I think it would’ve been fun for the fire elemental to attack the mountain inspectors because he knows his mountain isn’t up to code

@twilightgardenspresentatio6384

Жыл бұрын

Ha!

@jjprs3062

Жыл бұрын

"I knew you would come..."

@mrosskne

Жыл бұрын

@@jjprs3062 "So. It's come to this."

@silversonome5360

Жыл бұрын

If that was the in-universe reason then it would be a fun interaction "Halt, invader, for you shall not desecrate our sacred temple! What motive could you have to come here, and make this your grave?!" "uhhhhh... Mountain Inspector" *"... I'M NOT FUCKING GOING BACK TO JAIL!!!"*

@jjprs3062

Жыл бұрын

@@silversonome5360 That sudden change in tempo just sent me

If my players rolled a nat 20 on a silly bluff that they were "mountain inspectors" and I rolled a nat 1 against them, my NPC would either 1) start sweating and making excuses b/c they know the mountain isn't up to code b/c they'd been secretly embezzling the mountain repair funds or 2) be ecstatic that the kingdom had Finally sent someone out in response to all their complaints and offer to show them all around the mountain to point out the areas needing repair or reinforcement. "Look at this ravine - just LOOK at it! The north face is crumbling along two fault lines and I don't think it'll last another freeze, let alone another winter! If it collapses and blocks that stream were talking a potential flood that could wipe out at least five villages when the debris dam breaks! I've tried to do some repairs, but I'm a Fire elemental, not an Earth elemental. I can't believe it took six years for the crown to take my reports seriously! But you guys are professionals, right? I mean, they sent a whole team of you - you're here to fix all this, right?" And then the party has the option to literally fix a mountain, earning whatever they were looking for and the fire elemental's gratitude. Bonus points if they decide to actually become official mountain inspectors to get into places more easily in the future. I would let them get certified in a heartbeat (if they'd successfully fixed the mountain's issues.)

@DracoTriste

Жыл бұрын

That’s awesome. I would play that happily

@oakenshadow6763

Жыл бұрын

This!

@360entertainment2

Жыл бұрын

Now that’s genius role playing, I salute you!

@hansen-interpol-tips

11 ай бұрын

Yeah, if the roll doesn't matter why have them roll? Just say keep roleplaying if you won't let "mountain inspectors" work no matter what...

@DogBat

19 күн бұрын

This is beautiful

So basically...Kai's simultaneous "hatred" of children conflicts with her obvious affinity for them, but only because her husband is actually OBSESSED with them. Which would imply that her "hatred" of them COMPLETELY stems from......jealousy. This is...ASTONISHINGLY f*cked up.

@iornman1100

Жыл бұрын

I didn't even consider that...

@MogofWar

Жыл бұрын

Maybe he thought he'd pair up with a child free woman so that he'd not have to worry about having kids.

@Seth9809

Жыл бұрын

Both that comment and Mogs make a lot of sense, wtf.

@VanguardJester

Жыл бұрын

it's not really that different than an "anti-gay" figurehead being caught with another man, it's aggressively overcompensating in order to try and put a boundary in other people's heads. You'll often find the people who preach hardest against something are the ones who want it the most.

@summonerstripclub4840

Жыл бұрын

I think it’s definitely a bird of a feather situation, they are both deranged sxx pests

The skeleton bard who plays their own ribs is also a pretty cool idea

@J_liz

Жыл бұрын

when they said that all I could think about is "RATTLE ME BONES" 🤣😂

@airplanemaniacgaming7877

Жыл бұрын

@@J_liz Or "The ride never stops!"

The GM with the Mountain Inspectors was a FOOL. A nat 20, against a nat 1? PLUS can you imagine the RP potential of the party having to *act the role?* WHY WOULD YOU EVER TRY AND STOP THAT?!

@Child_of_the_Void

19 күн бұрын

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree they were a fool, but pathfinder's, especially pathfinder 1e's, bonus on skills you're good at can be absurdly high. Think +50 at level 20. So a character not built for deception could get a total of 22 on a nat 20, and the character built for perception could get 27 on a nat 1. I don't remember if they do crits on skills checks TBH. Even if not I'd definitely rule of cool this one

The proper response with the fire elemental is to have it fooled but follow up with more questions. “Mountain inspector?! I can’t believe this! I just had an inspection! Why did they send another?!” The irony is, it’s less cliché now to simply be like the other girls.

Me, just prior to the 24 minute mark: Man, I feel bad for Lyle, I've been in an abusive relationship be- oh. Oh no.

@MogofWar

Жыл бұрын

You know, it's not mutually exclusive. He did bad things and was being punished by the state, but his relationship with his girlfriend was still abusive. Then again how compatible can a pedophobe and a pedophile be?

That escalated quickly. That couples behaviour put me in mind of a pair that I had in my gaming group. After some unpleasant interactions I dug a bit deeper into them and discovered they were/are part of a neo-nazi group. Promptly kicked them from the group, shut down server, moved players had to another server, and also moved physically to a new house since they knew where I lived.

The first story reminds me of how last weekend one of my players made France real in my campaign. We were playing 3.5e at the local game store, and my players were climbing a tower and encountered some regal Orcs who were defending the entrance to the final level. They asked the party who they were and one of my players(Let's call them Centaur) immediately blurted out, "I am an ambassador of France and I'm hear to meat your leader." I had them roll roll bluff vs the Orcs' sense motive. Centaur rolled an 18 and the Orcs a 6. Now Centaur's character was wearing no clothes(a weird detail, I admit), which the Orcs noticed and asked about. One of the other players, Minotaur, claimed that in France, nobility wear no clothes as a sign of their status. Centaur confirmed it, so I had them reroll bluff. Nat 20 vs 4. The Orcs immediately bowed and let them in. Centaur didn't stop there, though. They kept this bluff up till the BBEG of the dungeon, who wasn't buying it. Immediately after the party killed her, Centaur told me, "So I'm going to write a book about France to prove it exists." They didn't mean in game. They left for a few minutes to buy a notebook and started writing the book in real life. They claimed France to be a haven for fey and other monsters, vibrant and full of joy, that became forgotten and lost to time. They even added in the Eiffel Tower. It was honestly very fun to see a character so invested in the game. After the session, Centaur and I took an Uber home since we live close, and I realized something: I had plans for a forgotten kingdom that the party would find floating above the clouds upside-down. That'd would fit with Centaur's France, which would tie their goal of finding it with the storyline. I asked Centaur if they'd like France to be a real kingdom that their tribe spoke of in their legends, pursuing it but unfortunately never returned, crossing the sea somehow. They loved that idea and said it'd also fit with their other goal of finding their tribe. So now France exists in my campaign. Not sure how I feel about that.

@gigithegob9332

Жыл бұрын

My dm made a gag in my character's backstory (her being scammed into drinking alcoholic dirt) AN ACTUAL PLOT POINT. The guy who scammed her was a big bad guy we had to fight a good while after this was brought up.

@andreavasquez4355

Жыл бұрын

@@gigithegob9332 That's awesome.

@andreavasquez4355

Жыл бұрын

@@gigithegob9332 That's awesome.

@antonioscendrategattico2302

Жыл бұрын

He bluffed so hard he literally made his lie become reality. I love it. That's what it means to roll with the punches as a DM.

@andreavasquez4355

Жыл бұрын

@@antonioscendrategattico2302 Thanks.

OP4 here, just want to say that as horrifying and traumatic as that experience was for us the comments both here and on Reddit have made us laugh harder than we have been able to in months, so thanks for that guys

@Seth9809

Жыл бұрын

Now I want to see the reddit comments.

@Kabber

Жыл бұрын

when i say my jaw dropped...

@Allantitan

Жыл бұрын

@@Kabber same that story went a completely different route then I was expecting. I just thought it was gonna be another entitled person story or something

@JaelinBezel

Жыл бұрын

The one about the jerk Tiefling Wizard?

@mistressofdreams6031

Жыл бұрын

@@JaelinBezel I think its the last one 😬

Hooo, boy, did it get worse! On a lighter note, the intro story made me think of the time my character rolled a nat 20 convincing a group of kobolds that we weren't adventurers, we were girl scouts selling cookies. DM thought this was hilarious and roleplayed the hushed whispers of kobolds debating what to do and they decided to let us in their lair on the off chance that they could get some thin mints out of this. It was the first time our group settled an in game conflict without violence. Himbo story: himbos are absolutely fun to play, fun to play a game with, Raul deserved better than this. I hope OP's friend doesn't mind me making him an NPC in my game for some wholesome quest shenanigans. Last story: So... does anyone else get the feeling that Kai is very vocal about hating children for the same reasons she hates other women? Like she's seeing them as- and I'm trying not to vomit typing this out- competition? Just... ewwww, so much eww! Also, I don't play FFXIV, but I googled lalafell, and I completely agree with OP- too uncanny valley, creepy af, they look too much like those creepy dolls from the 80's/90's that in EVERY home with a crazy-religious mother.

Ah, I see what was happening with the Kai and Lyle situation. Lyle is essentially in an abusive relationship he can't get out of even if he wanted to and has to placate in order to keep his "situation" under wraps. I don't really feel sympathy towards him but that entire situation is FUBAR and I'm glad the poster and his girlfriend got out of there before they got dragged deeper into it.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

I just hate them both.

@AzriusN

Жыл бұрын

I was in a relationship with someone who acted almost exactly the way that Kai did towards me. So I felt sympathy for Lyle at first. I thought "shit, I've been where this guy is before." As it turns out, I most assuredly have not. Yikes on several thousand bikes.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

@@AzriusN It's possible for people to end up in similar situations even if one of those people are infinitely worse.

@AzriusN

Жыл бұрын

@@ArcCaravan I'm aware. But given how difficult it is for male-presenting victims of abuse to be taken seriously, I'd prefer not to be associated in any way with a situation like that.

@65firered

Жыл бұрын

@@ArcCaravan Indeed but it does somewhat diminish it. Not to mention there are people out there (Twitter) who view the abuse of men as karma because they want nothing but despair.

Never ask for a role you’re not willing to lose.

@TheMightyBattleSquid

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I'm over here thinking the same thing as I heard that. "Oh obviously their bonus must have been so high it would've happened regardless" Nah, dude. If a nat 20 for you and a nat 1 for them doesn't do it then you shouldn't have been asked to roll in the first place. BARE MINIMUM it should've at least made the enemy drop their guard against you enough to keep the conversation going so you can come up with a plan B. Something like the elemental thinking to themselves "oh, they're clearly simpletons. Let's prod them a bit and see what this is REALLY about before more of their kind show up..."

@shizanketsuga8696

Жыл бұрын

Exactly! Either it mathematically works out in a way that the roll is actually meaningless or you find yourself in the predicament that you as the DM have to _claim_ that the roll was actually meaningless. Either way the roll shouldn't have happened and you can't blame the players for assuming the latter scenario is the case which leaves a sour aftertaste.

@mrosskne

Жыл бұрын

You don't "ask" for rolls. You tell the GM what your character does, and he decides if a roll is called for.

@oicmorez4129

Жыл бұрын

@@mrosskne They talk to the DMs. When you DM, don't tell them to roll when even a nat20 vs nat1 won't change your mind

@kenjincapers

Жыл бұрын

Counterpoint if a monster has immunity to a damage type produced by what the player is doing, I still let them roll but the higher the number the more they can glean about why its resistant to this thing which can lead to discovering other resistances or immunities. The payoff isn't damage numbers this way but it's information so no one feels like they wasted a turn and this can enable the players to make better decisions as a team. If a pc is doomed to fail make sure that a high roll is rewarded in some way so that that failure can pave the way for the groups success. But in the context of this story pretty bad.

HA! That first story started out like something out of a 4e campaign I ran. The Paladin bluffed some baddies with the lie, "Golem repairmen, we're here to fix your golems." The rolling was basically just like in the story (nat 20 vs nat 1) so what should have been a few rooms of tough combat turned into a leisurely stroll with the Cleric of Lolth and the Paladin just kinda deflecting and bumbling their way through a series of increasingly better lies. They got to the final room (no golems, just a lich who hated what he was and didn't want to be there), and they tried again. The lich waved them off because he was the last one and didn't believe them to begin with. The fighter speaks up and says, "We're here to kill the king." The party starts bickering but I had that legendary 100-yard stare... that was literally exactly what the lich wanted (he'd been forced into his role by the mad king, and there was a secret passage past the lich that lead to the throne room). I silence dthe group, and let them know the lich is actually glad they said that and just... opens the secret passage to let them through to the final boss of that story arch. It was such a glorious series of events that I was beyond words, and they basically skipped an entire session of combat and rp to get to the final boss, almost entirely on accident! Even the gimmick of the boss fight (that should have made things a lot harder or at least last longer) got worked through, and they beat a pretty major big bad rather quickly. Never been happier with a group of players in my life! I can go into more details on the boss fight, but there's really nothing else to say about the rest. What I had set up as one or two day-long sessions took them about ten minutes to get through! My words to anyone else in such a situation: "Stop worrying and learn to love the Chaos."

@Karajorma

Жыл бұрын

My party once bluffed our way into a dwarven forge claiming to be there to do a health and safety inspection. "I've heard nothing about an inspection!" "That's because it's a *surprise* inspection!"

@destroyerinazuma96

Жыл бұрын

We got to the Lost Mines final boss by pretending we want to get hired by him. Right after busting a door to his henchmen dormitory. Our Paladin improvised on the spot.

Last story escalated quickly, I thought they would have some complaints from other players. Not, you know, that....

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

Seemed like a decent pace with the woman having multiple problem player traits and generally not being a good person. Then the reveal that the husband was not just her victim.

With the opening story, the fire elemental was probably RPing it for the fire elemental that the thought occurred "Oh s**t, I'm doing some messed up stuff and if this mountain inspector finds out, that's it for me when they send the king's army down here!" and just attacked to shut up witnesses before they could rat him/her out. At least I'd play it by adding a look of raw terror from the elemental just before the first attack launches.

@flamingmonkeyxii

Жыл бұрын

Lol it didn't have high sense motive, it had an opium den? Makes sense.

On the first story, I feel the DM missed two opportunities. 1. Playing out the most gullible fire elemental ever to hilarious effect. 2. Having their cake and eating it too by having the elemental's critically failed sense motive turn into them failing to even sense the give motive and believing the party isn't mountain inspectors or adventurers but instead the dread encyclopedia salespeople. Roleplay hilarity and combat ensue.

I love playing small races because The Hobbit is one of my favorite books. That story was creepier than the Elin from TERA.

Re: Hating the Himbo, gotta call the poster out on saying that what started the PvP was what the wizard said right before he cast an offensive spell on her. She was being rude, but she was still talking, you attacked, you started the PvP.

I agree that it’s incredibly awkward if someone basically tries to force themself into a group; nevertheless in this situation I think it was just eagerness and motivated hopefulness. So for once, I don’t think they’re really a problem player.

@ADT1995

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I've been in both sides of that situation before. When I first started playing DnD I was fresh out of being homeschooled and had no understanding of social skills. (This was my freshman year of college... Late 2014 or early 2015) and now I've been part of a long-standing DnD group for just as long. I wouldn't write him off as a problem player just because of that. It was certainly awkward but I don't think there's necessarily a "bad guy" in that story.

@thatonedude675

Жыл бұрын

A group of people who are friends but shy with themselves getting extroverted by someone with such a lack of shyness that they’ll just offer up themselves into a group they never met is a recipe for a problem player even if they’re the best and nicest person ever. The person themself doesn’t have to be a bad guy to be a problem.

@acevendettaflightclips2189

Жыл бұрын

The person who wrote that sounded legitimately insane. He just asked her to look at his character.

@kaylawoodbury2308

Жыл бұрын

@@acevendettaflightclips2189 He's a complete stranger that asked his girlfriend to take him to ops house, uninvited, with a premade character perfectly geared for the campaign, so he could try to get her to let him join. That way too forward and a little creepy.

@viennasavage9110

Жыл бұрын

@@kaylawoodbury2308 its not though. Its not like youre asking to have an orgy, you're asking to play DND in the group that commissioned your girlfriend. There were no boundaries broken here, let alone established. It's just introverts (as usual) being freaked out by anyone remotely social or extroverted.

I remember this guy built a weird goblin archer that could send out a huge number of arrows each round and was super effective in the one combat we saw him in. The DM was impressed but had to ask, "how many arrows do you carry?" "Wait, I'm supposed to keep track of my ammunition?" "Well, yeah." "I'm not playing this character anymore." And thus ended the saga of Goblin the Archer.

@ClipperHorizon

Жыл бұрын

I've always believed that discussions of rules like ammo tracking and encumbrance should be part of Session 0. The GM needs to explain how their table works and the players need to be made aware of it. Personally, I never track ammo as a GM (unless it's special magical ammo, say the party found 5 +1 arrows of Goblin Slaying) because that's a lot of fiddly extra work I don't need. I also don't worry about encumbrance unless my party tries to do something silly like loot the entire brewery and carry 100 kegs out in their pockets. I usually tell my players "I don't like to track ammo and weight, so don't do anything too crazy and we'll ignore it." So far I've been blessed with reasonable tables who have understood the compromise and not tried to pull crazy exploits on me because I was lenient on those particular rules. :)

I don't know why, but my first thought was 'She's not like other girls! She's a rotisserie chicken!' I think I've been spending too much time on Reddit.

God the "Not Like Other Girls" thing hits so close to home for me.

Or the fire elemental just doesn't care but whole heartedly believes that they're now going to burn a mountain inspector alive 🙂

Intro story - I despise when DMs cheat to "beat" players. I've cheated to help the players without them knowing, but I won't cheat to "beat" them.

Second story reminded me of the time I excitedly announced on twitter that I was running my first campaign ever and I had someone reply to that tweet asking to join the campaign as their goblin character in a very UwU style. I looked at their twitter and all they liked was drawings of fetish porn that featured their goblin character. I blocked them and try and keep D&D stuff to a minimum on twitter now.

@oddmanout1914

Жыл бұрын

Should also mention campaign went well and were still playing to this day.

@Seth9809

Жыл бұрын

I once had someone apply to my D20 Modern game with their furry wolfperson D&D character. But that wasn't the worst of it..... Neither was the fact that they think they were transgender and they didn't warn me at all. No, they had applied with a character sheet that was hosted on f-list. I saw lot of perfectly healthy things in the "No" section.

@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos

Жыл бұрын

@@Seth9809 "they think they were transgender and didn't warn me at all" Uh...care to elaborate on what you're trying to say here? Because it's coming across a little...uh...not great

@nebuletteart967

Жыл бұрын

​@@Seth9809 "they think they were transgender and didnt warn me at all" I hope you just poorly worded this, but someone just being trans in your game is not a problem with them. If it makes you pressed that's a you problem. and on the furry thing, perhaps you could have instead pointed them to the already existent furry esque races like Tabaxi or perhaps a Shifter? it would be unreasonable of them to present you with homebrew without discussing the general vibes of your game, so in that situation I'd suggest pointing them to a race that's similar.

@corberus3119

Жыл бұрын

@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos don't assume malice. could be they didn't tell DM about their pronouns and it caused some confusion. if you read the comment they're saying the furry thing and being trans were not serious issues

That first story is why people sometimes get uncomfortable when I ask about their campaign. I HATE to insert myself into campaigns and just simply won't do it but I LOVE hearing stories of other peoples campaigns and what they love about DnD. Sometimes they give me a look (you know, the LOOK) but after a while they normally get comfortable with discussing things and we have a blast.

You are powergaming to be the main character. I am powergaming, so my party members can play whatever bullshit builds they want. We are not tge same.

@EmeralBookwise

Жыл бұрын

The later kind can be something of an unsung hero.

@finnmchugh99

Жыл бұрын

And I am powergaming solely for backstory and flavor of a character with the sole purpose of sticking to 1 role to help the party cuz there's no I in party.

I would really love to DM for someone playing a Coffeelock. Especially if they're primarily a Sorcerer and only took Warlock levels "for the short rest". See, the thing with Warlocks is, they have to make a pact with a much more powerful deity. Not usually a nice one. So, how would that deity feel if the Warlock was using some weird shenanigans to extract essentially infinite power from them? I can come up with so many plot lines, the Warlock will be renaming their character to "Plottus Generatum"

I don't particularly like kids either, but there's no reason to be a jerk about it; and snobbishly looking down on parents as "breeders" is as much as saying that you would prefer to discontinue the perpetuation of our species.

@pippo17173

Жыл бұрын

I think after knowing who the person is, I think its safe to say this is how they get people not notice that kyle is a child predator and wants to.....get in smaller pants.

@65firered

Жыл бұрын

Given the context later, I think it might be a way of coping or even control.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

Calling parents "breeders" makes me want to remind them they were born from breeding.

@Seth9809

Жыл бұрын

Someone else pointed out that the woman was likely jealous of the children, or that the male paired up with her because she hates them.

@65firered

Жыл бұрын

@@Seth9809 I think she's using this as a way to keep him in line. A subtle threat in case he steps out of line.

Lmao, when the plot twist came out in the last story I was drinking my coffee and almost choked on it because of how freaking hilarious it was.

I love Critical Role, and I'm a completionist, but I'm having trouble watching the Tiberius episodes because they make me uncomfortable. The comparison was very close. And the last story made me very, incredibly uncomfortable. I often want to reach out and join other TTRPG groups, but stories like that make me reconsider.

@twilightgardenspresentatio6384

Жыл бұрын

That clip played here assured I never risk watching it

@CrispysTavern

Жыл бұрын

Listening on the podcast made it... tolerable for me. Hell I actually liked Tiberius. When I was listening to Critical Role while doing something else it was easy to miss the nonsense. Of course, if you are aware of the nonsense, it can be much harder to miss. I recommend starting with Briarwoods if you are uncomfortable.

@Surikoazimaet

Жыл бұрын

Briarwood is the first real arc of the campaign. Tiberius works best as a lesson on not what to do both in the chair, and in-game.

@drvurruct2274

Жыл бұрын

@@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 I was thinking the exact same thing. I hear a lot of people talk a big game when it comes to Critical Role, but with Orion being a freaky dude, Critical Role's seeming refusal to directly talk about it (I "researched" it very briefly), and with how many episodes there are, I just don't have the energy or the wherewithal to do it.

If you’re going to make the player lose anyways, then don’t ask for a roll. Say yes, or roll the dice. Don’t think no and roll the dice to try to cover for you not giving the players a chance.

@Kummitusv6lur

Жыл бұрын

In 3.5 and Pathfinder Sense Motive or Bluff checks (depending on which) get modified by the believability of the lie, with absud and unblievable lies getting -10 or -20 penatlies on the check. The DM seems to have applied the penalty themself (or done it 3.5 way where it buffed the targets sense motive) instead saying taht the player should apply the penalty, but otherwise it might actually have been by the rules. Just the penalty and the targets own sense motive might have come together that way.

@ADT1995

Жыл бұрын

I wouldn't have allowed the check honestly. I ask for rolls when I believe there is a chance, or I want to see how badly this goes I might have asked for a general charisma check if I was in the mood, and then use that to determine the monsters reaction. But not a deception check. Now I have screwed up before and not realized how high someone's bonus was when I called for a check then realized it was an auto-success

@Empty_Carbon

Жыл бұрын

@@Kummitusv6lur right but if the difference between the lowest the creature needs to roll and the highest the player needs to roll is greater then the 2 extremes of the die being rolled then it shouldn't have been asked for.

@thebalalaikaremains2321

Жыл бұрын

Exactly player scored maximum success and DM rolled worst failure and still declared unsuccessful so… no roll the DM should have gone with the dice and given the player their earned success no matter how ludicrous it might seem. If you ask for a roll it means there’s a chance for success and you as the game master asking for the roll have to move with the results. At least that’s a good game master practice.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

I'm willing to chalk it up to human error here. That or rules they used weren't as simple as nat20 wins and nat1 loses no matter what.

That opening... Honestly if a DM wasn't going to let a nat 20 vs a nat 1 succeeded, then they just should not have rolled. Its okay to tell your players, "Okay no, regardless of how well you roll, that story is too ridicules for it to pass muster." And then either skip the pointless roll OR roll and have the BEST result be, "They are... Unsure. They know what you said was absurd, but you really DO seem to believe it and they think they MIGHT have heard about something like this... They won't let you pass, but they are also not attacking outright and instead are willing to talk/you get a surprise round while they try and work through what you said."

@Skimmer951

Жыл бұрын

because they played pathfinder, the DCs can get rather high and your bonuses can get very high as well, so if this was a higher level game then yeah, even a nat 20 wouldnt be able to do it if you hadnt spent any skillpoints into the corresponding skill. You dont automatically fail or succeed skill checks so bonuses do matter so in this case it was a possibility. Perhaps the dm could have telegraphed that the dc would be high or allowed a knowledge roll to let them ask questions if the elementals in general are very socially adept creatures (high sens emotive) so they could aid eachother (in pathfinder you can roll to aid if you get over a certain dc in the skill thats being used then you can add +2 to the leading rollers roll) or just in general be a little clearer it could be tough so failure wouldnt sting so badly.

@johngleeman8347

Жыл бұрын

Well said. I might have done the same.

@ADT1995

Жыл бұрын

I might have called for a general charisma check, but not a deception check, regardless of system if someone said they wanted to add deception I would have responded "you auto-failed deception, I'm trying to determine the monster's reaction"

@jayreese8522

Жыл бұрын

I would not have done that at all, but that's certainly a way to do it.

@Duhad8

Жыл бұрын

​@@ADT1995 Ya that's a good point. "You cannot fool them, but you can roll to see how you come off", with nonthreatening/suspicious/actively dangerous being possible outcomes and then THAT will determine if you can actually talk to them or if they just attack you like happened in this story would have worked fine. Its just the whole, "Roll." (Best possible result) "Well it was impossible so now you get the worst outcome." Is just silly. DON'T allow a roll or let the roll have SOME impact, even if its small.

“I’m sorry, English isn’t my first language” Proceeds to write flawlessly

Maybe the Fire Elemental actually believed that they were Mountain Inspectors and knowing the mountain wasn't up to code tried to kill them before they made the report. 🤷🏻‍♂️

@easiestcc6451

Жыл бұрын

That fire elemental was probably a Tax Evader

I so called the whole "Kai/Lyle being P********" thing. Granted, I thought it was Kai who was that, not Lyle, but with their obsession with kids partnered with them blaming kids for being the "bane of all existence", the only options I could think of were that 1) Kai couldn't have kids of her own and was jealous of everyone who had kids. 2) Someone that Kai was obsessed with (either because she looked up to them or hated them) had kids that took attention away from her and thus she hated kids for that reason. Or 3) she was a p******** and her bashing on them was the same as any playground hatred between girls and boys from elementary school (though much more serious in nature than that).

A favorite ttrpg aphorism of mine, relevant to the opening post: If you don't want the players to ruin your story, don't let them roll any dice.

How's there no villain in the "hating the himbo" story? The wizard player didn't have a backstory for their character, refused to speak to or even pay attention to Raul, sent their fox familar to bite them, stole their share of the money, engaged in pvp over it... I don't get it. What am I missing here?

Raul is pronounced “ra-ool”. 😅

@kaylawoodbury2308

Жыл бұрын

But it's spelled like Paul

Okay, so. The Himbo. This is probably an issue with party cohesion handled extremely poorly. I asked the DM if they thought a detailed and complex character would fit into the party, IT would be good to say 'oh no the vibes we're going for it goofy skeleton bards that play their ribcages like a xylophone or a giant half-troll half-orc that's got 4 braincells and acts like a child'. Don't get me wrong, BOTH ARE FINE and can even work well in a party. But I've been there where the session zero emphasised roleplay and narrative and adult themes, only to have some kobold with the mind of a 3 year old attached to my character based around Estère' "Ambition" in a campaign, or had to rework my entire character because a shark man who ate people declared everything to do with Lothian Drow (demons, misandry, etc) as a hard limit. All these characters are totally fine. But that's not the way to go about it. Talk to the dm and the players, don't try and 'fix it' (become hostile) in play. in the latter example the guy became constantly hostile and aggressive to my character (and me) and would regularly complain to the DM about my behaviour, even when it was another player doing the thing and he just ASSUMED it was me, and constantly being competitive and hostile in character when I asked specifically not to do that

What sounds more interesting: having the party fighting a fire elemental and probably forget about it by the end of the day, or letting the party member win their bluff and having the party think up a way to sell the lie? I don't know about you, but I know I would certainly see the latter option as a way more memorable event.

The moral of the last story is never trust a person who openly hates children

Intro story: If you're not going to allow a roll to influence the outcome in any way... *do not let the player roll*.

The fact that Lyle and Kai went out of their way to talk about how much they “hate children” AROUND children makes this even MORE creepy. It feels like a countermeasure to make them seem less suspicious should something happen, and I fucking hate that

for the first one the DM should have said that the elemental attacked them due to him being scared that he was in trouble due to his mountain not being well kept... maybe have him say the classic "you'll never take me alive" and/or "i'm not going back to jail"...

OMG I got a Nat 20 on a bluff check to convince a gnome I was a Forge safety inspector (dwarf) to convince them to get away from an cursed forge. I am not sure if my whole party was playing along or if they all failed their checks and also believed me but it was amazing and hilarious! I kept this up at every forge for the rest of the campaign (so far). I clearly need to inspect them all for safety.

LOL, I like the player telling the fire elemental "We're mountain inspectors." Have to check on those mountains you know. ;)

My idea for the mountain inspector situation: The elemental could have interpreted the word 'inspector' as scientist or scholar due to the language barrier of mortals and spirits. It then mistakes them for a respected clan of scholars who wish to conduct research on the mountain, but warns them not to get near to the phoenix or go to any off limits area...

That last one......JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MAN!

It got worse. I just binged all your horror stories over the past few days so I'd thought I'd share a D&D story of mine: This isn't really isn't a horror story but it does touch on a recurring theme of a bad first game coloring D&D for a long time. So I was in college with my roommate (let's call him Evan) and I forget how the subject came but I mentioned never having played D&D and only had a vague notion of what it was. He suddenly gets some books from his shelf which I had honestly never took notice of before and it was D&D and briefly explained to me how to play DM describes the setting, gives party quest, adventurers use game mechanics to fight baddies. This is of course a huge simplification and I don't know what his experience with D&D was at that time. I believe the rule set was 3 or 3.5 at the time. He tells me to pick a race and class and I go about reading it as quickly as I can trying to absorb of much information as I can. Half-Orc was an easy one for me as I like orcs, though I was confused as to why I couldn't choose an orc only Half-Orc and here's where my lore obsessed brain flips on the overdrive. If I can't play a full orc in an imaginary game there must be a lore reason of some kind like they're evil. So now I need to know at least some background lore as to why I'd be a half-orc and just generally how am I seen in society. I ask him and he says not to worry about it. I'm thinking "How am I not going to think about? I'm gonna look stupid if I'm basically betraying orc kind without knowing why half orc might even consider it?" Whatever moving on, I like casters and each one mentions spell slots "wtf is a spell slot?!" I ask Evan about it and he tries to explain it and whether my brain was just fried from deleting old files to make room for D&D or he just explained it poorly, I have no clue what he means. He tells me to just be a sorcerer because they use sorcery points instead. Ok pick my spells and the only one I remember clearly is magic missile (you'll see why). He tells me to roll for stats (have no clue if they had standard array or point buy then). Now one thing you need to know is I am cursed when it comes to dice. I roll so poorly on 3 of my stats he tells me to reroll them and the other three were only a little better than those. Enter the game. He asks me what I want to do. "uuuuuuuhhhh I don't know where I am or what I can do." He tries to explain again and sets it up a little better. "You're walking on a road" Cue generic medieval dirt road in mind. He has a DMPC (not the bad kind) and has him ask about me. I'm thinking "Oh god what does a half orc do in this world? I dunno fight orcs.?" So I tell him "Oh I uh looking to kill some orcs" people do that in every fantasy game right? He has me roll perception and of course it's only humiliatingly low. He chuckles a bit and tells me I notice trees. Cue generic goblin attack. I'm thinking I have to do melee combat because I only have a few sorcery points. So I open with a magic missile. "How many?" "What?" "How many?" I look at my sorcery points "Oh uh I guess all three". That's right I thought I needed to pay a point for each missile from one casting of it. And I didn't think about spell slots because I thought I just had the points. Not only that but two missed and the third was a nat one. He tells me I shot myself in the foot with a magic missile and take one damage. At that point I am so lost I have no clue what is going on that I was not having fun. Why am I on this road? Why am I being attacked by goblins? And one spell a day? Why am I hunting down orcs when I can barely pew pew three times a day and can't hit a blasted thing when I do. We called it. Evan wasn't trying to do any of this on purpose. I think he just got excited and our communication was lacking. Maybe he hadn't DMed before. Maybe he was trying to let me write the story while I thought I had to adhere to an existing one. Maybe it was my cruddy luck. Probably all three. But now a decade and change later I have gotten into D&D and will be playing my first game tomorrow as the DM running Lost Mines of Phandelver followed by Spelljammer. Knowing my luck on dice I'll TPK the party :)

An RPG horror story with a fairly good ending: The clear villain in this story is actually me. I fully admit that my first ever D&D game I ever participated in, I was a “that guy” problem player in every way. First, I had a very long backstory for a level 1 adventure, involving being a priest, an alchemist, and getting turned into a vampire. The character was a High Elf, very old vampire who just went around murdering because “that’s what his character would do” (I was chaotic evil, of course). I even went to come up behind the DM’s very first introduced NPC in the game and slit her throat, unprompted, for no real reason. I was just fulfilling the Skyrim Vampire Lord murder-hobo fantasy. It was bad. The character didn’t even have an actual character sheet and didn’t know what to roll or add to anything, because I didn’t understand 5e mechanics at that time and didn’t make any attempt to. Also, the second character that I ever made was the stereotypical edgy Drow rogue who didn’t like anyone and did every task begrudgingly. I even made racist remarks to the other elf character (this was of course, all done in character and meant to role play the edgy Drow-I meant no actual harm and the other player was a personal friend). He was meant to be just the worst parts of Uldren Sov from Destiny and Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow. However, the happy ending here is that I’ve since become a very dedicated member of the D&D community who understands that all of these things I put forth in my first two characters-disrespect for the work of the DM, chaos for the sake of chaos, antagonistic relationships with other players without prior consent, main character syndrome-all of them are not welcome at my tables, of which I am now the forever DM for my friends and am now everyone’s go-to person for D&D because of how much 5e knowledge I have! My players love my games and we all have a great time together now.

@ClipperHorizon

Жыл бұрын

No one starts as a good player, it's something we all have to learn as we go. Most of us honestly started as edgy, self-absorbed players because we'd never experienced the true fun of cooperative gameplay - the goal is to get better and grow beyond that. :)

For the last story, it should be noted that Lalafell have VERY childlike faces(even the men old enough to have facial hair), round, pot-bellied bodies, and, despite cutesy mannerisms in their emotes, are VERY adult in how they talk, act(two background characters, for example, have an overheard conversation about being in a shit job because one of them was caught fondling their boss' daughter) and often how the game treats them. IOW, they may look like children, but the game doesn't *treat* them like children.

@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8

Жыл бұрын

Honestly looking at them and hearing the description, Lalafell just sound like a form of Neoteny or people with Dwarfism (minus the deletrious parts of it) where development only ends at their bodies once they reach maturity but they still essentially have mental development.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

I tend to think of Lalafell as a small race that often exploits their childlike appearance.

The cold open has me so frustrated. What an amazing story that could have been! If that's not a good enough roll to beat the Fire Giants, just don't allow the roll in the first place. Flat tell the players that no matter what they roll it would never be enough. Don't build up their hope like that just to rip the rug out from under them. What a way to waste what could have been an incredible and memorable scene!

If something is impossible, don't roll for it. It feels bad to do "good" and still fail, but it feels even worse when you find out you could've never succeeded, but they let you try anyway. It feels like illusion of choice and making decisions arbitrary just because the DM didn't wan't them to succeed. Be upfront with them that some things are impossible or probably not worth it. If a player can't come up with a good reason why a villain should join their side or stop their evil ways, then a roll isn't going to cut it. If you don't want a certain (broken/OP/etc) spell or magic item being created, don't let them waste their time, money, and effort. Be upfront as its going to be better in the long run. Of course everyone has their own style or depending on the type of game you want to run, what is impossible will be completely different... just don't let people attempt things with no possiblity of success just because you want to make the illusion that they could have.

Holy fjuck the last one! 🤯

I live in an extremely rural small town. There is exactly one game store within 30 miles where I can find anyone to TTRPG with. The owner of this store is the epitome of non confrontational and will not kick out or ban anyone no matter their behavior, So horror stories I have plenty! In my opinion the worst one being the grown man who openly stares at young teenage girls bodies and makes comments about those bodies. Countless of us have confronted him, but he is allowed to be there. So I make sure that all new new players are welcome at my table where he is not. And I make sure to warn every new AFAB or fem present person who has to encounter him.

In one of my other games, we have a quite similar dynamic to the himbo story between me and another player. They play a mean, haughty half-elf wizard, while I play a doofy firbolg barbarian who tries to be nice to everyone. It's all in good fun, and we always manage to rein ourselves in before things go too far. Besides, it's lead to some of the funniest and most dramatic moments in the campaign.

I used to play WoW with my younger sister who was a pick me girl who played a healer and we ended up in a group with healer pick me girl and it was like letting loose to unspayed cats in a small room. Most uncomfortable group I’ve ever been in.

On that very first story; If you, the DM, don't want players to succeed in a skill check, don't let them take it. If you give them a check, and they feel like they've passed it and you've failed them arbitrarily, they won't be happy, so try and justify it. If there is no justification beyond "They need to fail this/this needs to not work out for them", that's fine, but don't give them to potential to succeed.

Double posting on the same one, sue me n_n I had a session of 3.5 the other day where I set up a treasure room that was intentionally inaccessible. I set it up behind a rusty barred gate AND a broken lock. They were also very hard checks as well, so it was just supposed to taunt the Anthropologist Rogue with some delicious loot. Well, our cleric is an old pro, so he goes to sleep, wakes up, and prepares Mending. Brings the Rogue back, casts mending on the tumbler, and she rolls Open Locks, Nat 20. Well, no worries. The bars are still rusted and has bad leverage, he should have issues with... NAT 20. I don't have this room made. I could be a jerk and say "It's really REALLY stuck", but I don't wanna blow a double nat 20, so I improv a treasure room. Hint to DMs everywhere: a chest full of flies where exotic fruit was stored is a really funny prank when you're panic packing the rest of the dungeon chests and added too many.

It got worse. your last story reminded me of a similar horror story - which I will send in

On the first story, the bf failed his charisma check and got 2 to his persuasion.

In regards to the intro story, if you as a DM know a player won't be able to pass a skill check even with the best possible result, don't even allow them to roll as it feels like you're being cheated when you get the perfect result and fail anyways bc it wasn't even possible in the first place

I too have spent many hours in destiny, so seeing a replica of the thorn in your background is pretty neat Edit: I also just noticed the gambit coin

IF the modifiers are such that a Nat 20 does not beat a Nat 1, then the DM had NO BUSINESS allowing the player to roll, in the first place! If you give the players a chance to roll, then you need to be prepared to HONOR THAT ROLL. Mind you, the result could have been, "The fire elemental chuckles. Haha. Good one. For that, I'll give you a chance to live. You have until I count to five to leave this place." See? That's a "success," even though the Fire elemental was NEVER going to fall for that bluff. At least the player got something positive from his CRITICAL SUCCESS VERSUS A CRITICAL FAILURE. Another option: The Fire Elemental is laughing SO HARD that you manage to sneak past him, before he comes to his senses. By the time he pulls himself together, you are inside, and out of sight, and he doesn't know where you went. However, he is not on alert, watching for you to come back OUT of the temple, past him. He'd come after you, if it did not involve leaving his post. See? Success! Even though you did not fool the enemy, you still succeeded, thanks to your magnificent roll, versus his awful one. That DM SUCKED. Just don't LET your players roll, if you're not going to allow them to succeed, no matter what! And if they do pull off the miracle, at least throw them a bone. The classic "You cannot win this, under any circumstances, but if you roll a critical success, at least you won't die," of course, is the bard persuading the king to give up his throne and let the bard be the new king. On a Nat 20 persuasion roll, the king laughs his head off, and offers to hire the bard as his new court jester. Anything less than that, and he calls the guards to punish the party for their insolence.

It's okay to not like or want kids. But insulting or bullying people who have them? So long as they arn't bad parents, you need to keep it to yourself. Edit: HOLY SHIT. I did not expect that ending. I'm so glad they warmed people. That is terrifying.

Coming up with silly cover stories to get somewhere I'm not supposed to be is my bread and butter. I usually find an opportunity to do so in every campaign, particularly when I'm the face. My personal go-to is posing as an exterminator or maintenance worker, though among other things I've also been an insurance adjuster and, my personal favorite, a bureaucrat with a federal agency there for an annual cult inspection to make sure this cult is up to code. That one took explosive dice and a critical failure on the opposing side to pull off, and completely changed the course of the campaign.

Perhaps the GM imposed a huge penalty to this "mountain inspector" bluff, but failed to notify the player.

Way to go for the OP leaving out the context on that first story, that is the last encounter of book 3 of way of the wicked.and it's the equivalent of an atheist trying to convince a Christian to renounce God. for additional context, the 14th level pc's just led an army to the base of that mountain, and they're going up there to kill the last 2 creatures in the region, that oppose the army if they bothered to . the pc's may have even sent part of their army up the mountain already, no the only words that would have stopped that fight is"we've come to surrender"

What can I say about that last story? Only that when you see red flags it's time to go.

@ArcCaravan

Жыл бұрын

Red flags feel like hindsight most of the time.

@marybdrake1472

Жыл бұрын

@@ArcCaravan Yes, and no. It depends.

My players were on fire today! Not literally, but still, so many lucky rolls it was silly! But it did lead to them not having to fight a person and his family that had been turned into eldritch horrors, so it worked out. Even made friends.

My boyfriend also graduated in Computer Science and he hates social media, everyone thinks he's a weirdo because he refuses to have a Facebook account. Personally I don't care, it's his choice if he wants to have an account on any social media platform or not. He does have a smartphone and Discord, he just never uses social media because he spends most of his free time gaming or watching anime, which is cool and we sometimes do those things together but it's also fine if he wants some time for himself. But this is his own choice, I'd never force him to give up on things just so I can control him. Edit: Just finished watching the video and damn, I did not see the CP thing coming. Luckily I'm 100% sure my boyfriend definitely didn't do anything illegal, just doesn't want to bother with social media. He does have a LinkedIn for job stuff at least.

Omg, that intro story happened in a campaign I was playing in too, in this instance it was a player attempting to take a wolf. A nat 20 and it attacked anyway... Why all for a roll of its impossible?

For the first one: I have a rule at my table that I will never ask anyone to make a roll that they can not succeed at or can not fail at. Like if your player has made their PC an expert at lockpicking, and they have +10 to the skill, just let them pick some easier locks without rolling. It makes them feel like their character is good at what they are supposed to be. Likewise, if they dumped Intelligence don't make them roll INT saves where they can only get 19 if the DC is 20 - again, what they are saying with their statistics is that their character is not that smart.

@Lobsterwithinternet

Жыл бұрын

Honestly, I'm more of a fan of the ‘Take 10’ or ‘Take 20’ rules for that sort of thing.

Me, at the start of the last story: Dude, leave her. She's toxic af Me, at the end of the last story: Girl, why are you still with him??? What are you doing??? I know you don't want kids but that's really no excuse to stick with him. Gross

Given the implications of the last story, it would've made more sense to call the problem guy Greg

Ok the Mountain Inspector thing is hilarious and the GM absolutely should have just gone with it. Read it like the player just sounded so confident and sincere and the fire elemental had a blonde moment and have fun

Wow that last story...

00:00 i mean, for the first story, i do belive that even if the fire elemental belived they were "Mountain inspectors" she would be like "....ok...." and maybe still kill them because... well... i dont care you're mountain inspectors, nobody is suposed to come up here XD buuuuut, if it was me as a DM, i would just do this: "oh... mountain inspectors... ok... lets go, i'll show yu around, follow me" and the fire elemental would acompany them trough the mountain XD

Here's my horror story: I've been playing TTRPGs since I was 12, starting out with D&D 1st Ed, so I always had an affinity for older RPG systems. My brother and I also were huge fans of Knights of the Dinner Table, who played a game called Hackmaster, a spoof RPG based loosely off Nerd Culture in the 70s-80s, and D&D 2nd Edition. It plays very similar, but has players roll for random quirks and flaws as well to give the characters "more dynamic personalities" IE. DM exploitable traits. The DM is not the bad guy here, though. CAST - Myself (James, Human Monk) - Jason (Joseph, Human Cleric) - Brett (Krunk, Human Assassin) - DM (My Brother) - And the infamous Jak (Jak, Half-Orc Barbarian) Jak was kind of a friend of a friend, someone who latched onto TTRPG groups because he was in another one. After a few sessions, it became clear why he was a serial group hopper. Jak was one of those people who just assumed we were "in the party" and therefore would always work perfectly in harmony and never have conflict, like it was a JRPG. He played is characters like professional wrestlers, but the characters still had very little personality. The real issue was that Jak couldn't read a room. He was chronically bad social interaction and, in reality, seemed to have it out for Brett(Krunk). He was kind of a bully him, was pretty rude, and made fun of his playstyle. Mind you, Brett(Krunk) was a bit flaky, played CE sociopaths 110% of the time, and did stuff in-game that is usually frowned upon like messing with NPCs or PCs. In any other situation, you'd think he's the problem player, but Brett(Krunk) is also a very old, long term friend of ours and we welcomed his brand of hijinks. Every "guy group" has that one person who people would joke about in a harmless manner, who was in on the jokes, and Brett(Krunk) was that guy. Jak, though, never quite understood that this was only permissible due to years and years of bonding as friends first, but Jak was just rude and said some pretty crappy stuff towards him. Brett (Krunk) would let it go, though, as he didn't like to make waves outside the game. EDIT: Jason plays in a D&D 3.5 game and a hackmaster game I DM, and we were talking about this. He reminded me of some horror I completely forgot about. Jak's first character was a Berserker named... Jak. Who did wrestling moves instead of weapon attacks. The first time he went into hackfrenzy, he TPK'd our veteran characters prior to the story to follow. We dealt him enough damage to also take him out when the frenzy ended, so it was a full rout. My brother, the GM, wouldn't continue a story after a TPK because all ties to the plot died with the party. New characters were rolled. NEW GAME James and Krunk were old friends, which was the only reason James didn't kick him out on his ASSassin. Since James was extremely loyal to his friends, his arc with Krunk was to make him see the light and change his evil, murdering ways. (This is a LN Monk and a CE Assassin trying to find middle ground). It was not very effective, but made for fun and interesting roleplay. Joseph, however, was a traveling companion to James, so their bond was not as strong, and Jak was Krunk's friend... a friend of a friend... and when I had rolled for quirks and flaws for James, I got "Emnity towards Half-breeds". I had to play James as a racist. It wasn't in my nature, but I didn't pass up a RP opportunity to tightrope walk a monk's vows alongside bad upbringing leading to backwards views. Joseph, in one session, befriends a goblin who was previously a torchbearer, and decides he will civilize this creature. He gives him a Human name, Edgar, but before he can get the name out, Krunk shouts "Your name is Shoebox!" to which the goblin clung to. He rejected his human name for Shoebox, but Joseph was still insistent on bringing him up as his adopted son. Krunk, however, got Emnity towards Goblins, and marked Shoebox for death. In Hackmaster, an Assassin marking a character for death was a matter of Honor, which was a stat in the game. If it ever reached 0, your character was turned into a dishonorable NPC who would thereafter stalk the party to mess them up. Krunk was staking his reputation on killing Joseph's adopted son. Over the next several sessions, he tried again and again to find an opportunity to kill the goblin, but never quite got an opening. Each time he prepared to do so, Jak would chastise him for this, to which James would immediately yell at Jak for berating his friend. The precedent was set up from minute 1: James was never nice to Jak, and constantly warned him against attacking Krunk. Firmly laid boundaries and consequences. Also, Jak's new barbarian was STILL TRYING TO DO WRESTLING MOVES. Mind you, Brett and Jason had talked about this whole situation about Krunk targeting Shoebox out of game, and both players were fine with it. Jason was enjoying having to protect Shoebox from a close but still far away threat, and Brett was having fun just being a pest. This wasn't supposed to be cross-player animosity; they both accepted this as-is, and were enjoying the ride. Jak, however, didn't get that, even after being told it was okay between them. Jak was hell-bent on stopping Brett from having fun. The session before the final straw, Jak complained the combat was too hard. Jason told him he'd be having an easier time if he used his axe instead of whiffing attacks constantly trying to suplex everything. Jak got angry, and asked if I had "window insurance"... you know, "In case I have to throw someone out of one." This boded very poorly for the future. The final session with Jak involved a very clever trap, 10 failed wisdom checks, a rock, and a bad decision. The party tripped a trap that included both a teleportation trap AND an illusion trap. The party was teleported to a room facing down a Greater Demon. We're running the gamut between levels 4-7, and in Hackmaster, which has a notoriously slow buildup, those are veteran characters. Leveling up is a slow process, so facing a great challenge like that has added stress to not die. However, we noticed at the start, Shoebox is not afraid of the demon: He's panicking and looking around us. What we percieve as a room, he correctly sees as a very small island in a rushing river. Natural evasion will inevitably send party members into a river that could kill them. Krunk also passed his wisdom check to disbelieve the room, and seeing that the rest of the party hasn't snapped out yet, gets a twinkle in his eye, a smile on his face, and a Nat 20 on a rock to Shoebox's temple. Shoebox drops in the river, and forces another Wisdom check. Joseph and Jak pass, but James fails again. Joseph jumps into the river to save Shoebox and Jak uses his superior strength to non-lethal Krunk unconscious. Joseph saves Shoebox, and Jak carries Krunk out of the river. James fails 10 total Wisdom saves and is "slain" by the demon AKA, he passes out. After Shoebox wakes up, Joseph carries James' unconscious form back to his mansion, where the party is staying temporarily. James comes to as Jak is dragging in Krunk, and the final confrontation is at hand. "What happened to him?" James asks. "Oh, he attacked the goblin, so I pacified him." Jak replied. "Wait, you did what?" James said incredulously. "I knocked him out." Jak replied with a sneer. "Why did you do that!?" James shouted at him. "He attacked the goblin!" Jak shouted back (We're actually shouting at this point) "I don't give a shit about the goblin, you attacked my friend!" I lowered my voice for this and in a condescending tone "You apologize to him, right now." Jak, getting visibly miffed about this, said "Nuh-uh. I ain't doing nothin'." As a reminder: Hackmaster has an HONOR stat, and you will DIE from dishonor if you don't defend it. James has been insulted in his house from someone harming his friend. James draws his sword (it was a longsword +3, a family heirloom. In Hackmaster, Magic items are more rare and treasured, so you use what you can) and I say to him "This is your last chance, halfie. Don't you insult me like that in my house. Apologize!" Jak just says "Nope" and gives me the finger... in person. I toss a D20 and, one very nicely timed Nat 20 later, took off 65% of his HP. I again repeat "Apologize to him... RIGHT. NOW." Jak just says "I ain't sayin' nothing to nothin!" to which I lay the final blow. After which, I say to the GM 'I strip Jak of all his possessions, kick his dirty corpse out of my house, chop him up into little bits, set them on fire, and dance around them going "Hoy-yo hey-yo hoy-yo hey-yo," to which Jak jumps up and shouts at me "You're a terrible role-player!" and storms out of the house. We proceeded to do the exact same thing outside... to his character sheet. He was repeatedly warned not to attack Krunk. He was warned that my character showed strong enmity towards him. We even openly advised him to NOT go after Krunk, and we also told him a few times to lay off Brett as well. We never saw Jak again, but to this day, Jason, Brett, and I will still occasionally shout "You're a terrible role-player" and all get a hearty laugh. TLDR: A beef-witted player who could only play himself in-game couldn't grasp the concept that the other players were playing characters who may or may not have liked his character. He takes in-game conflict out on out-of-game people, and storms off when consequences for his actions come home.

On 1st story: I also think it's up to the GM to decide whether to throw them a bone or show the "harsh reality" of a being so powerful mega rolls aren't enough to deal with it. But then GM should give the players other tools, imho, since fight-kill is the only way forward becomes boring quickly.

Coffeelock home brew rules: Everytime Warlock spell slots are converted into more warlock spell slots roll d10 / d20. If the result is less than the total number of times you've done it since a long period of supervised meditation (needs a guild, 3 days and 100 to 1000 gp) lose all your HP and start making death saves: Nat 20 = all your spells back. 1 fail = half your spells back. 2 fails = no spells until a long rest. 3 fails supervised rehabilitation to get 50% spells back; 4 fails supervised rehab to get any spells back. 5 fails and you die. 3 successes or Nat 20 and you get 1HP.

Ill be honest, if someone rolls a 20 and you give your person a roll and they crit fail. I would wing it and just be like "WOAH! SUCH A AMAZING JOB!"

I feel like it's important to consider a player's boundaries and take your current relationship with that player into account before being hostile to their character. My cousin used to run a game where her fiancee and his friend played out a rivalry/antagonistic dynamic that was apparently really fun for the first session. Then two other players, one of whom my cousin's fiancee barely knew, decided to join in on having their characters hate his character and amp up the hostility by a lot. They'd do things like constantly insult his character and shoot down all his ideas even when they were good. That made his friend have to scale back on his character saying anything mean because it would lead to a dogpile on my cousin's fiancee's character. No one discussed this dynamic ahead of time, and even after being told off, these players continued to gang up on the same character. After my cousin had a falling out with those two players, she rebooted the campaign. The new party generally treats his character as being annoying but also pretty likable, aside from the friend who was able to re-establish the dynamic they were going for the first time around. My cousin's fiancee is now able to play his character as ostentatiously as he likes without it becoming something that he's punished for doing.

On the first story, the DM broke the most important rule regarding dicerolls. Only make your players roll if there's both a chance to succeed AND and chance to fail. If your player can't win on a nat20 vs a nat1, then don't fucking roll in the first place, just say upfront that the current action will not succeed and maybe give the players a chance to do something else. On the other hand, if your player has such a high bonus that it's impossible for them to fail, or they have enough time to keep rolling until they succeed, then just say they succeed. Why waste time with a roll you know is going to succeed even on a nat1?

Hey my story was featured here :D! While I was wondering the name of the poster (anxious internet isn’t the name of the account) the him i story was that much of a horror story, but a lot of shenanigans happened Raul walking through walls, the combat tactics discussing using him to piggy back on his shoulder during adventures Bc my warlock got tired of walking all while the wizard didn’t really interact a whole lot.

To be fair a fair elemental is going to attack regardless. To them, you're fuel to be consumed, and you'd need to speak their language to talk to them anyways.

The elemental should have gotten nervous or demanded they would “never get to the bottom of his scheme to own the mountain”. the fight was gonna happen. What would change based on the rolls is his reason… his “role” in the fight. What would a fire elemental do if he encountered actual “mountain inspectors”? And if they don’t really exist then neither do dragons.

The last story shocks me and that's why Kai is rude but yet she stays with him? If I found out my boyfriend was a predator, I dumped his ass. I'm sorry, I cannot have that. I just can't.

I don’t know anything about D&D I’m here for the drama

@CrispysTavern

Жыл бұрын

Respectable.

That's some intense overcompensation

I could say I didn't see the last part for last story coming but red flags where there.

Technically for the intro story it is entirely possible that the player succeeded in convincing the fire elemental that they were mountain inspectors, and the fire elemental just didn't fucking like mountain inspectors. Maybe saying, oh were here to kill a Phoenix would have been the right call that fire elemental might have been the phoenixes enemy.

@EmeralBookwise

Жыл бұрын

Still shouldn't have rolled for something that wasn't gonna make a difference. If the elemental hates inspectors, don't even bother with figuring out whether they believe the bluff or not, just have them boldly declare their hatred and go straight into initiative.

I feel bad for the coworkers bf, he might be lonely and i completely understand op but I feel like joining a campaign really could've been good for the man

20:13 me and my girl use "breeder" "breeding" as part of our dirty talk so I fail to see how its an insult 🤣

There is a character in bob's burgers that is Obsessed with Louise (the character Kai is obsessed with) and is really creepy. Kai is that character but worse.

I see people who dislike children much like lions who kill the cubs of their rival lions or walrus who feed on baby walrus instead of oysters

@65firered

Жыл бұрын

I see that and one up with dolphins killing baby dolphins to prove a point as unlike lions they are knowingly cruel.

Ugh. That half chub clip is only watchable because of that death glare from Travis

I keep hearing about Critical Role and have yet to watch it, but one thing I keep hearing is to skip a bulk of the first season because of Tiberius and his player being that bad of a 'that guy'. That one clip is really convincing me they're right

@russellee5216

Жыл бұрын

Like 37 of 115 episodes. A little over a quarter, and it’s for the best. I started with episode 1, and the quality just skyrocketed with Tiberius gone.