Do your players ever befriend the monsters instead of fighting them?

>>50287914
One of my players is semi-literally playing the Anime Healer 'but I want to save everyone'. Keeps insisting on befriending and domesticating every monster I put in the party's way. Thus far his stable includes

>Vile trash-eating monster
>Five-headed cryohydra
>Two manticores
>Amnesiac undead trap-monster.

>>50288055
>Amnesiac undead trap-monster.
Clarify

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>>50287914
Ever since our GM played pic-related, he's been punishing us super hard for killing anything in our games... but we do it anyway and hope the phase will pass.

I mean, I'm all for finding peaceful and creative solutions for problems and all that, but when you're playing DnD sometimes you just want to fight stuff and have the heroic fantasy of being a badass. Shame our GM tends to go through these "fads" and shove them on the rest of us...

Sometimes we eat them.

>>50287914

OP, do you even D&D?

2d6 … Monster Reaction:
2 … Monster is hostile, attacks immediately
3–5 … Monster is cautious, roll again next round at −4
6–8 … Monster is uncertain, roll again next round
9–11 … Monster is indifferent, roll again next round at +4
12 … Monster is friendly/helpful

Player Cha … Adjustment to Reaction Roll:
3–5 … –2
6–8 … –1
9–12 … ±0
13–15 … +1
16–18 … +2

>>50287914
If they make the first friendship move

>>50288172
Just go full chara and don't give a fuck.
A few Omnicides ought to straighten your DM out once he finds you don't actually care about the NPCs because he's pushing nonviolence so hard.

>>50288172
its kinda silly too, the Pacifist ending ends with the one character you cant truly save spelling out that the rest of the world isn't likely to work like the game and that its full of people who cant really be reasoned with, highlighting that as nice as the ideals are, they have some limits

>>50288376
nonviolence is a virtue when done buy choice, forcing it becomes an attack on free will

>>50287914
I always try but my DM never lets me. Hes even told me before to just give it up.

>>50287914
All the time. I'm a combat monkey at heart, so it's really challenging for me as a GM since I never plan on the enemy trying to negotiate and broker a deal.

Improvisation ahoy.

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>>50288172
Reminder that Alphy's is literally a monster who turned her own people into souless abominations by experimenting on them and did things we had Nazi's lawfully executed for as war-crimes and crimes against humanity.

Also a reminder that everyone in the game, except maybe maybe Toriel, wanted to (or was willing to allow it to happen) put your soul in a tube so Asgore could use it to conquer humanity and kill millions.

But, yeah no, the real message here is that Pacifism is always the best option and everyone is redeemable. Fuck consequences, everyone in the world gets to do horrible things, but the minute you even try to defend yourself from it, YOU'RE the monster, not them. Fucking cancerous mentality.

>>50287914
I actually struggle with this because my players are all too willing to be diplomatic in many instances and resolve the fight without murder. In one instance, I got around this by letting one of my players successfully woo an enemy general (in this instance, a winter-touched Atomie), but she never actually stopped being the enemy general. As such, they mostly interacted while fighting each other.

>>50287914
Things you can befriend:
>Something you rescued or helped.
>Something you traded with or made a mutually beneficial deal with.
>Something that shares common interests.

Things you can't befriend:
>Something that thinks you look like prey.
>Something that thinks you're a threat to their territory/tribe/kin/etc.
>Something that was hired to kill you.

Befriending isn't always the only non-combat option, though. Threatening, negotiating, bribing, etc. are all options against the right type of monster.

If you try to make friends with every enemy, you're not gonna be very successful. But most of the things that my players fight can be avoided somehow.

>>50288836
>>Something that thinks you look like prey.
Wrestle/otherwise dominate it to cement your place in the pecking order, then befriend it
>>Something that was hired to kill you.
Make them a better offer, then befriend them with your winning personality.

>>50288560
Isn't that the way of it though? They get the fun, we take the fall. No, the real message was that everyone is people. To bring Sir Pratchett into this:

"It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
―Terry Pratchett,Jingo

>>50288872
That's alot of fancy words, but if someone or something makes it flatout obvious they want to kill me, I'm sure as hell going to defend myself and not feel bad about it. I get that murderhobo parties are bad, but GMs who get all asspained when they try to kill players and the players fight back are just faggots.

>>50288560
There is literally nothing wrong with scientific experiments on nonhumans, and wars are justifiable in the name of peace.

>>50287914
I try, but I have a player that will go out of their way to kill any creature I have convinced to stop attack, aggravate creatures that are borderline hostile that we are talking with and even has reactivated traps that spawn monster and golems after I deactivate them.

>>50288926
Alphys isn't human though, so her experimenting on her own people is pretty much the same as humans experimenting on humans. Lets also not forget that her and Asgore hid the truths from the families of the victims and pretty much managed to erase the whole thing harder than Hillary Clinton's emails.

But no, Alphys is a "good" character, and you're a bad person for trying to fight her. Forget that her various projects include a death robot, machine that sucks souls out of livings things.

>>50288973
Animals kill animals, but that doesn't mean we get to go moralfag on their asses because of it. It's the circle of life, and it moves us all.

Also there is literally nothing wrong with death robots when used for good. Drones are death robots, and they kick terrorist ass. Are you in favor of terrorists?

>>50288905
You aren't treated as shit for defending yourself by the 'GAME' you're treated like shit, by certain characters. Mostly Undyne, who'd try and kill you regardless. Of course, just like in real life, killing one person, may get a small group to dislike you, the majority of the world will understand it was in self-defense...just like in Undertale.

Now, if you go and genocide, yeah..you will be treated like a monster. Especially since quite a lot of enemies are harmless, and even more are easily avoided. To the two people who know about your save states, one of super not that judgemental(sans), and the other is just a dick you can't save anyway(Flowey).

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>>50288560
>>50288973

This. Poor Asriel, the most innocent pure-hearted character in the game gets fucked over in the end because he made a legitimate mistake, but that's the way consequences work.

Alphys who willingly and knowingly did horrible things gets off completely fine because she's "changed". Bullshit.

>>50287914
Rarely.
Funny thing,
>>50287934
this instinct often bites them in the ass. They go straight for the waifubait and get totally rekted half of the time. A drider lures them into a web trap, a faerie exploits their trust and turns them into cats for a week or a daemon avoids getting destroyed because it took the form of a cute alchemist.

They have befriended a giant (It guarded a mountain pass, they kept bringing it cows and a few barrels of alcohol), eventually it bro´d up with them.
After a social exchange, they allied up with a vampire to deal with a daemon infestation in the city. After another social exchange she agreed to change her drinking habits.

>>50288560
>>50289016
wait, are you for consequentialism now or not?

Why should Alphy be punished, that would just be additional bad consequences that don't prevent any more bad consequences?

>>50288172

I really preferred how Iji handled pacifism/violence. It didn't really make a moral judgement on either of them and more explored how people would react to it.

That and it actually did a good job of making it fun to be both violent OR non-violent.

>>50289042
Why do we put people in prison? It's just additional consequences that doesn't prevent any more bad consequences (in fact, it actually makes them MORE likely to offend again int he future).

>>50287914
My players befriended some glamour trolls once. A couple of the PCs attacked the trolls, but the rest of the party wanted nothing to do with it, so the trolls managed to kill the two PCs. The rest of the party left on shaky but passable terms with the trolls and eventually came across them again later where they helped the party fight some undead who were threatening the forest.

I play a good Dragon Disciple and my skills are focused on social stuff. I don't try to befriend many monsters, but my character has a soft spot for kobolds.

In the last few sessions, he tried and failed to befriend no less than 12 different kobolds, and then was forced to kill them.

So he sees yet another group of kobolds. Instead of trying to talk to them, he immediately charges, grabs one by the throat, slams him against a wall.
> I'm SO SICK of killing your kind. Don't pick up your spears. Just leave them, and you don't have to die
Intimidate roll fails, kobold's friend pokes my character with a spear. So I rip the kobold's arms off with my growable dragon's claws and roll intimidate again. The remaining two finally listen. I finally have what I wanted, a kobold friend!

>>50288973
I'd like to interject here, these weren't malicious experiments, it was supposed to be a life-saving procedure performed on monsters who were near death. It's made pretty clear the the monsters who "fall down" don't get back up, ever. It didn't work and Alphys acted like a coward when faced with the failure of the procedure. She covered it up. But in the end she's owning up to it, and the families don't seem all that angry about it at the end. They have their wives and mothers back, just not how they expected. Is the result really that bad?

>>50289190
Yes

>>50289190
I'd be pretty pissed if my loved ones were returned as souless husk chimeras, just sayin. I'd rather they have died naturally than be turned into that.

>>50287914
In a 5e campaign I'm in, our party accidentally stumbled into a situation in which we befriended a talking, socially awkward, awakened mimic named Shaun. He has been one of our favorite NPCs ever since, and we have gone out of our way multiple times putting ourselves in harm's way to save his life.

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>>50287914
ALL THE TIME ALL THE GODDAMN TIME EVERY TIME I CAN BARELY KEEP UP

ALLLL THE MOTHER FUKKEN TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

My players befriended one of the first major foes I threw at them, and it was the moment that gave me inspiration for the campaign. It was some pre-made scenario with some old, ruinous keep that was inhabited by goblins and bandits. Both sides were at war, but due to the fact that the goblins were not only territorial they were religiously adverse to people in general after a near genocidal crusade from the humans only the bandits were designed to be reasoned with. When I presented them with the barricaded keep of the bandits, they immediately set to work clawing it down like crazed animals: any attempts at diplomacy were nothing short of yelled threats, and the attempts at self-defense were perceived as reassurance that whatever in here must be murdered and pillaged. I was all too afraid that the dear friends I'd sat down to run a game for were on a dangerous path. It was only until I decided to throw in a couple of goblin prisoners that the rogue became oddly insistent that he befriend them. For whatever reason, in spite of the fact that the rest of the party was still in combat AND that the goblins spoke pretty much entirely in obscenities to him, he still opted to sit down and pull out a bottle of booze and drink it with them. Due to a combination of high rolls and blatant cleverness and generosity (he even had the sense to drink out of the same bottle to prove it wasn't poisoned) he somehow managed to befriend some of the most racist and violent tribes around. They eventually used this leverage to bribe the whole population of goblins into accepting them and, by extension, their leader. With just a bottle of grog and some quick thinking they managed to turn one act of good faith into a much faster path through the dungeon and some campaign-long friends to boot.

Good times.

>>50287914
My DM is of the murderhobo only persuasion. He cant handle what happens when we befriend anyone we are not explicitly able to. He let us once long ago and it ruined the adventure and pissed him off so were flat banned from even trying. We cant even make diplomacy rolls.

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>>50287914
I wish they did...
pic is my players

>>50289042

Because mercy is not justice.

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>>50289190
>Is the result really that bad?

You tell me, Doc.

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>>50287914
You know, there is a scene in the Mahabharata, THE Indian Epic, in which a rakshasa uses his sister as in the pic. The hero and her end up having a kid.

Our resident Forever DM usually plays with a group that does nothing BUT interaction and they get whiny when they can't talk/seduce their way out of a situation.

He uses me and my friends as a way to get a break every now and then since we're all about sub-mongoloid violence murderhobo-gaming.

>>50289000
THAT DEPENDS ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OF DEATH ROBOTS, ANON?

>>50287914
I wish this guy was more popular. I love his Trolls/Orcs/Giantkins!

>>50289920
Yes, Killbot1000 for president 2020. Make death robots greater than they already are, which is already pretty damn great.

>>50289923
i wish he was more active

>>50289526
Why does something need to have a soul, if it can feel happy and survive?

>>50290070
>Hi mom!
vs
>Hi mom's corpse fused with five random dead people that occassionaly says my name in reverse and melting all over the place!

No. Fucking no. Put them out of their misery.

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Posting relevant story.

>>50287914
I've had one female player, on an attack against an orc village that had been plaguing the Barbarian player's tribe, instead fucking sell us out and run off to get herself stuffed full of orc dick.

We didn't invite her back. She was a bit weird as it was. Next session, her character was demoted to NPC because she got the boot, and the Barbarian beheaded her with a critical during our breakout.

>>50289832
He was a total faggot even before getting REAPERed though

>>50290167
Man this reminds me of those twins in real life who are two heads on one body

>>50290447
Just a That Player living out their magical realm fantasy at the expense of everyone else, honestly not even all that out there compared to some of the examples you hear about.

>>50288862
>Showing dominance over the Owlbear by wrestling it into a vulnerable position
>Not proceeding to fuck it

Why waste time to establish dominance, then?!

>>50289526
Well, the monsters weren't. She did imply she'd just own up to what she'd done and see how people responded. She just got lucky that monsters are insanely positive and were all like "Nah, it's cool, we'll deal with having weird fused-together zombies replacing our loved ones."

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>>50290489
It's called being siamese, brah.

>>50287914
I've tried in the past but my DM is a "Kill everything" type of person which annoys me sometimes, hate that I even put points into diplomacy in the current campaign he has us in, could have put it into something useful.

>>50287914
Sure. They don't instantly trust anything that doesn't immediately attack them/is friendly since I go enjoy a good honey trap once in a while but it's an option.

>>50290594
I'm interested in what their sex life is like, in an entirely academic way.

>>50290178
I didn't want to feel this early in the day, I was excited waiting for pokemon sun to arrive here..Well I know what I'm naming my starter at least.

>>50290594
It must be tough to find clothes when your torso is double wide

>>50290719
nah it's just called fat people clothing.

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Befriended a basilisk in a D&D 3.5 game. Best/worst decision we ever made - the basilisk now has more kills than the rest of the party combined. It's been getting XP and acquiring templates and hit dice to increase the save dc for its gaze attack, so at this point any encounter with creatures that have eyes and con scores is trivial. Undead, constructs and oozes are the only things that can really challenge us anymore.

We have a green dragon "statue" waiting to be made into a stone golem using a golem manual we got from a friendly wizard, once we've saved up enough gp for the rest of the material components.

>>50290745
If you kill it..D-do you get all of it's exp?

>>50288560
Toriel allowed six innocent people to go to their deaths and possibly in the process to murder innocent monsters because she was too busy feeling sorry for herself to take any fucking responsibility. The queen of the Underground doing jack shit to help anyone at all once they were out of her sight. Some mom, huh?

Yes, I know she tried to talk down Asgore at the very beginning, but she failed and then just absolved herself of all responsibility? Just what the fuck.

>>50289016
Are you high? Asriel made a conscious decision to be an evil genocidal jackass. His reasons for being a villain, in his own admittance, was because he got bored of being nice. He kept killing and making others suffer because he was tired of being nice. That's not pure or innocent.

>>50290801
Friends don't kill Friends for the EXP

>>50289526
Except they weren't soulless husk chimeras. They were fully conscious, some of them are even perfectly lucid, and the only one that seems to be in pain was the snow bird thing's mother, and that seems to be mental pain rather than physical.

>>50290869
agreed but if the BBEG kills it, does he power up?

>>50290087
I got the impression that they were only miserable because they were locked in a basement with only themselves and Alphys for company.

>>50290895
>>50290087

Yea, if you had only Alphys for company, you'd want to die too.

>>50288560
You understand that Alphys was experimenting on corpses, right? Monsters crumble to dust instantly when they're killed, but when they die of natural causes there's a period where they're just corpses before they crumble away. I don't think anyone would judge a scientist for performing medical experiments on cadavers.

>>50289113
For the same reason we do a lot of stupid shit - that's how we've always done it, and that's how we're going to always do it until we literally can't keep doing it, at which point we're going to blame everyone else for not making us stop earlier.

>>50290877

He gets a power up, just in time for the rest of the grief stricken party to reduce him to a fine red smear on the wall.

>>50289167

>You have a kobold friend?

>Don't worry. He's 'armless.

Befriending intelligent creatures is fun, and often my primary reason for taking leadership. So at least there's an in-game excuse

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>>50287914

>>50291465
Well, at least Kinstrel gives you goodies

I had a lawful good crusader once try to convert and befriend some gargoyles to the side of good and justice.

He was basically paladin-mode and due to shenanigans, these creatures were left without a purpose, guarding a portal that was now defunct. Knowing they'd fly away because they were evil creatures, and not wanting to kill them because they were made that way, he set out to convert them.

So he tied them up and brought them with him and through several long diplomacy checks where he discussed ethics, morality, the benefits of living a good life and other things.

He actually did convert them from evil to lawful and if he'd spent more time with them, he may have even changed them to good. They flew off and he was at least satisfies that they weren't evil anymore.

>>50289923

Is that a troll? I'm getting some Huldra vibes, what with the cow tail and all.

>>50288224
>not purposefully deciding as a DM on a case-by-case basis

I bet you roll dice to name your characters, too

>>50292761
You might be surprised. Morale checks and reaction rolls can be the spice that turns a boilerplate encounter into something unusual and memorable, and a lot of fun of GMing is being creative with the unexpected (rather than "writing" every event like a story).

If you've already established a character's personality and motivations, it may be silly to roll, but it's kind of cool to discover that the random band of pirates you just rolled up are potential allies instead of just a pile of hitpoints to chop down.

>>50288560
Reminder that the reason everyone is a dick is because "sins of the father", being almost wiped out by humans for no real reason and driven into the Underdark where nobody poops has made them an insane group.

Pacifism run ismore being a therapist than a warrior.

>>50290851
Technically that was when he was soulless and felt no emotion.

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The pacifist system in Dishonored is pretty good, even if it sucks that it boils down to good end/bad end with good end not letting you use all your cool powers and weapons.

See, there's a logical reason for it. The city and soon world is dealing with basically a zombie apocalypse spread by rats. The people who want to kill you are the peacekeepers. The more you kill and the less people there are to contain the plague and the more corpses there are for the rats to feed on and breed. Not to mention your actions influencing the only guys keeping the government stable as you destroy the current regime. So either you can get revenge the easy way, or focus on restoring the princess to her rightful throne with a stable government in place.

So it actually makes sense to avoid killing within the context of the world rather than contrivances.

>>50288862
>Make them a better offer, then befriend them with your winning personality.
Wouldn't that make the bounty hunter or whoever it is to lose their reputation? That's not a very good idea.

>>50293116
Depends on what their reputation is, if it's for always finishing a job it wont work, if it's for being the best at killing it just might work.

>>50287914
Kid in the OP Gon git raped

>>50293084
Makes sense.
Is it 100% lethal? I can't check right now.

>>50287914
Indeed.

My home game has befriended the Beast of Lepistadt in my Ustalav Campaign that did not use the Carrion Crown AP. They also have Manticore cubs, and a secretly magical toad.

My Adventurers League SKT party, we've befriended a down on his luck Hill Giant we defeated in battle and now he's working with us to find the banished wives of Grud Haug.

>>50295076
You can kill, but there's a limit on how many people. 20% of the humans on any given level results in High Chaos, 50% of the population dead by the end of the game results in the worst ending where the empire falls and world is hit by apocalyptic plague. But there's a lot of friendly or non-threatening NPCs so to get that end you basically have to not even try to be stealthy or non-lethal.

>>50287914
Constantly as they're cowards and monsters often look more threatening than men. If they can feel any empathy towards the monster, they will often side with him, turning against their initial employer if necessary.

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>>50287914
Yes, one got so bad I actually had to ban him. Dude would not let any fucking combat happen and whined at me for not letting the game be 'comfy' with non violent quests.
Motherfucking this game is about hunting monstrous horrors not making the best cup of chocolate.

>>50290689
I want to know the story about them discovering masturbation and porn. Wonder if they fought over trying it the first time.
Or have different preferences.

>>50290489
>>50290594

>now this will be my fetish for at least half a wekk

Thanks, /tg/!

>>50288172

Your GM is a fag

>>50295660
Sounds like you needed to run VtM.

>>50290179
Why is the hobgoblin smaller?

>>50295885
Hobgoblin means Hob Goblin. Hob means Hearth.

Goblin basically means Fairy in Old English. So Hobgoblins are Hearth fairies. It makes sense for them to be smaller really.

>>50295868
Not him, but I do play VtM and it's the literal opposite of friendship, non-violence, comfyness and cups of chocolate.

>>50292523
It's a "weakblood" troll female - basically, in Andersson's art, all trolls A: have those cow-like tails as well as horns, and B: need to regularly interbreed with humans, because troll-on-troll matches produce successively bigger, uglier, stupider and more violent generations of trolls, until they become brainless monsters. Mating with humans every so often thins the blood back out again and keeps them fairly sane and civilized.

>>50295798
It has a community, so you shouldn't have a hard time finding porn of it.

>>50289923
He needs to just up and draw some sex.

>>50287914
It's often less "befriending" and more "exploiting for personal gain."
They're willing to talk, willing to be friendly, willing to learn their ways. But it's never earnest, and by the end usually they all end up dead anyway.

It's a wonder we don't play Rogue Trader.

>>50287914
I'm running a lewd game so yes. They more than befriend the monsters.

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>>50296429
a bard campain would be fun.

>>50293173

Actually the two get married in a lovely ceremony.

>>50287914
They all have access to a merciful weapon, and the spellcasters often prepare the majority of their spells as merciful.
I don't know why they decided to go this route, but its actually been really fun. Literally any combatant can become a recurring character. They skip out on it for any of the inherent evil stuff like demons or undead though.

I'd love to when it makes sense but two things:
our one player is a first class murderhobo, always true neutral, who honestly can't seem to wrap his head around the characters in the game being "real" to the character you're playing, like if our mission is to find and kill a bandit leader he'll fail to understand why we seem so worried that the fire from the lamp Bandit Boss threw is getting close to those tokens, that in game represent kidnapped orphans. He honestly seems confused at any sort of interaction that isn't "kill" or "loot" and starts whining and bitching.
Like in our latest game when his monk joined my paladin and my buddy's bard on the second session (he was busy the week before) and though a lucky Sleep spell we'd managed to knock out the three halfling bandits guarding the cave and tie them up he just tips his head and says "why didn't you just kill them"
"Well we knocked them out with a spell"
"yeah then you cut their throats, even if the DM makes you roll you get free crits since they're helpless"
Like it never entered his mind that most people wouldn't execute helpless prisoners.

>>50288385
he didn't say that exactly, he said it was a lot harder.

>>50290962
this

>>50290851
yes, and the average person enables all kinda of horrible shit by going along with society, funding and actively supporting militaries which kill children abroad, and contributing to pollution via consumerism. Depending on your perspective, some see meat eating as a complete atrocity, others see abortion as essientially genocide, and both of these views make valid points. It wouldn't be meaningful if these charecters were innocent, becuase nobody in real life is innocent.

>>50300655
the other being that another player we have will decide, seemingly randomly when he wants to go drama student on us, that in THIS battle his Ranger is going to be a merciful son of the forest goddess and say "no! why would we kill this creature?" even if its fucking mind flayers and he just killed the shit out of ten other monsters or in one case, he wrapped a mephit in a bearhug and so it couldn't get away and we couldn't attack it until everyone agreed to get along and be friends.
Dude is freaking weird, but since then "hug the monster" jokes are tossed around by That Guy the murderhobo anytime someone tries to interact even with human enemies without stabbing and i already cant' stand that guy.

>>50290167

I always thought that all of Andersson's bard charachter's kids having to team up to track down their dad (who either drove the elf teammate completely insane so she grabbed as her rape-dungeon centerpiece or got a God really annoyed through careless application of his dick) would make a decent campaign, for the right group of players. Everyone is half something and gets a bonus to charisma while trying to sort through their father's sexual history trying to find leads.

>>50296177

Another interesting idea: A fantasy world where humans are like chlorine tablets for the gene pool.

>>50296177
>>50300944
All of which isn't too far removed from Huldra and Scandinavian troll folklore

>>50289028
So a vampire can just choose to stop drinking blood? Your vampires suck.

>>50288172
Tumblrtale: not even once

>>50301202
All vampires sucks. Some better than others.

>>50291465
The only good or entertaining thing from NWN2 aside from Kaelyn and her sexy voice.

I actually felt bad that the cloak Kistrel made for me wasn't really useful for my character. I hated not using something that my spider friend put their heart into making.

>>50288055
>>Amnesiac undead trap-monster
Go on.

>>50290962
How are you the only person who pointed this out? smdh

>>50287914
no they want the xp

>>50288055
well hes got a fuckton of utility in that group so sounds like hes doing something right.

>>50302946
>not giving them the XP for defeating the encounter regardless of the method used

>>50302970
well i usually give xp for a lot of things, even if the player gets hurt that's a good learning experience. also clever solutions ideas that work out or fail spectacularly are extra xp. but rolling charm on a creature is going to worth very little compared to a full on battle where they almost die.

>>50301164
Incidently, I believe the artist is Norwegian.

>>50302946
>>50303002
You don't get XP for killing, anon.

Seriously, look it up, nowhere does it say that you have to take a life for XP

>>50303093
Fuck off to Canada, Shillary.

>>50303053
Swedish. Has he done anything since 2014?

>>50303111
In early D&D editions and a few other systems, and every computer game in existence you actually have to kill to get the XP.

>>50303002
If charming a creature every turn is a viable way to defeat an encounter, then you need to adapt those encounters or nerf the spell while letting it remain a possible and XP-worthy solution (if a situational or dangerous one).

>>50288560
>everyone is redeemable
Except Chara and Asriel, who will rot alone in a hell of their own making for all eternity

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>>50288560
>everyone in the game
Muffet didn't know what become of your soul and frankly she wasn't terribly fussed about it.
She was to busy looking after the spiders to be bother.

Also don't most of them not actually know what becomes of the souls?

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>>50287914
Once in a 4e campaign our dm put us in a crazy impossible space mansion like that one level from Thief. Go through fighting mobs, looting, getting my character's head drilled by a mind flare. You know the usual. Eventually we run into another adventuring party of NPCs. Our loud mouth wizard started insulting them. Murdered all of one of them. Their female elf ranger was down the hall so she was safe from the massacre. Dm had mentioned that she was very beautiful before we started fighting them. Our horn dog of a wizard asks the dm how hot? Dm rolls a d100 gets a NAT 100. We convince her to join the party. Surprisingly she agrees, goes on many adventures with us. Dies when our wizard turns evil and sacrifices her to a magma dragon for "unlimited power". whole party turns on each other, and that's how we wiped.

>>50303242
I thought in early D&D experience was linked to the amount of treasure you got from an encounter, rather than how much blood you spilled to get the treasure

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>>50303537
This is a common misconception, but there has never been an edition of D&D that DIDN'T give you XP for defeating monsters. The XP values were just much higher back then, so monster XP wasn't actually that important.

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>>50303557
This makes that XP gap more obvious.

>>50288055
When this player get his on church bet you nobody will try to raid it with all of his pets guarding it.

Hmm this give a idea for a dungeon...Thanks anon.

>>50287914

Most of the people I play with are big on trying to reason with their enemies. If a peaceful resolution can be reasonably reached, it generally will be. Murderhoboing is not really a thing. In fact, if anything, I often have to herd them into actually moving, because if left to their own devices, they will just talk forever.

>>50303907

It won't. Trump is a cunt that is going to hurt our country super bad, but I don't think he's worth risking Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo.

>>50292839
Actually i think humans had a reason to attack the monsters (and correct me if im wrong because i only played this game once and like a year ago). Monsters knew about the power of human souls and what they could do with it. Even the souls of children where powerfull enough to turn monsters into god-like beings and as we know monsters are not as pure as the game tries to lead us to believe. Humans knew about this too. Maybe it happened sometimes, maybe in the past some powerfull and ambitious monsters took human souls and used their power. In the end fearing what the monsters might do the humans waged war upon them and nearly wiped them out, but in the end they stopped, and locked them in a safe place where they could do no harm. That's the part i dont understand, why not take the genocide route on them?

>>50292761

>Not knowing the rules of D&D

I bet you started playing with the misaimed abortion that is the "d20 System", didn't you?

>>50290179
I want to take the Hobus home and feed him biscuits and give him head pats

[Spoiler]and then ride human gob's dick until I pass out face down in his thick, warm chest hair [/spoiler]

>>50287914
Actually in my DnD yesterday, one of my players took advantage of the lore of my homebrew (bandits are usually young adventuring groups taking the easy route to wealth) by bribing the six bandits and getting their help against Gnolls.

The fact that they engineered it so the bandits died isn't the point

>>50290871
>>50301636
Because they weren't zombies. A monster's soul and body in that lore are one and the same. Monster's who "fall down" have lost all hope, and given up on existing. They aren't dead, they were still alive just catatonic.

I'll that is important to understand in that story, those monsters were alive, the amalgamates are a fusion of many souls into one being, who is likely very, very confused.

The treatment was to cure them of their depression related catatonia, and seemed to be working, she even promised people that their loved ones would be able to come home soon. Another key concept to consider as to why she felt so guilty. She told people their loved ones would be coming home.

The great failing was that there were no possible computer models or animal tests that could be done and the number of people in depression based catatonia because if their depression grew to strong they would die. As revealed by Papyrus in one of the phone call messages. HP stands for Hope. Monsters that fall below 1/10 HP fall into catatonia and waste away until they lose all hope.

>>50304885
>creating encounters
The reaction table is generally intended to be used with random encounters.

>>50304894
Yeah. But the GM still needs to come up with a monster motive explaining why they're 'friendly' or 'aggressive'.

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>>50287914
What if my character IS the monster?

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>>50305008
I think that's the Basic matrix. The AD&D matrix is pic related (2d10 + modifiers), and comes with some caveats around 'only use this if you have no idea what the monsters will do' and 'don't use results you can't justify'.

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>>50305154

Right you are; here's the Basic tables in question.

>>50305181
I think the AD&D one really makes more sense. The party's attitude towards them should be important in determining their reaction, and the Basic one's pretty nebulous on that front.

It's a good thing it's so easy to shunt stuff between them, you just have to remember to use the AD&D CHA reaction mods with the AD&D table.

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>>50305079
Same here.
So I befriend the monstrous pic related.
They don't even digest they food before eating it, ugh.

>>50287914
Well my party member tamed a Macaw owlbear that is bipedal. Earlier i wrestled a rhin ox hyrbid with my bare hands... It was huge sized. It was FUCKING HUGE SIZED.

I only had a +3 bonus over it. It was fucking intense. Dragging it across the desert resulted me in making roads. I had to deliver it as part of this trial to gain the favor of a tribe. Eventually the were just gonna kill it so I purchased it to use as my mount.

Had my rangers train it a bit. Now i have used it to build roads.

>>50290489
I remember I saw a documentary on one set years ago, and all I could think of is how annoying that must be to try and date or something. Like, even if someone is cool with the unfortunate weird physical shit there, are you dating one or both? What if you hit it off with one of them and want to get together but the other doesn't really feel the same? They're essentially along for the ride. Or what if they have different hobbies or movie tastes? There's so much compromise that has to be met in that life.

Shit sucks

>>50295766
How does limb control even work? Can they both issue limb orders and one just has to kind of go for the ride when they want to walk lest they fuck it up? Or is one person basically grafted onto a body they have no control over?

Sorceress in the party tries to deescalate almost every encounter by flirting.

>>50287914
Oh Hell yes.

>giant spider catches us in web

>druid uses animal bullshit to sort out his social life, like his overbearing spider mother.

>He even makes us a spider-silk dress for a PC's wedding.

>Generic goblin encounter

>kill all but one goblin

>take last goblin as prisoner

>more comedic campaign, so DM rolls with it

>have my Orc Bard end up using him as a projectile in a bar fight

>Goblin ends up in hospital, not sure what to do

>Grey's Anatomy/Scrubs parody commences

>He basically becomes the team mascot, and we try to incorporate him into every other game.

Fuckin' Kaurl the Goblin.

>>50287914
In a 4th edition D&d game I played once my party befriended a goblin we spared for information. It was basically a way for our DM to play as well.

>>50289190
Uh yes, that's definitely bad enough to be execution worthy.

>>50295660
You should ban anyone who uses "comfy" as an adjective for a game off the get go.

>>50289113
Well the hope of prison is that, in theory, we can reintegrate them into society and make them unlikely to want to commit future crime by breaking their connections to the outside world and forcing them to relearn social rules and shit. But of course that rarely works out.

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>>50290167
Why doesn't he ever get with that elf again?

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>>50287914
Yes. Shortly before the start of our current campaign everyone had just played Undertale (both players and GM), and when we went through the first few encounters all the players tried to avoid using lethal force on anything. Undertale has since faded to irrelevance in our minds but it shaped the characters enough that the campaign is semi-pacifist. Even when we fight we tend to handle things non-lethally unless we're pressed or the villain is a repeat offender or something.

It helps that the GM gives experience for peacefully handling threats. At one point there was a discussion about whether we should change our tactics for the sake of getting more experience and the GM said he was already factoring peaceful victories into the experience flow.

I like my group.

>>50307807
Because she's a cuck

>>50307807
I think one of the comics reveals that the elf is so flat, bard thought she was a girly elf-man.

>>50307807
I assume he's a tit guy.

>>50307807
The bard thought she was a he. I guess after that he just thought it was too awkward.

>>50288055
>Vile trash-eating monster
Grimer obviously
>Five-headed cryohydra
I got nothing, I can only stretch Hydregion so far
>Two manticores
Pyroars?
>Amnesia undead trap-monster
Phantump?

>>50288121
>>50301610
Get your head out of the gutter. It was a trap making evil spirit, which got turned good with diplomacy and doing a bit of crafts and arts together.
The only "trap" the way you're thinking is my healer.

>>50303902
That's exactly the idea that got so much out of hand.

>>50288055
You forgot the two small raptors.
And the two vicious dwarf-coatls.
And the alliance with a sea-hag.

>>50287914
Yes. In dealing with a raid by two tribes of Lizardfolk on a river town, I fully expected that my party would do one of the following:

>Slaughter them all
>Intimidate them with magic
>Talk them down

Instead, this happened:
>Dragonborn Cleric talks down one tribe easily
>Wizard and Paladin intimidate the second tribe with a display of magic
>Wizard then sows dissent among the Lizardfolk of the second tribe with Message
>Shaman figures out what's going on and tries to launch an attack
>Pitched battle ensues, okay so they went with "kill 'em all"
>Wait no lol my party is never that direct
>Cleric happens to be HUGE, grapples shaman and forces a surrender
>Party ends up making the shaman and the survivors of the tribe allies by proving that they were being manipulated
>Party now has a tribe and a half of Lizardfolk that act as their eyes and ears in an enormous swamp

I love these people.

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Well, better time than any to tell this story I guess.

>playing 3.5 several months back with a group of friends
>4 PCs and the DM
>all around level 3 or so
>walking through the forest, making our way to a faraway city named Arborland
>come to a clearing
>big fucking Ogre sitting in the road next to a smashed wagon
>fucker is fiddling with something
>we all get ready to either sneak around or fight if necessary
>Druidbro says its fine and he'll go talk to it
>tells us to wait behind
>he walks up to the Ogre and asks how its doing
>Ogre looks at him oddly and holds out the object he is fiddling with
>Druid goes to grab it
>the Ogre snatches him in both arms and sprints off into the woods with him
>spend literally an hour tracking them both down
>find the Ogre's cave
>our Dwarven fighter peaks inside
>sees the Ogre cradling and rocking our Druid in his arms like a baby
>food is on
>shitty makeshift crib in the corner for him
>entire campaign derailed for the night

>>50288172
Good to see that he, like almost all Undertale fans, wasn't actually paying attention to the story and message. The game fucking says "The real world doesn't work like this, some people can't be reasoned with". I love that game so much, but it is honestly in my top 10 most hated fandoms.

>>50309646
>Do your monsters ever befriend the players instead

So... American Civil War II setting?

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>>50301237
>All vampires sucks.
That's a misconception. They scrape, and lick.

>>50310890
I thought Vampire games were all about making gay vampires tho

>>50310906
Just Wraethuthu. Not misspelled, i think. but yeah, that game is about making a gay vampire.

>>50303990
>Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo.

We cant kick that can down the road forever

>>50306334
one head controls 1 arm and 1 leg

>>50300944
You know, I've often considered the idea of just flat up doing a setting where humanity is generally assumed to come from the local chaotic neutral sex deity (sort of a less grimdark Slaanesh) because its racial "power" (equivalent to "dwarven toughness, elven grace, orcish ferocity, etc") is the ability to successfully interbreed with anything. And while the exact results depend on species - anything from full-fledged hybrids to specialized subraces/strains to just "one of the parent's species, but with some special buffs", if a human's involved, the pairing can bear fruit. Doesn't matter if the other party's an elf, a dwarf, a goblin, a gnome, an orc, a gnoll, a kobold or a sphinx.

I've never gone through with it because, of course, everybody would call it a magical realm.

>>50287914
I really hope that artist isn't dead.

>>50311500
He hasn't updated since 2013... so.. uhhh... Either dead, or he got actual work somewhere.

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>>50307807
This is why

>>50287914
Certainly.
Depending on the monster of course.
The Totemist Barbarian, Beast Master Ranger, and Moon Druid are always looking for new pets.
The Life Cleric, Mastermind Rogue, and Noble born Bard are always looking for new converts/patsies/retainers.

To date they have acquired several domesticated monstrous lizards (guard drakes and the like) a hive of fire beetles, an owl bear, and a dire snow tiger.
They bought out a few goblinoid mercenaries, are trying to train a clutch of kobolds to be cutebolds, and are working on a semi-functional relationship between the local community and the more reclusive and docile orc clan that is not friends with the clan that wants to ride eternal, shiny and chrome. The bard almost wandered us into rather uncomfortable territory, but got the hint when the rest of the gaming group noted their lack of interest in generational long term alliances between the human community and orc clan via shared progeny...
Mind you, if someone/thing proves resistant to reason/bribery, they don't hesitate to violence, often lethally, said threat.

>>50287914
At one point the GM for my group requested that I play an honestly good and compassionate character for the change of pace, and we were playing Jade Regent. I made a good witch that tried to talk down every single encounter. It worked about a fourth of time between diplomacy, common sense, and a little bit of magical help.
Ninja converts, frost giant buddies, making peaceful trade with aranea, the works.

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Most of my characters try and talk enemies down before they try fighting. I try not to do it all the time though because sometimes there's no reason to stop a good fight. Most recently, our party came across a couple of ice giants trying to eat dinner outside of a forest. The rogue snuck out of the forest to get a closer look at them. They saw him and threw a (very large) snowball at them. A few members of the party saw this as hostile and started charging across this wide open span between the giants and the treeline, dodging snowballs the entire way.

Before they got together and started a bloodbath, my sorceress cast some sort of heavy mist that restricted movement (can't remember spell names for the life of me) on the giants.

Our guys couldn't get in there the murderhobo, and the giants couldn't throw snowballs at us. Eventually we talked a truce of sorts and I lowered the fog. Turns out they were travelling dragon hunters who are sick of the local dragons bullshit, so they've gone to put an end to it. Lo and behold, it's the same dragon who stole a family heirloom we were sent to recover from the local giants. After some time talking with the giants, and the sharing of some rations, the dragon hunters agree to team up. They only wanted the dragons head, and we could have most the horde and whatever else was left of the dragon.

All in all was pretty sweet encounter.

>>50288560
Empathy is illogical in Humans, let alone other creatures.

>>50287914
Unfortunately. My players don't seem to understand that you are meant to stab the vicious monster and talk to the asshole politician, not the other way around.
They inevitably end up being confused and incredulous when the monster eats them because "it's a fucking monster" or the city guard stabs them because "murdering the provincial governor in the street is retarded".

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>>50287914
>tfw I can't believe nobody's posted this yet

>>50287914
Always, even when no one else in the party wants to befriend said enemies. Bard brought home a gnoll that I told him would try to back stab him if he let him out of his sight (he rolled well on insight) and of course the party was all against it.

But changing a bandit hideout dungeon crawl into a diplomacy mission was fun to dm for, ended up with some really fun NPCs as he 'sold' a town to a Hobgoblin Captain telling him the townsfolk would want the protection of thr hobgoblins so long as he focused his violence on criminals.

>>50303537
I think AD&D Barbarians could destroy magic items for extra XP, but don't quote me on that.

>>50287914
Players never fight trolls.

Trolls repair bridges and are pretty fun to hang around if you act friendly. Why fight them?