Things your players do that piss you off

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>>50459993
>eight sessions and ten fights in
"What do I roll to attack, again?"

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>>50459993
>Can't into basic addition/subtraction below 100
>Picks up dice after rolling them but before anyone else sees the results

The combination of the two hurts the very core of my being.

>>50459993

>Complain whenever an NPC is moderately competent.

Doubly bad when they want to play an intrigue game. Intrigue games aren't necessarily bad, but in my experience, if the players ask for them, it is 100% of the time trouble, what they're really asking for is a license to backstab and act like dickholes without any actual consequence, as everyone else oohs and aaahs at their "brilliance", which is usually descending in like a whirlwind and smashing everything with or without a pulse.

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Not existing.

>>50460160
Fucking this.

>PCs head to a tavern, there's a brawling pit
>one of the PCs decides to fight the local champion
>he has equal stats to the PC, making it a mostly even fight
>PCs complain afterwords that he was "too strong"

Sorry for giving you challenges.

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>>50460160
>GM: You take... 14 damage.
>Player: MIGHT AS WELL RIP UP MY SHEET

This defeatist attitude baffles me. It's like they're accustomed to playing video games with cheats on, and even the remote possibility of danger triggers them.

>>50460642

>It's like they're accustomed to playing modern video games that hold your hand and pose no challenge

ftfy

>>50460642
On the other hand, I've been in games where one of the first encounters did about 2/3 of everyone's health on the first turn, with clearly normal attacks and attack rolls that sounded like they'd hit on a 5 or higher. We lost, and the DM seemed almost angry that we weren't able to pull a victory from that bullshit.

>>50460669
Both work, but I grew up playing PC games where cheating was as easy as
>tilde
>sv_cheats 1
>god

>that one player who keeps wanting to have their PC be an established badass and/or expects NPCs to regard them as such right out of the gate

Stop. You haven't done anything to warrant being regarded as a big deal. You've a level 1 scrub, this is the beginning of your journey not the middle of it.

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>>50460727
I've had this happen when starting characters at level 3, 5, and 10, regardless of setting
>defeated a demon lord
>killed his swordsmanship instructor
>defeated a sith lord in a lightsaber duel
>killed his entire clan to test his skills
>destroyed a lich
>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why

Even in games without levels I've had this happen. Some early game guy wants to be a gang leader, or a hardened veteran soldier, or a SWAT officer, or a ninja assassin in a modern game, and it's like... come the fuck on, man, we're the non-level equivalent of level 1 here, slow the fuck down.

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>>50460160
>wizard specs himself entirely for fighting things that can be Color Sprayed, charmed, put to sleep, etc. Never does direct damage, lets the melee fighters have the job of killing unconscious bandits before they come to, instead of a fun fight
>quietly suck it up, there's other OOC drama anyway
>one time GM throws a golem at us
>can't be affected by most of the wizard's spells in any way - no way to charm or put it to sleep, can't knock it over, no chance of non-lethal damage
>finally a chance for the melee guys to shine, but the wizard loudly complains that he can't do shit, this isn't fun at all, his character is too weak for melee

>>50461076
Conversely, fighters that don't do anything out of combat.

>"session will mostly be non-combat this time because you've come back from the combat area and X wants to talk to you about things."
>everyone agrees
>5 minutes in
>"I stab the guy because I'm bored"

Am I the one in the wrong? It's only one guy who does it, but the party can't really talk shit through with NPCs at all because of him. Unless we're torturing the NPC, in which case, the player's perfectly willing to do the talking.

>>50461207
Your player is a shithead and I would have stopped playing with him the second time that happened.

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>but I rolled a nat 20

No, you fucker, you can't climb the 60ft solid steel wall as a gnome cause you rolled a nat 20 climbing check you fucker. I'm not being a mean DM, you're being a shit player.

>>50461207
>I stab the guy because I'm bored
"Oh look, here comes the guard. Do you guys want to defend Stabby McStabbystab against the dozen or so armed and armored men coming to detain him?"

>>50461265
This, but when the DM decides that there's a 1 in 10 chance that ridiculous things happen.
>a 20 in Perception... you can clearly hear their conversation from 80 feet away
>the spider rolled a 1 to hit, so it exploded

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>>50460727
Oh god, we had this faggot in our group that did this.We'll call him Nate.

>group of me and 5 friends
>one wants to DM
>we all let him cause he's wanted to
>all roll our characters
>DM wants to be a little generous and let us roll 7 total stats and drop the lowest for higher curve
>fucking Nate rolls roughly 11-14's across the board
>bitches for a reroll
>DM cracks and says fine cause he is being a baby
>faggot rerolls literally like 3 times until he gets like almost 20's in everything
>level 1 half-orc barbarian
>wants his backstory that as a child, his mother, father and him were taken into an orc encampment
>they raped his mother and killed his father
>at 5 years old, he slayed the whole village and has all their severed heads with him at his house
>now as an adult, he lives outside society cause taxes and laws are bullshit
>he's like this irl too

i hated that edgy faggot.

>>50461315
Current DMfag here, I'm new to it, but if I roll a Nat 1 in combat, I just roll another d20 to check the severity of it, higher being not so bad and lower being worse.

>spider rolled a 1 to hit
>roll another d20
>14
>he just misses and lunges forward a bit
>puts himself in a slightly worse position

>spider rolled a 1 to hit
>roll another d20
>1
>spider stumbles and reveals its stomach
>player gets opportunity attack

>>50459993
I don't mind when my player's do this, honestly. If I've been super obvious about my plans unintentionally, I'll let them guess and swap it up to surprise them (within reason of course). If for some reason they end up guessing a plot twist that's even better than what I had imagined, I sometimes change to to make them feel accomplished, and because they just came up with a better story than what I did.

Honestly the main problems I have with my players is that they almost never specify when they're talking in or out of character. Often I'll engage what they said as a DM or as a player, and they'll just respond with "oh I didn't say that in character". Like goddamn guys, sometimes I just want the party banter and chat to be IN character, not out of character as jokes.

>>50461315
>"Oh look, here comes the guard. Do you guys want to defend Stabby McStabbystab against the dozen or so armed and armored men coming to detain him?"

Which would be fine, if he only had one character like that. He tends to do this with every character he makes.

Kill me.

>>50461353
Not him, but I don't have any problem with stuff like that, as long as it's within reason, doesn't slow combat down too much, and doesn't ruin the tone
I think players demanding 20=success for clearly impossible shit is more of an annoyance, personally

>>50461325
>almost 20's in everything
>he's like this irl too
i dunno my dude, I wouldn't get on his bad side

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>That person who plays the same character everytime, barely being arsed to change the goddamn name

>That guy who just roleplays as himself no matter the setting

>That guy who rolls up nothing but characters from the Anime of the Week that he's watching before getting bored that the game isn't centered around his character and rerolling another animu from a different series.

>>50460642
Oh fuck, this is the worst.

>DM: You take... 12 damage.
>Player: Holy fuck! I'm going to die! This is too hard!
>Rogue stabs the enemy for 30
>Sorcerer fireballs the entire group of enemies for 25
>The giant swinging a greataxe at you and dealing 12 damage is too scary to deal with

>>50461353
That sounds pretty good. A 1/200 chance of something going brilliantly right or disastrously wrong is much better than a 1 in 10. And even your 1-->1 sounds much better than "the full-health spider tries to bite you and explodes, dying instantly."

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>>50461396
>I wouldn't get on his bad side
another fun tidbit on his character, cause as much as i hated him its funny reflecting on it

>long session campaign
>several hours go by
>mostly intrigue with little combat
>mainly because Nate's character is hard to balance for and he said his backstory made him have 5 gorillian gold so he has a top tier sword
>trying to figure out why some priest faggot is dropping sacrifices down this hole
>discover much about him
>recruit underground rogue elf agents
>confront him at the church as a group
>hyped as fuck
>get ready for the boss fight 8 hours in the making
>Nate's character instantly rushes in and basically 2 shots him
>all of us underwhelmed and DM sorta mad
>dont let him play with us from now on
>need explination on why his character wont be around anymore
>right after killing the priest his character ascends to the heavens and slays god
>he now sits in god's throne and protects us from fun boss fights

>>50461353
Nothing bad happens right away when a player rolls a 1 during a stressful situation at my table. Instead I roll a d20 for every point in the "escalation pool". The pool gets filled when PCs achieve an objectives with failed rolls. Essentially, if I have to say "yes, but...", the but is that the plot thickens. I'm probably ripping this off from some game I've read about but haven't played.

1-10 the escalation goes away with no ill effect, 11-15 it stays in the pool, 16-19 it triggers, 20 it triggers and I roll the remaining pool again.

An escalation that triggers doesn't directly affect the failed action. Instead, it might mean that the party breaks a healing potion, or a minor reinforcement arrives to the fight, or that the enemy gains some insight into the party tactics. Some minor inconvenience of danger that is relevant to the plot and theme. Nothing that would cause a wipe by itself, ever, and nothing ludicrous that would suspend disbelief.

I like the feeling of low and high rolls mattering, but I fucking hate "LOL THE SPIDER ASSPLODES"

>>50461387
That's the problen with these kind of players, they pull the rest of the group into his bullshit. They're doing it for the attention and don't care if something bad happens to their character, they just reroll a new one if they die and carry on doing the same thing. Ditch them.

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>>50460858
>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why

>>50461520
For what it's worth, he's showing up less since we started no-selling his interruptions. He may learn one day that he isn't the center of the universe.

>>50460858
>Some early game guy wants to be a gang leader, or a hardened veteran soldier, or a SWAT officer,
See, these I don't mind. They create an interesting premise for a character with room to grow, and they're not really something you could reach and move beyond during the session. And even if you were playing with a really weird time scale where you skip years, it still wouldn't feel right as a character arc.

It's one thing to want to be overpowered, but these are all good places for the start of a characters journey, and don't work as the middle of it.

>>50459993

I'm sorry Al.

I swear I'll stop doing this at the next session.

>>50461265
Don't let them do a roll if they can't succeed even if they roll a 20. I mean, what's the point?

>>50460858
Edgy tier:
>killed his swordsmanship instructor
>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why
>killed his entire clan to test his skills

Better have been an accident tier:
>defeated a sith lord in a lightsaber duel
>destroyed a lich

Liar's dice tier
>defeated a demon lord

>>50459993
>Having to remind players that Sense Motive and other skills exist
>Players forgetting important enemies, locations and occurrences from previous sessions
>Players forgetting important enemies, locations and occurrences within the same fucking session
>Players who only speak in dialogue
>Player who gets away with 'dnd 101' level competency at RP and combat because all my other players have crippling flaws such that he looks amazing
>Showing up late for the session
>Going afk intermittently within the session
>Players going silent between sessions

>>50462019
I'm a faggot that tends to ignore Sense Motive in favor of deciding things through roleplay.

>>50461911
Some shotheads roll withoit permission. Or insist to roll even when there is no chance of success.

>>50461529
He's coming!

>>50461373
I have no problem with taking a guess what the plot might hold, but arbitrarily doing it every few minutes just gets annoying, especially when the guesses start to get really off base.
Like I had a play who assumed that there was an ambush around every corner. In a session where I had a conversation with a female player via note to keep what happened away from the other players, to create some tension about the conversation she had with the local mob Don, he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.

Also in my group it's generally assumed that everything you say is in character, and can and will be used against you, unless specified first.
What complicated the first few sessions of my most recent game is that the group also gained a low level sort of telepathy in the first session, that worked only in the group.
So to send a mental message to the group without saying it out loud as you character they decided to touch their temple with a finger.

>>50462693
>he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.
Not even by the player herself? Sounds like he was trying to push his kink into the game.

>>50459993
I just wish the fuckers would take some damn initiative. Every time we come to a lull in the action or a crossroads, I look around at them and say, "so, what do y'all want to do next?" And all I get every damn time is mother fucking crickets. Some of the bastards don't even look up from their phones. After I ask them two or three times, one of them gives some sort of even-more-vague version of, "Whatever else is next."

Finally, I have to say something like, "Well, these are the 2 or 3 options I see available to you right now." At which point one player-without fail- would pick the worst or dumbest of the 3, THEN the other players would start discussing it by telling him how wrong he was.

>>50462693
>he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.
Really? I wouldn't even consider that possibility, to be honest.

>>50460588
I murdermauled one of my players twice, and I'll confess that one time it was a completely unfair curbstomp that I had planned badly (it turns out Kroot are really, really, really horrifying), but the other time he legitimately went up against a self-professed champion of Khorne and ended up getting his ass handed to him, and it was "unfair".

In a game I played, some of the other players bitched ceaselessly over things like this, like when our camp got attacked by night goblins (Warhammer Fantasy game), and another time after we went up against a whole group of Skaven. Fuck that shit. Fleeing is an option. Players need to fucking learn that there's no level-scaling in proper RPG:s.

>>50462762
>>50462870
It never was a possibility, I don't bring that to the table.
Eventually, after she had to tell him twice that wasn't the case, he made another comment about it, I put my foot down.
I told him, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this was not the case, and that I was disappointed that he couldn't listen better, if he had to make another comment, then he knew where the door was and we could just as easily go on without him.

>>50460102
>tfw have trouble with basic math
I'm so sorry

>>50461353
That's exactly what my DM does.
I like it, personally.

>>50461409
Just have he enemies act like the players. Even the tiniest damsge makes the, freak the fuck out

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>>50460102
I caught one of my players changing his die roll during an important fight. It was one of the most disappointing things I think I've ever felt.

>>50461353
You will run into the problem of magic users who never swing a weapon and people with 5 attacks a round stumbling a lot ore often.

>>50461404
>guy named scott plays the same dickass thief in every game
>character is described as him but younger
>always looks the same
>always with a variation of the name Quinn
>always gets pissed when the character is not treated as a badass
>always fights with dual kukris

Shit was infuriating. Weirder is that when we all fell for the The Old Republic trap years ago, everyone of his character looked the same and had the variation of Quinn as their names too.

>>50462824
>Finally, I have to say something like, "Well, these are the 2 or 3 options I see available to you right now."
You should start by this.

>>50461447
>Getting gold from backstory

>Same character in every single game ever.
>"I tell the <authority figure> to go fuck themselves.
>Well my character wouldn't do this so I guess I'll just play Hearthstone on my phone

>>50460102
>if I didn't see it, it's a 1.
You're absolutely going to get a fight, but it'll only happen once, and then they'll give up and go along with it.

>>50460696
>Both work, but I grew up playing PC games where cheating was as easy as

That's a lot of button presses. I remember LIM

>>50461409
To be fair the monsters usually have high health and low damage and the players have low health and high damage

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>>50460642

I get this shit all the time, and it really grinds my gears.

>>50460727
>what is Reputation
>what is Status
>what is Social Regard

>>50465208
Things you will probably have very little or none of at character creation.

>>50460642
>You take... 14 damage.
That adds up, you know.

>>50462439
I tend to to think that using skills like Sense Motive contributes to roleplaying.

>>50465340
In gurps you can actually make these kinds of characters, but to blindly demand that reputation for free in a system that doesn't support it to start with? Fuck youuuu

>>50460727
Fuck and i was worried when i requested my latest character is known about town for being a really good guy and a /decent/ swordsman
Which considering he's a paladin isn't exactly stretching things, but i wanted to be able to toss in lil things he'd done along that lines of epic cat-from-tree saving or once helped find a halfling lady's kids when they were lost in the woods so she has him over once a week for supper. He's an elf, the idea of him hunched over a table that comes up to his knees amused me

Nice sort of "i've lived in this town for 80 years, people know me" type stuff

>>50460102
>Can't into basic addition/subtraction below 100
Shit man, I'm sorry, but not everyone has a head for numbers. Math's tough for some people.

>>50469990
kys middle school dropout NEET

>>50460696
Grinding my gears a little. I don't think anyone under 30 ought to say "When I was growing up!"

In my case it's players that aren't even trying to be edgy but seem to operate under the fucking logic of a grand theft auto character. Like they just take the most pragmatic route despite the fact their character would at BEST be a heartless sociopath.

That and "my alignment is neutral!" as an answer to everything. No it doesn't matter if you wrote TN on your sheet, using an orphan child for trap finding is fucking EVIL.

>>50470005
Wow, you're cool.

>>50460588
>>50460642
>>50461076


Actually, I was more going for friendly NPCs. I get that the spotlight should be on the PCs, and I always arrange things so that at the very least the PCs have a chance to critically affect things, but I like worlds in which competent people do competent things, and if someone is built up as a great general who goes off to face dire odds, there's actually a pretty good chance he'll win the battle even without PC handholding, freeing them up to do something else.

This seems to annoy a lot of players though; I think they feel threatened by the fact that their friends can find their butts with both hands and thus they might be rendered irrelevant if they don't get their shit together.

>>50461207
>fighters that don't do anything out of combat
>Skill Ranks Per Level: 2 + Int modifier.

>>50460727
>no matter what you do no one is ever impressed
>everybody is a snide asshole
>they are universally immune to non-magical persuasion and fear
>magical persuasion obviously doesn't work the way you intended it to

>>50462824
This is usually because the possible options, motivations for adventuring, and goals are presented unclearly or are not interesting enough for the players to keep track of.

In other words, get good, shit GM-kun.

>>50470115
Roleplaying doesn't require skill points.

>>50460102
I admit to doing the picking up the dice right after rolling sometimes, but it's out of frustration for rolling low, not to cheat.

>>50470350
Being able to actually back up your roleplay does, faggot.

>>50461353
The PCs will be rolling so many more dice then one shot NPC fodder ever will.

You are fucking them via shear math. Stop that.

>>50461076
>A wizard who uses mind influencing spells instead of just hucking fireballs

I'm okay with this part

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>>50459993
>horror campaign
>improvise most of it
>players keep trying to guess what's going to happen in the next scene
>some are great ideas
>if the idea I had was too boring, I add their ideas to the mix just to fuck up with them.

>>50470627

Why does this piss you off?

>>50462824
fuck off jake

>>50470873
It did piss me off at first, but I dealt with it that way and now it's pretty amusing for me

>>50461529
>>50462611
I heard that dude had like... 30 goddamn dicks

>>50461373
That's why I have NPCs react like they said that.

Especially dragons when a player blurts out "if we kill it we get the hoard!"

>>50470011
20 something and I grew up without PC games so my cheats were limited to big head mode and the like. Not because of generation gaps and shit, just different childhoods

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>Player is a chaotic neutral character
>Comes for first two sessions
>Can't come for next three
>When he finally comes back, he kills the other two character in their sleep because 'lol, I'm a chaotic """"neutral"""" guy and I wanted to kill', forcing the other two to re-roll
>Fucks off for the next two sessions

>>50461076

In the last 3.5 game I ever played I was a barbarian built for killing huge shit. Another PC was a white half-dragon with a breath weapon.

Once in the entire campaign, in the first session, we fought a big thing. Every other encounter for five levels was giant swarms of chaff for the half-dragon to instagib. He was also really central to the plot, whatever it was, I don't remember.

I also ended up guilty of "the fighter what doesn't participate in non-combat" because by that point I was basically a spectator.

>>50471520
If someone misses three sessions in a row and he does that shit? Kick him out and tell him it didn't happen. The fact that he fucked off for another two means this is entirely on your group.

>>50471543
GM's good friends with that player unfortunately. The sessions are pretty good when he's not around at least.

>>50471520
This is why I ban chaotic neutral PCs along with evil ones in my campaigns. Everyone I've played with who goes as a chaotic neutral always ends up chaotic evil.

>>50471585
Then talk with the other players and then the GM. If the majority of the group hates that cunt, then the GM has to either do something or suddenly not have players.

>>50471520
>shit that never happened

>>50470136

I've had a player throw a shitfit because he wouldn't accept that his character was affacted by magical mind control. When even otheR players with characters more competent at blocking magic were affected and cool with it.

It wasn't even a coercitive effect, just a general feeling of acceptanceand obeissance.

>>50470591
Why did you call him a faggot?

>>50470011
Surprisingly, people under 30 grow up from childhood into adulthood

>>50459993
You're a little too uptight about presenting your special, unique story. Unless the other players are complaining about the behavior, deal with it.

That being said
>"dont hold our hands so much, let us just play, we dont want to be railroaded into a story"
>your party arrives in town, heres all possible things you can do that ive thought of, or you can just make something up and ill make it work, what do your characters choose to do?
>blank stares, awkward feet shuffling sounds
>whats the issue?
>"just wondering when we are going to get back to plot or something"
Fucking kill me.

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>player bases his character's appearance and personality off of an internet personality, nearly 1:1
>player names their character after an internet personality
>player tells me in no uncertain terms that he is basing this character off of an internet personality
>player doesn't understand why I don't like this

>>50471799
....because welcome to 4chan? How is this even a question.

>>50471630
Agreed. Fuck that sack of shit. No game is better then shitty game ruined because the DM is a pussy.

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>>50459993
>'Hey I know it doesn't fit but I'm gonna play this race.'
>Interest drops to coma patient levels when That Guy finds out this isn't going to be a back-to-back combat game and that he'll actually have to roleplay something other than a walking axe
>Other guy only ever plays the same snarky asshole every game who has no reason to be with the party
>Another guy who is awful about railroading players and gets pissy when we deviate from his 'plot' actively threatens not to follow the story when he's a player
>Same guy whines when anyone plays anything not straight ripped out of Tolkien and tries to brag that he's 'so standard'

I have not run anything in a month. My motivation is gone.

>>50460642
I remember playing a lizardfolk warblade in a game. Something like level 8 or 10, in there. We fought this weird tree thing, and it just fucking wailed on me. Even with Iron heart surge and a cleric, I couldn't keep up and it trashed me like a hotel room in a few rounds of combat. The players basically began FREAKING OUT because I usually heavy lifted every encounter being a well built warblade. I just laughed. It's all part of the game, and I was just unconscious anyway...

If theres no danger, theres no sense of accomplishment! The party pulled through in the end thanks to our new wizard player, but shit, man, the party like... instantly lost morale when their murderlizard went down, like they couldn't wipe their own asses.

>>50460642
>Player A plays a Fighter, basically built as your sterotypical tanky frontline character.
>Every time battle starts he runs to the back behind everyone else and throws rocks and shoots arrows
>He's specced for sword and board so his rocks and arrows are doing fuck all for damage
>Fucking bolts the second anything gets near him, despite having the most AC and health of anyone else in the party by a fairly large margin
>One fight I decide to have an archer shoot at him because I'd like to have him actually involved in the fight
>I hit, but roll shit, so he only takes 3 or 4 damage out of his ~80.
>His Fighter immediately grabs the Rogue's dagger and slits his own throat with it, then he tears up his character sheet and storms off
>Ranting about "How I'm deadset on fucking TPKing the party and that he's done with this shit."
>After 3 points of damage, literally the only time he's taken damage across 2 sessions.

Most fucking bizarre thing I've ever had happen in a game.

Obviously he doesn't play with us anymore. Or anyone in the store, as he's joined 2-3 other groups and pulled similarly dumb shit and no one wants him in their groups anymore.

>>50472044
Like a youtube person you mean?

>>50472562
>Most fucking bizarre thing I've ever had happen in a game.
Sure you did.

>>50472044
>internet personality
like filthy frank or something?

>>50472562
>did that really happen?
guy sounds like he's got some sort of metal issue

>>50472562
seems pretty false

>>50472570
>>50472705
Twitch streamer, specifically

>>50459993
>try to guess what's going to happen
Love it when my players do this. It just shows that they're paying attention to and care about the game.

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>>50472562

>>50472816
well throttling them seems like a appropriate response

>>50471799
lurk more faget

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>Can't into basic addition/subtraction below 100
This makes me feel like shit. I can do it, but it takes me a few to long seconds.

>>50473837
I used to have a player who had problem doing math like "1d10+5"
And if you gave him the answer, after watching him agonizingly try to add 6+5 in his head for 30 seconds, he'd get pissy. We don't play anymore.

>>50473943
I have that problem slightly. I'll roll damage and it'll be "one second, two seconds, three seconds" and then it'll click.
It probably doesn't help that I'm dyslexic with numbers.

>>50473837
Same here. Takes me a couple of seconds at times.

Seems to be a common problem cause one other person in my group has the same problem but take a bit longer.

>>50461850
>>50460858

This.

Even in a low-power campaign, these are all viable character concepts. What you need though is to work with the player in question and work the character backstory out. Also help THEM understand their character.

For example a hardened veteran isn't necessarily a much better shot or fighter than a relatively inexperienced soldier. The difference is that he's just lived through more shit, maybe he just has a knack for survival. If the system allows it, see about sixth-sense type abilties and combat oriented knowledge skills. Balance it up with some PTSD, issues with authority, maybe problems with re-integrating into civilized life.

>hey gm, can I be a four armed species that wields lightsabers and blasters
>yeah, yeah, I want him to be highly trained in both and from a species that has not been discovered yet
>now that I think about it, I want to be a force wielding android as well

God fucking damn it. I do not have a problem with unique characters. I just have a problem with the characters this player wants to play. Some that he wanted to play from the last few sessions.

>gandalf's apprentice with magic in lotr game where I banned any magic
>alpha + psyker who was idding out with the inquisition
>run away princess of the moonsea elves that was favored soul of bahumat and samuri in one class
>the worlds best 10 year old assassin who had just left the training camp that taught you to slay demons and devils
>batman and superman's female love child

All this shit out of the gate, wants me(gm) to make the characters and then wants me to level the thing. I keep saying no and he still keeps wanting to play this shit.

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>player says he *always* plays a Paladin
>other player had dibs on playing Paladin, was in the group before player
>he bitches and moans about not playing paladin until the guy says fuck whatever you can play paladin I'll change my class
>that guy then spends two hours talking about how great his Paladin is, how he always plays the same character like that's a good thing?
>brags about being unkillable and bullshit because minmax
>backstory is some dumb edgy tragic shit he's a super important noble with daddy issues and an evil brother?
>moans about not being able to start off with plate armor (1500gp) and an armored warhouse
>a bloo bloo i'm a rich noble I'd have these things!!
>during the campaign constantly tries to invoke his "noble status" to get free stuff, gets buttblasted and tries to threaten violence on innocent townsfolk when they tell him to fuck off (LG Devotion Paladin)

guy then proceeds to ruin the campaign by forcing himself into the spotlight at every point possible. autist who can barely formulate a sentence but because he's a paladin with decent CHA he declares he's the face and the leader (despite my Bard both having higher CHA and nearly twice the persuasion bonus), and despite the entire group not wanting him to be the leader at all

just a terrible player man. I wish this hobby didn't attract such fucking losers.

>>50474178
>paladin
>threatens innocent townfolk

please kill this man

>>50470115
I see you've never looked at items or understand how much of actual story based games revolves around conversation even without skill rolls.

>>50471799
Faggot.

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>>50472562

>>50470182
>This is usually because the possible options, motivations for adventuring, and goals are presented unclearly or are not interesting enough for the players to keep track of.

I regularly ask my players if they're enjoying the game, enjoying the story, and if they'd rather do something else.
So I'm not ruling out the possibility that it's my fault, but if it is, they're being hella passive aggressive about it.

>>50459993

>After breezing through several rooms of a dungeon, the party encounters a miniboss that actually does a number on one of them
>The knowledge that was not the dungeon boss causes concern, and the group withdraws–this, I have no problem with.
>About 50% of the time, however, they withdraw, destroy the entrance to the dungeon, resolve to never return there, and expect me to still have another dungeon for them to do instead. I have no way of telling when the group will decide "better stock up on some consumables and come back" and when they'll decide "well, this one's too hard, so fuck it. Better luck with the next one."

I don't have a problem with tactically retreating and rethinking your approach when a dungeon proves unexpectedly well-protected, but chickening out and expecting me to map out an entire secondary dungeon on the basis someone might ragequit if their character got knocked around too hard is not.

I'd ask them to have a little faith in me and not be such chickens since I've been running games for them for over a year without anyone dying, but I fear I might be spoiling them. I'm trying to set a counterpart to my co-GM, who appears to consider a campaign a waste of his time if he hasn't killed at least one PC by the third session, but...

>>50475711

Just make the new dungeon exactly the same as the old dungeon with some rooms swapped around.

Sure, it's kind of a shit thing to do, but they're being shitty too.

>>50475725

That's actually pretty good advice. Admittedly, I've done pettier things before.

One time the group commented that there were too many doors in a particular dungeon when I was fiddling with a trickier design. I didn't say anything, but the second session down there I made a room with dozens of trapdoors, a portal that sent you into a room full of doors that were actually mimics, and door golems that knock back.

The dungeon's boss spent the entire fight spamming Dimension Door to run away from the party and reset traps and mend the broken-down doors for when they chased him.

Ironically, that ended up being one of the more popular dungeons we did.

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>>50459993
>present mild conundrum of "who did the thing?"
>players immediately jump to wrong conclusion with zero evidence to support their idea
>leave a plethora of clues and hints that point to the real cause of the conflict
>party ignores it because it doesn't support the conclusion they've already arrived at
>at the climax of the conflict the players announce who the culprit is
>"Why do you think he's the guy?"
>"Just trust us he's totally the guy."
>He's not the guy.
>The actual guy got away while everyone was distracted
>party is outraged, one member going to far as to approach me outside after the game saying "You should have just made it the guy we said it was, because we all thought it was him."
>mfw

I promise you this isn't a case of me being some obtuse dickhead and stringing them along. They literally heard some shit happened on a train and immediately shouted "IT MUST BE THE CONDUCTAH!" and closed their eyes and ears to any other possibility. It baffles me to this day.

>>50475811
>Dungeon of Doors
That's some top-shelf DMing, m8. I'm going to steal that.

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>>50469460

the party fighter, who specced himself out to be a tank, straight up complained about being the guy always in the front, in danger of getting killed. It stupefies me. I even go and ask him if he'd like to change class but nope he wants to be a fighter. Please god spare me

It's not even like the enemies always attack him, I actually rarely attack him because he's got 20 some AC so why would they try to stab the giant knight dude when they can stab the scrawny half-elf wearing leather right next to him

>>50475864
my players did the same shit, they decide on a solution or conclusion by talking themselves into circles OOC using meta knowledge and such then get mad when it doesn't work out their way.

>>50471963
>You're a little too uptight about presenting your special, unique story
Or maybe he just doesn't want a bunch of assmunchers constantly breaking character to shout out whatever they read on TvTropes last?

>Player asks to use a skill to receive information on a situation.
>Tell them what their character would know based on their roll.
>Player, to the party: "Yeah, what he said"

Or

>Player repeats what was just said verbatim, to other players who were sitting there while it was said, only this time it's "in character"

Fuck you.

No seriously, fuck all of you.

>>50475711
Players really don't understand what goes into GMing. Players typically don't realize that you're either
>pregenerating very specific parts of the world for them to explore
>making shit up on the fly
Although this is a shitty way to act, it reflects well on you as a GM; it shows that they consider your world a real, permanent entity, instead of whatever your whims atm happen to be.

>>50476228

You reminded me of something, long ago.

>Players going to meet potential client in rather seedy sort of tavern
>Make and succeed at a knowledge check to find out the place has a really, really bad reputation, the sort where they drug your drink and rob you if you're not careful.
>Cheerfully stow away some of their gear that they don't want to be seen carrying around in there in one of the tavern's storerooms
>Place no guard or protective spells or anything on some stuff that's probably worth thirty times what the tavern is.
>Are shocked when some of their shit is stolen.

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>dming a campaign in a dark-ish world. Not grim-dark hopeless bullshit, but the party finds themselves in some pretty dire straits from time to time
>one of the regular party members has shit he needs to take care of for about a month, can't join the party until that's finished up
>whatever, he can just make a character up to the party's level when he's ready to join, we won't get that far ahead
>he's ready to go
>wants to play some kind of retarded dwarf wizard who's searching for a made-up artifact that he, himself apparently created but doesn't do anything because it's just an autobiography about himself.
>"not sure that's really appropriate for the setting, m8."
>"NO TRUST ME IT'LL BE SO FUNNY LMAO"
>player isn't That Guy, has never done anything this ridiculous before
>fuck it, maybe he'll do alright

Long story short, he didn't do alright.

>>50459993

for me it's this.

Me (as GM) : okay, a 31 arcana check is good enough for this. The magical wards binding this summoning circle together are well beyond the reach of a mortal spellcaster. This is the kind of magic that's only in the realms of a god or one of the divine servant races, so-
<player name removed>; there's only two or three of those, and we don't want to get into a fight with any of them. You can't figure out this magic, so you'll just have to hope it can be disrupted and that it won't attract the attention of the thing that created it-
Me (as gm); just... just... excuse me, which one of us is narrating this?

So one of my players has this nasty tendency to start trying to GM for me whenever I bring up any setting lore bit that's been discussed in the past. One one hand, it's nice he's paying attention, on the other hand he's not the GM, I am. On the other other hand, he's usually wrong, because he takes a certain basic groundwork (it's a bad idea to punch the physical incarnation of a god without a lot of help, don't do that/wild magic zones are dangerous to do magic in/everyone is scheming in this multidimensional demilitarized zone) and then he starts extrapolating it in his head and arguing with me that what he has in his head is what I said to him. Except he doesn't tell me that he's going off his own ideas. We just get in increasingly convoluted arguments about why something is or isn't right without him ever coming out and saying what his problem is.

Do you know what bugs me the most? Players doing exactly like they're told.

I'm talking when it comes to the plot, when players only ever go anywhere, go searching for anything, or progress on a clue when specifically told to do so, or told how to do so by an NPC.

I don't get it. YOU have your notes, YOU know what happened last week. YOU know who you still need to kill, YOU know what's going on in the world around you.

What you DON'T seem to know is that you can look for shit on your own. You don't need to city guard to say "Hey, there's some murders you should check out" in order for you to maybe find out that there's some shit going down. It's your world, you can ask about things, hunt clues, find more info.

And the problem is, it makes DMing too easy. All I do anymore is prep my scene vignettes with the clues, and then weave in some player backstory stuff. It's brainless. They never throw curveballs EVER. No players do. Trust me, I've had tons.

When they're talking to an evil nobleman who they KNOW IS EVIL BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN IN HIS CITY FOR WEEKS, and he says "Yes, your friends are in my dungeon. Go down and get them, it'll be fine.", and THEY FUCKING GO. No haggling, no thinking things through, not even a moment to stop and prepare. Just, there's the door, let's go right in.

Is it possible for players to challenge a DM ever?

>>50461207

I mean, I've played games where I reached a point where I was itching for a battle, but it's usually stuff like

>join game, told it will be combat heavy
>we have a guy playing an ilithid despite everyone trying to convince him otherwise, I had to talk him into wearing a hat of disguise
>there's guards casting detect magic we have to get past, I volunteer to basically run distraction, get like four of the guards chasing me
>turn down a blind alley, prepare for a fight
>suddenly a random door opens and someone ushers me inside and I'm basically being inducted into the resistance

But if you just got off a bunch of fights... yeah, that's fucking bullshit. And besides, surprise stabs aren't fun. Your enemy needs to know they're fighting you for it to be fun, otherwise how does cutting them down in one shot and smirking as they fall to the ground, wondering how you're so strong work?

>>50459993

>Be in the middle of describing something
>Some player shouts that they're rolling for initiative, or attacking, or jumping in a ravine, or casting a spell
>They honestly seem to think that if they pre-empt my fully saying something out, they'll get to do it faster in character.

>>50463501

get a program set up. That's the solution. Either that or just don't be shy about it and let other people help to keep the pace up. As long as we aren't waiting on you to do your addition noone cares, just don't be so up your ass about it you bitch when people help you.

I had a player in one of my games who would take a solid two minutes to add his rolls up, I don't know why, and without even looking at his sheet I could tell him his rolls in seconds because this happened so much, but any time I did he gave me shit. Sorry dude, if you can't do math and can't come up with a way to do it quick, don't play the fucking game if you don't want people to help you. We don't need 1/3 of every session to be you trying to figure out your fucking rolls.

>>50476344
You'd love me then. I second guess, insight, and scout out every little plot hook. Used to be a right proper pain in the ass about it, but I managed to pull it back and just make it into a knack for anticipating plot twists.

On my end, I hate it when a DM is too sparse on the hints on where the plot is. I don't mean a sandbox, I mean games where there is really only one major path to go, but you have to turn the entire map upside down just to find the designated starting point.

>>50476523

Not him, but what are your opinions on the saturation method?

Where you have zillions of plot points, all of them with timers attached, and you'll never be able to do them all. Now pick a few on the basis of some incomplete and quite probably inaccurate information.

>>50476359
I know this feel.

> go to attack bandit king, get ambushed by 50+ guys, have to talk.
> threatened by corrupt guard, decide to take him down, a bunch of guards show up putting us at sword point, have to talk.
> hunting down a monster, surrounded by its minions, have to talk.

We never get to kill the thing we set out to kill, and I made a combat heavy character. The worst part is after we have to talk the person usually sends us after someone else in exchange for our lives, which ends the same way.
Then the dm got pissed because our characters basically dropped all morals and would do any job for cash because we wanted to kill something and it was easier to talk our way out of these encounters by saying if you pay more I'll help you instead.

>>50470583

yeah if I roll between a 2 and 5 I typically snatch my dice and beat them for betraying me, while grumbling out my roll.

Well, unless it's in one of the three things I min-maxed for this character for no reason(and occasionally by accident, especially my newest one) in which case I go "... I rolled a 2 and with my modifier... that's a 20. Did I make it?"

then when I didn't I get legit upset because this is the ONE THING I WANT TO BE GOOD AT DAMMIT while ignoring the fact that, in fact, origami is not my only skill.

>>50461667
We use the phrase "Box Text" for situations where it's essentially a cutscene, as pre-written modules usually have the start of boss fights or fluff descriptions of caverns written in boxes that are separate from the normal stuff.

If the prick does that, tell him, "This is box text." and then ignore him. Or better yet, continue to acknowledge the other PC's questions and such so it's basically saying it's only a non-interactive cutscene to HIM.

>>50476608
I FUCKING HATE when players interrupt box text.

Especially when they interrupt to just say "I attack" or some shit.

Nigga, I'm setting a scene, describing your surroundings, and giving you details. If you keep interrupting, I'm literally just going to stop doing that and you can play with "You walk in the room, the bad guy is there, roll initiative".

>>50475864
I've seen that sort of shit before.

It really is baffling. A few get it up their ass, then are convincing the rest and...

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>>50476646

>If you keep interrupting, I'm literally just going to stop doing that and you can play with "You walk in the room, the bad guy is there, roll initiative".

>yfw you carry through on the threat and they say it's a huge improvement.

>>50476543
To DM? Not my thing. I like a mix of pre planed arcs and just winging it based on the characters and how things have gone.

To play? Sign me the fuck up, as that sounds like a fun and interesting time, and I feel like time limits can be a really good way to keep the party moving as long as it's not handled too punishingly. Especially since I hate it when the party wants to sit and debate on every course of action over just picking something and after some light pondering and moving forward. Two hours over picking up a stone or not picking up a stone, fun times.

>>50476228
What the actual fuck do you want? That's what he's going to tell them.

Out of all the problems I've seen, thinking this is ACTUALLY A PROBLEM....you have your head up your ass.

I'm sorry mista DM sah, I'll just waste time flowering up what you said while trying to say the exact same shit anyway!

>>50460642
One of my friends does it really often (not even just in tabletop, in MtG too) and what's worse is he usually gets some of the others into it too and it just becomes the entire group saying "what the fuck, GM?" because there was a slight amount of resistance.

Since half of our group is aggressively anti-GM in the way they play, it makes me wonder why our GM hasn't just snapped yet.

>>50475864
Consider that people are like this on real life. Horrifying.

>>50476666
I'd kill myself on the spot.

Not because I would be a bad DM, but because such horrible human beings exist.

>>50471963
>>whats the issue?
>>"just wondering when we are going to get back to plot or something"
>Fucking kill me.

Bunch of guys I've been playing with are the same. Bitch continuously about "railroading" if they find a plot hook, but if you ask them "what do you do now?" they just sit there and blink at each other for a few minutes before asking for a plot hook.

Sometimes I really wnat to find a new group.

>>50476706
I find whispering certain major checks like that helps since they will be hearing it from the player only once, and it prevents meta gaming a little where there person see something and everyone just starts reacting to it without actually being told about it. Also gives the player the chance to fuck up the info, which may or may not be a good thing depending on much responsibility you wanna give them.

>>50476706
>What the actual fuck do you want?
Him to convey the information, filtered through his character? You know, selecting the important bits, forgetting to mention or mis-conveying some, basically talking like a real person?

No one reads a book and then conveys all the information off the top of their head as they read it. Act like your character is a fucking person, not just a collection of stats you throw at the game until you win.

>Lol but y? Im just gonna say it all anyway lul

>>50460047
>eight sessions
It was more like a year and a half for a group I was in once.

>>50476547

Yeah, the real pain is I have a habit of speccing for mass combat due to some bad experiences, and I feel like DMs don't trust me to know my limits. If I say my character can hold off fifteen goblins alone, he can hold off fifteen goblins alone, I'm level three and this is what I DO. It's not like you get scared and start giving the wizard emergency outs when he has to make fucking spellcraft checks that could go horribly wrong, why do I need a hither-to unknown trapdoor let me out of the situation I intentionally created so I could get the spotlight?

... I might be a little bitter about this.

>>50476717
He's just waiting to bring all your defenses down so he can kill himself along with all of you.

>>50476344

>be me
>playing 2e
>leprechaun shows up
"... I need to talk to a brownie"
>DM opens the bestiary, doesn't bother having me roll if I know about brownies because it'd be blueballs for both of us
>get lots of information on leprechauns from brownie so I can track it down

feelsgoodman.

>>50460642
Legit had this happen in the first session of the game.

>Level 1, new campaign, players go into a goblin cave.
>They're fighting, whatever. One goblin fires his bow at the female Drow Rogue (this is, of course, the same guy that INSISTED that he start the game with 2 kobold servants who obeyed his character and could fight for him, because his character in a previous DMs game had that).
>He takes a hit, gets knocked to 0 cuz lvl 1.
>"Fuck this character, just let her die guys I'm gonna roll something new".
>IT'S THE FUCKING THIRD ROUND OF COMBAT.

>>50476831

>playing a drow

let him die

>>50476831
>>50460642

/r/ing the story about the PCs who killed themselves in character because they got robbed by bandits.

>>50476872

I've seen worse happen before though, in person. I knew a guy who got tired of playing a character, and declared he died of cancer.

To be fair, because of my plans with the DM I got to take advantage of it by having his character be secretly alive in my evil laboratory where the party had to confront my previous character's corrupted and evil new form, hooked up to a shit ton of devices, half of whom seemed to have no purpose but torture.

Turns out when a character who is barely skirting the line between good and evil gets corrupted, they turn real bad.

Though it's up to interpretation which side of the line my character was skirting...

>>50476805
Exactly! I really feel you anon. When I dm i try to have at least one moment for each player planned in the session. Like if you were playing a session where you would have to attack a goblin camps I'd have it set up as...
> a bunch of mooks out front for the tank
> a heavier target/ boss for the "hero swordsman" type.
>a few specialist enemies for the archer and rogue to target
And so on. I dont understand why some dms set up encounters telling players to fight, then make it so they have to retreat.

>>50477025

Yeah. Honestlly what makes it worse is that character was made with a decent chunk of cash to start, so because he was dex based I had like 23 AC. What, exactly, were those four guards going to do to me? It's not like I dumped con. Damn.

Yeah, one day I need to get around to building up my setting so I can actually run a game. I suppose stage one is to just decide on the regions so I can make generalised encounter tables, though...

>>50477059
My current dm keeps putting us in situations we can't win and then sends us into another one. Its been 3 sessions of this. I honestly want to beat myself. My character was made to deliver a bunch of damage to individual targets and then run but in every scenario I get surrounded by 10+ people and I can't do anything except surrender. It drives me crazy!

Definitely work on your setting though. Being a good dm is reward. Don't worry about getting to specific though. Leave room to make shit up on the fly.

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>>50476776
Fucking this.
>Players are part of a startup inquisitives agency
>Enough are good aligned to be willing to help random issues out of morals
>They also need to build allies and exposure by taking initiative and finding some early mysteries to solve

>They solve a "murder" mystery centered around a strange new street drug the guards mention they've just started having trouble with, do nothing to follow up
>They happen across someone being chased by a collared owlbear in the streets; kill the owlbear, knock out the guy, leave them both to the guards, never check back or search the area
>An ally is injured using faulty spell scrolls they'd bought, no followup
>Some stranger shows up behind them seeking treasure, then a player is entrapped and extorted by them in a solo game, no followup
>Same solo game has player mail a mysterious artefact to a disclosed address on a pre-ordered train ticket, no followup
>Strange business about a tiefling child caught stealing in the streets and the party being fined by a guard on her behalf from goodwill, they catch on its a scam but no followup
They've tried a couple more times to seek out work, but they refuse to test any loose plot threads I leave.

>>50476805
>>50477025
See, I had the opposite problem as a DM, where the party seemed to think that I was obligated to make sure that, no matter what boneheaded decisions the party made, they could survive and even win against whatever conflict was thrown at them.

This mindset was further exacerbated by That Guy. You know, the guy who always immediately assaults anyone who so much as looks at his psychotic ass funny, saying "it's what my character would do!"

No, you dumb fucker. If you are in a room with a powerful political leader, an entire retinue of guards ready to jump on your ass (because you refused to be disarmed before meeting a head of state) and every assurance that any aggressive action would result in the immediate summoning of every other fucking guard in the building, you would PROBABLY NOT DRAW YOUR WEAPON AND ATTACK. Especially when your character is a Lawful Good Paladin and the Official in question is only guilty of wondering what the fuck you're doing acting like a dick to his seneschal. Then again, the player in question literally described his character as "looking like Arthus," so that should have been strikes one and two right there.

>>50477183

yeah, I've got a background worked up for the world so if they explore I have a basis to work on, but for the most part I'm hoping they stick around the starting area, as it's intentionally designed as the kind of place an adventurer could spend their entire life. It's a massive forest created by magical and divine corruption after one of the five Drake of Tiamat was destroyed, and the closer to the centre you get, the more powerful the monsters become, until you reach the desolation at its core, which is so overgrown that it's completely impossible to travel. If you somehow got through it though... well, what's on the other side hasn't been decided yet, but suffice to say that the corruption has been drawing in and empowering creatures for millenia. If any dragons came to mourn the loss... well, I'm not sure what they'd be after that.

I've got lots of ideas for special monsters to keep my players on their toes, but the problem is that every creature takes time to design and stat, and even then I worry if the abilities that make them interesting will make them too strong or weak. From rotwolves to ironwood bears to hydra-like creatures with spit that turns organic matter to crystals, they're all interesting encounters but they take a TON of time to stat properly.

>just got into doing tabletop with some friends' homebrew Call of Cthulhu
>constantly worrying about being a dipshit
>been avoiding gripes I've seen on /tg/ like in this thread
Thanks for helping me start off as a slightly better player

>>50477260
Oh god I hate That Guy. I had one with the same problem as yours for a while until we kicked him because he started getting new players to follow along on his bs.

His NG Fighter killed an old guy in the center of town because the guy didn't know much about the kings court after the player bribed him. He then got upset when the guards smashed his level 2 face into the ground.

Situations like that I can understand being overwhelmed. Some people take it to far and make every encounter a to many troops to win encounter so that you dont have a chance to kill of their "important" npcs when its your goal to do so.

>>50477330
Good to hear buddy! A good tip for new players, ask questions about things to the dm! (Not always though)

Like if a dm tells you about a mysterious man you see ask what he's wearing. These types of questions show the dm you care AND allows him more options to make plot points.

>>50477280
Special monsters are great! A good way to spice up encounters is to have them in cool places.

Fighting 3 goblins in a forest is cool but fighting 3 goblins while balancing on a giant decayed tree that's falling apart as players move across it is even more awesome!! Location is just as important as the beasties they fight.

>>50477456

yeah, the player I tested it on reacted really well to the rotwolves. problem is I've soured on pathfinder since then, which means I'm gonna be redoing all the statting for the monsters I already built... bluh.

But yeah, my goal is to get encounter tables for the forest set up, a basic town for the players to explore and base out of, and a few opening plot threads for them to pursue. From there I can work as I go.

The best part is the beasties i've made will influence their surroundings. If they encounter one of the hydra-things, huge swaths of the area will be crystalline and razor-sharp(ideal for making one-use weapons out of, wink wink), if they encounter large groups of rot-wolves they'll be walking through dead and decaying underbrush(though not all the decay is, strictly speaking, dead...), and if they spot an ironwood bear the path of destruction will be available to lead them back to its usual hunting grounds- deep in the forest, where the undergrowth is harsher but the trees stronger and farther apart.

>>50476268
>>"not sure that's really appropriate for the setting, m8."
>>"NO TRUST ME IT'LL BE SO FUNNY LMAO"
>>fuck it, maybe he'll do alright
>Long story short, he didn't do alright.

KEK! That is like the prefect autobiography of "A typical RPG campaign."

>>50477193
Confront your players about that, make them decide which lead to investigate and then build the next session around that.

>>50470011
When I was a lad, we had to walk 10 miles to school. Uphill, both ways, in the snow.

>>50459993
> Fuck about with phones at the table
> Interrupt descriptions
> To discuss unrelated shit
> Text message alerts constantly. 'IM TEXTING MY BOYFRIEND LOL'

> Stall sessions weeks in a row by not showing up
> Drop them temporarily until they get their shit sorted out and a decent internet connection
> Suddenly 'busy' all the time.
> Bitch, I told you why I had to drop you. The other players were kicking up a fuss over the lack of game.

> Running game in IRC
> Random person shows up
> This looks like a DnD game. Is this a DnD game? I play DnD.
Fuck's sake, who the hell even are you?
> Add them to the campaign anyway because someone just fucked off and left
> They show up, week after week, on time
> Mechanical knowledge, roleplay just fine, accept the absurdities developed so far.
I guess you can stay now...

> Join Shadowrun game
> Shaky idea of the rules
> Have to pause things to look shit up in a rulebook every so often
> Character intentionally designed to be kind of annoying to justify the Uncouth trait.
I'm a terrible player sometimes, but I'm trying to bone up on the rules.
And everyone loves the annoying character now, despite their speech being peppered with vocal tics, suggesting idiot ideas, and being rude to NPCs when I can't resist it.

>>50478208
When I was a lad we had to walk 30 miles uphill in the snow every morning and we didn't even get schooling

>>50461265

Contrary to popular RAW/belief, you can have 1s and 20s not be the mutually exclusive extremes people make them out to be

With some simple DM common sense, you can make them special little events. Here are some examples:
>Roll a 20 on a UMD check, the effect is enhanced! If healing, roll double! If damage, roll double! [Note if this is a particularly OP spell by itself like fireball, simply increase the DC of the spell by +2)
>Roll a 20 on a knowledge check: Gain extra information AND a hint of direction where to go to progress! Perhaps a +1 bonus to hit for monster knowledge for the combat?
>Roll a 20 on Swim: Second Wind! Ignore the half movement for swimming or double the swimming speed this round.
>Roll a 1 on an attack: Ask the player how they attacked the enemy, and based of that description make something slightly inconvenient happen, such as falling prone, or moving slightly off kilter, or negating an earlier crit, or provoking an opportunity attack by how awkwardly the attack was placed
>Roll a 1 on a Knowledge check: Misremember information/outdated information if knowledge. You can have some good roleplaying happen with characters trying to grapple which info is correct, hell, even an adventure!
>Roll a 1 on a skill check: Something complicated happens. If the character's modifiers still beat the DC, say that you can pull off a success at a cost. Especially tense when there's little time to retry.

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Not a GM, but I've run across this recently
>GM is very anal about only rolling when he tells you to roll
>and I mean unless he says "Roll for x" you don't get any input into what you want to do
I understand random dice rolling is annoying as fuck, but not being able to ask if I can make something simple like a spot check in a really suspicious area is also on the other spectrum of annoying.

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>>50475403
If you're making that mistake, chances are your players don't even know it's a mistake that you're making.

The only thing they're experiencing is that they're at a crossroads, but they don't know of anything interesting that's waiting for them down either path.

You need to establish distant threats and opportunities through NPC dialogue, rumors, and lore rolls about interesting items or locations they find.
Otherwise there's just no driving force in your campaign.

See also: mspaint model of GMing for non-premade multi-adventure campaigns.

>>50471520
This shit made me house rule that all mortals are unaligned. Only monsters have alignments.

>>50462019

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT REMEMBER WHY YOU'RE HERE

>>50478716
Well, when we got back, our fathers beat us with a stick, all night long, and we thanked him for it! It toughened us up for school, which was just the teachers hitting us with sticks with nails in!

>>50461447
>right after killing the priest his character ascends to the heavens and slays god
>he now sits in god's throne and protects us from fun boss fights

kek

>Paladin
>Highest level in entire group
>Only tied with the knowledge cleric who is barely useful in combat
>Kills a gigantic circus demon, almost all by himself
>Heals party, stuns enemies, tanks the fuck out of all encounters
>Helps the team in roleplay as he's the only person with contacts in the law and peacekeeping order.
>"I'm so useless, why do I even bother playing..."

The player is a good man, but always found a reason to feel useless.

>Cleric is basically Sherlock
>Rogue got real estate
>Warlock got laid
>Paladin only kills and heals in every encounter, tanking damage in the hundreds and senses evil out of combat in a campaign where evil is everywhere.

Oh boy, how useless must he be...

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>>50459993
>Not an obvious villain comes up and betrays the party
>"Wtf DM my passive sense motive is 273489234789 why didn't my character see this coming you have to warn us when we're going to be betrayed"
>"It's not my job to look at my character sheet and make decisions its your job"

>>50469990

>Not every 20+ year old can do elementary school maths

And even if you legitimately have dyscalculia, just get a fucking calculator.

>>50478976
Nice in theory but
>Player roles remotely low on the "is this safe to touch check"
>GUYS DON'T GO NEAR IT out of character
Assuming they all don't just look the monster up anyway

>>50479730
>using monsters from the book

How is that premade starter adventure going, pal?

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>>50475864
>One player is a lawyer, literally paid to convince other people to think like him
>No matter what game he's in. Always OOC convinces the players to follow him like prison bitchs while extorting them gold
>Realize if I trick this person the party follows with
>Player and character both hate the Gods of the setting, good or evil none of them can be trusted. Even the Goddess of Nature or the literal God of Heroes
>One player is playing a Priestess to the Goddess of Nature, has been using Commune to contact their Goddess and learn bits and pieces
>Getting dangerously close to figuring out the plot twist before it happens
>"lol don't believe her lies"
>"Yes crafter-sama"

>>50479696
They have passive skills for a reason, dude.

>>50459993
>All of them play variant human

>>50461315
>a dozen or so armed and armored men coming to detain him

>Oh we can handle it, they're only level 3 npcs, easy

>>50479936
Kinda yeah. The GM should note all that passive shit and use it. Possibly against the players.

>>50479730
To be honest, if I knew very little about something, I'd steer very clear of it no matter how cute or non-threatening it looked.

A character with low wisdom probably wouldn't though.

>>50478976
Kill yourself. You are the worst kind of DM.

>>50480033
That reminds me, how high-level should the guardian of, say, a princess be?
I had considered giving a named character of the same description PC levels because I suspect he'll come into conflict with the players eventually.

>>50476457
>minus one level thom

>>50480033

That's fine, but then they're attracting greater powers, so they better not bitch when a they get surrounded by a 30-man bandit gang looking for the bounty or an elite group of warriors of justice who ends up killing them.

That's the hard part of being the villain instead of fighting them. When fighting a villain he's usually content to be left alone, if you don't mess with his plans, you might never have a problem with his bullshit.

But when you're the villain you have to deal with all sorts of proactive assholes set on stopping you to make a name for themselves.

>>50479674
Well that's the problem. YOU as the GM are a problem. Even if he's a combat monster, he's still a fucking nobody in terms of non-combat benefits. And that's disappointing. Especiall when everyone else has something.

Change your ways or kill yourself.

Give him a squire, a support squad, a title, whatever.

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>>50459993
>snarking at nobles
>snarking at priests
>snarking at WITCH HUNTERS

>>50480090
I'm not >>50478976 but what is wrong with what he is describing? In my book that is exactly how 1s and 20s ought to work.

Not "lolrandumb" ensured critical succes / failure, but respectively, the worst and best outcomes your character could reasonably have, given his skill level.

>player makes a character and says that he's a detective, both in backstory and in crunch
>some time later, present the players with a literal murder mystery scenario with NPCs into which I actually invested some time and effort
>"my character sits in the bar and drinks himself to unconsciousness. I want this shit to end, we didn't have any combat in 2 sessions"

>>50480198
This is precisely "lolrandumb"-tier shit. Especially the attack roll. That would quickly devolve into taking 10s on all skill checks, and using attacks that don't require rolls.

>roll a 1 on the attack roll
>lol you break your weapon
>GM, I'm a monk
>lol you break your hand then, take your attack damage

>I break that fuck's fingers!
>lol that's torture, you fall
>GM, I'm a fighter
>lol then an angel appears and attacks you

Same GM. I left.

>>50480225
You would avoid striking entirely because there would be a 1/20 chance you might get proned or suffer an AoO ?

The examples he gives (If you roll a 20 on knowledge, you will receive MORE INFO ) is already the standard for varying degrees of success. I include degrees of success on all skill rolls, practically. At least if I have the wherewithal in the situation.

I dunno. What would be practical examples of critical successes / failures that would seem balanced and cool to you?
Or are you opposed to critting skill checks in general?

>>50460696
IDDQD

>>50461265
>It's a Skill Check Critical episode

>>50480273
I am opposed to critting skill checks in systems that explicitly state that skill checks do not crit, yeah. And I fucking hate rolling for Knowledge. This is retarded. The character either knows something and remembers that, or doesn't know at all. Good thing I dropped D&D completely.

I'm also opposed to rolling when success or failure don't bring anything significant to the story. A passive check in most cases has to be enough.

>I don't have time to make a character sheet
>Can sit in front of his computer playing the same shit on WoW for 5 hours

>>50480319
When you make a knowledge roll, the dice determine whether your character picked up that particular piece of information in their studies/experiences in the path, and whether they've remembered it since then.

So yes, they do indeed either know something and remember it, or they don't.
That is exactly what a knowledge roll is there to determine.

>>50480381
That's the problem. It's a stupid system. I prefer broadly defining what character knows and what he doesn't know at chargen, according to his skill set and level in those skills. If he's supposed to be, say, an world-class expert on demons, his failure to identify something that is a demon means that it's either not a demon or a really new kind of demon. There shouldn't be any possibility of failure to remember the basics in his area of expertise. Rolls and especially "lol nat1" ruins that.

>>50480419
I would argue that it's about the application of those rolls.

If I describe a gryphon, without explicitly calling it a gryphon, and the druid asks whether he would know what it is, I'll just say "yeah, it's a gryphon".
If the city-slicker rogue asks, maybe I'll let him roll to identify it, based on tales / pictures from books. If he rolls high maybe he remembers a story that gryphons cannot resist chocolate cake or some shit.

As for "either knows or does not know" even in real life, that is not a complete binary thing.
I know the name of my cousins wife. But I've forgotten it before, and perhaps I will again sometime. I only see her every few years. If you asked me to recall it at some stressful moment, I might or I might not.
Similarly, I know the equation for the Force of a moving object, but I might not recall it at any given moment.
And since a characters backstory is not an explicitly detailed story of how he/she spent every minute of their life, the sort of information they might know or not know is not completely set in stone.

>>50480500
>gryphons cannot resist chocolate cake or some shit
Hey, look, some more useless DEEPEST LORE for my setting.

>>50480419
If you've established that your character is a world-class expert on demons, and your DM is fine with this, presumably a good DM would just say "oh right, yeah this is pretty basic stuff", or simply give you a lower difficulty, or advantage, on your check (if it's more advanced stuff, presumably even an expert doesn't literally know everything.)

Players shouldn't have to make a roll if a failure wouldn't make sense. That's pretty basic DMing.

>>50480319
As for "not rolling if it isn't bringing something to the story" that is a matter of how you GM. I happen to agree, I enjoy much more RPing, and less rolling, and I don't make people roll for things they should be handily able to do.

But I do make them roll for things that seem iffy.
While it does not always "bring something to the story" a lot of players really like it when their characters get a chance to shine in their niche.
Declaring "that's gonna add up to 31 on my persuasion check" makes some players really happy, and the subsequent description of a barkeeper letting them drink for free all night gives them a sense of accomplishment.

As a GM, you are always trying to strike some balance between the different playstyles of people at the table, and give them all satisfying moments.
The story-hounds who wants to hear awesome descriptions and see the plot play out, and their influences on it through RP are easy to satisfy, because what satisfies them is the same thing that I masturbate over in my shameful nerdy moments. You just rarely have a whole table of people like that.

>>50480517
All random lore that I spout on online forums is trademarked.
The reason halflings have never been wiped out by orcs is that gryphons fiercely defend their villages because they make the best brownies

>>50480606
...Shit, that's pretty good. I'll raise you
Humans in my setting are descended from shapeshifting giants who took 'human' form to better relate to elves and orcs- When part of humanity sided against the goddess of magic in a past war, most humans lost their powers and became 'mundane'. The 'human potential' and wide range of appearances spawns from this fact, as does some wild magical sorcery.

>>50480249
>>lol then an angel appears and attacks you
I refuse to believe that this GM exists. It’s just too stupid. Please tell me that this is just made up.

>>50480840
It's not. I played a mildly religious knight and at some points showed that he's religious. A fighter, but not a paladin.

>>50480861
Well, at leaste you left the game as you should. Damn, that GM sucked.

>>50479730
Urgh. Just secretly roll perception for them and tell what they see. Just don't fudge, fudging is for queers.

>>50459993
That one player I know who regardless of setting or system wants to play a half-x, half-elf, half-vampire whatever, but never something full blooded

I guess it's just minor things but they add up:

>be first time DM for group of 4 first timers and 5 experienced players
>never been a player myself
>use a pathfinder adventure path (RotR) and learn rules
>tell people to also learn their important character rules so that they can tell me when I don't know, like ranger explains survival skill, rogue explains sneaking etc.

>that 1 experienced player plays a Paladin
>his character is a 1.6 meter tall japanese girl with 19 strength, a zweihänder, blue eyes and blonde hair (he plays Saber or something, cause he's a weeb)
>never engages in non combat, except once he threatened his teasing party members with violence and once he suggested torturing Tsuto, a tragic backstory outcast, in prison to get informations
>oh and once he recited the green lantern prayer except changed for the setting
>he never read a single comic book in his life, he just likes the movie (yes)
>either wears a guild wars, captain america or iron man shirt (just movies, no comics)
>even though he has the most experience, he always "explains" rules but has a 50% chance of being right so it's always this awkward "well that does not seem reasonable to me, someone else check please" situation for me
>every single fucking time he rolls literally any attack he puts his d20 slowly into a cup, shakes for 3 seconds, puts down the cup, then opens the lid, looks at the die, goes "umm...I rolled a 13, so that's uhhhh, wait....it's uhhhhh hmmmmm 18? 19? Wait. It's 21. Yes. 21?"
>then he takes out the d20, and puts in his 2 d6. repeat previous shaking and calculating
>never prepares his move, always has to the think and consider for half a minute at least, even though he does nothing but hit things
>he min maxed his character to hell and back, while the rest has cluelessly build flavor characters
>still wanted to forgoe hit point rolling for always having max rolls each level up, so that he can ignore constitution and max damage more

wew lads

>>50481118
correction: 4 first timers and 1 experienced player

>have to retire a character due to any reason, though never without one
>GM goes out of his way to include the character into the rest of the campaign as a crucial NPC, often doing what the character would never do or is incapable of doing

The next time I have to drop a character I'll have him just commit suicide. I'm fucking sick of it. How the fuck a 6 int 7 wis paladin became a spymaster? Why the fuck my savage barbarian that despised civilization became a town guard captain? I don't fucking care what retarded bullshit you do behind the scenes, it's still retarded bullshit I don't care about.

>>50481118
>rolling like that
I'd call bullshit the first time and demanded to roll in the open. I mean, what sane GM would allow that.

>>50461265
It is the whole nature of "but muh nat 20" that makes me glad game systems like FFG's Star Wars exists, where things can go in so many more ways than just Success or Failure.

Fucking fight me about it.

>>50481118
I feel bad now, because I also roll with a cup, and I also hesitate when I declare rolls, 'cause I'm sorta slow.

The other players are always dropping dice off the table, or have their dice ending up resting against something and have to reroll.

>>50481210
I mean we can see his dice, and other players and me have told him to not do it, but he said "yeah but I want to do it".

Nobody has the strength to fight for anything, we are all still very overwhelmed by rules.

Though we do tell him to calculate everything for us while I crosscheck with the rulebook, since he started with a half plate but full movement range, no putting the armor on and off with help, and no deduction to skills since we didn't know about it and trusted his "experience". All of us play light/no armor characters, else we would have known faster.

>>50481228
I mean look, I understand important rolls teased out being a tense and cool thing, but for normal bullshit, please at least roll damage and attack at once, just in case, thanks.

Also he is REALLY slow in maths.

>>50481231
Well grow some balls and tell him to either roll properly and abide the rules or get the fuck out. It's Pathfinder, it will only get worse.

And, you yourself MUST learn ALL the basic rules by heart and enforce them if you want to GM. There's no other way.

>>50481266
Will enforce dice issue more.

Regarding rules, I know ALL the basic rules, but specific discriptions and difficulties for all the skills and every spell text is not really what you expect me know, is it? Also not every combat move, I have a trustworthy friend on the table that focused on combat moves and flanking and the like, deligating those questions to him works very well.

>>50459993
>constantly try to guess what's going to happen
>acting according to their theories instead of what actually happens
>investigation mission
>find first clue of dozens
>start to guess, trying to describe EVERYTHING, including NPCs motives and plans
>panicing when none of their fantasies is true
>OOC, of course

>>50481287
Well, you DO have to know them or at least have them in arm's reach and ready to look up in a couple of seconds.

Same for combat moves. That's kind of the central part of D&D, regardless of what some might say.

>players start asking OOC questions about the scenario
>answer with silence and just stare at them
>they start freaking out and decide to IC run away as far as possible from the location

>>50460102
I can usually do the math pretty okay, but we have someone at the table who's pretty much a human calculator, so we've started relying on him maybe a bit too much.

>>50461265
>roll a Nat 1 to shoot laser rifle (futuristic 3.5 reskin)
>DM "your weapon blows up!"
>happens so much I have to travel halfway across the galaxy finding components to make a rifle that doesn't explode
>character becomes a meme, drunk Russian space anthromorphic cat that blows up its own guns

I fucking hate it when DMS take Nat fails to the extreme. Just because I fuck up doesn't mean I stab myself.

>>50475403
They probably don't know what to tell you so they just tell you whatever wouldn't hurt your feelings.

>>50459993
>it's gonna be a werewolf isn't it?
FUCK OFF GRACE NOW I HAVE TO CHANGE IT REEEEEEEEEE

>>50475864
The evidence you presented was probably only obvious to yourself.

>>50460642
I had used to DM for a guy who would always act like a cocky little shit about damage until it actually started to add up.
>you take 20 damage
>Ooh 20 damage I'm /so/ scaaared.
>you take 5 damage
>Well looks like I'm almost dead thanks for aiming me DM
The worst part is that "almost dead" for him was about half health. It was honestly kinda satisfying to wipe that smug fucking look off his face, but the ensuing bitching was not worth it.

>>50459993
>wants to play a Dark Heresy game as raging atheist
>priests are crazy, admechs are stupid crazy
>prayers are useless, sanctified weapons are stupid
>trying to fuck up every ecclesiarchy figure he can, even managed to kill two or three
>keeps creating new characters because old ones dying or corrupting too fast
>keeps blaming 40k universe for being stupid and unrealistic
>keeps playing the game for some reasons

Guess he just have no places to go.

>>50470136
The first game I ever played was like this. The experience made me into a better GM though.

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>That one player who usually DMs because his brain is literally a sperg computer that can crunch monster HP and challenge rating tables without ever opening the book
>DMing for him is a living hell
>"Why isn't that monster dead Anon? By my estimate it can't possibly have that much HP, not at our level... This is bullshit."
>"My character walks away because he wouldn't logically care about this scenario." After I just offered him the chance to duel with his character's arch nemesis, the only such chance he might EVER get
>Tell the player okay, you can be stand offish and cool if you want, but there may be consequences for not meeting such an enemy in honorable combat... he's dishonorable, he may try to shank you later, etc.
>"Well you didn't try hard enough to immerse me in the world Anon, why should I care?"

I'm sorry not every setting is an elaborate self wank Game of Thrones ripoff like yours is, dude. Learn to buy into the fiction for more than 5 minutes instead of going "Nuh-uh, that's not what would REALLY happen, that's not how physics/psychology/blah blah works!" It's a goddamn fantasy realm, not your autismo train set goddammit. If you can't buy into the myth of our magical make believe role playing game without spending literal YEARS on prep work and monster encounters, what the fuck are you even doing playing the game?? Yes I mad.

>>50481563
>wiping the smug look off players' faces

DM'ing a 5e campaign lately. One of my PC's asked if he could be a Revenant Warlock, and I agreed because it seemed like it could add a whole bunch of flavor (one of the other PC's got said warlock killed by dumping stolen goods onto him and accusing him of the crime).

And then I realized he was powergaming because the revenant can't truly die, and if he does he just comes back the next day. So I made a deal with him, saying he could play this race, but would suffer from total amnesia (aside from bodily functions, language etc), and specifically told him his class abilities were more instinctual than knowledge based, meaning he wouldn't be able to initially cast anything at will and would instead roll off a table ALA wild magic (table consists of his current "known" spells), until he learned how to control said power. He had no issues with this.

Until we hit combat and wanted to cheese the encounter and instead shattered the party's eardrums on accident.

>>50481702
>as a raging atheist
>in a setting where the existence of gods is not only not up for debate but said gods are trying to run ramshod over humanity at every given opportunity
>and the Emperor might actually be a deity at this point
Seems dumb desu.

>>50481919
Didn't finish my thought, fucking tired brain.
I mean, it doesn't even sound like an interesting character concept after the first few attempts. Once maybe, two fine, three means you need to create a new character.

>>50481749
Are you mad cos you bad though?

Is your setting not immersive? Could you be a better storyteller?

>>50477193
Last 2 don't seem too strange

>>50481702
I really don't get people like this, are they just stupid or contrarian? Or both?

>>50476228
Pass a note instead of telling.

>>50482140
Online game.
Fuckers just copypaste.

Only think I can think of is to make a specialized website that deletes content after it's viewed, but they'd still just screenfuckingshot it and post a fucking imgur link.

>>50476228
This is a really autistic thing to complain about.

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>>50481919
>the emperor might be a deity
>might
>MIGHT

>>50470350
Tfw the player who insists on playing CHR characters can't string a sentence together without stuttering or stumbling or skipping words
Tfw you take the lead on an important RP moment to give your heartfelt appeal and the DM lifts an eyebrow and says "roll diplomacy"

>>50482177
Did you try to ask them to alter it so that they know it pisses you off?

>>50482432
OH MY GOD SO FUCKING THIS

It's even worse when you roll piss poor after a long speech you wrote and rehearsed specifically for the moment.

>>50482432
>TFW as the DM you have decent ideas and a general idea of how a conversation should go between PC's and the NPC but you fuck up/stutter/mix up words because you're a slight sperg.

It pisses me off so much. I can do conversations between low level NPCs and party members fine, innkeepers, commoners etc. But the moment I throw in a figure of authority I get flustered.

>>50478976
The second one is a class feature of Archivists, and sounds like a lot of fun to use.

>>50460642
The oppposite as a player bothers me too.

> Went to talk to mob boss who wants me dead
> Discussions going south
> Get fired upon but am still pretty healthy
> Have chance to escape
> Realize theres a chance to take the mob boss out right here right now
> Extremely risky
> Decide to go for it
> Fuck up a few rolls, get beat the fuck up
> Oh well it's been a good run, that was a fair dea-
> "You wake up on a boat"

I fucked up, I did something really reckless and I have trouble coming up with any reason why this guy would keep me alive. I should be dead. I don't like feeling like my actions have no consequences, I'm mature enough to handle it.

>>50478490
>> Stall sessions weeks in a row by not showing up
>> Drop them temporarily until they get their shit sorted out and a decent internet connection
>> Suddenly 'busy' all the time.
>> Bitch, I told you why I had to drop you. The other players were kicking up a fuss over the lack of game.
You postponed the game for weeks just because one player couldn't make it? What the fuck is wrong with you?

>>50483636
Can't run a party with two people. And it's not that they 'couldn't make it', they just no-showed. Repeatedly. Starts were delayed until I found out if they were going to turn up or not, sometimes until another player ran out of time.

>>50483739
>Can't run a party with two people.
Sure you can, just give them NPCs they can control.

>>50482504
Yes. They just copy/pasted it in the OOC channel instead of the IC channel. Then when I bitched about that they copy/pasted it in PMs.

>>50481479
This actually happened so often for me, that it just turned into a running joke.

The DM eventually dropped the rule, but still ahd my weapon "explode" when I rolled a Nat 1, but the weapon itself was hobbled together piece of shit that he could just stick back together really quickly, so it was just flavor more than anything else.

>>50483908
I'd do it just to fuck with you, sperg.

>>50483962
Agreed. All it does is slow down a game, forcing them to retype shit when they mostly just want to share that info anyway.

Text games are slow enough. Don't slow them down more by being a sperg over nothing.

>>50475864
There are many good reasons why investigators need training to do their jobs. Unless your friends actually are detectives, don't expect them to have the OOC skills or mindset needed to solve murder mysteries.

>>50481702
It seems like the emperor would like him.
Emperor hated that religion shit.

>>50479081
The key is, you don't say "I roll a spot check", you say "<PC_Name> examines the suspicious area".

Basically, describe what thought or action you want your character to take, not the game statistic you want to use.

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>>50484036
I disagree, at least in games that are heavy on roleplaying. If the players just want a dungeon crawl to throw their stat blocks at, that's fine, but if you are playing a character you should try to stay in character. It gives opportunities to flesh out your character more by deciding which parts of the information are important right now, what the rest of the party doesn't need to know, and doing it in their "voice" can be interesting.

I once saw a player with a young character who had high knowledge skills, and would sometimes turn the core information the DM gave them into a rhyme, then supplement it if asked for details. Fluffwise, the character had mnemonic devices to help remember stuff and used rhymes because they were young.

It's the same thing as the dickass thief getting a note with the treasure they found, or the wizard stumbling across a corrupting artifact, and deciding whether or not to tell the party the whole truth. Roleplaying opportunities, mang.

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>start game
>one member of usual gaming group doesn't want in
>game continues for a year
>player wants in now
>alrighty, roll up a character
>rolls a joke character with a meme name
This mentality is why every game you join in dies after two sessions you fuckwit.

>>50484860
Before this turns into a shitshow I'd like to butt in and say I agree with you on most of that

>>50481547
Yeah, except the person they thought was the culprit was the conductor of a different train than the first train to go by.

By their logic the culprit of the crimes happening would have to be the conductor of every single train that passed through the area. I'm sorry, but even accounting for the possibility that the other options were a bit opaque, there's not fucking reason to immediately assume there is some criminal empire of conductors running rampant through the countryside, rather than someone in the town who is jumping onto the train, doing crimes, then jumping back off.

>>50484860
>if you aren't doing this specific small thing then you aren't a true roleplayer
There is no middleground with spergs like you. Fuck off.

>>50464835
Not to mention the monsters' numerical advantage.

>>50480090
If there's chances for both failure and success, 1 is auto fail and 20 is auto succeed, and criticals or whatever are applied where necessary.
If there is no chance for one of those ends but the roll still determines what happens like trying to cast a powerful spell you know you can't cast yet, especially in a setting with wild surges.

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>>50484960
That's not what I said, though. You seem to be making a couple assumptions.

What's the huge issue with filtering information through the lens of your character?

>>50485022
Ah fuck i'm tired
- if a roll will not succeed but can determine how badly you fail and you still want to do it, go for the roll.

>>50476228
This can actually be a serious problem on the rare occasion that the DM just tells the whole table what a character learned, and the player then decided to withhold information...that the DM just stated to the whole table. If anyone, out of character, says "why are you being a dick about this?" then they're METAGAMING STOP METAGAMING YOU DON'T KNOOOOOW!!

A DM who passes notes constantly can avoid suspicion to a point, but I honestly want the party members to be the sole benefactor of information they have to roll for, since like you said, it's not fun or interesting to hear a player just repeat something verbatim or give a
Yeah What He Said.

It's easier online when you can PM players, but at a physical table you'd either have to pass notes or make sure everyone has a fucking screen you can message them at, which consumes quite a bit of table space, and basically means that SOMEONE is facebooking at any given moment.

>>50485033
>If the players just want a dungeon crawl to throw their stat blocks at, that's fine
>but if they are playing a character they should do this thing I'm sperging about

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>>50485067
>Deliberately leaving out key words while paraphrasing

I never said you had to do it or that not doing was always wrong, that's merely you assuming things. All I actually said was that you could try to roleplay the character that you're roleplaying. If you don't it's not a problem, it's just slightly irksome. Perhaps the dungeon crawl example was too extreme, but this is a thread about stuff that annoys you. Copy/pasting a big block of text with no effort except to put quotation marks around it can be annoying.

You're not wrong to do it, but I can see how it would bug a GM.

>>50485067
>>50484960
>everyone I disagree with is a sperg

Not that guy, but this is some stupid bullshit. Wanting your players to organically share, or choose not to share, information among themselves is a totally valid desire for a DM or player.

Fuck, I've had plenty of moments where I thought the campaign would be more fun the player didn't fuck up a knowledge roll and immediately shout "I DON'T KNOW FUCK ABOUT THIS!"

To further add to >>50484860's point, I think there are times where the DM should be the one to roll certain checks on behalf of the player, like perception or certain int checks, where the player might behave differently with the metagame knowledge of how bad their roll was. That way, when that player receives information, they might be forced to take it with a grain of salt, perhaps with a small hint from the DM that "You're not entirely confident in this information"

That way, even what they choose to share with the party is subjective and not 100% reliable, and gives other players the opportunity to think of whether they believe the information is trustworthy, instead of just looking down at said player's nat 20 and going "YUP HE'S RIGHT!"

>>50483766
Not him, but would Only War be a good one for a party of two+GM, what with the comrades?

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>>50485218
> I think there are times where the DM should be the one to roll certain checks on behalf of the player, like perception or certain int checks, where the player might behave differently with the metagame knowledge of how bad their roll was. That way, when that player receives information, they might be forced to take it with a grain of salt, perhaps with a small hint from the DM that "You're not entirely confident in this information"

Honestly the best roleplaying experience I've ever had was when my pop was still DMing. We never rolled any dice, he did all the rolling for us. It was a very nice and organic way of roleplaying.

But this is probably me being personally biased, even though my own style of DMing is different.

>>50476067
Read the whole thing in there voices

>>50485293
The extent to which a DM could or should roll on behalf of the players is highly subjective. It depends on the DM's style, and the Players, as well as the level of actual roleplay going on. If it's a case of the aforementioned "throw statblock at ___" then the player should roll everything, since it's less roleplay and more "rollplay."

One thing my old DM did which really annoyed me, however, was in cases of fairly low rolls by players, sometimes even rolls like 5 to 7, rather than offering any actual information or lack thereof, would make smarmy comments and generally insult the players for rolling low.

Rolled a 3 on an int check to see if you know anything about some legendary sword? "The pointy end goes in the bad guy."

Rolled a 5 to see what you know about the Tome of MacGuffin? "You're pretty sure it's a book!"

Unless you're rolling a 1, you should never get nothing from making the conscious decision to roll. Even if what you get isn't very useful, like "The sword was made by the elves" or "The Tome is considered evil" or some pointless trivia about the person, place that doesn't actually point to its location.

Belittling a player for catching the short end of the Dice God's mercy is the sign of a bad DM.

>>50480107
In 5e royal guards are legendary creatures, use the stats.

>>50469790
Sense Motive is a great example of a social skill that aids roleplay, rather than hindering it. A properly done SM roll can help players pick up whether an NPC is a red herring or not, give them hints down proper lines of inquiry, and make up for social skills deficits on a DM or players parts. The way I tend to use it is tell them they "can't tell" if they rolled low, tell them vauge answers if they succeeded, and call out an NPC's reactions to certain questions if they pass the check with gusto. If an NPC rolls a bluff check or they fail I'll also tell them that "as far as you can tell" they're saying something at face value. These examples apply to lying obviously, but the basic principle can be used in all sorts of situations where an NPC has ulterior motives. It's basically an in game hints system that doesent actually determine results.

>>50485432
Well, like I said, it's a lot of personal bias on my end. I just really enjoyed the simple fact it was a lot more roleplay based and less "I'm going to use X skill"

>>50485635
I actually like the term I used before, defining TTRPG as a broad spectrum between "Roleplay" and "Rollplay"

Simply being told when you succeed or fail based on a diceroll can be a purer roleplay experience, and it offers the DM the chance to subtly fudge the numbers where needed.

I don't think there's any argument when I say that there are times when the DM NEEDS to be able to fudge a roll or two, either to make things more interesting or pull someone's fat out of the fire. That doesn't mean they should do it all the time, as that cheapens the experience, but those times do come up.

>>50482177
>online game

Faggot, just use roll20's GM whisper or a Pm.

>>50459993
>"Can I play a girl?"
It's not the fact that you want to play a girl man. I'm cool with that, honestly.
It's not the fact that you ALWAYS play a girl. Really. I'm also fine with that, everyone have a preference.
It's the fact that you ALWAYS make it sexual.
Dude, stop.

>>50485587
Found the stats on D&D wiki, I'll look them over. Thanks.

>>50486170
If you need to ask if its cool, and its something you do every single time, I'm fairly sure you know, on some level, that it's not cool.

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>>50486170
Look, if the others get to play in bandit offal and prose purple about the ongoings of their enemy's guts, I'm gonna find my own entertainment by being a slut

>>50486290
You don't have to do it with the other party members, though. In the bandit offal. With the graphic descriptions and everything.

The sound effects really don't help. Nor do the hand gestures/

>>50483083
I'm guessing time has passed since then, and you weren't allowed to wake up just so you'd be conscious as your concrete shoes and you went for a swim?

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>>50486170
Not entirely valid to this thread since its something the GM did but:
>Playing a slave in a game based in !Arabia
>Basically Moses, prophet of his people, but actually a slave instead of BFFs with the Pharaoh
>LE as fuck, plan to enact glorious genocide on the ruling species given half the chance
>GM points out that technically my race are more powerful than the ruling race, asks how they keep us in line
>Dunno, strict control over breeding I guess? Eunuchs were a thing right?
>Yep, totally a thing
>Right, grand, guess I'm a Eunuch then, it'll give the other PCs a way to gain my loyalty at least instead of me being the sudden, inevitable betrayer
>LEL, YOU'RE PLAYING A EUNUCH? WHAT KINDA MAGICAL REALM SHIT IS THAT
NIGGA YOU AND I JUST AGREED MOST SLAVES WERE EUNUCHS, WHAT KINDA CRACKWEEDMUSHROOMS ARE YOU SMOKING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME KEEPING IN LINE WITH ESTABLISHED SETTING CANON.

>>50487191
People's need to sexualize everything and anything should never be underestimated.

My character in my latest game was a nearly identity-less slave, who was signed over by contract to be the property of one of the other players. Kinda "unsullied"-style, but not a eunuch or anything.
Just a backstory we made up together. Both thought it was fucking cool, he had pre-agreed hypnotic command words, that would make my character instantly back whatever he was saying, or do specific things, and it was all just fun.
His character was a megalomaniac who had a wildly inflated sense of ego, but was a coward at heart. It was good dynamic.

Until of course people started talking about "cucking" and "subbing" and holy-fucking-christ.
It's a game, not a metaphor for my goddamn sexuality.

>>50460102
>letting your players roll for anything but hit points

shamefur dispray

>>50485417
Their*

>>50485044
One of our alt DM's has been trying to get us into PMing via Discord on our phones, but then theres the one guy who gets bored if is his character isnt involved for more than 30 sec and starts playing youtube on speaker

>>50487669
>Having players

You dun fucked up.

>>50488118
"Turn that shit off, you rude cunt."

Ain't that hard.

>>50485044
>SOMEONE is facebooking at any given moment.
My DM useses texts and facebook messenger.

It's a little more subtle then hand written notes, which I like.

>>50471799
Because /b/ and/or /v/ stopped slowly leaking into /tg/ last week and just outright took the place over. Don't bother arguing with anyone here anymore, it's just a retarded "hurr we've always been retards thats how u know i have always been here faget lel kek" stuff.
Your best bet is giving this board a month break or so. They'll lose interest when they stop getting reaction images.

>>50486170
Maybe your player is a tranny.

>>50487021
That's what I'd do, if I didn't want at tpk.
Maybe have a single player wake up before, and have to decide between playing dead to recuperate a bit, or trying to do something.