>character has a home base stocked with supplies and fully

>>50056517
>Crits on ability checks
>Critfails om ability checks

I tried to convince him to get rid of this shit but the entire group outvoted me
This shit is fucking retarded
Whatever

>>50056517
>Meticulously map your home base twice, one for personal use with all of your traps, guard routes, and stores of treasure, and one with just a basic floorplan.
>When GM tries to infiltrate base, pull out basic floorplan and have him point out exactly how his NPCs go through it
>Become new GM and run his super speshul NPCs through a nightmarish hell dungeon, drink his tears when he inevitably fails

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>>50056649
You know what, fuck it, I'm gonna do it right now.

Have some cake dragon.

>>50056517
You can out dickery this situation by sealing off all entrances making the only viable way of entry via telaportation. If in a magical setting. Include teleport traps if you can (D&D: you can have them attuned to groups of people) and have all teleport traps lead to whatever horrid place you want them to go. You could even have them teleported in a stone coffin 6ft below the underdark if you want the bare minimal chance of survival. I did this to a fellow party member that was constantly stealing my shit while my char was asleep. Now his ass is on a deserted island and the closest land mass is a five straight days of swimming away

>>50056517
Wow... This feel pretty paedophilic...

>Dan Schneider

Ah

>>50056688
Remember to pull out all the stops. Never tell him exactly where your traps are. Tell him you're going to trap a hallway, and insist that you know which one and that he doesn't need to worry about it. Buy things that could be trap material just to freak him out. He doesn't need to know what the cobras are for, just that yes you do have them. Make him paranoid and afraid, make him doubt every decision that has led up to this moment. Break him.

Then reveal that you don't keep anything there anymore because people keep breaking in.You live in an apartment across town.

>>50056517
I remember this gif getting posted a lot when a girl from my country was murdered and her corpse was put inside a garbage bag.

>>50056774
>Wow... This feel pretty paedophilic...
Yeah... television shows made for Nickelodeon featuring children...? Yikes...

...

>>50056788
>then reveal (to the person who is by default aware of everything in the setting)

Wouldn't it be better to just explain the problem instead of being hypothetically passive-aggressive

>>50056993
You mean you haven't heard of Dan "Get in the Van" Schneider?

>>50056993
>He hasn't heard of Dan "the hymen collider" Schneider

>>50057017
>person who is by default aware of everything in the setting)

False.

>>50057120
HE CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT

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>>50057053

>>50057340
Post the collage of people with some shit written in their feet.

>>50056774
>>50057017
>>50057053
>>50057120
>>50057340
>>50057383

Okay, I'll bite.
Who?

>>50057140
They're the gamemaster. They're supposed to know everything about the game, all characters (including PCs) and every NPC/location in the game.

Instead of being passive aggressive or a cunt, why not voice your complaint?
"Hey gm, I don't like how you overrule us with bullshit NPCs that seem to have no consistency/seemingly no place in the gameworld".

If you don't like it? Fuck off. Literally. Find a new game?

>>50056548
Tell him you're going to try and Jump from your position to literally anywhere hundreds of miles away, and then try a whole bunch of times until you roll a 20 and by default succeed, causing you to fly into space.

>>50058740
Dan "She's a Fighter, Hold 'er Tighter" Schneider

>>50057140
What?

The GM is aware on a meta level of everything happening in the setting, even if it hasn't happened yet or isn't actually written. Eg., your character doesn't have secrets from the GM; if you have some big secret backstory, it doesn't exist in the setting unless the GM says it does, which is awfully difficult when you haven't told him.

>>50058750
It could be a good way to make understand the GM, even after you told him.
I had a GM who constantly screwed up with me on surprise, traps, ambush and shit, when I had a perception so high I could detect everything, even passively. I talked to him, he kept going but a little less.

Then, when he made a character in my game, I did just the same to him, completely undermining one aspect of his character with bullshit reasons, giving the same excuse as he did. We had a talk after the game, and then it never happened again in my game or his.

So, if you do it to actually make them understand the problem, it's not a bad idea I'll say. If his NPC can't even do the required check to pass the traps, he might see why it's bad to make them pass it juste "because"

>>50056517
For a second I thought this was a D&D campaign from the BBEG's perspective and then it turned into a dumb thread.

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>>50057383
This one?

>>50056649
Post map when done.

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>>50056517
>Never provides any description for anything and wonders why we forget that they're apparently plot important
>Combats are grossly underchallenging
>All enemies, no matter what they are, act exactly the same and will either run when we're clearly losing or will throw themselves on top of us when we're winning
>Doesn't let us pay for our mistakes (ie, my character in Only War tries to make a last stand against two bloodletters and he just has a DMPC one-shot them)
>'You just level up when I say you do'
>Acts all high and mighty because he's apparently the only one willing to run something (He isn't)
>Gets almost cartoonishly furious if you bring any of this up

>>50058740
EP for a ton of Nickelodeon's sitcoms. Famous for being an unpleasant prick and constantly placing underage female characters (even if a lot of the actresses playing them aren't) in uncomfortably lewd situations

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>>50059419
Oh...
Thanks for the info, I guess

>>50059536
Yeah, there's a reason people hate on him so much, and it isn't JUST because all his shows fucking suck

>>50059670
A gm who plays like that is one you should probably beat up and kick from the group though.

>>50059293
>You just level up when I say you do'
I don't have as much of a problem with this one, because I have seen many DM's do this very well.

>>50056649
This is great

>>50059722
A player holing up with everything his character could care for or about in an unassaultable impregnable super base and waiting out the end of the world rather than going out on adventures, biting on hooks, exposing their vulnerable side, and taking risks should also be kicked.

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>>50059642
>Drake & Josh
>Kenan & Kel
>All That
>The Amanda Show
>GOOD BURGER

You wot m8

>>50056649
Honestly, this sounds fun as hell. Trick would be convincing my players to try it out.

>>50056649
It makes me feel good that I would ask the player to do this if they wanted to.
I might still want to run it without the player there though.
Just by myself go through the infiltration with the trapless map, noting precautions the enemies would take, then read through the traps, make rolls, and next session describe what the PCs find when they return.
That way they don't meta too hard and get the experience of searching a broken into base, not knowing if the intruders are still there...

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>>50059293
>my character in Only War tries to make a last stand against two bloodletters and he just has a DMPC one-shot them
I hate this, I'm playing this game to do cool shit, if I wanted to feel like an idiot I'd can just lay in bed and think about my life choices.

>Slavishly follows the published adventure to the letter
>No deviation
>Anything you do attempt is shut down immediately and has no ultimate effect
>Let's you roll for something but has no intention of letting you succeed no matter what you roll
I'd rather you just flat out tell me "this will not work" before I bother rolling dice.

>>50056517
>hostile npcs get auto success on their acrobatics or sneaking
>GM: "It's more epic that way"

>>50059802

There's no such thing as doing "leveling up when the GM feels like it" very well. It's just something you do.

And more often than not, it sucks, because it removes a completely legitimate incentive structure from the game.

>>50064262
>Player has good experience with thing
>Nuh-uh, you didn't because I said so.

>>50064262
anything that encourages murder hobos is bad

>>50056649
>play pathfinder
>literally just have 340ft on a side hollow cube of invulnerable lead kept that way via constantly rotated sets of Lyres of Building played by homunculi
>forbiddance with a caster level higher than 20 with buffs, making it impossible to dispel
>also teleport trap it that redirects to a sealed chamber inside of the cube that is also invulnerable (in case they're also CG for some reason)
>laugh at them as they are stuck in invulnerable lead box

>>50064308

>A babby weening himself off of d&d gives his first opinion on design structure

Let me spell it out for you: xp provides the means to incentivize certain activities.

In early editions of d&d, you got xp for gold collected, not monsters killed. This changes the incentive structure of the game dramatically.

Saying "Well you'll level up when I feel like it" robs a game of this easily communicated incentive structure and just turns it into utter fiat. It is an amateur mistake and one commonly made by GMs who fancy themselves storyfags but lack actual design knowledge.

>>50064361
>Instead of XP you'll level up after you finish this quest

I'm struggling to figure out what's so bad about this

>>50064379

Every quest?

Just the quests the GM dolls out as the "main quests"?

Note that if you're saying you get such and such xp for each quest completed, congratulations, you're agreeing with me without realizing it.

>>50064386
The DM gives a level up when he feels like the party has done enough to move the story along.

>inb4 campaign with any kind of plot REEEE
Are you this autistic at your table?

>>50056548
>I tried to convince him to get rid of this shit but the entire group outvoted me

Probably because theres nothing wrong with it. Fags like >>5005878 will use ridiculous examples but a DM worth a damn will use crit successes or failures to give moderate bonuses to the check/save/attack that you did/had done to you.

Climbing a smooth, damn near 90 degree, wall with absolutely no tools or equipment suited for such a task shouldnt let you do so just because you got a crit 20. But if you wanted to pick open a door quietly and manage a crit 20 then maybe surrounding ears could have disadvantage to hear it, or other tabletop equivalents like roll penalties and such, because of the small chance to do so well. But it also means that a crit fail could see a fight about to happen.

It helps to keep the session interesting as things outside the dreadful rollplaying experience, which is what it sounds like you play for, from dragging shit along in a painfully slow and by-the-book manner.

>>50064413
>The DM gives a level up when he feels like the party has done enough to move the story along.

This is shit and completely arbitrary.

What defines "the story"? The plot the GM had in mind? We normally call those railroads. Games take on their own life and follow their own courses in ways that nobody at the table truly can foresee until the game is played. XP incentives exist for the GM to highlight what will be important and incentivized.

>>50056517
had a gm that gave us 2d6 damage from daggers that when we got them they turned into 1d3 shit daggers

>>50056517
>playing D&D 5e
>fighting skeletons
>they quickly overpower the party
>we're 6th level
>thisisprettyspooky.png
>the skeletons put us in a cage and push the cage off of a cliff
>no saves, no rolls
>DM "that's for making me buy pizza for the night"
>I bought the pizza
>it's at my house
>this asshole killed us for no reason
>DM "yeah but I paid you back"
>I never asked him to, even denied the money once.
>he doesn't undo what just happened
>we all take an hour to reroll and start investigating a fallen cage with 4 corpses
>another cage falls
>skeletons pop out and capture the party because "the cage didnt break this time"

>>50064464
>The plot the GM had in mind? We normally call those railroads.
Holy kek, do you think GMs literally improv everything? No, people have plans in mind beforehand and see how you interact with set pieces he has set up.

>Games take on their own life and follow their own courses in ways that nobody at the table truly can foresee until the game is played.
Yes, it's called an adaptable story, still has milestones though.

>XP incentives exist for the GM to highlight what will be important and incentivized.
I just have players level up once per five sessions rather than track XP. They know exactly when a level up is coming.

In other games I have done it different. In one they leveled up each time they killed a mythic creature. In another it was generals of an opposing army.

In another it was entirely story based, with large milestones being decided by me because I'm not an autist nor do I play with autists who can't recognize a milestone.

Tracking XP in my mind is tedious and unnecessary as opposed to most other methods, especially for campaigns that do not focus on combat as xp rewards for non-combat encounters in and of themselves become arbitrary.

>>50064464
>this is shit and completely arbitrary
so is the experience gained from killing monsters. so is the experience handed out for completing encounters. so is an sort of experience whatsoever. why are you so shit at pretending to be retarded?

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>Never prepared
>Usually starts making everything the day of the session
>Never attempts to keep conversation on-topic and we might get 10-15 minutes worth of in-game progress in an hour if we're lucky
>Someone leaves to go to the bathroom, answer a call, or pick someone up from work every hour (which is understandable)
>But instead of roboting their character, as they say is okay when they leave, DM just waits for them to get back which has us waiting even longer
>Every NPC is a sassy asshole and always explains in a matter-of-fact way even though it's obvious we have never been to this new area
>Pop culture references in every important story oriented conversation

Gotta love game day.

>>50056649
good exercise for new players / DMs is to do nonstop dungeon crawl with rotating responsibilities.
>DM : DMs the crawl
>cartographer : maps out the dungeon and places traps
>encounter chart : some one makes the random encounter table and loot tables
Ext.
each person takes a turn being 1 of them until everyone has done everything at least once. new players might not hold responsibilities there first time through but it will help

>>50064542

The PCs can decide to go kill monsters. The PCs can decide to go complete quests, which I assume is what you actually mean.

The PCs cannot decide to follow an incentive structure that exists purely within the GM's brain that he doesn't feel like sharing in any meaningful sense.

For a guy so eager to call people retarded, you sure are brainless when it comes to understanding the literal simplest incentive structure; the carrot.

>>50064531
>Tracking XP in my mind is tedious and unnecessary as opposed to most other methods

It all boils down to this; you are lazy, so you don't want to do it.

Which, I mean, sure, not everybody wants to set up a standardized incentive structure for their campaign. But it is what it is; laziness.

>>50064596
>videogame addled millennial needs his skinnerbox "progression" to have fun.
I find the incentive of having fun to be much preferable to some artificial point system to be gamed.

>>50064596
The game shouldn't be about hitting points on a list to level up. If all your players care about is leveling up through an incentive system then something is wrong with the campaign. If the only reason I'm there is to kill things I normally leave the game as pure combat does not interest me nearly as much. Leveling up serves to make the rest of the game more fun as it shows one's growth. I think XP tracks and the like take a lot of the magic out of it, because you might end up having a goblin be what pushes you over rather than a dragon or other story relevant thing.

So I don't aware XP and instead set charater and player goals. Like they have an idea of what will level them up, but leveling up should be a moment of character growth after a great labor, not just the peanut from the push button.

>>50064450
You can generally fix that by offering outcomes that don't cause everyone to stand around with a thumb up their ass just because they failed the "move the plot along" roll.

Crits don't add anything to the game except that you'll always have a 5% chance of succeeding even when you're otherwise inept at the challenge or a 5% chance of failure even though you're more than well suited for the job.

I'd rather succeed because I built my character to be a good climber than to succeed only because of blind luck.

>>50064596
Oh boy here we go, strap on your helmets, we got high horse rider here with another amazing display of RAW prowess and superiority ready to take you on a one way vacation to numbertown, leave the fun at home.

>muh laziness muthafucka

XP is a flawed concept for the majority of systems, always has, always will be. Plan on running a hex crawl with random encounters? Well, you can enjoy the party either over or under leveling just from dice rolls alone dictating if they get the magical abstract numbers shoved into their souls so they can power up. Don't run anything of that sort and plan on running something narrative driven? Again, unless you plan on altering NCE xp awards (which would also probably qualify as laziness under your guidelines) it can either bring the overarching vision and direction of the game to a grinding halt or become an unenjoyable elevator where players fly by meaningful progression. It also doesn't account for the type of players that I'd assume you are; who instead of playing for the sake of playing would just invite metagaming to the table and "hey GM can I go grind some skeletons for xp to level up?" style of play befitting MMO players.

>>50064596
>you are lazy, so you don't want to do it.
Not him but when I started I didn't use xp because I had enough stuff to juggle as a new GM and the system offered me no advantage. The game was much easier to control and game plans much easier to make with me as an arbiter rather than a full-time calculator. I wouldn't call this laziness so much as "a good decision." Some of my players were also completely new and even small combat sessions could take hours, so progression by the xp system would have taken something like a year between levels. I tried to switch to xp recently because I'm getting to the point where I want my numbers all nice and tidy and known, but my group rejected the proposal because they realize they're still moving at roughly 3x rate of what combat xp alone would give them as we have a lot of sessions without combat and players sometimes miss a week. Even accounting for "story xp" the gap isn't easily filled. Predicting ten sessions ahead to adapt every level's xp rate accounting for player absence, combat, story milestones and character development, etc, isn't just a lot of work, it's impossible. Laziness is hardly the only reason to avoid using the system.

>>50064262
But you ultimately level up only when GM feels like it, anon. He's the guy who decides how much exp to dole out at the end of a session.

>>50064596
I'm pretty new to DMing and already I'm seeing flaws with the XP system. ie I want to have them be level 3 at this point here so that the casters with have access to find trap for the dungeon, but I also don't want to be padding out every twist and turn of the story with encounters. So yeah, doling out exp for completing quest objectives makes a lot of sense to me.

>>50064689
Is this from shittytumblrrants.com/tabletop/fallacy-ridden/wow-bogeyman/faggot?

>>50064596
>It all boils down to this; you are lazy, so you don't want to do it.

What's wrong with being lazy?

If I can get a two step process done in one step, why would I bother doing both steps when it's less time I'm wasting on one problem while also allowing me to focus my time on other problems?

You should be working smarter, not harder, whenever you're doing something anon and dolling out level ups upon certain milestones is a way better system than arbitrarily forcing combat down everyone's throat so that everyone levels up in time for your boss fight.

The amount of GM vs players in this thread makes my inner jedi recoil a little bit

>>50064781
Yes reblog and gift gold if you liked it

>>50064660
I'm not sure how that has anything to do with crit successes or rolls. If the characters have failed to move the plot along then it's just because they haven't agreed to a task, thought a way around the task, or succeeded on the task at hand. The DM is the only one that fails to move a story along as they are the story-teller.

Just because there is a 5% chance of a 1 doesn't mean that your roll is an automatic failure. It could mean that you made a lower quality product, that you could have maybe proceeded only one tile less in your wall-climbing, or that you may have completed your check but maybe only have your bonus action and reaction next turn. It doesn't have to be a "You rolled a one so you tumble to your death" outcome but just a small penalty instead. And on the other side just because you get a crit success doesn't mean that you made a masterwork dagger with literally no skill in smithing but maybe your character will have a spark of inspiration and will be able to learn using smithing tools faster for a time because of the roll, maybe you climbing a cliff-face faster than expected and are allowed a few more tiles of movement or another minor action after the fact, or maybe you will take a quarter damage instead of half on a save.

You're usual actions will still pass on average if you made the character to complete a task they specialize in, and those that are not will usually fail. This is obvious and a 5% chance to maybe succeed or fail a little more in the task that you chose does not effect the outcome of your average rolls in that field and sometimes luck does have a major effect on the actions that you choose. Now I'm not saying its as high as the 5% chance you receive on a d20 but the strength of that boon or penalty is all dependent on the DM and if they know what they are doing it can make the game more interesting than simply rolling your dice, knowing you succeeded or failed, and then wait to get yet another heads or tails result.

>>50058787
Unless you roll a 1 first and jump so hard your legs explode.

>>50064356

oh, the old flying box-home trick? The simplest answer to that is Disjunction/cardboard box, and if you're playing that kinda high-op, as a GM i'd be sending high-op against you too. It's not a fun game if nothing can challenge you, after all.

>>50062343

Well, you're basically getting them to create a dungeon crawl for you to go through, and then to run it for you? Does sound nice.

>>50064839
>>50058787
Why is it that people assume that players decide the effects of their own crits? Do you get to decapitate every foe within three miles when you crit on an attack roll because you say so? Most GMs that run with them do so reasonably. As in, a 20 on your Jump gains you a couple extra feet. A 1 on your Knowledge (nature) check means you think this spikey-plated backed dinosaur is a carnivore.

>>50064833
>Just because there is a 5% chance of a 1 doesn't mean that your roll is an automatic failure.
>You're usual actions will still pass on average if you made the character to complete a task they specialize in, and those that are not will usually fail.

Then what's the point of criticals?

If I'm going to succeed or fail based on my bonuses, why not just let me roll and see whether or not I succeeded?

>Now I'm not saying its as high as the 5% chance you receive on a d20 but the strength of that boon or penalty is all dependent on the DM and if they know what they are doing it can make the game more interesting than simply rolling your dice, knowing you succeeded or failed, and then wait to get yet another heads or tails result.

The problem is that the game is built around that binary outcome.

Either you succeed or you fail, there is no try. You also don't get any boons for beating the DC of the challenge by a certain amount, and even the outcome is foregone after a bit.

>>50064851
At the same time though, if the game gives you an "I win" button for reaching a certain threshold, and reaching said threshold is supposed to be a rarity within the world, it does kinda become dubious when your level 20 fortress is being continually sacked by a dozen or so level 20 bandits who also have the means to disable your epic level traps and obstacles.

After a certain point, there needs to be an understanding that nothing in the setting can give you a reasonable challenge anymore and move on to greener pastures if you want a fair challenge. It's why most RPGs give you multiple save files.

>>50064881

>You also don't get any boons for beating the DC of the challenge by a certain amount, and even the outcome is foregone after a bit.

Maybe in your shitty games. Degrees of success are a thing any competent GM should be involving in games they run. I'm not following your boring argument, but this is just not true.

>>50064908
Nobody uses degrees of success when running a dungeon crawler in D&D.

If you or your GM does, congrats, you are an exception, not the rule.

>>50064903

Well, no. There is no 'upper bound', as proved by the existence of Exalted/Tengen Toppen Gurren Lagann. You can still build a story at any human-conceivable power level, the context and type of story changes. I bet you gold to donuts that I could sell you on bandits breaking into whatever security setup you care to name, but that's because I have run far too many fucking games, and more likely/better it's not bandits - it's Agents of the Seven Dragon Path, because you're part of a power-bloc protecting the western seaboard now and that puts you in conflict with their faction of the Secret War, a conflict played out across six planets and affecting billions of lives.

>>50064926
>Nobody uses degrees of success when running a dungeon crawler in D&D.
Sir I believe you are incorrect. I do every session.

>>50064933
>If you or your GM does, congrats, you are an exception, not the rule.

I can see your reading comprehension is on point.

>>50064943
>I assume everyone with the name "Anonymous" is the same person.

Buddy, pal, really.

>>50064926

>running a dungeon-crawler

That's an excuse often used by shitty GMs. I've run purely-set-in-dungeons games of dnd and had absolutely no difficulty including story, roleplaying, degrees of success, etc, so forth. Turning a ttrpg into a shitty wargame isn't uncommon, but it's not the proper or good thing, and it doesn't mean the GM doing it isn't shit.

>>50064931
>There is no 'upper bound', as proved by the existence of Exalted/Tengen Toppen Gurren Lagann.

Stopped reading right here.

Not because of any personal issues with Exalted or TTGL, but because in D&D there is basically an upper limit for what your character can do.

I mean, you can technically go beyond level 20, technically, but at that point you're already strong enough to beat most of the monster manual so really, what's the point?

>>50064962
To fight the stuff not in the monster manual? It'd be a pain in the ass to GM for but it might be fun to do once in a great while.

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>>50064953
>Quotes half a post while ignoring the other
>you shouldn't assume I'm the same person, :^)

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>>50064975

Hi, i'm the guy you were talking to originally. Neither of these other guys are me.

>>50064971
It's more to the point. Even when Simon was throwing galaxies and shit, that had less to do with him wanting to do it and more because if he didn't, everyone on earth would die. That and they took his waifu, which is just terrible.

I can recall a handful of creatures that would require more than 20 levels to beat but they're either so rare that you'll never encounter them or they're deities (or deity-like) that are so powerful that most creatures in existence are beneath their notice.

It's one thing gaining 20 levels to take on an aboleth or something that's threatening to devour the world, it's another thing to summon one just so that you could kill it.

>>50064956
>If you or your GM does, congrats, you are an exception, not the rule.

>>50064962

At fairly trivial levels of op, you can make dnd characters that have the capability of an Exalted character, in 3.X. Also, 'you fight dem monsters in dem dungon from dis book' is not considered good GMing. 'Party walks up and attacks the monster' is not why people play roleplaying games, because X-Wing and Warmachine deliver a better experience in terms of 'small-group tabletop wargaming' than ttrpgs do.

The 'point' is to tell stories. If you're sitting there using char-op vs the GM who is presenting monsters from the mm for you to fight and easily kill, why not just reach out and take each other's dicks in hand and start stroking? Same difference.

>>50065024

Well, i've gamed with a lot of people due to roleplaying cons and been interested in this whole thing for a long time. I've found the 'you roll dem dices and go in dem dungeons' GMs are about 15-20% of the total population of ttrpg gamers. They also tend to fit a really common physical profile, so I can spot them in a crowd, and avoid gaming with them at will.

>>50065031
Even if we're looking at it from a non-combat scenario, why would anyone bother taking their campaign past level 20, especially in a WotC era D&D edition?

What the hell are you expecting to do that you would even need more than 10 levels to accomplish?

>rips into us for not getting into the story and getting distracted with OOC chatter
>spends minutes at a time trying to remember tidbit X or looking for paragraph Y because he's stoned
>every NPC is annoyed at everything

>>50064881
>Then what's the point of criticals?

That you will either succeed or fail slightly higher or lower than usual based entirely on what the DM thinks is warranted in the current situation.

>If I'm going to succeed or fail based on my bonuses, why not just let me roll and see whether or not I succeeded?

Because your method is just that, succeeding or failing. It gets boring when that's the only thing that happens ever. I want to be rewarded or punished, or reward or punish, myself or my players in the small ways that you can with crit rolls that you can't normally. To receive/give an edge to a bad situation or a spontaneous problem in a seemingly smooth plan in the small chance that it can happen it totally acceptable by pretty much anyone that I have ever played with as it helps break the boring heads/tails cycle that you get with rollplayers and rule-lawyers.

>The problem is that the game is built around that binary outcome.

And for the vast majority of the time it will still be following that system. If 5% of your overall rolls is just too much for you to have to maneuver around then I don't know what to say to you mate. You will still pass what you are built to pass and fail what you are not built for the vast majority of the time, but that small chance is always there and it helps keep things interesting knowing that.

Knowing that the small chance exists, and when all the players and even DM are anticipating a lucky 20 to see if the RNG gods deem you worthy of surviving against the odds, it makes the session more intense and enjoyable in all. You'll still get your heads or tails outcome 95% of the time so I don't see why this seems to be so much of a problem for you.

>>50065046
Whatever you say anon, whatever you say.

I also have to ask, how big is your sample size here? Because I can say that 75-80% of GMs are the type who go "you roll dem dices and go in dem dungeons" at the start of every session but that would only be based around my experience with seven GMs out of the twelve or so that I've had over the years.

>>50065024
>there's no way all these people claiming to be the exception prove that the rule is shit and weak

>>50065071

'Character level' is not hugely relevant to 'power level'. Power level is defined by the area you can affect, the tone and type of fight you experience, and the type of story that can be told about the character. A gritty low-fantasy game might have the same bonuses as a high-fantasy planeskipping game (like Spelljammer) to rolls, but the TONE of the fights will be different.

Nearly any plotline can be scaled to nearly whatever power level you want. It strains verisimilitude more or less, but a good GM can smooth that over. Apparently you didn't bother to read it, but I said that I could make bandits invading your uber-duper planar stronghold make sense, although that's very verisimilitude-straining - a good enough reason/presentation can make anything make sense. But things like an entire civilization with godlike powers trying desperately to restrain an ascended-AI level motive force bound to the substrates of reality that will eventually destroy the universe if certain conditions are met, and the only way to stop it that they can see is to do horrific evil is something that a level 20 character is going to struggle extremely hard to defeat.

Even fantasy fiction has situations that would challenge a level 20 character, and that's without any upgunning at all in terms of mechanics, the dark warlock doesn't have to be level 3, he can be level 17 and hey that explains where his giant undead army came from - he made it. Skeletor isn't necessarily a level 5 villain, etc. Then you've got ancient mysteries that hold forbidden secrets, competing time pressures, smart enemies that defeat you despite being weaker (Joker Bard etc), problems that can't be solved with force, so on. High-power has it's own story-space, and it can even be wider than low-power.

>>50065094

Over 4 cities, and about ten years... about 3000? Players and GMs. I like to discuss RPGs so I often get into a situation of discussing things with people, and I tend to end up at a lot of roleplaying conventions and gaming stores etc. Admittedly I haven't spent a lot of time in the USA or Canada - only really vancouver, LA, and NY, most of these are gamers from the UK and Aus.

It's worth noting that like cleaves to like, especially people who only game with people they know/friends of friends. You go to most 'pathfinder society' chapters and they'll be nearly 80%+ 'go in dem dungeons' GMs even when not running modules.

People who game publically at cons or stores or with lots of people tend towards the opposite. My view is likely skewed towards that (because it's fucking impossible to gather data about the traditional-spy-network cells of friends-of-friends gamers).

>>50065093
>That you will either succeed or fail slightly higher or lower than usual based entirely on what the DM thinks is warranted in the current situation.

So arbitrary bullshit that makes playing a martial more of a punch to the dick, gotcha.

>It gets boring when that's the only thing that happens ever.

I play D&D when I just want to run into a dungeon and see the numbers go up, it's simple and the antithesis for what I view RPGs to being but hey, sometimes you want to unwind after a grueling storyline in a more narrative game.

Not to say that D&D can't do stories but by that same token, I've also seen porn with compelling stories as well.

>Knowing that the small chance exists, and when all the players and even DM are anticipating a lucky 20 to see if the RNG gods deem you worthy of surviving against the odds, it makes the session more intense and enjoyable in all.

If you're fishing for a NAT 20 then you deserve to die, unless the GM fucked you over or something.

>>50064507
Why do you play with this guy?

>>50065126
>'Character level' is not hugely relevant to 'power level'.

Then what's the point of having levels?

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>>50057340
>Dan "The Man With The Plan (to rape)" Schneider

Fucking hell

>>50061491
What if he is doing just that, going back in the base because he wants to sleep and then finds out that the door might as well be revolving?

>>50065174

Because it's partially relevant to power level (but only partially) and allows a feeling of growing stronger over time, which humans are WIRED to appreciate in stories.

Plus, it's a carrot for Monty Haul style tables.

It also provides mechanical variation from game to game so you don't get bored doing the same things (although Fighters in many editions of dnd still suffer from this). It's all of these reasons.

>>50056517
>unconcious prepubescent girl gets stashed into a trash can
>Executive Producer Dan Schneider
They knew what they were doing, didn't they?

>>50065158
>You go to most 'pathfinder society' chapters and they'll be nearly 80%+ 'go in dem dungeons' GMs even when not running modules.
I've only frequented one store so I only have 8 or so regular GMs I regularly talk to and occasionally play under, about half of which run PFS, and the only one who doesn't add in degrees of success is the one GM who is always running weird systems which have their own takes on spectacular performances, like his Traveller game.
But you and I are clearly wrong. GMs either use binary success/failure systems or let players jump to Jupiter on a 20 and slay mad alien pussy because that's what they said they were rolling for. There's maybe one exception in the world. It's a rule you know?
>>50064926
Decided it is so you better follow it.

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>>50064262
That's all leveling. It's arbitrary as hell anyway, and unless you're willing to allow some PCs to completely outstrip their peers, you're better off just handing out XP in roughly even amounts.

Hell, I find the XP costs for making magic items retarded in D&D and instead make it temporary Int/Wis/Cha (depending on Caster) damage instead.

>>50064361
Indeed it does, but it incentives mindless dungeon-crawling, looting, and in some cases, inter-party fighting.

Making the level-up an end of adventure reward encourages the players to work together and get creative when dealing with problems.

Tell the players they need to slay 10 Gnolls, 14 Goblins, and 3 Wargs in order to level up and that's what they'll do.

Tell the players they need to remove the thread of the small greenskin warband plaguing a town to level and they might kill them, but it's equally likely they'll come up with something creative to deal with the greenskins instead.

Incentive murder and the players focus on murder. Incentive gold and the players focus on collecting gold. Incentive completing tasks however they feel like, and players come up with many, many different ideas.

I've seen players kill a band of goblins with fireballs, arrows, and a berserk Barbarian charging in a thousand times. I want the players who decide to sneak into the camp, use stealth and mind magic to enslave the greenskins then turn them into cannon fodder against the necromancer the party was dealing with next adventure.

>>50065213
>Because it's partially relevant to power level (but only partially) and allows a feeling of growing stronger over time, which humans are WIRED to appreciate in stories.

Why is 20 levels in Fighter weaker than a level 10 Wizard though?

>>50065246

Because the devs fucked up. I'm not saying DnD is balanced (hah), even 4e-the-most-boring-edition isn't balanced. I'm saying that more capability, whether you get that from being on a Spelljammer, being a Nobleman in a feudal monarchy, or being a Level 13 Cleric, doesn't stop stories being told. It changes HOW they are told.

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>>50064507
>another cage falls
>skeletons pop out and capture the party because "the cage didnt break this time"
11/10, would tpk again

>>50065161
>So arbitrary bullshit that makes playing a martial more of a punch to the dick, gotcha.

It can get anyone punched in the dick, or maybe have their dick sucked instead. And it's not going to happen every single roll because, surprise surprise, crits do not make up the majority of your rolls. And if the possibility of maybe having one less tile of movement or maybe having a chance to take a quarter less damage from a save is just too much of a hit to your gameplan that you just can't think of a way to come back then why not just save-scum on single player rpgs? You were crying before on how the system is made for the heads or tails system but the book also clearly states that, at the DMs discretion, crits can also have additional effects so to argue that this is against the rules of the game is just false anon, I don't know what to tell you.

>I play D&D when I just want to run into a dungeon and see the numbers go up, it's simple and the antithesis for what I view RPGs to being but hey, sometimes you want to unwind after a grueling storyline in a more narrative game.

Sounds like you want to play either a hack-and-slash or roguelike instead of an rpg. Tabletop or not.

>If you're fishing for a NAT 20 then you deserve to die, unless the GM fucked you over or something.

Why does hoping on such a small chance warrant you being such a cunt? No one has to have been fucked over to hope that this roll could help decide the tide of a losing battle or the maybe a chance to leave an excellent impression on a NPC during negotiating help/payment. Your snowflake of a min-max cardboard cut-out will still excel in their field and you may have to simply adjust your tactics to the fights on the chance that you, or the enemy, receives a crit too many or too few.

Hell, since you took the bitchy "muh underpowered martial" route you could say that fighters are overpowered as fuck with this as they can consistently make more hits than anyone in the game.

>>50064992
But that's not the point, anon
Also, seeing as it's so relevant, I'm not the same guy as the one you're responding to

>>50065257
Why not just have a system that's skill based as opposed to level based.

It certainly gives more of an idea as to how one PC stacks against another than adding in levels that may or may not be stronger in one class than another.

Think about it, if a level 10 wizard can take out a level 20 Fighter effortlessly, then doesn't that kinda mean that most stories where the level 20 Fighter beats the level 20 Wizard come down to GM fiat rather than the skill of the player/character?

I mean, it cheapens the outcome of the story knowing that the only reason why the Fighter won was because his victory was handed to him on a silver platter.

>>50059293
what's your group like?
i ask cause you literally just described my DM.

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>>50064555
>>Pop culture references in every important story oriented conversation
I have a player like that.

>Fantasy setting in medieval not!Earth
>namedrops Disney movies and commercials
>all atmosphere is goes through the window

>>50065284
>It can get anyone punched in the dick, or maybe have their dick sucked instead.

Except for the mages who automatically cast their spells without rolling most of the time.

>Sounds like you want to play either a hack-and-slash or rogue eke instead of an rpg. Tabletop or not.

I play D&D specifically because it's built around being a hack-and-slash game. I play other systems when I want to generate stories with depth and that's because most narrative games were built with that purpose in mind.

That and trying to generate a meaningful story with an imbalanced system requires so much fiat that you might as well be using a narrative system anyways.

>Why does hoping on such a small chance warrant you being such a cunt?

Because at that point, you're not playing a tabletop game anymore, you're playing craps with character sheets.

If you fucked up and a NAT 20 is all that could save you, you deserve to die, the end, be less stupid next time.

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>>50065246
Because the devs kept the power balance from AD&D2E but removed the XP differences which made the system even remotely balanced.

Seriously. The move from AD&D2E to 3E and the standardization of the XP tables without balancing everything else is what fucked balance so hard.

People forget that in AD&D2E, it was hard to get up to the truly higher levels. Like, really really really hard. Like, holy shit was getting a new level above 8-10 difficult.

Compare AD&D2E's Wizard from 10-11: You need to get 125,000XP more than the 250,000 you needed for Level 10, meaning just to go up one more level, you needed to get half the XP you'd gotten in your entire adventuring career.

Then you post that next to the Wizard in D&D3E going from 10-11: He needs 10,000 XP, which is less than a quarter of what he needed to go from 9-10.

Simply put, in the earlier editions, simply being able to cast Wish or whatever was a miracle in the first place, because you were very, very unlikely to survive THAT long.

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>>50065336
>Except for the mages who automatically cast their spells without rolling most of the time.

And force you to make a save roll. Lets say you crit success. We'd usually get anywhere from no damage, to a quarter damage, to not being able to be affected from spells that give this certain status ailments again for an in-game minute all of which are just dependent on what the DM feels is appropriate for the CR fight we are in. Lets say we fail. We might take an extra double to quarter damage, are unable to make a save to get out of whatever ails you next turn, or the effect on you lasts for (enter whatever multiple of time here) depending on the CR. That could cripple them, or you, but the chance of that happening are so slim that they would have to do it at least twenty times to get that one helpful effect and if you havent killed them by then, then you deserve to lose.

>That and trying to generate a meaningful story with an imbalanced system requires so much fiat that you might as well be using a narrative system anyways.

Mmk, I can agree to that. But I still like the off chance of some wildcards thrown my way to break the monotony.

>Because at that point, you're not playing a tabletop game anymore, you're playing craps with character sheets.

A 5% chance mate. A 5 % chance is equivalent to saying that most of your actions are up to chance and not to your character planning? Really? Get the fuck out of here with that, it's bullshit and you know it.

>>50065246
>Why is 20 levels in Fighter weaker than a level 10 Wizard though?

A fighter of that level should be able to utterly destroy a wizard of that level given enough time for the wizards fly spell to run out if you dont carry any ranged weapons like an idiot.

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>>50065291
Nah, it just means that it's the classic Superman/Batman dichotomy.

The Wizard (Superman) is basically good at everything by level 20. They don't need to put effort into winning because all they need is Meteor Swarm, Wish, and Summon Monster IX.

The Fighter (Batman) can win if he's got enough time to prepare, i.e. Ring of Spell Turning, the right poisons, the right wondrous items, etc. He'll get by on the skin of his teeth, but he can eke out a win.

It's why heroes are warriors and villains are mages: It's a lot harder to spin the guy manipulating the fabric of reality fighting the guy who can swing a sword really well as the underdog.

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>>50065413

'weaker' doesn't mean 'locked in a room fighting', although a wizard being able to step away, put up a wall, and fire Hold Person spells through a tiny hole until the Fighter falls over means your example is still wrong

the fighter is weaker because they have less answers to monster tactics, are shut down by more types of encounters (even with all the right WBL-omancy, although sufficient WBL-omancy could close the gap by making the Fighter a pseudo-wizard with wands and scrolls), think social, travel encounters, investigation ones, fights with things that don't have hp for him to easily wail on or force saves vs his weak saves. Without lots of optimization a fighter tends to make attacks for damage and have hp and nothing else.

>>50065441

Uh, so if the fighter optimizes to shit he can maybe beat a wizard using two of the weakest 9th level spells (meteor swarm, summon monster IX)? That's kinda the definition of 'weaker' there buddy.

>>50065399
>And force you to make a save roll.

That's the thing, they force other people to make their rolls, they themselves don't have to roll for anything.

This is even assuming that the spell they're using even lets you roll a save in the first place.

>Mmk, I can agree to that. But I still like the off chance of some wildcards thrown my way to break the monotony.

It doesn't break the monotony, it just means that your luck will always be there to screw you over no matter how powerful you become.

Unless you're a mage, then it becomes a non-issue.

>A 5% chance mate. A 5 % chance is equivalent to saying that most of your actions are up to chance and not to your character planning? Really? Get the fuck out of here with that, it's bullshit and you know it.

Unless the GM threw a save or die situation at you, you had to have seen that shit coming. You could've prevented it but you didn't, so fuck you, roll a new character, your luck isn't going to save you from your stupidity.

>>50064822

Let me hit you with some knowledge, man:

Everyone here? On /tg/? Is a GM. Every. Single. One.

Treat them otherwise and it's your ass over the fire. Nobody here 'plays' dnd, at least not exclusively.

>>50065441
Batman only lives because he carries a stick of kryptonite in his pocket and Superman doesn't decide to go full aggro and murder him since he's basically capable of moving at the speed of sound (maybe even light considering the power creep in most western comics nowadays).

Similarly to a wizard time-stopping and dropping a force cage/cloudkill combo on top of the Fighter by turn 0, Superman could fly to Bruce's mansion, blow it off the map, and then infinite-mass punch the ground so hard that the batcave collapses in on itself before he has a chance to escape.

The only reason he doesn't is because Superman tries to be a boy scout and (usually) never kills.

>>50065441
So to recap, if the Fighter meticulously min-maxes himself to the highest level possible, he could take out a wizard who focused in two of the weakest 9th level spells in the game?

I mean, a 10 year old could probably beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match if Mike Tyson used one arm, came in drunk, and had a blindfold on but I wouldn't call the 10 year old a heavy weight champion.

>>50065606

No shit, sherlock

The most common cause of GM vs players is the GM, not the players. I'm a forever-GM and I keep having to deal with players acting like shitcunts cause a previous GM scarred them bad. If you don't, odds are good you ARE that GM.

>>50065606

I just screen my party instead of playing with strangers. Playing DnD with strangers is a lot like unprotected sex with strangers:

If you do it, you're not only fucked but you'll suffer after the act because of them, too.

>>50061945
Tare off the nostalgia goggles and try rewatching them now. You'll be unpleasantly surprised

>>50065174
Ideally, power levels should be relevant to character levels, but in a poorly designed game like 3.5, they are not.

>>50065693
Ok, I've tared my nostalgia goggles, they're now appropriately set to 0.

>>50065291

The 'stronger' force on paper doesn't always win wars in the real world (look at the Red Army and Afghanistan), and people with more 'skill' lose to other people due to all kinds of reasons. Real life is complicated, and despite many claims to the contrary(by insecure people trying to assert they have more control than they do), often random.

There are also factors that aren't simple class power that determine victory. A fighter with a good cha who makes some deals and acts as a distraction while some nobles poison the wizard to death has still won, just not through any ability granted by his class. Determination, situation, luck, allies, nonallied but helpful factors, plan, so on, all affect outcome.

Assuming that all of that is 'purely GM fiat' is an awful attitude that shits on games. If your world is a series of 10x10 rooms where people roll dice at each other, you're scum.

>Why not just have a system that's skill based as opposed to level based.

I'm not a dnd developer.

As for 'why use dnd', it hooks into a lot of stories, has player presence, and the mechanical wibbly bits interest people.

>2nd session with new DM
>puts in typical 'this is the BBEG, watch him do evil things' intro scene
>me, rogue, sees evil things
>stealths away to warn party
>mediocre roll, BBEG follows, casts a spell
>pass reflex save, get away
>tells me when session is over "If you failed that roll you would have died right there"

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>>50065766

>>50065693

I hate to say it but I agree with you. Some of the episodes of all that were good (the ones written by actual comedians) but a lot of it was the proto-mold for the 'quirky lolrandumb' humor that's everywhere today. I don't think those shows were TRYING to kickstart that, but the fact that they did means they've aged poorly in comparison to what they spawned.

I still think goodburger had some legitimately funny moments, even years later.

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>>50065766

Hardcore. This guy knows his shit.

>>50065566
>That's the thing, they force other people to make their rolls, they themselves don't have to roll for anything.
>It doesn't break the monotony, it just means that your luck will always be there to screw you over no matter how powerful you become.

You seem to be only taking the 1s into effect here and never acknowledging that 20s exist and that they can help you. But the thing is, regardless of whether or not you even play a game with a DM that uses extra crit effects, that a 1 or a 20 will more than likely always result in a fail or a success.

Unless you are a rogue that treats everything below a 10 as a 10, or specifically make your character to be a one trick pony and min-max to always pass a couple checks nearly without fail then a fail will mostly be the case with rolling a 1. And unless your chosen skill/attack doesnt meet a DC or AC even with your ability modifier after rolling a 20 then you made a series of bad decisions to fight the BBEG at level 5 because that will almost always end with a success. So it doesn't matter if you use the crit rules as you were going to miss/fail or hit/succeed regardless. If that is the case, which it damn near 100% is, what is the harm in giving an extra boost or punishment for these two rolls? You complaint is that the crit rules make your character creation seemingly just a waste and the game becomes a mere RNG mess, but the entire game is already 100% chance unless your are a divinity wizard or have the lucky feat and they only effect rolls that were already an almost guaranteed fail/success anyways.

So who cares?

>This is even assuming that the spell they're using even lets you roll a save in the first place.

Then nothing is different. With or without the crits implemented their effect was happening regardless.

>>50065821
>Unless the GM threw a save or die situation at you, you had to have seen that shit coming. You could've prevented it but you didn't, so fuck you, roll a new character, your luck isn't going to save you from your stupidity.

My statement was talking about how, you, were claiming that the bad 5% of your overall 1 rolls apparently just shred your character sheet to pieces and completely overrule your other 95% that were based off of your decisions on where to allocate your attribute points and skills. Not on a singular do-or-die situation. However I cannot say that has never happened before. Sometimes, because players actually understand and want to play out their character in a meaningful and immersive way, may decide that a final stand at the gate to let their friends escape is the best decision. That this ballroom dance, ballroom performance, or enter whatever high-class event here is the only/last chance to make an impression on the king/queen/NPC of repute. That maybe the seemingly impossible gap in the cavern is looking better than the enemies coming their way. And their only chance is to survive, or make an impression, is to give one (or maybe two) very specific rolls that may have no chance of working but they are going to try.

The event(s) that led to this situation is fresh in every ones mind, they act out the tone of their characters voice in the moment, and they make their case to the DM after the fact. This could be a character defining moment, a time when their character would die or may not have another chance like this in decades but they are going to try. They make their roll be it intimidation to stem the coming enemies, performance to dazzle the crowd with their dance moves, or an athletics check to see if they can cross the chasm just enough to grab onto that single root sticking out.

cont in one more post

>>50065754
>The 'stronger' force on paper doesn't always win wars in the real world (look at the Red Army and Afghanistan), and people with more 'skill' lose to other people due to all kinds of reasons.

We're not talking about wars, we're talking about the skill of the individual vs. the skill of another individual.

>Determination, situation, luck, allies, nonallied but helpful factors, plan, so on, all affect outcome.

Yet none of them matter when you're dealing with an individual who is carrying over 50+ spells that can end combat in one turn.

>Assuming that all of that is 'purely GM fiat' is an awful attitude that shits on games.

It is pure GM fiat because there's no way that the Fighter is going to beat a wizard unless you just decide to let him win.

A dude w/ 50 spells that can do basically anything vs. a dude who can hurt one thing per turn.

You might as well fling spit wads at an H-bomb.

>A fighter with a good cha

You're funny

>>50065766
Meh, it isn't really "bad" unless it happens, he could very easily be telling you a half truth with that statement just for the sake of you understanding the in universe stakes.

>>50065849

We've let him DM other campaigns since then. He's just shitty.

>>50065833
The DC would clearly be too high if we're merely going by the rules without crits for most of these situations. The fighter is bloodied against many, the bard is charming but not famed enough to warrant such company, and the barbarian simply can't make the jump with his STR and long jump max but they are going to at least try because it's all that they can do in this situation. And lets say the DM allows it.

Now there is a chance that they may succeed, though it is very small, that their action may pay off, but you would have to take the crit rules given inside the rulebook to make this happen. And if you were to block out this miniscule chance just to be a faggot that apparently knows nothing else to say to a person wanting to properly role play a character in a role-playing game other than "You could've prevented it but you didn't, so fuck you, roll a new character, your luck isn't going to save you from your stupidity" then you can go fuck yourself.

I hope you know that you are That Guy, and that is why you were outvoted when it came to the crit rule. Assuming you are even that same anon from the beginning, you seem to be no-fun allowed given form.

>>50065821
>You seem to be only taking the 1s into effect here and never acknowledging that 20s exist and that they can help you.

Mainly because a critical success is superfluous since I would've probably succeeded anyways due to rolling higher than average.

>Then nothing is different. With or without the crits implemented their effect was happening regardless.

Actually, something does happen, and usually it's something that isn't good for whoever is standing against the wizard.

>My statement was talking about how, you, were claiming that the bad 5% of your overall 1 rolls apparently just shred your character sheet to pieces and completely overrule your other 95% that were based off of your decisions on where to allocate your attribute points and skills.

If a NAT 20 is the only roll that would allow you to live, you're dead, because at that point, you're asking the GM to fiat you to safety even though you did nothing to warrant such an outcome besides being lucky.

>>50065754
>Determination, situation, luck, allies, nonallied but helpful factors, plan, so on, all affect outcome.
Thing is, those are available to the wizard too, but thanks to his spells he has easier time making use of those than the fighter. The basic problem behind the power imbalance is that the wizard can take advantage of several different approaches while the fighter is geared towards only one, punching stuff.

>>50065866
Listen, sometimes you're not going to win no matter how hard you try, it sucks but it happens.

Giving people a 5% chance to succeed when they really shouldn't just ends up breeding entitlement, because even if you tell them point blank that trying to jump to the moon is impossible and a retarded thing to do, they'll still roll with the justification being "well hey, you don't know, maybe I'll roll a 20, hyuk :B"

Then if they somehow do and you tell them no, well suddenly you're the bad guy because you didn't let a dude who can only jump maybe 10 ft. at best suddenly jump high enough to reach the stratosphere for no damn reason.

If your character doesn't have the ability then he doesn't have the ability. If you want to give the PCs the ability to kick logic to the curb, create a currency like fate points or something that the player can spend, not an outcome that depends solely upon RNG.

>>50065646
>The most common cause of GM vs players is the GM, not the players.
What a load of horse-shit. The most common cause of GM vs Players is a mismatch between what the two groups want. In general, the GM is expending way more time and effort to run the game, so his desires/preferences supersede those of any individual player. If they don't like it, they can DM. At the same time, there's not much point in the DM trying to do something that the whole party has no interest in.

>muh railroad
There's always a railroad, it's just a matter of how many junctions the GM puts in to let you decide what direction you're going. Even if you're a strawman shitposter on /tg/ who always chooses the option least likely to have material prepared for it, you're still just following some rails that the GM is frantically throwing down in front of you.

Why are there only two doors in this room? Because the GM said so. Why are there only two solutions to this problem? Because the GM said so. Sure, maybe you can blast a hole in the wall and make yourself a third door, or maybe you can devise some third solution.

>>50065754
>If your world is a series of 10x10 rooms where people roll dice at each other, you're scum.
There's nothing wrong with that if that's what everyone at the table wants.

>>50065898
>Mainly because a critical success is superfluous since I would've probably succeeded anyways due to rolling higher than average.

And a 1 will probably fail anyways due to rolling lower than average. What's your point?

>Actually, something does happen, and usually it's something that isn't good for whoever is standing against the wizard.

The "nothing different" is talking about how, with or without the crit rules implemented, the wizards spell goes off and the effect will effect you as normal anyways. That's what the "nothing different" refers to. This has no difference with or without alternate crit rules.

>If a NAT 20 is the only roll that would allow you to live, you're dead, because at that point, you're asking the GM to fiat you to safety even though you did nothing to warrant such an outcome besides being lucky.

What's so bad about being lucky? You are not asking to have your hand held and to be saved with no chance of consequence. There is only a 5% chance you may be saved depending on if the DM allows it with the wording of your case and that should be more than okay in almost any situation. You are going in thinking that a crit 20 when persuading a king will instantly give you the keys to the kingdom instead of something more realistic like maybe thinking this rabble may make the evening dinner more lively than usual and give you an invitation.

You seem to be stuck on this do-or-die situation, as if players just constantly go fight ancient dragons at level one and go "oops shouldnt have done that can I reload?" Apparently you played with a DM that allowed their players to simply sprout wings and fly away from any and all danger, which is total horseshit, but that is not the case that I'm arguing for and that's not what a crit should be used for. Do-or-die situations are fine as they can make for great theater-of-the-mind cinema but if the situation isn't realistic enough to warrant a crit roll = 100% saved then they SHOULD die I agree.

>>50065948
Yes it does happen, and I've never made the claim that shitty games do not give shitty prizes, but sometimes a bit of inspiration and a taste for one step higher than what you have is what the player's may pick. I'm not saying, nor have I ever claimed, that going up against something ten over your CR should warrant some stroke of luck. You guys made bad decisions, try again, but a few CR levels over can be attainable through a hardworking team.

But maybe something goes wrong. They got bad info, any patrol spots them, they get reinforcements just as they are about to beat the boss and it's now going bad. They now have to retreat and have been on-fucking-point with rp, teamwork, and (to their knowledge) preparation up to that point. Now yeah, they will more than likely die BUT if they pull out some amazing shit out of their asses and show immersion and inspiration in the moment then why rob them of just a chance of living to fight another day if they plead their case?

You want to talk to me about entitlement? I've killed over 17 player characters in the same two year long campaign I run, and out of all the times they have died never have I once heard afterwards from any of them that X got to live that one time.

It's a mix of logic, ballsy-ness, and luck that some have lived and most have died. Most don't get the chance to get saved as they are not allowed to get the chance from what you have been saying. Stupid games, stupid prizes. But there have been other times where I would have lost sleep to deny players the chance to have their role playing gone for nothing.

>>50066002
>And a 1 will probably fail anyways due to rolling lower than average. What's your point?

What's yours? Because no matter how you slice it, crits are superfluous since it's just the same outcome but better/worse than usual.

>What's so bad about being lucky?

Because any fool can succeed through blind luck and it just cheapens the victory because it was given, not earned.

>You are not asking to have your hand held and to be saved with no chance of consequence.

You're asking the GM to supersedes the narrative based on pure luck, which is just as bad because it's something that's forced upon the GM, as if they're supposed to let you live because of a 1:19 chance showed up on the die.

The king wouldn't invite you to his dinner party because you're filthy peasants who probably reek of blood and shit, especially if he's already paying you for doing your jobs. It'd be like a plumber expecting to be invited to dinner when they were only called over to fix someone's sink.

>>50066074
>Now yeah, they will more than likely die BUT if they pull out some amazing shit out of their asses and show immersion and inspiration in the moment then why rob them of just a chance of living to fight another day if they plead their case?

Because risk is what gives the game meaning.

If they see reinforcements showing up to put the kibosh on their assassination attempt, they have the choice to either kill the BBEG at the cost of their lives or to flee and try getting him later.

If it came down to a roll and a NAT 20 allowed them to do both, it just robs them of the opportunities presented in that moment. They feel accomplished at that moment, it came at the cost of whatever storylines could've been made based on the PC's either running from the BBEG who is alive and howling for blood or dealing with the deaths of someone in the party because they decided to kill the BBEG at the cost of their chance to escape.

>>50066076
>What's yours? Because no matter how you slice it, crits are superfluous since it's just the same outcome but better/worse than usual.

Mine has been, from the beginning, that those extra boons/punishments can help in just enough of a way to turn the tide to you or the enemy for a turn or two if in combat, or to help you in other ways outside of it. Lets go back to the lockpick. Lets say they do a mix of sleight of hand and lockpicking to silently pick the lock without someone noticing, and their sleight was just under the DC but their lockpicking got a 20. Then maybe the sleight will get a little boost because of the 20. It could be flavored multiple ways but we could say the lockpick was much easier/quicker than he thought and therefore his sleight of hand wasn't even needed.

>Because any fool can succeed through blind luck and it just cheapens the victory because it was given, not earned.

Only if allowed, only if the DM even makes the success a get-out-of-jail-free card if allowed, and only if they make the 20 if the DM makes the success a get-out-of-jail-free card if the rule is allowed. That's alot of ifs for your "blind luck" to work out. Again, you seem to think that 20s will allow for a level 1 to kill a lich. No DM who takes the campaign/setting seriously would make that happen and would more than likely not even care that he crit on a lich. He's level 1, maybe you gave him a scar for your next character to see but he's dead, try again.

>You're asking the GM to supersedes the narrative based on pure luck, which is just as bad because it's something that's forced upon the GM, as if they're supposed to let you live because of a 1:19 chance showed up on the die.

You're assuming that their roll isn't going to then be challenged by the enemy's roll or, once again, that the DM would even give the chance in the given scenario.

You need to get this "just because players ask for it they will get it" idea out of your head.

>>50066146
>If they see reinforcements showing up to put the kibosh on their assassination attempt, they have the choice to either kill the BBEG at the cost of their lives or to flee and try getting him later.

Let's say they are wanting to take the BBEG out without harming his troops as they are merely doing their job and do not wish harm to be done to them for character reasons (alignments, character flaws, etc), the intel they gathered through scouting and scouring old knowledge showed that BBEG comes to pray at a remote cathedral to remember their old life once every (arbitrary time here), and it's within a tenday.

They go out and find him their alone. Monologues are had, ideals are told, and the time for words is done after they cannot see eye to eye. Almost ten in-game minutes have actually gone by for this single fight and everyone is getting exhausted and bloodied, but so is the BBEG. He gives a smirk and the players wonder what could he be smiling for? They clearly have him beat in the next minute but then the enemies storm from the entrances/exits of the enclosed cathedral (turns out he used sending to tell his elites/bodyguards/singular lieutenant to come to him immediately).

They have the choice you gave them. Fight to try and kill him before his troops kill you, or attempt to carve a path and run.

cont

>>50066191
>Mine has been, from the beginning, that those extra boons/punishments can help in just enough of a way to turn the tide to you or the enemy for a turn or two if in combat, or to help you in other ways outside of it.

As opposed to just succeeding/failing normally?

>Only if allowed, only if the DM even makes the success a get-out-of-jail-free card if allowed, and only if they make the 20 if the DM makes the success a get-out-of-jail-free card if the rule is allowed.

Oh heaven forbid a GM does that though, because some players feel as though they are entitled to kick a god's holy gonads if they rolled a 20 on the attack roll.

>You're assuming that their roll isn't going to then be challenged by the enemy's roll

In what way? Give me an example because last I checked, D&D doesn't really have many opposed rolls.

>>50066302
But Player 3 asks "I know they are his closest men and I have no chance in persuading them to leave (maybe they are corrupt, maybe they are being blackmailed, w/e) but while the tension is building can I ready an action to try and intimidate them if they attempt to attack us?"

Now clearly this would not work. They have the numbers and their commander is alive. Using your logic the choice that they made because of their character's beliefs/flaws was clearly a bad one because they are now in this situation and you are revving up to say "You could've prevented it but you didn't, so fuck you, roll a new character, your luck isn't going to save you from your stupidity", but for the campaign it was the only real choice available to them and so was the one that they had to make.

They attacked before they were truly ready and are now met with death together to destroy evil or the death of a few to fight again later, but with this action that Player 3 presented it opens up a new path in the story. Maybe the roar of the fighter halts their advance for but a moment allowing the players a FULL rotation's worth of actions towards the BBEG and if they can just MAYBE kill him before they get their stones back in order then they may just look at each other stupified, and some may even run.

But this would all hinge on the ever-so-small chance that Player 3 can pull it off. If he can get that crit 20 then they just might have a chance to make it out of this alive, together. And I'd allow it 100%. That is not going to breed entitlement, it's not going to give an instant win, it's still not even giving a real chance for survival yet. Just a few seconds worth of time is all they are getting from the possibility of that 20 roll and it's an awfully small margin to make.

A nat 20 doesn't let you defy reality, and it doesn't let you jump to the moon, it just allows for ever so small boosts that lead to kickass stories on /tg/.

I never understand this criticism.
It is so obviously not the "critfail/critsucces"-idea that is broken, but the GM who is shit.

When I GM a 20 on a skillcheck results in A BETTER RESULT THAN THE CHARACTER COULD REASONABLY EXPECT. It doesn't break rules of physics, it doesn't mean you automatically succeed at "whateverlol" - but it is, without a doubt, the very happiest result you could have hoped for, given your actions.

The same on a 1. "You drop your crossbow on the ground and shoot yourself in the head" is retarded. "You completely miss your shot, roll a d100 to see if the bolt accidentally strikes one of your friends, who is somewhere close to the line of fire" is reasonable.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

>>50066341
>As opposed to just succeeding/failing normally?
>I roll to pick a lock
>fail
>I roll to pick it again
>fail
>I roll to pick it once again
>roll 1 one
>DM "It breaks"
>Why?!
>Because it was a crit one and you are not yet high enough for your 1s to count as tens, buy a new back-up lockpick like a sensible thief

Yes. I see absolutely no problem with this. Sometimes you succeed or fail harder than you usually do in the actions that you take and when it is usually dumbed down to merely succeeding or not in DnD with many actions having no consequences or gifts for your roll pass it happening or not, shit gets boring.

You cannot tell me that someone trying to do a medicine check on a near mortally wounded ally doesnt have the chance on fucking up and making the situation worse, yet if we do not take the crit rule then a 1 roll is apparently just as good as a 10 roll. No, it's not.

>Oh heaven forbid a GM does that though, because some players feel as though they are entitled to kick a god's holy gonads if they rolled a 20 on the attack roll.

Once again, you are assuming that a DM will allow a player to jump into the sun just because they rolled a crit 20 on acrobatics, and it was childish in the beginning and it's childish now.

>In what way? Give me an example because last I checked, D&D doesn't really have many opposed rolls.

I use the intimidation example alot but let's go back to it. So the paladin is blocking off a doorway by himself as his allies are fleeing. They are all bloodied and the paladin has no more spell slots. He knows it will be the end if he doesn't do this and sacrifices himself at the gate to do so.

continued for example

>>50066463

This comment was supposed to be a response to >>50056548

>>50066398
What's the difference between that and player 3 just succeeding at his roll normally?

If a player threw that one towards me, I'd honestly just say "okay, your success will determine the will save DC they have to beat to keep going." Even if he rolls crap, if he spec'd into it hard enough it'd probably still be a difficult DC based on the modifiers alone.

You're basically using criticals as a crutch when the outcome could easily be reached through an ordinary success, retooled to suit the current situation. Just because they roll a 20 or a 1 doesn't make their success or their failure any more than it normally would've been.

>>50066493
>What's the difference between that and player 3 just succeeding at his roll normally?
That in the course of the mechanics in many games, there is an allotment for success beyond the norm, AND failure beyond the norm.
You are being intentionally stupid for the sake of contrarian argument, and honestly wasting everyone's time at this point. I can think of 4 popular systems offhand with such rules.

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>>50064450

>>50066470
The rest run on and Player 2 tells me that he takes off his helmet (we usually give a -1 to AC if the armorset has a helm and they take it off) to show his scars (we use the injury table in the DM guide and he has multiple scars to help with intimidation rolls), and begins chanting his oath. He's cutting down a few but it doesn't matter. He's slowly being worn down and theres simply too many for him alone to stop. He's doing his job though and his friends will live on to avenge him.

Player 2 says his case that with his scars, surviving up to this point, and even taking a few of them down that if he attempts to do an intimidation roll could it work? I honestly tell him no, they know you're weakened and they will eventually take them down. Asks if he can do it anyways and say sure. He plays his character out, voices a line that I regrettably do not remember, and rolls his intimidation.

He crit. Okay then, time for this example to have a purpose. Now that he rolled his 20 I will now give him the chance to stem the tide for a few moments longer and make the enemies do a group WIS save. In this session they failed and were taken aback for a few rounds of combat. He ended up dying but he held them off long enough for the party to get away.

>last I checked, D&D doesn't really have many opposed rolls

Rule 0.

>>50066463
This has been my case the entire fucking time. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how it is so difficult for anyone to not comprehend.

>>50066470
Why is the Barbarian trying to pick a lock though?

Any Rogue worth his salt won't need more than one roll to pick an ordinary, non-magical, lock. Even then, knock exists and can be made into a wand, but I digress.

>Once again, you are assuming that a DM will allow a player to jump into the sun just because they rolled a crit 20 on acrobatics, and it was childish in the beginning and it's childish now.

Most people in this hobby are childish dicks who will ruin other's fun just for the sake of doing so, it comes with the territory when most of the community is populated by autists with narcissistic tendencies.

>>50066507
>That in the course of the mechanics in many games, there is an allotment for success beyond the norm, AND failure beyond the norm.

Sure, in many games, just not in D&D.

And if there's an optional rule or homebrew that does deal with degrees of success, why not use those instead of criticals?

>As a player, will come up with munchkinned-to-hell PC's that end up broken as shit.
>LOVES the chance to go off the railroad tracks, if given half a chance.
He DM's
>E6 game, we start at level 6 with 14,000 GP for items
>first session, heading for a pirate city
>A MONSTER IS BEHIND YOU BETTER RUN FOR THAT SPOOKY MANSION
>Know Local to ID
>"They call it the avatar of death around here, blahblahblah" doesn't tell us anything useful except we can't beat it, not even the name.
>buddy figures it out, DM Cackles evilly when Monster Manual is brought out and confirms that it was a Decaying Angel.
>CR 15 monster against a 3 man party in E6

That's one way to force the players onto the railroad tracks of "go into the spooky mansion"...
Then again, he could have been overcompensating in case one of us pulled a HIM regarding a derailment.

>>50066543
>Sure, in many games, just not in D&D.
False, sir, as almost every edition has had a set of optional rules for such things.
At this point, you are speaking against Rule 0 and the right of a GM to run an engaging game.
>why not use those instead of criticals?
Because 5-15% chance is the same regardless of dice.

>>50066493
>If a player threw that one towards me, I'd honestly just say "okay, your success will determine the will save DC they have to beat to keep going.

They are in a situation where they outnumber the players, who are bloodied, nearly 10:1 and their boss is alive. The DC would probably be unattainable given this situation.

>Just because they roll a 20 or a 1 doesn't make their success or their failure any more than it normally would've been.

There is no other way to have successes or failures on a slight magnitude higher or lower than they would be unless you used this system. You fail a stabilize check? Meh it's fine just try again. You failed an attack roll, something that was done quite often in ancient combat? Meh it's fine, try again next round.

That's silly, stop being silly.

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>>50066533
>Rule 0.

And this is the part where I'm no longer going to take you seriously.

>>50066536
>Any Rogue worth his salt won't need more than one roll to pick an ordinary, non-magical, lock.

It was just one example anon, hunter's and druids roll shitty nature checks sometimes, babarians roll shitty athletics sometimes, and rogues just can't pick a lock in the first go sometimes.

>>50066573
Good, because you were incapable of being taken seriously from the start.
I've just now caught up on this conversation, and it is utterly ridiculous.
One side is decrying the GM the use of dice rolls to create dramatic situations, which is his fucking job. Taking offense at Rule 0 means you either have never run a game, or don't understand why it exists (which is to allow the GM to forge entertainment beyond what the rules say).
I've had players like you in the past, they were always awful, and got kicked by the group inevitably for the nonsense they brought.

>>50066572
>They are in a situation where they outnumber the players, who are bloodied, nearly 10:1 and their boss is alive. The DC would probably be unattainable given this situation.

Which is why I said that their result would be a DC that the enemy would have to beat, rather than it being a DC that the player would have to beat.

Besides, if the DC was unattainable then I wouldn't even let him bother rolling in the first place, same as if someone told me that they were going to jump to the moon.

>There is no other way to have successes or failures on a slight magnitude higher or lower than they would be unless you used this system.

I just gave you an example that could work in replacement of a critical system. I just came up with it off the top of my head and I'm sure that there are optional rules or homebrews that operate on the same principle.

>>50066573
>And this is the part where I'm no longer going to take you seriously.

When you use jumping to the moon on a 20, blowing your kneecaps off on a 1, and other things like that it's quite hard to believe that you were ever taking it seriously.

>>50066597
If we're talking about a dude who spec'd in doing those skills, he should have a +10 to his skills at the very least at starting level.

That's high enough to pass most simple actions without even trying, and even if they rolled a 1, that's still an going to allow them to pass a simple challenge with a roll of 11.

Also, Take 10/20 exists.

>>50066601

>Taking offense at Rule 0 means you either have never run a game, or don't understand why it exists (which is to allow the GM to forge entertainment beyond what the rules say).

I take offense at shitty GM's using rule 0 to excuse their bullshit when it's obvious that it doesn't fucking work.

If you want to run a game with your own homebrews or whatever, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you, it's when you act like a cock and use rule 0 as a shield against criticism is when I get pissed off.

>>50066470
>>DM "It breaks"
I hate this shit. This show that the GM as no idea how lockpicking works, work on stupid rpg cliché about it, will almost never break the lock on the door (which is way more likely if you're fucking up bad) and even for a design standpoint, you just retired a character the possibility of using a certain skill until he can go in town and buy a new lockpick.

What's next, the sword break on the strong armor and the fighter have to buy a new one in the middle of the dungeon? The wizard break a spellslot?

>>50066629
To be fair, you're mostly right, it's just now I have even less of a reason to take the idiot seriously.

>>50066653
Your criticism is nonsensical and so far what has been posted is outrageous shit that is so far beyond the pale as to be simply absurd.
While others have posted sensible situations where exceptional rolls grant exceptional circumstances that are NOT blanket success.
When reasonable criticism is posted that is more than "I do not like this", then you will have a point to stand on, anon. Currently, there is nothing.

>>50066635
>+10 at starting level DnD 5e
>to ANY skill

No, that doesn't happen. Let's assume you somehow have a 20 dex for a +5 mod at level one, and you can double your proficiency to get expertise (once again at level 1) so that gives you a +4.

I haven't played haflings or gnomes for awhile but asuming one of those races gets a +1 to lockpicking and the stars were aligned to give you a 20 DEX at level 1 you are not getting a +10 to jack or shit that early.

>>50066660
>not having your primary lockpick on your chest and a backup in your rectum/boot.

And you call yourself a fucking rogue?

>>50066601
>One side is decrying the GM the use of dice rolls to create dramatic situations, which is his fucking job.

Actually, the one dude is decrying the other dude for using critical when a success is already good enough to do the job.

>>50066724
The entire argument was never about the circumstances where 20s that were already going to pass are given extra bonuses, it's been when the players have almost no chance of succeeding the situation they are currently in and (if the scenario calls for it) being allowed to have a "swan song" type roll that could open a path to their escape, a chance to succeed in an outside combat event, or to die a hero.

>>50066712
I was talking in reference to 3rd edition.

If we're talking about 5e then you have even less of a reason to have a crappy roll since the DCs are lower and bounded accuracy is a thing.

A +5 to a skill is enough to pass a very easy challenge, which is easy to get, as you've demonstrated.

>>50066800
>players
>going for the easy locks
>not trying to sneak into the king's bedchamber at level 2

Come on now.

>>50065239
But Anon, you forgot about the most important thing:

Gaining XP is fun.

>>50066704
>>50066787

If the player has a chance of succeeding, let them roll to see if they succeed against the DC, regardless of how high you think it should be.

If they have no chance of succeeding, even if they rolled a 20 on the die, then calmly explain to them that it's impossible so they don't waste their time rolling.

All I'm saying is, you don't need to attach something special to an outcome that's already foregone and if you let players believe that they deserve something more, it just makes them feel entitled to more down the line, especially when GMs allow outlandish shit to happen just because the RNG decided that the Fighter can cleave through a golem one time yet stab himself in the foot another time.

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>>50066822

>>50058787
Critical success and critical failure isn't a retarded notion. Believing that a critical success would make you succeed in anything you're attempting, *that* is a retarded notion.
A critical success means you succeed in something you can possibly accomplish even if the odds are against you.
For example, if you use a bow and shoot at a target within your range and in sight but with negative modifiers so crippling (because of wind, cover, magic and bullshit) that you can't possibly roll high enough to succeed, a critical success would overcome those penalties and make you hit anyway.
BUt that doesn't mean you can just say 'I want to shoot at the King of this country on the other side of the continent" and point your arrow to the sky, and expect to hit him if you get a 20.

>>50066885
Isn't the DC already determining what you can accomplish when the odds are against you though?

I mean, there are modifiers that can make the DC more, or less, difficult depending on the situation.

>>50059293
>>Acts all high and mighty because he's apparently the only one willing to run something (He isn't)
Why make him run then if he's so bad?

>>50066869
It only makes them feel entitled if you never tell them no. Not every 20 roll will give you something in these situations, it depends on the moment that can vary in enumerable ways from each other, and the first time that you tell them nothing special happens (supposing they even get a 20 roll in this sort of situation) will show that this time just didn't meet the criteria the DM looks for when applying it.

You're also assuming that cleaving through a, I would guess 4-5 foot solid block of (enter golem type here) is something that the DM would allow. We're getting back into "jump to the moon" antics again.

>>50064262
When I GM, I give experience depending on how long we've played and how much the characters have accomplished towards either the overall goals or their individual ones, with extras for good roleplaying, epic moments and stuff like that.
It works much better than a system that would 'reward' you for murdering people without any care for reasons or context.

>>50066988
For a band of traveling mercenaries the promise of payment for a completed job would be reason and context enough.

>>50066942
>Not every 20 roll will give you something in these situations, it depends on the moment that can vary in enumerable ways from each other, and the first time that you tell them nothing special happens (supposing they even get a 20 roll in this sort of situation) will show that this time just didn't meet the criteria the DM looks for when applying it.

So now criticals only matter when the GM allows them to matter?

Also, couldn't you apply this same principle to any successful outcome that the PCs make?

>You're also assuming that cleaving through a, I would guess 4-5 foot solid block of (enter golem type here) is something that the DM would allow.

Some GM's will allow you to cut through something like a golem just because they critted and rolled well on their damage roll.

Also, if we're going to get pedantic here, cutting through an average sized human is already something that's difficult to do in the heat of battle.

>>50064361
>In early editions of d&d, you got xp for gold collected, not monsters killed.
That should be 'and'.

>>50066859
It's fun until you figure out that the reason this peaceful town has so many bandits is because the GM needs you to be level 5 for an encounter he cooked up.

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>>50064507
What the fuck anon, I would of kicked that smug cunt out of my house.

>>50056517
>Level 13 campaign in DnD 5e
>keeps trying to do the classic Tavern meetup scene,
>Dragons are everywhere, they give us all our quests, and help us when things get "difficult"
>EVERY SINGLE COMBAT is against cultists. All the cultists. And a few spiders
>Travelling across a continent is literally him saying "a few days pass and you make it to the other side of the continent"
>Then more cultists.
>There are literally no dialogue moments between villagers in the towns we go to, we live on a plane of nothing but Dragons to talk to, and Cultists to fight
> We never fight more than five or six cultists at a time, which the 13th level barbarian always murders by himself in a few rounds, Any stragglers are nuked by the Sorceror.

I swear this campaign is such a shitshow. I like the guy that is running the campaign, he had an interesting plothook for the setting he designed for it, but he can't run campaigns for crap. Literally everyone in my friends group that has GM'd is the same, so I've actually started writing a hardcore horror campaign just to get out of this slump

>>50067288
the XP from monsters is so comparatively miniscule that story bonuses (if going by the suggestions in the RC) probably account for more than it.

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>>50056517
>SWN
>GM provide plethora of detail for his sector
>make character with extensive background making him an outcast of one of the factions
>create a pilot so that we wont have to get one for our spaceship

>game starts away from our spaceship
>we are entering some public transport spaceship that will get us to our spaceship
>description of us checking in considerably less elaborate than the obnoxious crowd of people that enters along with us
>suddenly spergs out on the lack of windows because it's more realistic if there are no windows
>man gets killed on shuttle, the rest of the PCs get invited to investigate
>MEMESMEMESMEMESMEMES XD
>only thing I did was give my detail to ship security and punch an irate man

Probably the third worst game of my life. Not only it pushed my character to the side and wrote me completly off the story, but it was more painful to watch than a resident evil movie.

>>50071459
>we live on a plane of nothing but Dragons to talk to, and Cultists to fight
I lol'd

>>50071459
>Level 13
Never play D&D past level 10. You'll just end up becoming too strong for normal enemies yet too weak for most of the heavy hitters in the universe.

>>50066988
>It works much better than a system that would 'reward' you for murdering people without any care for reasons or context.

As usual for fiat-reward GMs, you have missed the point utterly, likely on account of your being dumb.

I'm going to give you a hot tip: When you use an incentive system to reward certain behavior, you can also determine the behavior you want to reward.

>>50074140
>you can also determine the behavior you want to reward.
that's literally what you are arguing against. step up your game/10

>>50057340
>The Big Dick @ Nick
Best one.

>>50074411
>that's literally what you are arguing against.

No, I am arguing against the notion that "lol you'll level up when I say so" is anything but pure laziness on the GM's part.

>>50071459
such is the suffering once you acquire teleportation