>that smug feel when you DM and don't even give a shit

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>>49285435
>When it actually works
>"Wow anon, that was an awesome encounter!"
>"Where did you get those monsters?"

So, basically, you cheat and are a shitty GM.

Why even use the rules if you aren't going to follow them some of the time?

I understand fudging things and altering some stats and not giving a shit how much HP a monster has left sometimes, or which monster took which damage.

But the whole "LOL I just BS all my encounters and put fucking 100 hit points 20 AC lololol basic stats I'm such a good GM I should start my own blog" shit is just pathetic. Makes me laugh, because I call GMs on this bullshit all the time. Once I find out I usually start explicit sexual relationships with NPCs, or other PCs if the DM doesn't cooperate, then when he whines I tell him to get the FUCK out of my house. (Protip: ALWAYS play at your house. That way you maintain complete control, and can weed out shitty DMs like these).

>>49285435
>>49285461
This is basically the story of my time as GM.

After every session I feel like a fraud and it's kind of running me ragged; I had to get by as a shoplifter for a few weeks of my life and it was less stressful.

>>49285503
>So, basically, you cheat and are a shitty GM.

the purpose of a GM is to make the game fun for the party.

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>>49285503

>>49285503

That's some good bait.

>>49285526
remember that as a DM you are the guy that is holding the curtain together. You write the "script". They don't actually see what you wrote, they don't see what you rolled. Unless you actually give them the stat pages or they memorized the monsters (pro tip, only use custom monsters) they would never know.

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>when you convince your players to use a ruleset that lets you whip up everything on the fly
Turns out Risus is great if you have a bunch of roleplayers who don't give a shit about mechanics. Who knew?

>>49285585

b-but m-muh builds ripped off Order of The Stick, muh AC.

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>>49285503
Sure, buddy.

>DM with only vague stats in mind
>Player wants to DM, but is worried about remembering rules and stats
>I tell him to just make a basic plan and improvise the rest, like I do
>He thinks I'm lying to him and that I plan out my sessions to every detail
>tfw forever DM because all my friends are too scared to run a game

>>49285435
I've been doing this stuff for years. I just bullshit notes and make it look like I'm well prepared, at least for systems i understand well.

But now I've got to stay about 10 different encounters for our Pokemon Tabletop United game because after sessions 1 and 2 I have no fucking clue where my players will want to go. Seriously, agreeing to play a Pokemon sandbox might have been a bad idea.

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>>49285435
>start playing D&D 5e
>game is absurdly easy to eyeball stats for
>have to do maybe 1/10th of the mental math I had to for prior editions
>can focus on roleplaying and making fights interesting with terrain hazards and unusual tactics without worrying about setting balance-breaking precedents
I love this edition.

>>49285607
You can still be an all-powerful conjurer [4], you just need to buy it at double-pump cost because I'm using the Minute-Made Magic houserules.

95% of DMs just bullshit their stats. 4% refuse to admit that they bullshit their stats. 1% are turboautist numbercrunchers and only play with other turboautists.

>>49285693
Literally my only complaint is the lack of published character options, and that can be solved by good enough homebrew.

It makes kind of sense, most players forget the huge responsibility DMs have. They have to set up a campaign, keep track of encounters, be able to deal with players getting sidetracked and doing things that weren't expected, randomly pull encounters, loot and NPCs with personalities, dreams and wishes out of their ass and also have to be aware of party relationships, what items they have, how they interact with the world and how their behavior could potentially lead to further plot developments to make sure that none of the players feels left out. In addition to that a GM has to be impartial and not develop preferences for specific players since the rest of the table will assume that they are treated unfairly. And the worst thing is that as a DM you kind of ruin the whole game for yourself from the player perspective because you start to understand how little control the DM actually has and that 95% of the shit he says is probably not even pre-planned.

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>>49285503

>>49285776
Thankfully, making homebrew in 5e is also super easy.

There is no way I can keep up with the constant murder hobo speed train they got going, so I have vip's with set stats, but if I stop to stat out every god damn rat and junkie in an ally they attack just because, then it would bog down the game like crazy.

A good dm can Guage acceptable ac, health, and attack if he knows his players like he should. If they somehow go so off track and fight a paladin out of nowhere, I just give him some stats, and occasionally look at the paladin spell list. And Fucking player that says "hey! That spells level 2 and he dosnt seem that good!" Has missed the entire Fucking point of the role play game. My combat usually goes without visual maps as a way to get people to roleplay combat. It's faster and more dramatic.

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>>49285889
>"hey! That spells level 2 and he dosnt seem that good!"
Any player who cares enough about this sort of thing to interrupt the game to complain about that is no gentlemen and is most definitely not my nigga.

>>49285531
The purpose of a DM (and OP explicitly said DM) is to run the game in such a way that the world is as internally consistent as possible so that players can make decisions that make sense as much in-character as they can. The purpose of the party is to take that and make their own fun.
>>49285534
>>49285538
>>49285627
>>49285795
I'm not even that anon, but I agree basically 100%, assuming we're talking about D&D, which we are since OP said "DM."

>>49286033
>>49285889
>"hey! That spells level 2 and he dosnt seem that good!"
"his order focuses on different teachings"
"he is a noble with a heirloom amulet that let's him cast it"
"strange right? maybe you should investigate it"
"as you notice it, you also feel a strange holy energy emanating from the ground"
every plothole is a new unusual npc for the roleplayer, or an artifact for a munchkin, or a quest hook for an investigative player, or a place to explore for the wanderluster.

Worst gm I ever had was a collector of pnp minis. Every sessions encounters were, without fail
, based on the new mini he got that day. And he would stick to the stats like glue. He wouldn't budge. Creature is maybe 6 levels beyond you? Heh, isn't this thing so cool guys?

>>49286335
Yeah, it seems like literally the ONLY way he could have avoided doing that would have been to just eyeball it and make everything up as he goes.

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>>49285503

>>49286305
Can I have players like you? As the guy who posted it, I tell my players all the fucking time: I don't make mistakes. Somthing seems off? Ask and look into it. Recent one without much detail:
>you see the off in the distance, the spitting image of "vip npc"!
>lol gm dosnt remember he killed her
>oh I do
"Lol uta ok to admit you forgot. You even had her ghost talk to us so we know she's dead
>GEE, FUCKING WEIRD RIGHT?

They are in for a hell of a surprize when the surrogats come and just assume I fucked up.

>>49286446
Things that look like they're wrong in setting but are actually not are fun to confuse players with.
A personal favorite of mine is making a really resistant foe that CAN be killed by normal means but is a pain to, and is actually some sort of puzzle that can be deciphered by cunning and a simple skill check. Latest example being this sun-god falcon that kept healing the enemy swordsmen party and was nigh invulnerable. After spending many resources on the fight, the druid finally noticed he could just throw a blanket over the falcon to stop his light from healing the foes. Covering the swordsmen and/or using water on the falcon to refract the light was also acceptable. Everyone including me had that really smug face on, like when you finish a hard puzzle in zelda without checking gamefaqs.

>>49286693
>Hard puzzle
>Zelda

????

>>49286854
ever played oracle of ages?

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>>49285435
Heh. I mostly just do this with hitpoints, especially with bosses. The players just struck a dramatic blow against the demon lord after a long battle? Oh hey, that just managed to remove the last of his HP. Plot-important fights are a lot more fun for the players when they're settled in an awesome fashion, instead of being won with a random arrow from the ranger three rounds after everyone's exhausted their per-day/encounter abilities.

>>49285531
>the purpose of a GM is to make the game fun for the party.

So the GM can suck dick for four hours and still be GMing? No, fuck off. If you are playing, you are playing a game. It's fine to bend the rules, but ignoring them is false advertising and outright deception.

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>>49287070
>lets players win every combat cos mah narrative
>complains players always want to murderhobo

>>49286925
No, I never owned a Game Boy.

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>>49287122
Are you sure about that?

>>49286335

Shit I do this. I collect minis and usually within a week or so of getting them I need to use them in something.

But I don't do 6 levels beyond you kind of shit. I just have them as my favorite monsters, or buy multipupose minis (like orc warriors work okay for pretty much any humanoid enemy).

That said Minis let me sink money into gaming crap once I have all the RPG books I want. So there is that.

Maybe you should play something like dungeon world that encourages the GM to arbitrarily railroad the players and ignore stupid geeky shit like the rules of the game that create the consistency for the players to be able to actually roleplay. Leave D&D to the nerds please.

>>49287122
Which is the rule that says "The GM/DM is always right"? I'm pretty sure I've read this rule.

>>49285531
Would they still be having fun if they knew what you were doing? It's dishonest no matter how you look at it. they'll lose a lot of trust in you if they ever find out, and trust is important. This obviously depends on how good you are at it and how much effort you put in of course. If you're making halfassed shit up on the fly because you're lazy, you're definitely a scumbag.

>>49287237
It was invented by shitty gm's to justify them cheating at the game out of laziness.

>>49287122
The GM is sticking to the rules. They're just not the rules in the book. They're the slightly different system executed in the GM's head. The book is a useful approximation to the actual game.

The players know and expect this. They're aware that they're not playing against a computer programmed with the rules in the rulebook. The rulebook is an example to help ensure that the players and GM are working from the same page, but the only metric for "have you gone too far off the rulebook" is "do the players think you've gone too far off the rulebook."

>>49287122
>but ignoring them is false advertising and outright deception.

the players don't fucking know. Especially if there are no other DMs on the table. You have to keep in mind that as a DM you have to deal with all the insane ideas players throw at you, every little plan, every story hook you prepared, all the foreshadowing and intricate little details can be thrown out of the window by one player simply fucking something up that you didn't take into account. And every DM knows that this shit happens quite frequently. So you stop giving a fuck about the exact wording of a rule or the precise stat distribution because it would sometimes completely ruin the pace of a critical moment.

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>>49287257
>GMs
>cheating
Did someone hurt you? You seem upset about something.

>>49287237

Yeah it's called Rule Zero, which represents how much fucking value it has.

The entire contract of an RPG gets thrown out the window when you go "LOLOLOL I'M RIGHT BECAUSE I SAID SO"

That's the clearest sign of shitty writing out there. A plot-hole-riddled story with terrible unrealistic characters whose actions make no sense, and when you complain, it's "well it's MY STORY fuck you I'm right because fuck you lol what are you gonna do about it fuck boi?"

And when you walk out of that shitty movie after two hours, you feel cheated out of your money and time. And rightfully so.

Yeah go shove that "DM is always right" shit right up your ass. Then kill yourself, please, so that you stop poisoning the RPG community.

>>49287244
>Would they still be having fun if they knew what you were doing? It's dishonest no matter how you look at it. they'll lose a lot of trust in you if they ever find out, and trust is important.

Not that guy, but most of my party is well aware of the fact that I frequently bullshit things. They understand that it's done purely to keep things fun. I've never had a complaint, and I know when they DM, they do exactly the same thing

>>49287122
>>49287244
Page 4 in the introduction to the Dungeon Master's Guide in 5th edition has this nice little section of the bottom paragraph in the left hand column which starts "The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game."

>>49287187
Go emulate Link's Awakening and both oracle games... seasons might be easier on the puzzles, but they're all good

>>49287244
>Would they still be having fun if they knew what you were doing?

let me ask you a question. Would they still have fun if their lack of grasp on their abilities and damage numbers makes them continuously fail in every possible scenario?

I can only afford to give a shit about monster stats if the group I'm playing with is very familiar with the rule-set and the stats of their equipment and weapons. You can not do that with inexperienced players or any type of player that is more interested in exploration and storytelling. The moment you numbercrunch in a casual party full of people that don't give a shit about stats is the moment you see really dumb party wipes even against fairly basic enemies.

>>49287237
>The GM/DM is always right
So what if the GM/DM says his or her purpose is not to make the game fun for the party?

Does this result in a paradox, or maybe do the players also matter?

>>49287324
Play a system where that isn't the case and that problem goes away.

>>49287324
I wouldn't enjoy myself If I knew that the character design choices and my actions had no effect on the outcome of battles, but perhaps some people would enjoy that sort of game.

>>49287369
If the game is not fun then why are you playing? Are you being held hostage?

>>49287273
Read the goddamn thread before you post, idiot.

>But the whole "LOL I just BS all my encounters and put fucking 100 hit points 20 AC lololol basic stats I'm such a good GM I should start my own blog" shit is just pathetic. Makes me laugh, because I call GMs on this bullshit all the time. Once I find out I usually start explicit sexual relationships with NPCs, or other PCs if the DM doesn't cooperate, then when he whines I tell him to get the FUCK out of my house. (Protip: ALWAYS play at your house. That way you maintain complete control, and can weed out shitty DMs like these).

If you read this, and seriously think this is an actual person's sincere opinion stated to honestly contribute to discussion, and not deliberately constructed bait which may have no relationship whatsoever to reality or anything that poster feels, believes, or has experienced, then you should go sit in the shame corner.

Replying to somebody who is holding an opinion only because it makes people mad in a deliberate attempt to spur shitty discussion does not, actually, help. You can't argue someone out of a belief they don't actually hold, and are in fact only claiming to hold for the purpose of causing infuriating arguments.

>>49287300

Yeah and a movie writer is in charge of a movie.

But if you walk into Batman versus Superman and get a movie about a soldier fucking some woman who sent him a letter at the right time or whatever shit, you're going to feel cheated.

Similarly if you go to a D&D game you are expecting to play D&D, not some faggot making up bullshit and ignoring the rules. Your actions have no meaning if the DM is having the monster die whenever he feels like it and fudging literally everything because he's too lazy to actually run the system. Stop being a liar and run FATE or just do freeform. It's one thing to break with the rules on occasion when it makes a better story. It's another to hide behind Rule Zero like a fucking pussy and refuse to admit that you're a childish control freak who can't handle the game going outside of his autistic railroaded box of what is and is not acceptable.

>>49287369
no, because the GM can not overrule the task he is given. The only rule that stands above the GM's word is that he is supposed to make the session enjoyable for players. That doesn't mean that everyone has a good time by being a total badass, it just means that whatever happens is interesting enough for the players to stay hooked.

>>49287388
>Play a system where that isn't the case and that problem goes away.

LOL we fucking can't when OP is advocating for completely ignoring the rules of the game and then lying to your players by claiming you are playing D&D when in fact you are masturbating the GM's limp stiffy.

>>49287392

That is true, you should leave the group if you aren't having fun, but the DM should not advertise it is a D&D group when it's not D&D but in fact the GM's whims and random bullshit and the rules have zero part in it.

>>49285435
This is literally gurps

>>49287423
This is literally the opposite of gurps. Are you kidding me? GURPS places the most value on internal consistency and following the rules of any game of which I'm aware.

>>49287391
well it does have an effect. But as a DM I occasionally shave off HP here and there, "fix" some of the positioning inconsistencies, add objects that didn't exist in my planning to steer the session into the direction I want. Of course I'm technically cheating but sometimes you have to choose the flow of the game over the complete consistent ruling of stat pages.

>>49287459
But I already stated that I thought it was ok to "cheat" when it was done with care, so why are we arguing?

>>49287391
>I wouldn't enjoy myself If I knew that the character design choices and my actions had no effect on the outcome of battles, but perhaps some people would enjoy that sort of game.

That's why a good GM doesn't do that either, because you are correct that players don't enjoy that.

"eyeballing the stats of your monsters" doesn't mean you just make the players always win, or that whether they win or not has nothing to do with what they're doing. It just means you're approximating things rather than doing precise calculations, and skewing things to better fit narrative criteria and player satisfaction.

The resulting distribution of outcomes conditional on player actions is only approximately related to what a mathematical simulation of the mechanics would output, and skewed according to outcomes that lead to a better game experience.

That doesn't mean that it's *unrelated* to the distribution a purely mechanical approach would create, or unrelated to player action, or that the players never lose. It means that the exact outcomes resulting from player actions are only qualitatively similar, and that things are skewed towards the GM's preferences.

The purpose of the rules and the dice are to provide a structure to avoid the pure-pretend "Nuh-uh!" syndrome, and to provide a framework to help the player reason about the world strategically. If the players and the GM are on the same wavelength, then drifting from the exact rules is no problem, since the players and the GM drift in the same direction.

>>49287393

yeah then explain how a DM who doesn't follow the rules of the game over 50% of the time, is still playing the goddamn game.

> the DM can do whatever they want

Well the DM can take a fat shit on the table and lie in it but that isn't playing D&D, now is it?

>>49285693
How do I git gud at this?

I did it comfortably for pathfinder a lot, but it feels so much more egregious when I do it for 5e
halp

>>49287512
Hm, maybe because when people say they do that, you say this?

>But the whole "LOL I just BS all my encounters and put fucking 100 hit points 20 AC lololol basic stats I'm such a good GM I should start my own blog" shit is just pathetic. Makes me laugh, because I call GMs on this bullshit all the time. Once I find out I usually start explicit sexual relationships with NPCs, or other PCs if the DM doesn't cooperate, then when he whines I tell him to get the FUCK out of my house. (Protip: ALWAYS play at your house. That way you maintain complete control, and can weed out shitty DMs like these).

>So the GM can suck dick for four hours and still be GMing? No, fuck off. If you are playing, you are playing a game. It's fine to bend the rules, but ignoring them is false advertising and outright deception.

>
Yeah it's called Rule Zero, which represents how much fucking value it has.

The entire contract of an RPG gets thrown out the window when you go "LOLOLOL I'M RIGHT BECAUSE I SAID SO"

That's the clearest sign of shitty writing out there. A plot-hole-riddled story with terrible unrealistic characters whose actions make no sense, and when you complain, it's "well it's MY STORY fuck you I'm right because fuck you lol what are you gonna do about it fuck boi?"

And when you walk out of that shitty movie after two hours, you feel cheated out of your money and time. And rightfully so.

Yeah go shove that "DM is always right" shit right up your ass. Then kill yourself, please, so that you stop poisoning the RPG community.

>I wouldn't enjoy myself If I knew that the character design choices and my actions had no effect on the outcome of battles, but perhaps some people would enjoy that sort of game.

Yeah, you're right, I don't see how that could possibly come across as argumentative or disagreeable.

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>>49287595
Faintly fanny flustered, friend?

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>>49285503
Solid post

The level of anal damage you caused is proportionate to the truth of what you said.

The point of having rules is to allow the players to interact with the game world. If you don't follow them when you run the game, everything on their character sheet is useless, because they have no way of knowing if any of it will actually work the way it's supposed to.

>>49287396
>Yeah and a movie writer is in charge of a movie

You have no clue how movies are made, do you?

>>49287552
I'd put "GM is familiar enough with the system to come up with an appropriate challenge for the party" under the done well column, however there are GMs who bullshit encounters completely like >>49287595 is talking about, though they are thankfully uncommon.
>>49287595
You seem to believe that that stat blocks are either religiously copied from a monster manual or wholly bullshit. Why is that?

>>49287675
>put film into type writer
>write the movie
>???
>profit
simple

>>49287653

Oh I know what I said was true. And I appreciate you having the balls to admit it. /tg/ just hides behind rule zero because most of them are those shitty railroading GMs who don't realize that every time you say "lol rule zero" your credibility as a GM weakens slightly. I've quit shittons of campaigns where it became clear the GM was just using them to masturbate himself. Ignorign the stats of the monsters in certain cases is fine. Ignoring them most of the time because you want things to go your way, is not even playing the game.And you need to kill yourself for lying to your players.

>>49287675

> it's an "anon misses the point of the example" post

I want to say it was an excellent troll, but that sort of tard DOES exist. Hmm, well played, either way.

>>49286693
A lot of vanilla encounters seem like "how well the players roll vs how well the monsters roll"

I'm thinking of making an encounter with 2 skeletons that have 1hp, but will rez the other as a reaction as soon as the other dies. Basically, the only way to kill them is to kill them both at once by holding actions and syncing up or AOE/multitarget them. The bone bros are also shackled together by a 10ft chain, so a character could grab the chain and make a strength check to see if they pull the chain hard enough to kill the bone bros simultaneously.

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>take the improved grapple feat
>try to grapple someone
>"lol anon we don't use the grappling rules they're too complicated, just roll an opposed STR check XD"

So I took the feat for nothing, because the DM decided to make something up instead of running the actual game

If you're going to reply to my post and try to defend this type of behavior, consider taking your own life instead. You'll be doing the hobby a favor.

>>49287396
>Similarly if you go to a D&D game you are expecting to play D&D
You're going there expecting to role-play. Everything else can go. The rules are a tool. They can be discarded or adapted at will.

In this case, select elements are being ignored. Considering the Monster Manual solely exists for setting and balance reasons, it serves very little purpose if the GM can handle those things without it.

You keep talking about the rules, but what OP mentioned is only a very small part of them. In fact, they're keeping the rules, they're just applying their own stat blocks. And stats get changed or adjusted all the time. It's not like every entity is going to be homogeneous. You adjust, add and remove abilities and stats, skills, spells, etc, all the time to make the encounter more suitable for the specific context.
>who can't handle the game going outside of his autistic railroaded box of what is and is not acceptable.
You mean like you're doing? "Whaaaaa, that Hobgoblin died at 11 HP of damage, when the rules clearly say that they have 13HP. RAILROADING". That's what you sound like.

>>49287810
Sounds like you were too autistic to talk to the GM and group about house rules and game expectations before the game.

>>49287396

>laughingproducers.jpg

>>49287418
>and the rules have zero part in it.
There's that inaccurate hyperbole again.

>>49287595
Yeah, except that example was a classic straw man, you dense motherfucker.

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>>49287831
>You're going there expecting to role-play.

No, you are going there expecting to play a roleplaying GAME. There are two parts to that phrase. Ignoring one means you are freeform wanking. Nothing else.

> You mean like you're doing? "Whaaaaa, that Hobgoblin died at 11 HP of damage, when the rules clearly say that they have 13HP. RAILROADING". That's what you sound like.

Yeah pretty much. There's no fucking point in them having hit points if you are just going to ignore them. Roleplaying games are not for you. Stop hijacking them to introduce legitimacy to your bullshit.

> n fact, they're keeping the rules, they're just applying their own stat blocks.

Stat blocks are part of the rules fuckboy.

> And stats get changed or adjusted all the time.

Yep. But OP is just making up bullshit to control the story how he wants. There's a difference between adjusting stat blocks and not even using them. "LOL 1000 HP" is not a stat block. It's not a creature.

> In this case, select elements are being ignored.

Nah it's just the DM abusing his power and not even putting any effort into it. The character's abilities have zero fucking relevance when the DM just pulls a number out of his ass for the monster and changes it every two seconds to fit "muh narrative." Why even play? Just ask the DM how the story ends. Then lube up because you're going to have the entire autistic plot of his next novel rammed up your tight hiherto-unfucked asshole.

I really wish GMs who did this were hit by cars. Or pissed off the Mafia by making up a bullshit RPG game. The day there is a Whitey Bulger of shitty GMs is the day I will give another man a willing blowjob.

>>49287857

> the default assumption of playing the game is that the rules in the book will be ignored

Nah that's the GM's job. If you're going to ignore rules, it is on YOU to tell the players up front. Full stop. Because saying "we are playing D&D" means you are playing D&D rules included.

>>49287869

The rules might as well have zero part in it when you are removing half of their entire function. Rollign to hit against an empty vaccuum when in fact the monster is not going to die until the GM feels like it, means that your actions have no meaning and no purpose. Thus the rules are purposeless.

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>>49287902
Geeze, you're a saucy one.

How about everybody just do what's fun for them? Anything wrong with that, familius?

>>49287917
>it is on YOU to tell the players up front
Nobody goes into a game expecting monster stat blocks to be adhered to fully. That's not something you need to mention unless you're changing the setting significantly to the point where existing words mean something totally different.
>we are playing DnD
It's not a computer game. The point of RPGs is the variability and ability to adapt. Playing DnD means what you started with was based on DnD, and that probably the mechanics of the game will be mostly DnD, at least to start with.

Beyond that, it's just monster stats. A very trivial part. If he was changing the resolution mechanics that might be a big deal, but shifting monster stats or making them up means almost nothing. These hobgoblins are using pikes. This cleric has a somewhat unorthodox spell selection. This Dragon is just plain tougher than most. Throttle back on the meta-knowledge and nothing happens that should annoy you.

What is fun in D&D for you guys? Why do you play these games with a DM? Because if you want the "100%, follow the rules, never fudge anything" experience then go play video games, cause that's what those are.

>>49287931
>you are removing half of their entire function.
OP wasn't, though.
>empty vacuum
The GM keeps track of damage and stats. If the GM was so bad at GMing that they needed the monster manual for that, they're in the wrong job.

>>49285795
These bait reaction images are getting out of hand.

>>49287810

Still prevents you from taking an Attack of Opportunity when you initiate a grapple fampai :^)

If just making the shit up as you go along isn't shitty, then why does it make you feel "smug" rather than "good about helping your players have fun?"

>>49287902

>Mfw this guy probably hates homebrew monsters too.

Its a fucking game mate. Calm the fuck down. If you don't want those kinds of games don't play them, holy shit.

>>49287902
>ignoring one
Except you're not ignoring it, you're just not fixated on a specific form of it.
>no point to them
Provided the GM portrays it competently, it means very little. It's not like he's giving them ogre stat blocks.
>part of the rules
A small part of it. And one that is highly chimeric even in the average group. Monsters don't come out of a replicator.
>making up bullshit
Not if it's consistent, doesn't break suspension of disbelief, and flows well. Then, he's just doing his job.
>abusing his power
That's far from proven.
>pulls a number out of his ass
Provided that it matches with the players approximate expectations and setting knowledge, then it doesn't matter. If he was doing the 'yes, these basement rats actually fight like cyclops', that might be a problem, but who's going to sperg about it if the orc warriors have 20hp rather than 15? They're just a slightly tougher bunch than average. Or maybe the previous stat block turned out to be way too easy for the PCs, or this tribe of guys is known for being better or worse. Or maybe they're far stronger than the base stat blocks.

Abuse would be railroading, or this kobold suddenly having 100hp and a wand of disintegration because the GM wants to kill the party, or hard block this path. Deviating from the setting specific stats for the purposes of story.

The GM already has near total power when it comes to encounter and scenario composition. This is merely the same concept, in a slightly different presentation.

>>49285435
I don't feel smug, i just feel lazy.

>>49287902

Yeah, every setting is a carbon copy of the monster manual monsters. And every game needs to have exactly the same stats, because there's no other variables in play, and having a fun game means not varying from the listed stats, because the listed stats are perfect in every way.

>>49288034
Given the posted image of a pig eating, I'd say he felt smug about getting away with being lazy. He cut a corner and everything worked out fine. Less paperwork for the GM, thank god, he thinks.

>>49288034

It feels like you're pulling off something you're not supposed to, because the standard rule is to plan everything way out, but sometimes the best features come from pulling shit out of your ass. Hell, i made an enemy with a custom statblock and halfway through a fight i gave them a new power because they weren't playing right and it made an otherwise unimpressive monster into something the party remembered and enjoyed.

>>49287985
Conversely, if things that aren't "supposed" to happen never happen, why the fuck are we rolling dice? If that's what you wanna do, own up to it and run a freeform game.

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The most important rule is that you are trying to make it fun.

>>49287653
>>49287719

Every board should have IDs cause I love laughing at samefags

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>>49288377
And I love laughing at people who get fucking BTFO

Keep replying, I'm sure everyone wants to see your attempt at damage control

>>49288409

>le_master_ruseman.png

Half of this thread is you arguing with yourself and you think you're getting away with it

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Does anyone else reveal the enemy's current/maximum HP and defenses at some point in the fight, so that the players KNOW that they have a real progress benchmark to work against?

>>49287244
>Would they still be having fun if they knew what you were doing?
They're well aware, because I told them. We often talk about the writing and design of stuff I run after it resolves. They were actually thoroughly impressed the first time I let them peak behind the curtain.

Honestly, you're going to have to explain what's so special about the distinction. Are you really saying there's a substantive difference in *when* you come up with content? I'm not sure where the line's supposed to be.
Frankly, I'm willing to bet you don't have an idea either.

>>49287583
What aspect are you having trouble with?

HP is easiest to solve. Party is fighting 4 orcs. How much HP should an orc have? Well, just keep track of damage. When they get 2 good hits on an orc, have it die. The amount of damage it took is how much HP an orc has. Obviously, if someone uses a big supernova attack or someone whiffs on a damage roll, act accordingly.

Damage is usually only a problem if you make something that hits too hard. If a baddie does too little damage, you can have him pull out a bigger weapon, cast higher-level spells, use a buff spell/potion, or call in some meaner allies. So when in doubt, aim low and adjust upwards as needed.

Adjusting AC on-the-fly can't really be done without feeling cheap. If you're creating roughly humanoid enemies, you can approximately copy the AC from your PCs. Otherwise, I would just stick to stuff from the book. Luckily, 5e has a much flatter AC ramp than 3.5/PF.

>>49285795
I never expected memes to go full Robert Frost

>>49288499
Yeah, for boss monsters especially, it's fun to say stuff like "this guy is more than halfway dead" or "he literally has 6 HP left, guys." Often helps speed up combat as you get near the end, so people aren't wasting 5 minutes planning their turn when it males no difference. And gives them the chance to do cool finishing moves.

My god, I'm glad I'll never have to play with any of the players from this thread.

>>49288782
Well they've already done Lovecraft (like, actual lovecraft quotes), Thomas Pain, Steven Hawking, and I'm pretty sure there's one that parodies the song American Pie.

I think all that's really left is to actually do a bait post in Old English and parody Beowulf.

>>49287714
>put film into type writer
Something's not right here.

>>49288873
Yeah--who even uses typewriters any more?

>>49288834
>a bait post in Old English and parody Beowulf.
Somebody should do that.
T.S. Elliot, too. "I can show you bait in a handful of text"?

>>49287297
Rule Zero is "have fun", no?

>>49290189
No Rule Zero is simply that the GM , and the players which always seems to be forgotten, can change the rules of the game if they don't think it works for them. As far as I'm concerned this exists to help facilitate house rules,it doesn't exist to give the GM a license to screw over the players. I know myself I discuss every house rule I make in a system in advance and okay it with a group and make the rules of the game as clear as possible. I'll even give players the exact target number they need to roll for a DC check sometimes , while it is a bit metagamey it gives them a sense of what they need to achieve something before they do which I think their characters would know. I'll also constantly spell out the consequences of actions so 'yes you can keep searching through the merchants goods but each check you make gives the guards one more chance to spot you.' Players need to know what they are doing, what they are capable of and what the consequences of their actions are within the rules of the game or they will be confused as fuck and just be playing a random number generator mixed with guess the whim of the guy running the game.

>>49285503
HELLLLOOOO VIRTUALOPTIM

There you go, there's some attention, you can stop posting now

>>49285435
I just say the monster is dead when I think the players have had a good fight.

>>49285435
I did this for a while but it gets harder as combat increases in complexity. If you ignore too many combat rules, players may as well just be watching.
At the very least follow combat maneuver, skill and spell/spell-like ability rules.
Also this may be irrelevant but for the love of god make enemies do more than swing. I swear every DM I see just makes NPCs mindless dummies in combat and it's awful.

I do this all the time.

Part of the time I do it simply because monster stats can be...off. Had my players one time go against some yetis. A challenge well within their supposed ability. Long story short the Yetis start tearing the party to shreds. So I cut the health of the Yetis down so they would take about 60% of the hits they would of taken before. I didn't want to touch damage because they already saw damage output and to change that mid fight would be way more noticeable.

This becomes easier as you gain a better understanding of the system and, more importantly, the capabilities and thinking of the PCs.

Coming out of the gates with a new party and doing this is not a good idea IMO

>>49290588
Or maybe just let your players try to actually overcome a difficult obstacle rather than treating them like little babies. This really is the whole problem with society today, nobody is ever allowed to fail at anything so we have a whole bubble wrapped generation brought up to be terrified of failing and not being good enough and developing a whole host of mental health issues from anxiety to depression as a result. In reality people trying and failing things and you need to give your players the respect that lets them fall so they can rise and grow. They deserve that, they deserve better and if you cared about them you would let them fail.

>>49285795
This is great.

>>49290896
There is a difference between coddling the players and straight up designing an encounter wrong.

That fight was going to be a TPK. I misjudged the damage output compared to party HP and what was supposed to be a fairly even fight became extremely one sided. So I made an adjustment. The players did nothing wrong so a TPK would be rather fucked up.

That is why I really started making up my own stats for monsters and started to use monster entries as suggestions and inspiration. CR is shit and monsters are poorly balanced

virt general

>>49290938
>CR

4e's encounter building was actually good.

>>49290896
>actually overcome a difficult obstacle

Who do you think comes up with the obstacles and encounters? Do you take the DMs notes away from him after the game to make sure that he ran the encounters in exactly the way he initially planned them?

And if you don't, how can you sleep at night knowing that every time your party did overcome some kind of difficult obstacle, it might have been because the DM made it a little bit easier than he initially planned? What if that time you won... you should have lost?!

>>49290988
I will completely accept that 4e is more balanced than 3.Pf. However, my group prefers the feel and the silliness of Pathfinder.

>>49291008
I'm actually DM and stick strictly to my own rules.

I find it difficult to play anymore because there's so many bad gm's who do weak shit like this and fudging dice, railroading, creating precious encounters and precious npcs and actually designing plots and they seem to get congratulared and encouraged to do so for some reason.

>>49291024
>I'm actually DM
Anon, you are only a DM if you have players. You seem like you don't get along well with others so I have my doubts about you actually being a DM.

>>49291024
>bad gm's

Bad GMing is the problem. It's not about the purity of your adherence to your own notes; you can let the dice fall where they may and stick to your pre-written encounter through thick and thin and that wouldn't stop you, say, being a railroading cunt of a DM, or the sort of person that inserts precious NPCs that can't be touched.

If you adhere strictly to your own plans or fudge the rolls as you go, both behaviours can enable shit-tier railroading.

>>49291024
>I'm actually DM and stick strictly to my own rules.
My own rules include making sure my players have fun. If it's gritty stuff that will leave their characters half-dead, mad, or dead, it will be that. If it's some epic high adventure where the difficulties are more moral than having luck on the dice, then it will be that.

Flexibility is my rule.

This thread makes it abundantly clear that almost all players want a GM that doesn't fudge rolls and wing everything, while there seems to be some GMs that do and some who don't.
Clearly the GMs that handwave are less appreciated. Maybe they should reflect on that.

>>49291155
>Clearly
Or the autistic "RULES ARE RULES" type is just more prone to lashing out from behind the guise of anonymity. Or they care more about putting down their perceived enemies. Or [...]

>>49291155
The problem is that a good GM is not necessarily going to let the players know that there has been fudging and winging, and players who don't like it are only going to complain when they notice it, not every time that it happens in their games.

Also, I wouldn't take any advice on DMing from people who haven't done it. It's all too easy to be an expert on what works and what doesn't when you've only ever been a player. It's like going "I ride the short bus to school every day, so I know exactly how to drive the bus full of screaming tards and how the mechanic should maintain it to keep it running smoothly!"

>>49291155
As both a gm and a player, you're full of shit. This thread makes absolutely nothing "abundantly clear" on any side.

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>>49285636
>tfw people are too scared to gm because they see me calculating percentages and multiplying 2 digit numbers on the fly without a calculator
>tfw people are too scared to use my gm materials because there is a chaos of numbers and shorthands on my encounter sheets
>tfw i have that one friend that works hundreds of hours on his magical aliens setting but presses me to play it for him because he thinks he cant gm.
>tfw i have 8 character sheets as backup in case i get to play

>49291033

I've been DM'ing for a decade for multiple groups, currently run a group of 6 and have had to turn away multiple players because of numbers so no . Not that that matters as there's so few DM's to players that most players will accept any old shit shoveled in their mouths hence this thread.

>49291081
I agree there's an awful lot of different behaviors that constitute bad gming and I believe one of them is making encounters inconsistent by fudging HP values mid encounter.

>49291075
Your players fun is not your responsibility. You exist to facilitate them having fun but you don't exist for them to have fun as them having fun can be dependent on about a million different factors, if they had a shit day they might not have fun no matter how good you are. All wanting them to 'have fun' does is mean you dance like a monkey for your players or just endlessly reward them and fudge encounters so they can never die which ironically is incredibly boring and not fun and players cant be engaged by such an obvious railroad where they can never fail.

>>49291284
>making encounters inconsistent by fudging HP values mid encounter

Inconsistent how?

>>49291328
>A hulking snow abomination appears from the ice and charges at you.
> It dies in 2 hits because oops they have too much HP lul even though they're described as being hulking and strong.

>two sessions later
>you encounter a snow abomination trapped in the mad wizards lair
>dies in 12 hits because it now magically has its original HP as you forgot fudging it the first time/the players have leveled up.

One example might seem innocent but do this all of the time and your players will soon realise they live in a world that's entirely arbitrary and so their choices are ultimately meaningless and they will just dully murderhobo everything. You'll then complain that all they want to do is murderhobo

>>49291368
>Starving yetis attack party, later the same party encounters a healthier pack of yetis.
This stuff is not that hard.
Are you sure that you've GM'd before?

>>49291391
Ah the starving yeti's who were only starving half way through the encounter.

Yes I'm aware you can make shit up on the fly, I'm aware that sometimes this is necessary mostly when your players think of something you hadn't anticipated, it isn't necessary and fucks the consistency of your world when you fudge things mid-combat.

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I'm just gonna put this out there:
There is nothing wrong with fudging rolls, making up stats, or changing encounters on the fly to maximize fun for everyone.

What is Bad GMing is when you pretend your players are incapable of reason or tracking damage totals.

>>49291024
Still doesn't change the situation even one jot. You as the GM need to give the players challenges their characters should be able to handle, or you'll soon find yourself with a table with not players. Is this coddling them? In a way, yes it is but that's how all rpgs are.

>>49291368
A Yeti in Pathfinder (might be a bad example) has 6d10+12 hit points - why would you expect somebody to leap to the conclusion that things must be fudged because Yeti A dies before Yeti B when they've both taken the same amount of damage? It's supported by the rules.

If your players are looking for reasons to get pissed off, they'll find them. If they can't handle the inconsistency of something in the same species having a different amount of hit points from another member of the same species, in games that use dice rolls partially to simulate inconsistency, you're pretty much fucked.

>Oh, the monster hit me for 6 damage, the DM must be fudging the dice because that's below average on 2d6+4!
>Oh, the monster hit me for 16 damage, the DM must be fudging the dice because that's above average on 2d6+4!
>Fuck this DM!

>>49291426
>because all individuals have the same amount of hit points every time
Have you noticed that they give monster hit points as HD, as in Hit Die? As in you ROLL their current hit points. A 2HD monster on average has 9 hp, but it could possibly have as low as TWO or as high as SIXTEEN.

MAKES YOU THINK HMMM?

>>49291426
Completely true. You can get away with any amount of cheating as long as (1) your players don't realize you're cheating and (2) your players are having fun. Of course, you're better off if you can balance your numbers in advance so that you don't accidentally screw the game up mid-session with (for example) a surprise TPK or a boss that gets killed in one round.

>>49291421
>Ah the starving yeti's who were only starving half way through the encounter.

wat

No. Even if you decided to change their HP total half way through the encounter, the players don't know that, and it's still consistent with the expectations for a Yeti. You could half the average amount of hit points a Yeti with average hit points has, and still be within the range of Yetis based on rolled HP.

>>49287244
I'm pretty convinced my DM fluffs combat, but it's still fun.

We're a very RP heavy group, though, so that may help.

>>49291481
That's why random encounter in nearly every edition of the game have threats that the players can't neccesarily handle like dragons or 120 kobolds and CR calculations can go up to 'hard' and 'deadly' encounters even in 5E.

It's nothing to do with systems it's to do with bad gming. Some systems (4e) encourage bad gming but that's the exception not the rule.

>>49291509
Obviously variance is going to exist within species and encounters, that variance should just be decided before the encounter start not midway through it unless you enjoy running inconsistent games with players who have no idea what the fuck is happening anymore.

>>49291540
Maybe you'd be able to roleplay in combat if your DM didn't splurge through it and fudge everything?

>>49291421
>Ah the starving yeti's who were only starving half way through the encounter.
Or perhaps the PCs did not notice their starving condition until halfway through the battle when they showed visible signs of weakness?

>Yes I'm aware you can make shit up on the fly
But I'm starting to really be convinced you've never done it.
If so, you either haven't GM'd or are so dead certain that your Swiss clock of a game will run perfectly regardless of anything that happens, that you happily sit back and watch it grind up fun instead of actually running the game.

>I'm aware that sometimes this is necessary mostly when your players think of something you hadn't anticipated, it isn't necessary
You are not as aware or coherent as you think you are.

>fucks the consistency of your world when you fudge things mid-combat.
It only fucks things up if you don't even try to roll with the changes.
You are fixated on this perceived consistency of your world.
You do realize that no part of your world exists until the Players perceive it, and even then it's through the flawed senses of their PCs.
It is easy to change and modify things that happen so that everything you've said to your players fits together consistently, as with the Yeti example above.
But you have to let go of the idea that the world, planned adventure, and encounters were perfectly forged before the Players even showed up.

>>49288808
Well, halfway dead is good, but talking in numbers always felt too immersion-breaking to me.

>>49285503
>Why even use the rules if you aren't going to follow them some of the time?

good fucking point. I'll try not using rules and see if there's as much fun for the group afterwards.

If there still is, rules will still be used.

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Oh gee, I wonder if this thread is going to be full of extremists putting words into each others' mouths and shitting on everything.

>>49285435
>That satisfaction when you've prepared a challenging, balanced and satisfying encounter that's consistent with your world, and everyone enjoys a bit of tactical fighting wherein their tactics actually matter.

>>49291553
>that variance should just be decided before the encounter start
...why? How does deciding a variable before, during, or after an encounter make the game inconsistent or not?

>>49287902
>freeform wanking
is that fun?

Which is more fun?

I want to do this in my freetime, you see, so this is an important aspect to my hobbies.

>>49291426
>What is Bad GMing is when you pretend your players are incapable of reason or tracking damage totals.

Bad GMing is when you autistically believe that your players have the same information you do as the GM. The players don't have access to your notes, they're not going to neatly match your levels of attention or interest in certain things. The players are going to have to extend some trust to the DM, and in turn, the DM is going to have to extend some trust to the players.

>>49291588
The way I know my DM fudges is because he cant keep a pokerface.
Me "shit one more hit and I am dead! Gotta roll high, shit a 3! im a goner"
DM looks at me, looks back at his dice, looks back at me, looks back at his dice.
DM "wow I fumbled, hur hur, you guys are always lucky"

>>49291553
You need to answer this >>49291588
>How does deciding a variable before, during, or after an encounter make the game inconsistent or not?
Especially if it is an unseen variable?

>>49291609
I agree that's bad GMing, not being able to hide your fudging from the players. He should work on perfecting his pokerface since it's the #1 GM skill in my opinion.

>>49291553
How does it make it inconsistent? The only way it can be inconsistent is if you tell them. Do you tell the players how many hit points the monsters have at the start of an encounter? If you don't, do your players demand to see the notes after the encounter to make sure they weren't cheated?

>>49291563
I do roleplay in combat (I've even ended combat due to roleplaying during it).
Fudging stuff doesn't have any impact on that.

>>49291603
>Bad GMing is when you autistically believe that your players have the same information you do as the GM.
While this is true, I fail to see a connection from this, and the rest of your post, to my post.
Aside from them both suggesting aspects of bad GMing, that is.

>>49291563
Okay you have to walk me through your reasoning here, because right now what you say doesn't make any sense to me.

>>49285526
>I had to get by as a shoplifter for a few weeks of my life and it was less stressful.
How it went? Wasn't it difficult due to all these cameras?

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>>49287902
>GM makes the party encounter a very big wyvern with some strange, leather-looking armor on.
>That guy gets an aneurysm "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, Wyverns can't wear armor REEEEEEEEEEEE"
>After 30 minutes of debating, initiatives are rolled
>That guy has the highest initiative and tries to attack the wyvern and rolls a 15
>GM rules "Your attack glances off the Wyvern's thick hide armor. You missed"
>Cue a second breakdown by that guy "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the wyvern has an AC of 13!!!!!!!!!! I have read it in this bestiary book that you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO FOLLOW REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
>eventually, the party manages to deal 100 HP worth of damage
>That guy attacks and deals another 18 damage
>after him goes the wyvern, which has been limping since the past turn and now spreads it's wings and flies away
>cue third eardrum-piercing shriek by that guy "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, the wyvern only has 110 HP, WHAT THE FUCK SHIT GM REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This is what you sound like.

>>49291657
"Getting by" for weeks suggests that he was stealing out of need, not desire.
Needed items like food are easier to shoplift and less focused on by the cameras.
Stealing is easier to get away with if you aren't a thief.

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>>49291024
Oh yeah, I bet the player will love how you had his character killed by a very aggressive homeless guy with a knife because he had shit initiative and the homeless guy crit his sorcerer's ass in the first round!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>49291745
If the homeless guy wasn't supposed to be a threat then why did you roll or do any of it

>>49291745
>Oh yeah, I bet the player will love how you had his character killed by a very aggressive homeless guy with a knife because he had shit initiative and the homeless guy crit his sorcerer's ass in the first round!

That's bullshit though! The stat block for the human homeless guy says he's got 1d12 hit points, and my Sorcerer is a human, so we've both got to have the same amount of hit points! The fucking inconsistency of how two different examples of the same species makes me so mad, I might as well just murderhobo everything in the game with my next character!

>>49291698
>less focused on by cameras
Cameras tend to be everywhere in the shop/supermarket, it's wonder he didn't get caught.

>it's easier to be thief when you aren't a thief
what

>>49291754
Because he's a GM who
>stick strictly to my own rules.
So he designed this encounter and stuck with it to the very end, with all the combat-related info for the homeless guy laid out and so on.

And with one good roll, that one NPC killed a low-level PC right at the start.

But hey
>I never fudge rolls, this is clearly the superior way to play the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do not think that this way of doing things is very good.

>>49291775
Sorcerers have 1d6+con modifier HP at level 1 in 5e.

>>49291754
It's what I had written down when I planned the campaign out, so it had to happen.

>>49291811
Yeah, that's kind of the point. I was poking fun at the "the game is inconsistent if Yetis take different amounts of damage before they die!" angle the poster then goes on to take further along in the conversation (see: >>49291368)

>>49291811
So your post implies that the player dying is a terrible thing to be avoided.
And yet you put in a homeless character encounter, and sarcastically complain if somebody dies.
If somebody dying was a bad thing that has to be avoided, then why did you even make an aggressive encounter?

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>>49291832
So you build a character in 15/30 minutes because u r soooo gud!!!!!!!!!!!, whatever and then you are not a little bit rustled when a random encounter goblin shanks, crits and kills your character because of a lucky roll.

Here's my point: if I have to sit down for 15 minutes (usually it's longer) to make a character for a long campaign (in one-shots it is irritating, but it's a lot easier to get over it) just to have him get killed by a shitty random encounter- or an encounter that was not supposed to be dangerous at all, making me completely waste my time for nothing... I don't find that fun. Not in the slightest. So a GM who is dead set
>yeah, this enemy coup de graces your unconscious character and is done with it
is not a good GM in my book. Because it demeans the character, it makes me feel like coming up with the character in the first place and using all that time to make him was completely wasted and I would be better off doing something else instead.

GMs who are not flexible and/or -Imaginative- enough to come up with a scenario that is fun for the players, but then stroke their own inflated ego by saying
>Yeah, I never fudge rolls. I play it out in the open and whatever happens, happens: it is so much better than fudging dice. If you do that, you're better off just playing a freeform or writing a novel, amirite?
disgust me deeply.

You have to find a balance... and not just think you are the hottest shit since sliced bread, because son: you aren't.

If you inferred from my post that PC death is bad, my mistake: it is acceptable... in reasonable measure. Random encounters against goblins or shitty enemies... it's not very reasonable to have a PC die there, in my opinion.

>>49291806
>Cameras tend to be everywhere in the shop/supermarket, it's wonder he didn't get caught.
I don't think you understand how camera surveillance works.
They only check the footage if something went missing.
A few bucks of deli meat that might've eventually expired anyway is not worth the trouble.
$200 worth of steaks? Check the tape.

>>it's easier to be thief when you aren't a thief
>what
>Leonard: "I'm not a killer!"
>"I know Lenny, that's why you're so good at it."

>>49291942
>So you build a character in 15/30 minutes because u r soooo gud!!!!!!!!!!!, whatever and then you are not a little bit rustled when a random encounter goblin shanks, crits and kills your character because of a lucky roll.
No, not really. I'd be "ah shit" but if the system permits this shit and I decided to play it, then what the fuck else did I expect? "I'm going to play a level 1 7HP sorcerer in a world where people can easily do ~7 damage a hit and I'm going to be upset if I die in a fight" is retarded.
Having an enemy bother with a coup de grace in the middle of a fight is dumb too, though. Who wastes time finishing a dude off when several other guys who are trying to kill you are right by you? Wouldn't make much sense.

If the random encounter or goblin enemies are not intended to be a threat, why the fuck are they there? Because your system depends on resource drains to be functional? Because you're just trying to pretend the world is dangerous, but you don't want it to be actually dangerous?
You sound like you'd be better off with a different system or talking with the GM about possibilities and then going "oh yeah GM can you just not ever kill me unless I agree to it being dramatically appropriate? I think we'd all enjoy it more then"

>>49285503
There actually is no rule in D&D that DM has to use pre made monsters or that the encounters should be properly balanced.

Thus no rules are broken and your bitching is invalid.

>>49285435

Shit i do that all the time in wod, just grab a ramdon number of d10s, pretend i count them remove or add one and roll.

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>>49291985
Hey, if you are masochistic enough that you're okay with your character dying like a little bitch to a goblin kid with a steak knife, it's on you.

But hey, you said it yourself
>the world is dangerous

I guess it will be okay with you that the group will just continue playing while you have to make a new character because the old one is dead.

And that they will continue playing until there is an appropriate time where your new guy is introduced... which will probably take more time than the session you're currently playing.

But hey, it's okay! Kevin died too so you can both make a new character together while the others continue with the adventure.

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>>49292044
Yeah, ok. It sounds like I was right; talk to the GM and tell them you don't want to play a game where you can actually die unless it's some hugely dramatic fight.
You can be happy knowing you're not actually in danger in "dangerous" situations, and your GM will be more free to not have to worry about ruining the groups fun via killing you.
This way fudging and shit isn't even necessary.
Or play a system where you're all actually superheroes, or where you don't start as literal cannon fodder that like level 1 DnD 5e PCs are?

I'm just confused because you complain about some possibilities (dying to enemies) and demand cheating the rules in-play (fudging, so the homeless guy doesn't knife you to death), but you're seemingly simultaneously saying that you can't just talk to the group to make the actual game + system fit the tone you actually want (which is random dudes can't kill your heroes).

Pic is from Savage Worlds as an optional rule.

>>49291985
>If the random encounter or goblin enemies are not intended to be a threat, why the fuck are they there?
This.

>>49292044
A level 1 PC getting felled by a random goblin shiv sucks and is to be avoided if possible, but not a decent reason to fudge.
Now, if this were a higher level PC getting bent over by the dice in a series of crits in both directions in a longer campaign focused on roleplay, I might fudge a little.
But if you fight a homeless man with a knife, you have to accept that it could be deadly.

In short, please stop making me agree with the other anon. He's a prick.

>>49292131
My sarcasm and some maybe a lot of condescension is born out of legitimate desire to get the other anon, and others, a game they'd actually enjoy without this weird cogdis I see. and also I might be a bit of an asshole, sorry
People say they want deadliness and all kinds of stuff but then also seem to request/advise fudging so they/others don't die unless it's dramatic, but it'd be so much easier if you just played a different system or made a rule saying you can't really die unless it's dramatically appropriate. I mean, that's what you're going for, right? Why not just agree to it straight up as a group?
Hell GMs even do this kinda stuff anyways and /tg/ advises people to do it sometimes. We get "Oh no, how do I avoid a TPK?" threads/questions with "Oh just say they were taken hostage or robbed or something, not everything needs to result in death, plenty of alternatives to being knocked the fuck out/running out of HP" responses.
Why is that advice given in that situation? Because death wouldn't be dramatically satisfying and 'dramatically satisfying' is being prioritized here, so other alternatives are offered. Heroes never die. Thanks, Overwatch.

>>49288499
Unless its an enemy that can make a comeback later on or a boss i rarely hide the amount of health enemies have left.

But yeah, even if its health is hiding i make hints on how bad he's going.

>>49292266
Yeah, reading the response chain it seems you're not much more of a prick than is to be expected for /tg/ and I might have conflated you with this anon >>49291553 a little.

>>49285435
I just want to smack that pig for some reason.
Just slap it on the face as hard as I can.
I don't even know why.

>>49292538
Because it would make the most satisfying slap noise and the ripples would travel across it's body.

Where is the pig kicking knight picture when you need it!?

>>49292588
>Because it would make the most satisfying slap noise and the ripples would travel across it's body

No, it's not that at all.
I just want to smack it.
Something about it makes me want to hit it on the face really hard.
I think maybe it's face annoys me.

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>>49292603
>wanting to smack a nicely snuggled up pig that just ate a cookie
you're a monster

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>>49292588
>Because it would make the most satisfying slap noise and the ripples would travel across it's body.
Like slapping a ham...

>>49292538
>I just want to smack that pig for some reason.
>>49292603
>Something about it makes me want to hit it on the face really hard.
I was immediately reminded of Stan Smith uncontrollably screaming at Barry.
>Quiet, fat fat fattie!
And such.

>>49288138

Not even that guy but he explicitly said adjusting stat blocks was fine, but making up random stats round by round and having the monsters die when you feel it's narratively appropriate is better for another game.

>>49292623
I dunno!
I don't even dislike pigs!

>>49292658
Maybe you are jealous of the snug smugness of the comfy pig eating a delicious cookie.

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>>49285435
Just sayan - this is so far one of the most interesting threads of /tg/ right now, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. Maybe 'cause I'm writting my first system ever, and that I'm really interested in seeing different takes on what improvising as a GM means for different people.

GeeGee, /tg/. Keep up the Lord's work.

>>49291674

The guy explicitly said having different stat blocks (beforehand) was ok, so weird that you'd take that from his posts but I guess the depths of stupidity have no bounds.

>>49291942

GUYS WHY CAN YOU DIE AT LEVEL 1?

I WANT MY CHARACTER TO BE IMMMMMMMMMMMMMORTAL

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>49285435
>just eyeball it
please excuse my newfaggotry but what does "eyeballing it" mean? From the context it seems like you make stuff up on the fly but I only know that eyeballing something means looking something over.

>>49292818
It's that, yes.
The "looking it over" is deciding if it's been enough time or an appropriate amount of damage, etc.

What do you do when your players are resistant to fun?

If you fudge the rolls, why even roll at all?

>>49292930
shitpost angrily on /tg/

>>49287257
>It was invented by shitty gm's to justify them cheating at the game out of laziness
It is in prety much every rulebook ever released, you smegma conniseur

>>49292818
I suspect he means "loosely gauge" what it should be, and make it that.
As in, "Well I guess they've done about half his HP in damage to him."

>>49292945
>authors can't write lazy shit or advise laziness
I mean I dunno what you're arguing here.

>>49292938
To keep players on edge.Besides, players still need to roll.

Rpgs are all about showmanship, i would fudge rolls to make a player feel awesome. Or let a plan that should not work by the rules work just because the players really are invested in it.

Sometimes i even apply a rule incorrectly on purpose just so the rules lawyer in my table feels he put one over me.

>>49293018
Why not roll fair, but use "bennies" instead.

I think it can ruin the fun, if i know nothing bad can happen and there is no risk, because the gm will just "handle it".

It's so much more fun, when the GM himself doesn't know the outcome.

>>49292694
Not that guy, but what I like to do is give level 1 players a grace period of 1-2 sessions.They won't die from overly stupid shit, but they'll still die if they do stupid overly stupid things like passing off a dragon helping them or if that enemy archer critted and headshotted one of them.
After that though, all bets are off. The dice fall where they fall.

>>49293112
Why do you assume fudging means hand holding?

Why do you assume fudging means rail roading?

It doesn't imply either of those things.

>>49293127
Well that's the experience i had with those kind of sessions.
No mater how strong the enemy is, we will win because the plot wants us to win.

>>49292044
If you don't want the game to be this risky, why not give the player more hitpoints?

>>49293192
>No mater how strong the enemy is, we will win because the plot wants us to win.
That is indeed bad GMing, but that's not really what happens most of the time when rolls are fudged.

Lets say I'm having my party fight a boss, several turns have passed and both the boss and my PCs are very weak. The warrior goes and rolls a nat20. After resolving his damage, the boss still has 3HP left. This situation can go one of two ways.

>Okay PC, your crit lands and your blow strikes hard and true! The boss is still alive.
>god damn it
>ok bard, your slingshot attack hits for 1d4. You deal 3 damage and kill him.
>woo...

Or I can just fudge those 3 HP off...
>Your critical hit lands, striking hard and true, you lop the monsters head clean off, sending it sailing across the room!
>Fuck yeah!


Fudging that 3HP did nothing to affect the overall outcome of the encounter, but it made the resolution more fun and exciting, and it made the nat20 feel more brutal. All in all, a win-win.

That is the goal of DMing, making the game fun. Not following rulebooks.

>>49293192
Bad DMs Fudge but bad DMs obey dice rolls too.

Neither is inherently bad.

>>49293298
exactly, the stat blocks and rulesets give you the framework to ensure that certain enemies are challenging or less challenging. A monster doesn't stop being challenging just because you shave off some HP here and there to let the fight flow a little better. I'm not going to let the warrior kill a dragon in one hit because he rolled a nat 20 on his first attack declaration. I will allow him to do it if the dragon is heavily weakened and his damage roll is close to the remaining HP the dragon has.

>>49293298
Wait, why can't the bard's slingshot be narrated in a cool manner? And I assume in this example the bard will definitely act before the boss, and it's assumed that the boss monster is likely to fall before he gets to act again, so can't threaten anybody?
But the entire thing here is narration, yeah? You describe the warriors cleaving blow digging deep into the boss's flesh, the bosses rattling breath, his near inability to stand and yet he still IS standing and he still DOES want to kill you but there's maybe more fear in his eyes and his stance is a bit more defensive and now the bard desperately fires his piddly slingshot at him and it pierces your giant foes eye and it freezes for a second as it registers that it just took a rock to its brain and it then it seemingly slowly but then rapidly slams down onto the ground with a mighty thunderous crash and everybody is still unsure if it's ok but after a few second she doesn't get back up and you all ARE ok and it'll be fine you've won for now go ahead and breathe

Is it another step past the warrior, and does it demand more time? Yeah, it is, and does. Doesn't make it any less potentially cool.
But I still see what you're going for beyond a specific insta-made example.

>>49293368
You seem to be missing a key point of my anecdote. The warrior rolled a nat20, that means his attack should be significant in some way. Nat20s are the bread and butter of any TTRPG, and I don't like to squander them. Sure I could have the bard also do something cool, but he didn't roll the nat20. My goal is to make it so everyone can have their time in the spotlight, and when a nat20 is rolled, I do my best to make it that character's time.

Your way of handling the situation is indeed valid as well, and that's the beauty of TTRPG, the game can be totally different depending on who DMs it. The rules are flexible.

>>49285503
Off the top of my head, 5th edition D&D encourages the DM to modify monsters, and provides rules for how to do it.

It also doesn't say exactly when he can and cannot do this.

>>49291985
>If the random encounter or goblin enemies are not intended to be a threat, why the fuck are they there?
You know, that is a good point. Should the game only have significant/meaningful combat encounters when there's something important at stake, while the non-important scuffles with minions are handwaved away? At least it would cut down the number of combat encounters you'd have to slog through in a single gaming night, and you wouldn't have to fudge rolls when the mooks happen to roll better than expected.

>>49293571
How this works out is different from game to game.

5th edition D&D is designed to make many lower-level (CR) opponents, or a single/few higher-level (CR) opponents, less ridiculously above you or below you.

But a part of what this has resulted in has been an embrace of the idea of a very long "adventuring day" where there aren't necessarily only encounters that are potentially deadly, but also encounters that are just kind of resource-draining.
If you only do one "scary important" encounter per day, the classes that are more weighted toward powerful daily resource expenditure will far outstrip the others.

And that's just how 5e works. All RPGs have an (usually implicit) ideal adventuring day length that they're balanced around.

>>49293411
>Nat20s are the bread and butter of any TTRPG, and I don't like to squander them
It is literally just as likely as any other single die roll.

And please tell me about all your natural 20s from CoC, GURPS, and WoD

>>49293571
This is a good point. In fact why we even bother having combat any time except the last encounter of the campaign is beyond me.

>>49293792
>the classes that are more weighted toward powerful daily resource expenditure will far outstrip the others.
Hm, that's true. However, I was thinking more about a thing where you pull out the full combat resolution subsystem only at crucial points of game, and let the minor scuffles be decided with a simple versus test or something - roll well on a single dice and you send the hobo packing and so on.

>>49293816
>It is literally just as likely as any other single die roll.
Doesn't matter, this is how I DM and my players enjoy it. Nat20s are fun and get the whole table cheering when one gets rolled.

>And please tell me about all your natural 20s from CoC, GURPS, and WoD
I play none of these systems, completely irrelevant. If you want to nitpick my use of the word "any" be my guest, but I wont give you the time of day.

>>49293849
That is game dependent thing.
If I'm playing D&D, I'm very open about wanting to treat is as tactical board game with some light talking in character between encounters. In that kind of scenario, I would not like for GM to handwave encounters away.

But if, for some reason, you play D&D without focusing on the combat, then do what feels good, but it's always a good idea to talk with players about what they want from the game too.

>>49293893
I'm just starting to think more and more that pulling out the combat map and rolling initiatives is just skippable busywork if the opposition is complete trash compared to the PCs. Something like, pfft, if the mobs are 5 HD lower than you, you can autowin against them by spending 1d6 hp or whatever.

The only other guy in my group who ever GMs is like this. Barely prepares, just wings combat freely. It really makes combat a tedious chore when you realise that there is no challenge to overcome through tactics or teamplay because the GM is always going to decide the outcome the way he wanted it anyway. If there aren't pre-set goalposts beforehand, I'd rather just have a brief narrative description rather than going through the whole sham process like that.

>>49293945
You could do what I do and just not use the combat map for small encounters like that. Just give some general descriptions of where the fodder monsters are and play combat like that. It's pretty quick and easy, and usually small monsters like that die in one hit. Just place monsters within 1 or 2 move actions of your PCs and any small combats will only take 10 minutes.

>>49293961
>Fudging equals railroad
Am I just seeing a metagamer getting pissy?

>>49293945

But does anyone really run a game where they set up combats with mobs 5 levels lower and then make the party play that whole foregone conclusion out? Even the rulebooks explicitly recommend not bothering to set up encounters that weak.

>>49293571
No, Anon. Everything has to be played out to the letter and nothing can be simplified for the sake of expediency.

>>49294005

Eh? What did I say that implies I metagame?

There's a difference between making the odd judicious fudge to enhance drama (which I'm basically okay with), and not giving the PCs a chance to fail (which is what my GM does and is piss irritating because it literally makes combat into a tiresome formality).

>>49291942

Good thing that's just your opinion.
Dice and health are there for a reason.
Doesn't mean the goblins can't spring an overly complex series of traps or that the players can't make use of strange terrain.
If you fall, I won't coup de grace players (that's for after the fight; take out the healer in the moment), but I'm not going to say the goblin didn't crit and shank your sorry ass for 14 damage.

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I play GURPS.
PCs are incredibly detailed, dozens of skills, special perks, etc.
Track all of their equipment down to the bullet with equipment cards.
All the monsters they meet have detailed behaviour patterns; I know what they eat, what eats them, what their mating strategies are.
Every monster has a full colour illustration made by me.
I have no idea what any of their stats are.
It's literally never mattered once; they shoot something with their rifles, it dies. If it's big, it takes 3-4 hits.

>>49293961

This. There's no threat or risk of failure when a GM who idealizes "muh plot" and "muh character development" takes the reigns.

>>49294107
Are the players having fun?

>>49294051
I guarantee you'd be pissy if he killed you.

Every encounter I run, especially in 5e, is hard or deadly at the minimum, though just at or above the XP line for said difficulties.

I down a lot of players during fights, especially near the end, because I want them to make use of class features and higher level spells frequently. I want them to know how to pick each other up and work as a team and even develop strategy. I want them to get attached to the success of their characters. I want them to get used to running on fumes because the one thing I hate most and more than anything in this world... is a short rest after a single encounter, a long rest after two.

Fuck me, this kills dungeons and raids and other big events so quickly. "Whoops, I blew my fourth level spell, still got three third level spells, but man, I just don't feel safe without my fourth level spell slots!" No, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

I pit my players against deadly singular encounters so that whenever they're in the thick of it, balls deep in a proper dungeon with a bunch of mooks and a few medium challenges, they burn through all twenty combats and traps like proper adventurers and stroll up to the dungeon boss having earned those two short rests and single long rest.

And you know what? It works.
So fuck your dice fudging and plot dependency and level 1 character coddling bullshit.
Even my sorceress has grit under her fingernails.

>>49294197

That would depend on the circumstance. If he killed me in combat, without a compelling plot reason or without it being the result of my actions, yes, I'd be annoyed, since I know how he works and I therefore know that it would have been a conscious choice on his part.

But if I make the decision to do something reckless (and I do that a lot) and don't get the dice rolls to back it up, that's fine, I accept the consequences.

>>49294235
If it's fun for you then great, keep doing that. I have fun playing the game my way.

>>49294235

I want a DM like you.

>>49285435
I do this all the time, but I also let my players get away with all kinds of bullshit that ends up leveling it out.
E.G.: The skeletons that rebuild themselves? I expected them to realize the large glowing red orb was involved and to destroy/take/deactivate it. Instead, the rogue started tying the skeletons' bones together. So, when the skellies tried to reassemble on their next turn, I had them clink together into an immobile skeletal abomination that the party just walked right on past. They proceeded to forget about the orb, so if that game ever picks back up, the skeleton blob will still be there, waiting.

>>49294165
I think so.

>>49294484
Then that's all that matters.

>>49294592
Well, there's also the question of whether the GM is having fun, but it sounds like it.

Just mentioning it because some of the angry anon(s) in this thread seem to think the GM/DM's purpose is to be a computer, emotionlessly applying the rules while the players do their thing.

Since when did fudging or simply not having stat become the norm? I honestly thing it's a dishonest habit. My general metric is if my player knew it, and wouldn't agree, then I won't do it. It's about transparency instead of some kind of veiled superiority complex between players and GMs.

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>Play on roll20 with a fairly sizable gaming group (30ish people, multiple games going on)
>Everyone wants maps for everything. For every encounter, every place, everything piece of furniture, even if there will probably never be any sort of combat in these areas they want a big pretty map.
>In addition to having tokens for every single character and NPC.
>Don't have time or the skill to do all this shit. End up getting burned out having to do hours upon hours of prep work only for the players to skip over locations, making all that work useless, or trying to wander somewhere I didn't anticipate meaning I either have to try and steer them away and be a shit GM, or say 'Give me a second' and quickly slap together some map like a madman.
>Or even delay the whole session to make maps like some of the other GMs do.
>Hate life
>Decide to switch to FATE for the sole reason of the whole 'zones' thing. That way I can justify not making all these crazy detailed maps.
>Have a blast, can just draw some boxes and whip up an encounter right there. Or could spend a few extra minutes before the session planning it out a bit more and adding special environmental conditions or aspects.
>Players don't complain about lack of precision because according to them this is the most fun they've ever had with a campaign.

Strict autism and heavy prep work is more often than not cancerous to your games. The purpose of the rules is to create consistency, a system the players can use to gauge their actions. If you break or disregard those rules, you should try to retain that sense of consistency. It's not that hard though, at least for me.

>>49294592
>>49294629
"Everyone has fun" is legitimately the lowest you can set the bar as a GM. There's a reason "make sure everyone has fun" is advice given to first time GMs: it's actually pretty easy to accomplish. Fun isn't binary either. Sure, I can still have fun with an unskilled GM who fudges everything, but I'd probably be having much more fun with an experienced and effective GM.

Don't take me for an entitled player. This isn't about me, it's about you and your growth as a GM. If you stop trying and pat yourself on the back as soon as people are having fun, you will never improve as a GM.

>>49296018
>"Everyone has fun" is legitimately the lowest you can set the bar as a GM
This is so true that that bar often gets overlooked by "experienced" GMs trying to accomplish something "greater".

>>49291985
>If the random encounter or goblin enemies are not intended to be a threat, why the fuck are they there?
To use up spell slots/other consumables to make later fights more tense
To get the attention of players
To lead directly into another more dangerous combat (goblin was a scout, etc)
To give the players an item or piece of information in a different way than finding it in a room in a dungeon or any other way that's we've already done
To reinforce the theme of an area (we're in goblin town, in the bad guys lair and he has goblin mooks, something powerful is rumored to live here and the goblin was misdirection, etc)
Somebody got a a new item and wanted to try it out so the DM gave him a target in the fly
The goblin was an NPC and the party suddenly decided to kill him

>>49290189
I've heard that described as Rule -1.

>>49296018
>Taking games this seriously
I really hope you are bait.
Or autistic.

>>49296332
>To use up spell slots/other consumables to make later fights more tense
Shouldn't you rather make the later fights more challenging than run the players through meaningless little fights?

>>49296422
Not him, but that post isn't anywhere near as serious bizness as other posts.
It makes your post seem like just antagonism.

>>49296466
I second this approach.
Low level boring fights are filler that needs to be cut.

>>49296466
Is that not a way to make the later fights harder? What if your BBG isn't necessarily the strongest guy in the room, but relies on henchman to do his dirty work? His power comes from his ability to lead.

There are a lot of reasons to have smaller fights, having every module being punctuated with one big boss battle makes the bosses less intimidating. Bosses should be a small fraction of the battles that take place for this reason. If you can't make simple encounters just as fun as the epic ones, you aren't a very well rounded DM. Monsters do not have to be powerful to be entertaining, you just need to be creative.

>>49294235
I need you in my life

>>49288499
I don't mind sharing monster stats once they kill the monster and can study it or roll great on a knowledge check, makes int a lot better as a stat. Other than background(gives adv/disadv, or just assumed knowledge), I use "the roll shapes the world" philosophy on knowledge checks, one free knowledge check to see if the trained character can knows anything about X and that roll is what the character assumes is the truth and can spend their turn informing the party.

I use for medicine checks to check HP, behind the screen, if they ask about the health status of a monster, if they know what the monster is and tell them "It looks critically/barely wounded" instead of exact HP(since sometimes that 1 HP after a an amazing critical is anticlimactic as fug and mook or max out HD). A character that doesn't know what a troll is, would have disadvantage on such a check or perhaps advantage if he's very knowledge. The DC is uniqueness of the monster(2/4/8) + it's passive deception/con, since in combat you obviously don't want to be seen as weak & vulnerable but have to ignore pain to do so. I also use this to see if the monsters notice a wounded character, CE loves attacking the most wounded character if they don't see a serious threat.

>>49296466
Both are good.

>>49285435
Holy shit, I'm not alone in this.

>>49290404
Houserules are a separate thing, rule 0 is for when you need to go outside the established rules for some reason: For instance, there may be situations where the rules just flat-out don't make sense or are clearly broken - for instance, by RAW a custom item with constant True Strike would be dirt cheap in D&D 3.x, which is way out of line with how powerful such an item would be. It also allows the GM to come up with a reasonable rule on the spot if he can't remember the exact rule that applies in the situation and doesn't want to break the flow of the game to dig it up, and it enables Rule of Cool for when one of the players comes up with an awesome idea, if the group is into that sort of thing.

>>49296018
It's worked for me, there have been no complaints, and my players know about it. I'd rather focus on storytelling rather than constantly running numbers.

>Don't take me for an entitled player.
Too late.

>>49293411
>Sure I could have the bard also do something cool, but he didn't roll the nat20.
You didn't give him a chance to.

>>49294235
This sounds like this a vexing problem for you, I believe it to be caused by your own solution. Throwing deadly encounters at a party all the time actually encourages the party to take rests after every fight and to play it safe, since all the fights have a reasonable chance of killing them. An encounter they weren't expecting to be hard is a lot more scary.
Forcing the characters to run on fumes through game mechanics is silly when there's so many ways more interesting ways to encourage it with a proper story telling rather then impose it through fiat; a sense of urgency and danger needs to be apart of every single adventure. Trapping adventurers in a mega dungeon works, but it's a cliche that will eventually run it's course and bore your players because it makes them lose their sense of agency, also known as railroading.

If the party of wizards wants to be at maximum power all the time, then they can be, but it comes at a price or a risk. If they decide to leave a dungeon for a rest, when they come back the enemy might be gone along with the goods, perhaps failed the quest, got reinforcements or they trapped the place all to hell. Random encounters during rests, dungeon alertness levels and you can just increase the amount of time it takes for resting. All solves this problem of the adventuring day and makes the world feel a lot more alive as well. Now they have to weigh their benefits of such decisions, should they sneak, flee to rest or just kick the doors down? Let the party to decide.

Now you know what pisses me off? Nonsensical MMO instance style dungeons, everything segmented off and the dungeon seemly isn't aware of the party at all while they shoot fireballs, break, loot and kill everything. They allow players to take rests with zero bad consequences, the dungeon denizens never even take a defensive position let alone set up ambushes or smoke out the players the dumb ass characters that decided it would be a great time for a power nap.

>>49297447
He'll get his chance later, he rolled poorly on initiative clearly.

>>49294235
Downing players and not killing or at least rolling lingering injuries is coddling. Getting downed in 5E means nearly nothing if you have Healing Word or a Dr. McThief other than maybe a lost turn :^)

>>49291024
why did any of you respond to this
this is a classic example of the "i was only pretending to be retarded" joke

>>49285461
>"Where did you get those monsters?"
Are you telling me DMs don't come up with their own monsters?

>>49292990
You think these niggas can write rules for every single conceivable situation?

GURPS

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>>49285435

>>49299586
Diet doctor kek

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As a GM it's priority #1 to make sure the players are happy and satisfied because that's my fetish

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>>49285503
>Once I find out I usually start explicit sexual relationships with NPCs, or other PCs

So.. You're a creepy on top of being a whinny little bitch?

Don't get me wrong, I actually agree with some of the shit you have to say, but the way you say you handle it is completely childish. Instead of acting like a fuccboi, you could just finish the session, (considering everyone there is your guest and there's no need to kick people out just because you're throwing a fucking temper tantrum over a style of GMing you don't agree with,) and let the DM know later that you are no longer going to be apart of the game, and are no longer going to be hosting for the campaign. If he asks why, tell him why.

Better yet, you could always talk to him about his style of GMing and request for him to look at the book more often. If that doesn't work. Drop out. Nobody is forcing you to play.

>>49299417
shit nethack has basically done it, everybody should just develop a game for 15 years with tons of community feedback and autism and also be a computer game

>>49287122
>So the GM can suck dick for four hours and still be GMing?
What, that's not how you actually GM?
...I think my players might be molesting me.

As long as people are having fun there is no wrong way to GM/DM. It's ok to not like a style of GM/DMing, you aren't required to like everything, but if you're not having fun then you don't need to play.

>>49285503
>being this proud of throwing a tantrum

Oh man...

>>49301028
My general thought is if someone is withholding information on their interpretation of rules (i.e. that they're fudging) and if I knew that information I would not enjoy the game, then something is wrong. I've had it happen before that I realize that GMs are either just making things up on the spot for creature stats, just deciding when creature die, or simply having rolls not matter, and it saps my enjoyment of the game. I generally do not bring it up because I know it will hurt other's enjoyment, but I attempt to remove myself from the game after that session. Once the veil is gone it no longer is fun (and MANY are bad at keeping up the veil).

If someone is ok with GMs who just have combat at time filler then more power to them. I'm definitely not one of them.

>>49301133
>My general thought is if someone is withholding information on their interpretation of rules (i.e. that they're fudging) and if I knew that information I would not enjoy the game, then something is wrong.
This is 100% true.
In most cases, what is wrong is likely the GM’s expectations of the game.
The GM expected X to occur and then Y to happen. X could be the players defeating an enemy, a certain spell’s effects, opening a door, etc. Y could be finding loot, finding an NPC, PCs surviving, etc.
If X does not happen, then Y will not happen unless something is changed.
This can be fixed by fudging X so that X happens, fudging Y so Y happens in spite of X not happening, or fudging it so Z happens instead of Y.
There is really no way of avoiding changing things as you run the game, it’s just that the closer you come to fudging X instead of fudging Z, the cheaper it feels when discovered.
I personally have no issue with a GM fudging to offset the times when his expectations were wrong.
GMs cannot be expected to be perfect, but them consistently relying on fudging leads to never improving.

>I've had it happen before that I realize that GMs are either just making things up on the spot for creature stats, just deciding when creature die, or simply having rolls not matter, and it saps my enjoyment of the game.
This makes sense because if a GM is doing that, then you are not actually playing the game.
I have done all of those things:
Needing a creature immediately and making up stats, deciding that the encounter is dragging on as players start looking uninterested so I fiat a crit into a deathblow, having Players roll to attempt things that their PC would have no way of knowing was impossible, etc.
But taken as intended, as a GM doing it all as a habit with the players actions never really anchored in concrete rules, is not the game you sat down to play.

>>49300822
it's not molestation if you like it

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>>49301133
>>49302836
>I generally do not bring it up because I know it will hurt other's enjoyment
During the game, that it is appropriate and considerate.

>I attempt to remove myself from the game after that session. Once the veil is gone it no longer is fun
Top Seven /tg/ Answers: Did you try talking to the GM?
This line makes it sound like you spotted some, admittedly extreme, fudging and then quietly left the group after the session without saying anything to the GM.
This is not considerate, this is cowardly, weak, and helps no one.

>If someone is ok with GMs who just have combat at time filler then more power to them. I'm definitely not one of them.
This is a healthy response. Afterall, there’s always Yellow Dragons.
I personally despise combat as planned time filler, and time filler in general.
This is my hobby, my fun, and my time, not a telethon.

For those who value combat as a resource drain, I agree but rather view unspent resources as a reward for clever players who manage to avoid combat and preserve their resources. I applaud Players that reach the BBEG in Silent Assassin mode.
Whether the final battle is nail-bitingly close or a one sided crushing victory due entirely to their cunning and skill, the players have seemed equally pleased.

>>49287653
That's good, players shouldn't metagame.

>>49285503

>Shit GMs get anally annihilated: The Post

Honestly, this "lmao I just eyeball my entire campaign" is just spouted by memers who want to stir up a shitstorm, or alternatively by people who honestly have no idea how much their campaign sucks.

>>49302941
Using things written on your character sheet isn't metagaming, it's just gaming

>>49303036
>using OOC info isn't metagaming xDD

>>49303101
>OOC info

It's the fucking character sheet

It's not out of character, it is the character

>>49303135
>the character sheet isn't OOC xDD

I don't know if you're just doing an absurd amount of mental gymnastics here, if you don't actually know what OOC means, or if you're just so extremely retarded that you can't figure out such a basic concept on your own. Probably all three.

Little quandary for everyone posting here. Say you've designed an encounter for the PC's when they were 3rd level. They end up not going that way/dodging the encounter/ect, and the game continues on. A few weeks later they decide to go back to that area and investigate it, at level 7. Do you leave the monsters the same, and allow your PC's to slaughter them, or do you change the numbers to make it a challenging encounter for their new level?

>>49294107
>>It's literally never mattered once

It's mattered many times. There's been many times where they heroes would have died, but you are babbying them with "lol u killed it xD".

What's even the point of having "detailed characters" and mating patterns and even using GURPS at all if you're just going to throw at all away and just "roll dice lol you killed it xDD" anyway

>>49303166
>if I greentext something he never said and add an ""ironic"" emoticon, I win!
Stop posting.

>>49303248
>something "he" never said
>you literally said "It's not out of character"

>>49288431
>'m just trolling, gotcha! hahaha u really thought i was serious !!! ex dee

Here we go again.

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>>49303166

The character sheet is LITERALLY the definition of the in-universe capabilities of the character, which is further by definition known by the player so he can UNDERSTAND the capabilities of the character he's created, you fucking mongoloid.

>This is your brain on freeform

>>49303248
You keep getting you ass handed to you, why don't you stop.

You aren't even reading the thread anymore you automatic shitposter.

>>49303271
No character can look at their own sheet, only their player can. It's OOC knowledge, as is knowledge of monster's character sheets, thus using them directly is one of the simplest examples of metagaming.

I'm guessing I was right. You really are both ignorant and retarded.

>>49303306

So all you've done is prove that OOC knowledge isn't wrong at all, except in the minds of autists such as yourself.

Congrats.

>>49303327
>if you think metagaming is wrong then you are an autist xDD

>>49303336

>Set up a definition that means you're in the wrong for even looking at your character sheet
>"Yeah, that's autistic, you're stupid."
>'lmao >implying i'm autistic xDDD'
>This rendition of our conversation is not even an exaggeration

>>49303352
>>Set up a definition that means you're in the wrong for even looking at your character sheet
>I am literally so retarded that I can't separate OOC from IC xDD

>>49303381

>"Well you know, it *says* I have a +10 to Knowledge (Religion), but how does my character know that? It'd be metagaming if I suggested my character handle this study of ancient scripture."

Thank you for being a walking example of why freeform is shunned and metagaming is quite necessary for any game to function at all.

>>49303262
>>49303284
That was my first reply to the thread, see the little (107) next to my name?

Don't tell me you're browsing without an extension.

To be honest, I do this for little encounters sometimes. I run WHFRP2e so it's easy to say "Okay, this guy's x so his stats are probably in the ballpark of y" and go from there. Either that or use slightly beefed up versions of the human guys in the back of the core rulebook. Very rarely will I ever improv a boss, though. To me, part of being a good GM is being a good showman. You have to know how to read your players, play to what they enjoy, cut out the stuff that would make them pitch a fit, and give them a good time while having one yourself.

My beef with my players is that they all get really pissy when they lose. Like, to the point where they're emotionally distressed. I feel like if something ever actually kills them, they're going to whine and quit showing up. My best friend, who I got into this hobby with, starts hating his character every. Single. Time. When his guy rolls poorly in a session. He starts going on and on about how his character sucks and he won't believe me no matter how many times I explain that the system we play in is mostly luck based and, unlike D&D and most D20 systems, there's still a fair chance he might fail, even at the stuff his characters are good at. That doesn't take away from what his character adds to the game outside of combat.

Ugh, I love my players but sometimes I wish they wouldn't sweat the stuff they and I actually CAN'T help.

>>49303416
The character knows he has decent knowledge of religion, not that he has a +10 to it.

You LITERALLY can't grasp the difference, can you? I mean, I'm not joking or trying to insult you here. I'm just amazed at this point.

>>49303449
>The character knows he has decent knowledge of religion

No he doesn't, because your character does not exist. He is an abstraction of numbers on a character sheet.

I am sorry to see freeform has permanently damaged your mind. Let this man be a lesson for all to behold. May god have mercy on your soul.

>>49303469
>if I continue these retarded mental gymnastics for a while longer, then maybe acting like a piece of shit at the gaming table will become okay xDD

>>49303469
not him but are you really suggesting you should never be in-character because your character "doesn't exist"? that's what roleplaying is

>>49303489

I am saying justifying things on the basis that a pure invention of your mind believes them to be so is stupid, and he is stupid for doing so.

You are likely also stupid for getting that out of my statement.

>>49303508
If you think the entire point of RPGs is stupid, then you really shouldn't be on this board.

>>49303553

Alright, let's back up. Let's try this again.

>My character thinks he's good at this
Is not a reason for something to be true.

>My character has this written on his character sheet
Is a reason for something to be true.

Are we clear now, or are you still going to be stupid?

>>49303306
>I'm guessing I was right. You really are both ignorant and retarded.
Not him, but you are wrong there Chuck:

>OOC is knowledge of monster's character sheets and using them directly is one of the simplest examples of metagaming.
True

>No character can look at their own sheet, only their player can.
True
But what you’re missing is that no player can experience the character’s world, only the character can.
Although a PC might not know their STR is 15, they know how strong they are and how relatively strong other people are.
PCs know all kinds of info that players can’t because the player is not physically in that world.
That knowledge gets abstracted and reduced to the info on the character sheet.
There should not be anything on the character sheet that reads as “Little did he know…”


>>49303423
>>49303248
>>if I greentext something he never said
You dumbposted.
Accept it and move on.

>>49303571
>Is not a reason for something to be true.
But it is a reason for him to act as if it is. Thus the reasoning is IC. He doesn't have access to objective truth, so he shouldn't be played as if he does.

Yet again you can't grasp that simple as fuck difference.

>>49303306
You are wrong. while creatures don't directly refernce their own sheet, they can reference their own relative skills or abilities. A character with +5 BAB knows that it's better at combat than someone with +1 bab. A person with 5 skill ranks can know it is less knowledgable than someone with 10 ranks.

>>49303620
But it's not immediately obvious that someone has less or more ranks in something, and should be given an in-universe examination before a player can act on their OOC knowledge.

>It's another "Stupid people argue about a stupid non-problem so they can claim they are the pure chaste Non-Metagamers" episode

http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-stupid-decisions-and-metagaming/

http://pastebin.com/1FPYkth5

>>49287237
>>49290404
Which is the rule that says you are forced to play at the table of a shitty GM?

>>49287831
>>49288729
The problem with just killing monsters after two good hits is that Wizard and Cleric cantrips should be less damaging than melee weapon attacks. Two good melee-weapon attacks shoud kill an orc but it should take maybe three good ranged attacks or four good cantrip attacks. Otherwise you have removed a major balancing factor from the game and caused Wizards and Clerics to be purely better than martial classes.

>>49293298
I like critical hit tables for making critical hits matter more. Just doing more damage or randomly killing people is boring. Something like hamstringing an enemy or breaking their arm changes the nature of a battle much more.

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>>49303179
Little quandary for everyone posting here. Say you've designed an encounter for the PC's when they were 3rd level. They end up not going that way/dodging the encounter/ect, and the game continues on. A few weeks later they decide to go back to that area and investigate it, at level 7. Do you leave the monsters the same, and allow your PC's to slaughter them, or do you change the numbers to make it a challenging encounter for their new level?
Honestly depends on the interactivity of the encounter.
If it’s an undisturbed construct or undead, it’s probably going to be the same strength and a fun example of breezing through what they once were told was a dangerous threat.
>We’re badass now!
This lulls them into a nice feeling of overconfidence before hitting them with a miniboss working for the BBEG.

But most encounters are more interactive than that and will get scaled up.
While they were leveling from 3 to 7, maybe that monstrous beast had babies, maybe that bandit hideout grew in strength and numbers, maybe that Black Knight leveled up too.

>>49303688
>metagaming is okay, who cares about characters xDD

>>49303745

>Metagaming is okay

99% of the time, this is absolutely correct.

>lmao I'm gunna play like a retard that'll show all the other nerds what a good roleplayer I am xDDD

>>49303764
>>lmao I'm gunna play like a retard
Another idiot who can't grasp the difference between IC and OOC. This would only be fine if you made a character that's retarded, otherwise it's ALSO metagaming.

>>49303799

>The idiot said, eagerly arguing about meaningless shit.

>>49303879
It's recreation, all of it is ultimately meaningless except for the meaning we find in it, so you aren't doing any favors to the appearance of your own intelligence by going in this direction.

>>49303799

So the crux of your argument is that "it's metagaming for a character to know exactly how good he is at stuff, but not to have a vague idea how good he is at stuff." And this is why you have shitposted for literal hours. To show that it's wrong for players to make decisions based on the stats on their character sheet.

Well alrighty then. Thank you, mister pedantic. I guess as long as I justify it by having a slightly better accurate feeling for how good my character is at stuff than the average joe, I'm in the clear.

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>>49303945

I should've known I was talking to a fedora. I could smell the greasy hair through my monitor.

>>49303959
I didn't shitpost for hours, anon, I came into the thread only about one hour ago, and most of the time I was here I was watching Dune on my other screen.

>>49293298
Ok, can see it now. Little changes when it won't influence much are ok, i guess.

>>49294268
Well then the DM decides what is reckless and what's not. And not the defined gaming world through stats.

The stats also give the world some kind of consistency. Which can also be fun, because after playing some time in that campaign world, you get a feel for how strong enemies and monsters are.

It maybe ok to fudge a bit, for narrative reasons. But having a good narative describing the actual dice outcome is even better.

> a natural 20 where the enemy is stil not dead yet.
He looses a lot of blood, and you kick him to the ground. The air clears, you are happy it's over... but, he moves, and stands up again covered in blood, he grabs his sword.

>>49295172

No one replys, because everything you said is correct.

If a result of a die is "boring" or "unliked", it is because of the "boring" and "unliked" narrative.

You can take any result, and make it into a believable and interesting outcome, narativly without changing the success or failure of the die.

Success can be fun, but failure can be fun, too.

>>49303745
There is literally nothing wrong with metagame theurgy

>>49291081
But then, the rules should support this type of play, so that fudging is not needed.

> We play a heroic game, we suddenly need to fudge

Heroes in an epic attempt to save the world may be guarded by the gods, so nothing too bad can happen.

I'm totally ok with fudge points (bennys) to legally fudge.

If players and gm, both know what's going on, it's ok I guess. But don't lie.

But maybe there are players who don't bother being lied to. Gaming should be honest in my opinion.

Trading honesty for fun, is not that much fun.
But having an awesome campaign with every dice roll count, is reaaallyy cool and fun and all that.

It's much more fun to later talk about how this and that awesome thing happened, because many times, not even the GM was in full control what happens, because dice.

If you don't want to count a roll, don't roll.

>>49291155
Some players just don't care and want to sit in front of the fireplace, while the narrater tells his little story to them.

It's kind of said.