, your character sure believes happened"

@quincyking010

7 ай бұрын

or you just dont read it and go ok dont care your backstory is just not gonna be involved then

@SapphireDragon357

7 ай бұрын

"Ok, your character cuts his arm trying to summon a blood sword. You use your action, take **rolls a d6** 3 self-inflicted damage, and nothing else happens."

@dontkickmychick6076

7 ай бұрын

​​@@SapphireDragon357 I haven't played DnD, I just like Critcrab, but ngl that sounds like a good idea for a stupid meme character type thing, where the majority of the backstory goes on about how he's actually this all powerful being, only for it at the end to say hes actually just some schitzo hobo whose powerful world ending magic is just him flinging his own shit at goblins

@Zombiewithabowtie

7 ай бұрын

​@@dontkickmychick6076 Isn't that about 75% of Moon Knight?

@nvfury13

3 ай бұрын

Heh, crazy (as in actual mental health issues) characters can be so fun to both play, and to deal with as a DM. Crazy Character - “So, there I was, making a deal with a giant talking snake.” Other party member - “He was actually screaming at a drainpipe.” CC- “And it spit its horrible living poison at me!” Opm - “A slime came out of the pipe.”

OP Here, thanks CritCrab, this is super cathartic to hear your input on the story, making the animal part of a quest is a great idea to tie everything in. Also Shenaniganry is one of my new favorite words because no one is ever expecting to hear it. :)

@caseywhite9770

6 ай бұрын

Yo nice! Its so cool finding when the OP's of these stories find these videos, i find myself always skimming the comments just on the small chance of seeing it lol. In regards to the story, yeash, nothing more really to be done or said that hasn't already, just glad it didn't ruin the game for ya and your amazing dm skills are able to be properly appreciated!

@Rhiggins5173

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! I was surprised to see it up myself lol. Really appreciate the comment, cheers!@@caseywhite9770

@whichDude

Ай бұрын

So J came off as super rude especially based off never playing. Was dude just tagging along with D? I could get him being a dick if buddy he's playing with (D) is complaining about you limiting his OP stuff, and D is just venting to a disinterested J about it.

@Rhiggins5173

Ай бұрын

@@whichDude J and D were dating so I have no idea what they said to each other when no one was around, but I absolutely buy this story. Until this post, honestly, I just thought J didn't want to play and didn't know how to make their exit without being really rude about it, but someone brought that up in an earlier comment and it just clicked.

@bendystrawz2832

Ай бұрын

@@Rhiggins5173 I'd wager D would complain about OP to J behind closed doors because of how much the power fantasy got cut down. Despite supposedly being fine face-to-face, he does sound like the type of person who can't handle any viewpoint other than his own and blatantly complain about perceived personal slights in private, regardless of the reasonings given. That's my best (uninformed) guess. Glad the bad friend didn't linger.

I had to kick out a 15 year old who tried to tame a basilisk and then try to kill the only cleric we had who was a nature cleric. Why? Because a nature cleric didn’t sit well with her and because the cleric (the mom of the daughter’s friend) wouldn’t let them sleep over.

@user-iu7zx4sk5w

7 ай бұрын

bro make that 10 paragraphs anf you got a CritCrab feature presentation lmao

@magolor152

7 ай бұрын

​@@user-iu7zx4sk5wI agree, this is a story I kinda want to hear more of actually

@BlackMoonHowls

7 ай бұрын

Sad cringy kids be kids even if they ARE teens now.

@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon

7 ай бұрын

I mean... They were 15. I understand kicking them out for the sake of not keeping Toxicity, but honestly? Kids do kid things and shaming them for being a child is kind of an L.

@kotzpenner

7 ай бұрын

@@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemonchildren can and should learn to not be asses. Don’t excuse shitty behaviour.

It sucks, because I've seen some really interesting characters who are "greater being trapped in a mortal body". And they can be played really well. For example, a friend played as a god of martial combat, stuck in the body of a wizard. So he had a really cool arc where he was learning how to be not immortal and have to think before fighting rather than simply charging into battle and murdering anything. In our first combat encounter, he ran in, tried to kill everything with a sword he was NOT able to use, and nearly died, teaching him a bit of humility. I really enjoyed DM'ing for that.

@GarkKahn

7 ай бұрын

Yeah it's like being an expert in some game and getting gg in multiplayer or trying another game You start almost at lvl 0

@adrianbarreto4225

7 ай бұрын

I put all my stats into strength and intelligence, but forgot perception. Ended up having negative 1 perception and also carried around a 30 foot chain I thought was cool. Ended up taking out a bar full of bandits trying to take it off once.

@zaneolsen7211

6 ай бұрын

I played as the Main antagonist banished into a mortal body once, Afflicted with amnesia It was very fun!

@DoctorTheo

2 ай бұрын

I saw someone with a similar idea, but the mortality was intentional. This guy was a god of thieves. Eventually he got so bored that he stole his own history, effectively erasing him from existence and making start all over, for the thrill

@IsfetSolaris

2 ай бұрын

@@DoctorTheo Oooh, that's super cool

J is the type to give a 1 star review to a store for being closed 😂😂😂

@fred_derf

5 ай бұрын

... at 3 am.

@erarzemieslnikow3196

4 ай бұрын

​@@fred_derf and he went to the backdoors.

@tordoc9817

4 ай бұрын

Or canceling order right before it's served and giving 1 star that food tastes bad

J: "You're a shitty DM" GM: "No, you're just a shitty player." block Problem solved. If J's partner has a problem with it say what he told you. Still has a problem? Block and continue with the two players.

@brandonlee747

7 ай бұрын

I love these imaginary fights y'all have in your head to yourselves lol. The situation already is resolved.

@jerryb216

7 ай бұрын

​@@brandonlee747 nuh-uh

@LordProteus

6 ай бұрын

@@brandonlee747 I love these imaginary competitions people like you have where you have to try to assert your dominance over strangers online. The kind of Player in an online MMO who says "nobody cares" in general/global channel every time someone says something there.

@Rhiggins5173

6 ай бұрын

OP Here, We were still trying to bring J into the friend group outside of dnd. I didn't want dnd drama to spill over into the real-life stuff, especially because I was probably going to have to hang out with them eventually. I feel like if the same situation happened today, I'd have better ways of shutting this down, but back then I was still kinda new to dming and I definitely didn't want to lose friends over it. I learned later that some friends aren't worth keeping but hindsight is 20-20

I have a character who also slayed several monsters in her backstories, becoming the ruler of a world she saved and is worshipped by the people there ... Only, it doesn't exist. My character is played up to be this epic, super powerfu hero, but she doesn't remember her past and adopted the life of a character from a book series she found and read.

@GarkKahn

7 ай бұрын

Sometimes i play don quixote style characters And all of them are super op, if by op we mean fun

@Koranthus

7 ай бұрын

I think it would be a fun backstory to have been a powerful magic user and then near the end of the cascade of successful boasting and exploits, your Patron is killed off screen, so you end up being a level 1 fighter with a disturbingly high charisma.

@TwilightxKnight13

6 ай бұрын

Nope, that’s dumb

@potatofairy8535

6 ай бұрын

@@TwilightxKnight13 D:

@caseywhite9770

6 ай бұрын

​@@potatofairy8535well i liked your idea

"Did you really think killing me was enough to make me die?"

You know, that backstory could be a fun thing that the character insists is true about themselves, even though it is not. Whether the character actually believes it is another matter.

@brendenhawley2225

7 ай бұрын

Or it can be fun if everyone doing it, nobilis and exalted are games where the pc question is often not if they can do a thing, but is it a good idea to do the thing. They got godlike power but there foes are either just as strong to match or unintended consequences is there bane.

@Swordsman1425

7 ай бұрын

It can be fun, I've been in a campaign where the DM allowed something similar. It was a Cyberpunk-style setting, and one player wanted to be a Warhammer 40K Space Marine, but the DM said "No. But you can be a crazy man who thinks he's a 40k space marine." And so he played as a normal person with normal human abilities and some cybernetics who thinks he's a 40k space marine and it was actually pretty funny.

@absolutechaos8204

7 ай бұрын

@@Swordsman1425 a friend of mine played a Fighter who believed he was a mage. So every time he did an attack, he pretended it was him casting a spell (I cast Greatsword). Eventually he changed into a paladin after seeing God.

@Koranthus

7 ай бұрын

The absolute hilarity of the blood sword where he cuts his hand and in his mind he has a blood sword but in reality everyone else sees him running up and slapping them with a bloody palm lol

@blazaybla22

5 ай бұрын

Like 95% of these are just “could’ve been a decent idea, if not for the person who had it”

Okay, two quick pieces of advice for DMs, 1. Get comfortable with adapting on the fly, never feel the need to rework/rewrite an encounter over and over to get it perfectly balanced. No such thing in dnd, and that’s okay. 2. If you’re running a very specific game (I.e. special module, home brew theme/world etc.) be sure to have a session 0. Especially if you’re putting a lot of work into it and want certain beats of the story to line up. Make sure your players know the details and are as excited about it as you are and a session 0 is a perfect way to do that.

D is the kind of guy that DMs wrath was invented for.

J: *Never played the game* "Not gonna play the game since you're a pretty s----- DM." *Ghosts DM for the rest of their lives* Bro, that's just beyond uncool. That's just flat out mean.

@joshuacouture479

7 ай бұрын

It gives off an “I’m better than you” vibe in my opinion. A petty insult with no merit that can make one’s blood boil

@hundkebab2433

7 ай бұрын

​@@joshuacouture479subhumans tend to have god complexes, you need to break a bone from time to time and they'll come back from their anime protagonist trip

I'm literally critting right now a new upload

@lyudmilapavlichenko7551

7 ай бұрын

I critted so hard.

@nyrdybyrd1702

7 ай бұрын

🤨👏👏

@Kendrick_had_a_dream

7 ай бұрын

I critted harder

@joshuacr

7 ай бұрын

I crit my crit!

@nyrdybyrd1702

7 ай бұрын

You guys, crit it. 🙄

I was so happy to see this when I got off work. Perfect way to end my day :3 Also, I'm sure D is still in his 8 hells. I'm sure Dante would be proud.

I used to be that kid in elementary. I used to pretend a character had a healing skill it didn't have. I still cringe to this day thinking about it. Side note: I miss the crab walk sound byte. I just listen to these stories most of the time and it really helps differentiate between the story and his takes. That and it really fit his character. Oh well, it's up to him in the end.

@valethemajor

7 ай бұрын

do you know of anyone who just reads the stories without the braindead commentary? I find it so disruptive. Just want to hear stories.

@michaeltubb1135

7 ай бұрын

@@valethemajor Not really. Half the reason these tubers exist is their takes make it more enjoyable for some. You're best off with either an ai voice channel, like those all those reddit shorts that flooded KZread, or someone who says very little during their commentary. Loot Goblin marketplace doesn't add much unless he collabs with another reader. Sir Knox also didn't commentate much unless the story went off the rails, but I don't think he has done any recent stories and is just reposting older videos into long form.

@valethemajor

7 ай бұрын

@@michaeltubb1135 Thanks man, I'll check those out. I do like the ai voice ones that do innawoods (such as Chass). Do you know any ai voice channel that do rpg stories? Half tempted to buy a mic but you may be right about normies liking the takes.

@michaeltubb1135

7 ай бұрын

@@valethemajor Unfortunately, I don't. Never really looked into it as the AI voices start to bug me after a little bit. Everyone has their own preference at the end of the day. If you have the time and money, making no commentary rpg stories probably would be a good idea. I, personally, don't have the voice for such a thing, but it's worth a shot. Good luck with your search. Edit: No problem. Hope those can be at least somewhat enjoyable while you search.

@Ender41948

7 ай бұрын

@@valethemajor "Normies liking the takes". Oooh, that's...ooooooh.

I never played dungeons and dragons or any role-playing games with people but the stories are so damn good

@Rhiggins5173

6 ай бұрын

As the OP who went through the hell hole you just heard, it's worth it. 9/10 times the games are a blast and 1/10 times you get a story that gets you featured on Crit Crab.

I would have been seriously tempted to give 'D' a loud "NO", whack him with a rolled-up newspaper, shred his 6-page "backstory", then tell him to try again. Properly. Repeat as necessary. Tailoring things to try and get 'J' engaged in the game was not a bad idea. However, the GM also needed to allow for the possibility that 'J' just would not pick up on this and remained passive. Her being a sudden no-show was not a major shock. Also, in any game, I feel like a DM should ALWAYS allow for the possibility that he won't get the number of Players planned for. Stuff happens. After that first failed session, I would seriously consider dropping both D & J. I am curious though. Exactly *why* did the DM ever call 'D" his friend????

@Jessie_Helms

7 ай бұрын

I dropped a Player because they no-call-no-showed to Session 0. They had some promise based off my initial DM’s with them but I let everyone know when session 0 was gonna be, gave a @everyone 1 hour heads up, and even @‘d them a few minutes into it. Once session 0 was over I just removed them from my discord server and they never said anything (not even a mad or confused DM asking why they were removed). Sessions 0, 1, and if you’ve made it clear it’s the final session, need 100% buy in and attendance imo.

@KumiChan2004

7 ай бұрын

I have had a character for over 15 years. I think I can just get to 6 pages writing up her back story and important information regarding her.

@brandonlee747

7 ай бұрын

I love these imaginary fights y'all have in your head to yourselves lol. The situation already is resolved.

@Koranthus

7 ай бұрын

I feel like its important from a planning perspective for players you aren't familiar with to plan for whether they are an audience member or player.

@kikijay3992

6 ай бұрын

@@brandonlee747 i "love" how edgelord spams under every comment that " lol nobody cares"

In every video I'm always looking at the ocean and the sun to see if a monster pops out.

@manboy4720

7 ай бұрын

and then the GIANT SEA SERPENT RISES FROM THE DEPTHS! roll for initiative!

It's always a good day when Critcrab uploads

I've been friends with someone with a god complex. It's interesting to observe if its not intrusive. He also wanted to be a professional hobo, good ol jerry.

@astuteanansi4935

7 ай бұрын

Jerry, God of Hobos, sounds like an interesting NPC for a campaign

@GarkKahn

7 ай бұрын

Or a bbeg (joke character)

@pineberry212

7 ай бұрын

@@GarkKahn Wouldn't be outta place in my homebrew... Dyson ring swarm, with one ring world dedicated to "fun and games" my campaign is taking place on a meme continent, where I can pull off as many jokes as I want with a straight face. Like the Republic of Swexland all speaking uwu. (My party is commiting war crimes against them as mercs in the holy bonking war set by the kingdom of sundoge)

D: "I am proud of my God Complex!" Me: "Cool, now get out of my sight. I don't associate with narcissistic asshats!"

@srmeepalot

7 ай бұрын

lol

@Yoshi278

7 ай бұрын

Aw shucks, I love making up pretend social interactions.

I prefer the trope in RPGs where a playable side character party member has godlike powers but by the laws of something magical they are only able to lend their power in a way that scales to the rest of their party. So they have normal abilities as a result of only being a fragment of the actual being. So essentially being able to play off of the god Character (if you must) but still keeping them in check as a low level Character. Think like re'shan from sea of stars. He is lending his aid to the party but his truce with the fleshmancer makes it so he cant operate at full power

@Leongon

7 ай бұрын

Sounds like an awful idea. Why entertain one person's god fantasy in a game with other people who deserve equal attention? If you have someone who wants to be a god, make them deserve it or pay the ultimate price where in both cases the character will die or leave forever after being a god among the group for one encounter. But you can't have a god among the players, it is not okay to have one special like that.

@MelodyTCG

7 ай бұрын

@@Leongon that's assuming the character would get special attention What I'm describing is a character being on the same level as everyone else but in their own lore they are something more. It wouldn't come up in the story since they are a lesser being than a god. Just someone who's bored and wants to help. It really depends who runs it but if pulled off right it makes for something interesting as they aren't allowed to display the real powers they have it's just implied

@cwcpants140

7 ай бұрын

Then its pointless and you may as well just make s different char imo. Sounds kinda lame if a god is restricted to the same power as a mere mortal. The god can also die so thats not very god-like

@Leongon

7 ай бұрын

@@MelodyTCG We are talking about two completely different things it seems. I'm talking about a problem player with a god complex who is actively trying to be more powerful than the rest of the party, you know... The video, and for that your suggestion sounds awful, you don't want to entertain such player's desires ingame, but you can make it the resolution of the character's story just before they die or leave for good, that way there's no godhood while everyone is playing together through the campaign, only the road to get that one character to it and all the players can participate of making that happen. You are talking as if the player is not a problem and if that's the case there's no discussion to have really, because with a cooperating player you can make anything happen as they will be happy to compromise and respect whatever conditions the GM finds appropriate, so it's all down to the character creation.

@siddhantshirke3970

7 ай бұрын

Like Gandalf! A literal angel who by the laws of the world cannot directly intervene significantly in mortal affairs, so he relies on hobbits to do all the heavy lifting for him, only providing guidance as a wizard : D Plus he can't destroy the ring himself since it would be disastrous if he got corrupted, so it's physically impossible for him to be the main character despite being leagues above the rest of the party : )

I’ve only ever once given myself a godlike background and I finished it off with “of course - everything up until this point happened in his mind. He is a barbarian just released from prison as he has Lost his mind. Why he joins the party? He needs people to guide his violent tendencies.”

With the title/thumbnail I was expecting a reckless player that acted like he was invincible or something. But it was more of a "DM suffer at the hand of some awful players because he cares a lot about his game and they don't" 😅

@Overlordbb8

Ай бұрын

I was lured here by the image of Sauron. For I was deceived.

I actually play a immortal character named Edgelord at a local larp park who’s a guy who just wants to mind his own business and make cookies. And I do this just to make fun of people like this. Edit: their full name is Edgelord the Idiot

@GgTr-ys8ol

7 ай бұрын

Nice

@cyda_

7 ай бұрын

Honestly based

@Shadowblader98

7 ай бұрын

Does he have any connections to such warriors as "lawful the stupid" who's a paladin

@ChaosCounseling

7 ай бұрын

@@Shadowblader98 absolutely they are their third cousins brothers nephews cousins great uncle

@Shadowblader98

7 ай бұрын

@@ChaosCounseling ah truly a wonderous bloodline

I wish people would learn that the proper response to someone telling them they think they're a shitty DM without ever having played with them, and having already severely inconvenienced the table, is to cuss them out and tell them to shove it, and to take their shitty boyfriend with them. There is no reason to just let someone spit in your face and walk away with a smile.

@Rhiggins5173

6 ай бұрын

Hindsight is 20/20. My friend was nervous about bringing them into the fold and told me that they were awkward ahead of time. At that time I didn't want to tell them both to shove it because we were friends for 7 years before we tried to play DND together. One DND fight didn't seem worth it at the time but again knowing what I know now, I absolutely would have.

Ah, I wake up and see a new CritCrab horror story, it's gonna be a good day for the crab king himself has blessed us

Props to the DM for not giving up after that first session. It sounds like it was a nightmare, but it's good that they found a better group to play with in the end

Tips to all DMs trying to schedule new players. Don’t force it. Presumably you are dealing with adults, if the players are non responsive when trying to schedule. Just leave it alone. Don’t blow up at them, and honestly confronting them isn’t worth it. Just stop trying to play DND with them.

@manboy4720

7 ай бұрын

there's plenty of other people who would be happy to play DnD.

I find it ironic that D is playing Dark Souls during the session whilst having his power fantasy and playground asshole attitude. Dark Souls always remind you that you aren't invincible and even the basic enemies can kill you if you're not careful.

@warriorfire8103

2 ай бұрын

Cheat or mod user. I have a friend who uses cheats on everything so we can't play much. That sort of power bores me to tears. I'll never play with cheaters ever since my first dragon encounter in Valheim. It was shaping up to be this epic dangerous encounter with 4 people only to deflat as a modder just stand up front tanking it all due to invincibility cheats.

We have npc we keep around for rp only purposes. We had someone who never played dnd and was curious about how it goes. The dm had the idea to let him pilot this npc instead of interrupting the session to make a new character. He really got into it and is a regular player now.

i love the concept of the military type trying their hand at talking to civilians, big avatar vibes like when zuko and azula tried fitting in at a party.

just so this is clear, 90% of games are not like this. these stories do happen, but these are very rare.

People over here having god complexes, wanting to be a mary sue, main character or some big bad evil guy with a "chaotic good" alignment while doing nothing but be a murder hobo, and then there's me.. With my level 6 viking, with purify food and drink, and conjure feast.

for my characters, the inciting incident in their backstory is whatever big epic thing they tried to do failed, because they're level 1. My current character's a Fighter whose parents were part of a previous party of heroes, his parents and their old party members and allies have talked about how being an adventurer is traumatic and terrible but he's romanticised the stories and missed the message... his inciting incident was he picked a fight with a corrupt noble and lost, severely.

@manboy4720

7 ай бұрын

dude, the shit that people gotta deal with in campaigns? horrible eldritch monsters, vicious wounds, seeing your best friend get exploded into a pile of viscera by a lich mage. sounds pretty traumatic. kind of like darkest dungeon. imagine a DnD game but all the characters are horribly depressed or violently schizophrenic.

@JuanAntonioGarciaHeredia

6 ай бұрын

​@@manboy4720So... Fear and Hunger? 😆

I cannot imagine ever telling someone they’re an awful dm, no matter how bad it was. You can leave without being a jerk.

@stefankroon4615

7 ай бұрын

I can see a few situations where it is okay to do...this is not one of them.

@adamnicholes1002

7 ай бұрын

My friend wanted to do a trial run at dming. Sure he wasn't the best, but we had fun. Granted it was my first time playing and he let me have steel plate armor at level one. Which of course gave me 20 ac. There wasn't a dang thing I couldn't tank. Because he had to make it so the enemies wouldn't instakill our squishies. Granted we are now about to do a campaign up to level 4. Homebrew setting, and story. Set in a grimdark esque world filled with untold horrors. The first town we are interacting with will be cursed by evil fey magic. I will be an earth genasi war domain cleric, neutral good. We will be using the stress and madness mechanics. Along with amputations, and other bloody/gory ideas. He is allowing the use of magical prosthetics. Hopefully that doesn't get out of hand.

@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon

7 ай бұрын

What if they're a Red Flag DM that's actually doing bad shit? I had a DM who bullied a 15 year old player and left the same day he did that and tbh his writing for the campaign up to that point wasn't great and it kind of felt like he was just giving the party random nerfs and doing fucked shit to us because me and another player kept beating him at video games and such. Am I still not allowed to call them a bad DM after all that?

@Controlqueen31

7 ай бұрын

​@@stefankroon4615 I remember that the DM of my DnD group left a campaign because we weren't doing the things in the order he had planned. I know, because I've also played as a DM two or three times, that if your players are headless idiots is hard to focus on the story that the game is telling, but we were a group of normal players that wanted to have fun, and a DM should be prepare for a change of plans from time to time. Heck, even that DM was the one who told me that.

@CrusaderKnight2000

7 ай бұрын

​@@adamnicholes1002This sounds like it was inspired by Darkest Dungeon.

I once had to boot a player (a little context, I'm currently a GM for a Witcher Campaign which I run on Discord/Roll20), this guy said during his second session that his mic was very faulty and then got mad at me and the other players for not interacting with him, even though I told him if his mic wasn't working to just type in what he wanted to say, I even had my NPCs and the other players try to interact with him and we didn't hear a word out of him. I tried to give him a chance to explain himself, but all he ever did was cuss us out, so I ended up banning him.

@manboy4720

7 ай бұрын

i guess he seemingly forgot that he had a keyboard. except for when he has to insult you, of course.

I’m a new subscriber, so most of the content I’ve seen was made years ago. It’s great to know this is still coming out!

My guess about J is that D complained about the DM not letting them indulge in their power fantasy, and that was the basis for saying they were "a bad DM" and didn't want to play with them.

12:03 god that’s such a punk move. How do you know you don’t like a DM if you haven’t even tried his game?

I'm happy that the DM found a group that he deserved at the end.

I saw a character in a graphic novel that I would love to play in a campaign but I don’t have anyone around me that plays dnd and I don’t really want to do online. The character kind of pokes at the silly edgy character type. The character is a fighter in heavy armor with a Dragonslayer style greatsword named Lord Edgelord. His catchphrase phrase when attacking is “this looks like it needs some edge!!”

Always very thankful I’ve never run into anyone quite this bad. To treat other people with quite that level of disdain is awful. I’d say it’s like treating people like NPCs but I can’t even treat NPCs that badly

A former lord of the eight hells who was banished to the mortal plane. Who choses to stay, despite still having all his powers, because he was bored of being lord of hell, sounds like a really fun idea for an NPC that your player can encounter in the game. But a terrible idea for a player character.

The complete disrespect of playing Dark Souls between turns. Not just any game, but an un-pausable game at that.

I wanna play a game with this DM now. Being a character who can't talk would be fun.

J's the type of person who was there to "support" their SO and had a small interest, but it was obvious they lost interest ASAP because of all the "hard" work they needed to do. They most likely wanted a premade character who wielded an axe and nothing else. D, however, is most than a headache and a half. Trying to weasel his way through stuff reminds me that players like him will never have fun in my campaigns.

I feel bad for this DM because I've gone through the same thing; homebrewing maps and Lore and applying it to my Forever DM campaign, Curse of Strahd. Thankfully I've had dozens of players since that awful player left the game and everything went smoothly. They even tried 'stealing' players by making things up about my way of DMing, creating campaigns on the specific game day I was running but they all defended me and stated that although I run the same campaign, I change things so much that it's always been fresh and include players background in the lore even when they've never been to Barovia.

This just gave me an interesting idea: create a character with this type of backstory, but have it be revealed at some point that the player was trapped in an illusion spell as part of some cruel experiment to control them. This could be a unique way to deal with edgelords: either they realize that the game isn't about them and work with the DM to create a legitimate character that can become a cool-yet-functional edgy character that's discovering who they truly are (while giving the player one chance at redemption by making it seem like the whole edgelord angle was intentionally created by the DM for gameplay purposes), or they show their true colors and shatter any chance that the party will try to defend their actions even if they're friends with someone there.

The "fallen god" archetype is a favorite of mine. I like a character that fell from its position of power and must face whatever made them fall, it is compelling. But there's always these kinds of people to soil this archetype

love the suggestions with new players, another is if they are likely to choose a more animal-friendly class, or even more arcana, maybe giving them the backstory of a exotic animal that wizards transmutate as like a slavery allegory, and also giving them an opportunity to make a character (and maybe keep the animal shifting as a latent effect of the enchantment etc) gives a easy segway into the campaign whenever they decide they are ready

If the most interesting thing that could possibly happen to your Character concept already happened in the backstory you have not created a PC. You have made an NPC or OC.

man I really wanna play a Greek myth d&d campaign now

Man life got busy for a while. Forgot how good it felt to take a step back and just enjoy my morning coffee with you, Critcrab. Cheers!

One thing I can’t stand as a DM, when I beg my players after every session to give me constructive criticism and they have nothing to say except “it was good” I want to improve as a dm, I can’t if I don’t get honest feedback

@Goiaba308

Ай бұрын

Probably new players, they don't know anything

>14:05 Imagine if he tried to do something unique with the "blood sword" idea. Like, think about it: conjuring a blood out of your own blood would make you incredibly weak in the moment. But doing it REPEATEDLY as an established ability of your character would make your character gaunt and frail. Hell, imagine communicating with the DM about the ability and actually TRYING to make it work if you really like the idea. I certainly do. Such a character ability could lead to a great moment of tension too! The character uses standard weapons, but during a particularly difficult combat encounter, their weapon breaks, or they lose it--SOMETHING that prevents them from using it. And then they pull that ability out from nowhere (except the DM knows about it) it does some serious damage, but it turns you into a glass cannon, as taking that THAT much blood does a fuckton of damage to yourself in the process of conjuration. That would be such a unique and awesome moment stemming from an edgy concept being pulled off in a genuinely well-thought out way. Been listening to a lot of these DnD horror stories and have kept thinking of much better ways to pull of ideas and concepts that are edgy on the surface level. It just sucks that problem players like these don't understand that there's very rarely a bad idea, just a bad execution.

im honestly impressed at the DM for building combats that way, specifically for each member. that must have been some work to balance for my combats i just get a monster prior to the session, that matches the CR of the party, and then i kind of balance it mid combat, if its to strong i nerf it a little or to weak i buff it a little. there are many ways to doing it even without messing with the stats

Before becoming my parties forever DM, my PC backstories were always 2-3 bullet points and then my call to adventure. Thats literally all you need

I once played with a guy (my brother DM'd) who wrote in his backstory that his character was the son of Laeral Silverhand, and that he was long term friends with Drizzt Do'Urden and Bruenor Battlehammer. Because of this, he said that he must have gotten a powerful magical item as a gift from them at one point: a legendary artifact would do, and requested it from the DM. So my brother went with it, and said his character was the type who just thought he was friends with the legendary warriors, but they were like "Oh, it's THAT guy again...."

Hail to the crab king!

I wonder if there’s a way to do an edge lord right. Like I love seeing edgelords in fighting games lmao, screaming on the mic with anime lines 😂

@ArcCaravan

7 ай бұрын

Would probably help to know what's wrong with an edgelord in and of itself, then see if those parts can be removed while staying an edgelord. Doesn't help how sometimes edgelord is thrown around randomly.

@BlueTressym

7 ай бұрын

I know someone who did a edgelord with all the expected tropes but made it a parody. My character had met him during childhood and was the only one in the party who knew his name wasn't really

Man that D backstory could have been awesome if you were an immortal godly entity but who got double-crossed and cast down as a mortal so that you can be killed to gain the title to rule over the hells. So now, if you die it has SERIOUS impacts on the story as now the evil guys have more power to do more shenanigans. Say if you reach a high enough level (maybe level 20 or some shit or you get to a certain point of the story) you ascend back to godhood and become the old unkillable god and you hand your character over to the DM for him to use, and you write up a new character. You developed feelings towards the party, saving their lives, them saving yours, going through hardships and character development and improving as a being overall... But all as a game of pretend until you were in the right position to take back your power and rain hell over the world again! The heart break, the pain, the betrayal, and the ensuing searing hatred is palpable. THAT is how its done. Your still respecting the DM, and adding to the setting and lore the DM laid out for you. Again, in the end, there are 2 main BBEG's in the climax. You, or the ones who wronged you. If you DIE or if YOU ASCEND, it will shape the course of the world forever. DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!!

I have some great friends I run my campaigns with, we stream it and everything. Tons of fun, tons of laughs, and though they like to mess with me, they are always kind to me about my DMing even though I'm still learning. I've built up the skills and confidence to run what I feel are fun games, and with all the work I put into it I can't be bothered to deal with such self-indulgent players like in this story. Also funny thing is, the character concept of being a once powerful being but now a mortal or a reincarnation sounds interesting and doable so long as it's narrative and not an excuse to be OP.

Ah always good chillin with the crabs

People who offend others constantly, and respond to pushback by playing the victim are the WORST. Not just in a game. But in life. It doesn’t matter what mental health issue you may have. It’s very toxic and wrong to expect everyone to walk on eggshells for your lack of control. Mental health is important absolutely! But so is everyone else’s. It’s so freeing to just admit to yourself once in a while: “I AM the problem.” Self included lol

Happy Thanksgiving Recovery Weekend, everyone! Thanks for a great Crab vid!

You know, I've been running professional games for a while now (almost three and a half years), I've learned to just be ruthless. If I start to see red flags, I've already got too many games, anyway, and I'll just cut them. I'm not gonna debate you, and if you miss a few turns I'll just cut them out. Although, the difference being these aren't "friends", but I've learned to minimize the drag of certain players.

At the beginning, he sounds like my son when swordfighting. He always is at an impossibly high Level, while his opponent is usually a tenth of that.

D: "Can you refresh me on what just happened in the past round?" Experienced DM: "No. Decide what you're doing, three- two- one, okay! You're holding action until next turn, next player."

D needed to heed a certain piece of writing advice for his character: "Is this the most interesting part of our character's life, and if not, why aren't you showing us that?" D and J also needed to not be rude, flaky pricks, but what can you do?

Just learn to say no as a DM, for what ever reason just learn to say no to it.

"You're a shitty dm" when he didn't even play once 😂

I feel as a dm you have to be responsible enough to tell your players that no matter how op they want to be the current story/plot is going to take place in a underpowered setting regardless of what’s in their history because this is technically their first time doing said quest

It's always a good Saturday night when the crab king himself posts a video 🎉

Ok i can relate to op Lot of times i try to give people stuff they want in a silver plate and usually either they hate it for no reason(even if they said they wanted it to begin with) or just evades the situation where they can get it

Sometimes I think my build ideas are too flashy but on second thought my little old tiefling grandma cleric who’s really into baking cookies and lathander sounds really tame in comparison.

This is a situation where you are better testing the water first to see how reliable people are, and how much they respect they’re willing to give you. In this case, I’d pretty much scrap all of them from my contacts, but god knows why you’d want to be friends with D and J in the first place. Scrap them, do they waste another second on them, and move on with new people.

I'm going to start an experiment, and just think out how these weird anecdotes would work out at my table. I'm only gonna tackle the premise though. The Ace Fix: I play Prowlers and Paragons, which is a superhero RPG although we don't always use it to play superheroes and we explore a lot of other settings and fiction, so it'd fit here in my opinion. I'd honestly have no problem with him building a demonic overlord, although he still has to use the same amount of points as every other character to do so. The 8 different hells sounds like it could be a bit intimidating, but I could work with it and he'd be free to choose powers and abilities that are stronger than a typical level 3 wizard in D&D, and the other players are going to keep up with too; doesn't have enough points to buy what he wants? He can't get it. Too powerful to ever die? That's immortality, he can buy it-although there are other ways than death to lose a character... Latent powers? We'll see how strong those are, he'll probably need them. He wants to be feared among the hells? Buy the infamy perk, and you've got yourself a deal. The 8 Lords being pushovers? To hell with that (haha). He got exiled. If all the lords of the hells were so weak that he could beat them effortlessly, they're getting new management. All of a sudden, the hells he knows are run by different, stronger devils than he knew before... Oh, and they want to prove their reign, so *each* Hell is sending infernal soldiers after the PC. I'd allow him to take the 'Wanted' Flaw, which gives him a point of resolve in P&P, because I'm definitely using that as a plot hook to hunt his player character down. And the devils definitely know of a way around his supposed immortality, perhaps they want to seal him away... perhaps they want to bind him and use him to power some kind of infernal magic mechanism for the rest of his days, making use of that powerful latent power he talked about. Perhaps they want to crush his mind and leave him but a feeble vessel, nothing more than animalistic in thought wandering the hells like a domesticated pet... or they wish to control him as a vessel of their own, using him as a mindless soldier. Many possibilities, I think each hell would want different things; whoever captures him first gets to do what they want. In any case, for D&D-the answer is hell no. I feel there's enough flexibility in P&P to do something like this and have it come up as a subplot, maybe a main plot for some sessions here and there as the conflict boils over, but it could be a fun premise to work with. The ultimate failing though is still the player, who even if he got his premise to play out, still would manage to blow the session for everyone.

The way you said “very sad” made me crack up

This is why when I start ANY campaign, before I even begin Session Zero I tell all of my players that, "This game is for fun. You are NOT the main character, and this is not an anime. You do NOT have plot armor and the rule of cool does exist...but you cannot take it too far. I would rather play game with 2 people and have a great time than try to inflate it and have a shitty time. If we have problems, I will approach you. If you try to disregard or worse ignore me, you are gone." I've held every player to this standard. Never had any problems once I grew a spine.

Ive always had a near zero tolerance for unexplained lateness on session 1. If it happens a couple times oh well, but session one I immediately just restructure the campaign for the new amount of people and thats it

@Rhiggins5173

2 ай бұрын

lesson learned and hard agree

do not focus a game around a new player unless you are absolutely certain they will like it. I wanted as little attention on me as possible, at least for the first few sessions while i got used to the whole thing. But attention was put on me. Even though the DM was doing it for the best reason - he really wanted to include me and wanted me to have a good time - it's what made me so uncomfortable that I didn't play again for years. edit: To clarify, I did stay through for the whole campaign. It was after that that I stopped playing. I didnt just quit after one session or something.

@Rhiggins5173

6 ай бұрын

OP Here. Honestly that's an interesting take. I wanted to bring her into the campaign. When I say I prioritized them, I meant there were a few extra encounters they would have advantage over. It's not like I made them 'the Chosen One' and built the plot around them, I just made sure that they had people to fight and that they would get good loot in the first session. Honestly even today I still think that was the right thing to do. They quit before they ever even knew I did that so while I see the point that it might overwhelm a new player, I don't think it was why they left.

Herding Cats. Sad to say a lot of first sessions go that way, with people never seeming to show up properly. Not much advise can be given either, if a player doesn't want to turn up on time it isn't like you can kidnap them. Best I can do is to suggest giving the first session a warm up time, tell people to be there an hour before the start time, and if they don't make it in that warm up... shut the door on their faces. You have an hour to prepare something, do a backstory delve that can unify the players that do turn up. Find a common thread in two of the players that are there and write something around that, working the other players into the scene. Then, when the first session roles around and the late player has a second chance... the first group is a lot more solid. Another problem arises then, outsider syndrome, but this storyteller handles that well: Write the session more around the new character so they are useful in game, and remind the others the meta requires a coherent group.

3:31 maybe my friends and I were sadistic brats when we were young but whenever someone we were playing with tried to do that excuse we just all hit him together with our sticks so it would hurt enough that he couldn’t pretend we didn’t hit him.

I did do something like that on the playground once. I was 7 or 8 and meant it as a joke, in relation to what I had learned about atom electromagnetic field reactions. I watched a lot of the science channel. The girl I was playing with was, not unfairly, weirded out by this and just kind of left. I thought it was because what I had tried to joke about was too simple and I was just stupid.

@littltheyjack

7 ай бұрын

In reference to what’s said at 3:33

I've always wanted to get into D&D and that idea about being an exotic animal sounds like a great way to learn the ropes

been watching crit crab for a while, and just now noticed that those are eye stalks and not a mustache.

14:07, considering that I was playing Elden Ring while listening to this that comment got a good laugh out of me for the weirdly accurate timing.

I’m only two and a half minutes into the video, so I know nothing, but as someone who’s played Xenoblade Chronicles 3, having the problem player be named D with a partner named J is giving me a good little chuckle.

It reminds me a bit of DnD session I once did irl with friends. Girlfriend of my long time friend wanted to play. DM wanted to entertain her, get her excited, into it. It was....meh. She found clues out of nowhere, loot dropped literaly on her head, while I, swordsman, and the dwarf, were bruised, bloody, with still the initial gear having to squeeze out the maximum potentail out of that, in order to protect the bard she was playing. In the end, I was left in the woods, bleeding out, because after one session, when was really pissed by that aproach and dared to voice it, was encountered by full plate armor clad paladin who dueled me and the DM made him use sort of bubble, so none could intervene or help me. I beat that paladin, had very good, very lucky rolls. But of course took hits. But was left out anyway and the story never progressed further 😅

The best way to weed out bad party members is to have an interview session where we don’t play; we just hammer out character concepts, backgrounds and if/why the characters know each other. The next session is the character roll session. Rule number one: don’t accept bullshit. If they can’t see reason, they don’t belong.

Had one player/dm only lived for the power fantasy, his 3rd campaign fell through just like the first 2, and he refused to play a game where he started at 9th level and lower

I've never played D&D because I'm the only one among my friends who is into it. However, I feel that if your character isn't flawed, it can't be as fun. It's like using cheats in a video game, which takes away the challenges and makes it boring.

@manboy4720

7 ай бұрын

it's only fun because of the character limitations and expanding your skills and knowledge. it's a story, it has dizzying highs and crushing lows.

@TheThebigice

7 ай бұрын

ever find anyone?

@caseywhite9770

6 ай бұрын

​​​@@TheThebigicei second this inquiry Why not find some folk online? It can feel like less pressure too to some people cuz its more anonymous, so like, no reason to feel embarrassed cuz know one online knows who you are anyway So when yo do play in person You have more experience and confidence to impress them with lol @defiantdemon63

I had one of those player for years, same self insert, worse was when he blinded his NPC gf to spite the bbeg and in a fantasy / lite steam punk world outta nowhere he said the his dad was a nuclear scientist working in a powerplant and mother God tier witch. No prompts just dropped it, I stupidly allowed it in my own way , and the bbeg being undermined him. Took it out on his family paid a lawless party rouge to destroy the powerplant critical wounding the dad and at there wedding him and gf rouge leaked location and it became a red wedding, lead to a fun game of fleeing as a player he didn't learn and the campaign end a year later when schedules didn't work, we no longer play with them they became abusive irl after that

@Tiamat-Games

7 ай бұрын

To many stories about him😂

Hot take: work friend is not a good friend. If Work friend actually lied to avoid the campaign instead of just telling the DM why they had an issue, they're a bad friend.

Oh no I was super late and ruined the session for everyone else, how dare you be annoyed!