ITT: We vent about recent problems in tabletop

>>53958866
>Players make snap judgment about other characters or courses of action.
>About half the time, they turn out to be wrong as fuck, largely because they made these decisions before getting any relevant information.
>Of course, they will NEVER revise their initial assessments in light of new information.

>>53958866
>hooks to adapt to player motives and desires
>Tell me about your character, player A
Something doesn't add up. How you designed character specific hooks without even knowing the race of a character?

>>53958906
"hooks to adapt" is future tense, I assume he wrote the skeletons of these hooks and intended to flesh them out once he'd learned about the PCs

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>>53958866
>run a short dialogue and roleplay-heavy arc revolving around solving a mystery about a couple of missing people
>one player takes charge and is the first to respond to everything and dominates play
>the rest of the players are slow to respond and reluctant to participate even when I have NPCs directly address their characters

>that one player can't show up for one session of the arc
>game's pace stumbles and drags because nobody is willing to step up, even without the domineering player there to steal the spotlight

I can't win with these people.

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>find a discord for a game I've been jonesing to try
>nobody is running any campaigns yet
>fuck it, I'll run a shitty casual campaign to inspire others to get some groove on
>several of the players who joined the campaign are continuously dramatic over minor things

If it was just one it wouldn't be so bad, but every session a new issue comes up.

>>53958866
I've recently got a new job. I have no idea whether I'm going to be able to turn up to my regular Saturday night sessions, let alone doing it on time.

>Play 4e
>One party member can't make it, we choose to give his character to a different party member to control in combat
>That person was more effective with the character than the actual character's player ever has been, using their powers in unique ways and making use of feats the player's never even mentioned because he forgot about them
>I just assumed he made some weird character choices or something because he was being so bad at everything
>Don't want to tell the actual character's player hes been playing like shit for 3 months now

>>53958866
>not discussing with your players what's important to them before starting the campaign

QUIT MAKING EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER THE SAME SMARMY ASSHOLE THAT DOESN'T CARE ABOUT TORTURE OR EMOTIONS

QUIT HAVING SOME MEME ANIMAL BE PART OF YOUR CHARACTER

>>53958866
> I JUST WANT A GAME THAT HAS SOME DEPTH NOT JUST YOU FUCKS WANDERING FROM DUNGEON TO DUNGEON WATCHING NUMBERS STACK UP
Don't play DnD, then.

>>53961687
>That guy who gives every character something to do with a wolf and then tries to say he isnt a furry
Yeah ok buddy we totally believe you

>>53961603
Was my subconscious posting while I was asleep?

>>53958900
This sounds like an "everything" problem, not just tabletop.

>>53961697
For this guy it was bears. Bogged down the game with autistic arguments about how much bear food cost. Got irritated once because people were afraid of said bear as he brought it into a tavern.

>>53961761
Oh speaking of bears

No you can't make sir bearington

STOP JUST ROLLING DICE FOR NO REASON

TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT TO DO AND I'LL TELL YOU TO ROLL SOMETHING

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>he talks over everyone else
>during combat, every turn is his turn, even when it's my gm's turn
>makes unoptimized munchkin characters
Help

>>53959115
Holy fuck, are you me?

>unusually be a quite character who try to just put in appropriate suggestions. (Normally get ignored, but not always) then follow our lead characters.
>Join new group and end up being the lead and second loudest.
>Lose our loudest. Soon to lose me.
I try very very hard to get this new group to speak up and role play and lead. But by today they will literally let the campaign come to a full halt because they almost refuse to talk and when they do they avoid any form of communication.

>>53965871
Fucking this

niggas just start talking our GM is super forgiving with conversations especially because he knows you're new you're not going to fuck the entire game up

STOP TRYING TO WEASEL OUT OF ANYTHING EVEN MINORLY NEGATIVE THAT HAPPENS TO YOUR CHARACTER SHIT FUCK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>>53965929
>Group decides it'd be a funny idea to threaten the skysmith's daughter with bodily mutilation with a weapon to her neck because the kid were just doing the dumb kid thing of asking too many questions
>get mad when the skysmith tells them to fuck off he won't repair their airship
>we were just joking anon stop being so serious
>told them session 0 it was a serious campaign
>game ended with them bitching that I'm railroading them even though the city is filled with other people who can repair their ship, though it'll take longer or won't be as high of a quality

Fuck players yo

>>53966023
Fuck man, it's not even like that. I'm talking that every failed attack roll comes with 15 minutes of bargaining with/attempting to bribe/bitching to the GM.

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>>53966023
>If I was in that group I'd have come up with the brilliant idea of threatening the skysmith if he did not repair our airship.
>We'll just keep threatening people until it comes full circle.
>Or hell, make a bluff check and say you thought his daughter was a morphling or something. We're adventurers, we see that kind of shit.

>Bored of friends DnD, despite being not the best, willing to GM a game of Only War, get 3 people I know
>One person completely dodges any social interactions and seems only half interested in game proper, the other didnt even read the rulebook and takes ages to take any action whatsoever. Game dies after 3 sessions.

>Year later
>Bored out of mind on DnD and friends dumb houserules, willing to give it another shot. Grab 2 new guys who are actually into the setting and the guy who was solid last time.
>One guy completely chimps out after in 10 minutes I cannot give him an in-depth answer as to how would you go about crafting complex things as a tech-priest and tell him he is unlikely to magic himself high-end gear while in the field. Starts shit talking me in front of others before we even get to regiment creation. Game dies before it even started.
I just want to play something wihtout "le ebin disadvantage on shooting because something is in melee"

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>DM talks about how much he plans
>Clear he's just running by the seat of his pants
>I'm playing a bard and any social interaction beyond pulling teeth
>another player dares to interact with environment and is rewarded by being buried under DM Fiat instant death. No rolls, no saves, no damage. Just "you should roll up a new character now"
>Has told me he hasn't cracked a book in months for his season planning
>Walls off areas with limitless, insurmountable enemies
>Incapable of planning a combat encounter with any more depth than one strong enemy or a horde of smaller ones
>Often misquoted, misunderstands, or simply doesn't know the rules (Biggest example being that he thought that all rituals in 4e took literal hours to cast when in reality the longest cap out around a single hour)

Holy shit just read the rules. Read a module so you know how to set things up. Give your NPC's names. Do something to show us you are capable of higher cognitive function. I'm almost thankful work is going to get in the way of me showing up.
Probably going to start my own game if I can get my friends to agree on another day

>Group has game ADHD and is constantly talking about starting up three different new campaigns when we can just barely run one consistently though that one game's been pretty fun desu
>I'm also totally guilty of this and have a few campaign ideas knocking around
>Don't have the time or energy to learn the several more systems it would take to run/play these games effectively

Fresh from last night
>My group usually does high fantasy or urban fantasy games
>However, we have a tradition where towards the start of Summer, I run a horror one shot, been calling it "Dead Teenagers." Generally inspired by 80's horror movies.
>They love those one shots, to the point that the villains I use for them end up being long running in jokes for the group.
>Last night was "Dead Teenagers 4"
>Loosely based it on "Night of the Creeps", they are partying at a cabin in the woods, meteor strikes, strange alien goop makes zombies, brains get eaten.
>Start later than usual, and between being tired from work that day and how late we started, I regretfully kinda phone it in.
>They still have fun, so, it's okay.
>After the session, they chat with me about the game for abit.
>Tells me it wasn't going in they was they expected.
>On the way to the cabin, I had them pass by a church witb the sign reading "Repent now! The end is near." And mentioned how it wasa crazed snake handling my d of church, and the pastor creeped them out the one time they met him.
>They thought he was going to be the villain, and the zombies were going to be his doing.
>I'm a religious studies major, with a focus on cults.

I COULD'VE DONE SOMETHING CREEPY AND AWESOME, BUT NO, STANDARD SHOOT IN THE HEAD ZOMBIES! I am so disappointed in myself

>>53966346
at least you had a shot. I don't even have people to play with. Such sad. no war...

>>53959115
I fuckin know that feel. Have two groups. One is made of college buddies, others are brother's gang. College guys have shitloads of initiative, discuss strategies etc.
With my bro's gang:
>So where do you choose to go?
> ... *collective shrugging and bug eyes*
> yoooou cooooould goooo to the scene of the crime to investigate?
> "yeah, sure, that sounds good"
swear to god I feel like a tour guide in those moments.

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>Run a game for over a year
>Get tired of GMing, and ask the other players if they'd be willing to run something in the mean time
>Cue almost a year of nothing that lasts longer than 5-6 session.
>Want to die

The latest one has been the worst.
>Player who hasn't gm'd before going to GM
>Seems really excited, keeps coming to me for advice and stuff, which is great.
>Can't start right way, due to scheduling and shit, so the game is going to be on a month delay
>2 weeks before its slated to start
>"I'd really rather be a player, can we try to find someone else to GM this?"

I think I need a new group, but I'm terrified meeting new people, and my experience in gamefinder threads have people being even more flakey.

>>53966860
>I am so disappointed in myself
You can't perform at peak efficiency all of the time. One of the keys to being a good GM is not getting upset with yourself when you could have done better. I'm a perfectionist, so it took me a good while to learn this one. You just gotta shrug it off and look towards the future.

>>53966939
Could be that you're encouraging this behavior and don't realize it...

>playing in friends campaign, I usually am Forever DM so I'm willing to put up with just about anything
>his campaign apparently has an overarching plot, but its a secret what that plot is and we're supposed to "piece it together as we play" like a mystery novel
>he gives almost no direction whatsoever, expecting us to read his mind about where the incredibly obscure "clues" as to what to do are. It's like playing the D&D version of a 90s point and click adventure game.
>if we just say screw it and go try to do something off-script, we always get massively chumped out and destroyed by powerful enemies and insurmountable challenges
>not wanting to be The Three Stooges any longer constantly being humiliated, but also unable to figure out what to do, we just turtle up and wait for him to get frustrated and reveal what he wanted us to do all along

We've talked about it and it's since been more or less resolved but could you unconsciously be doing something like this, punishing them for going off the rails and making them scared to try anything?

>>53967146
Admittedly, I'm just beating myself over something minor, since they all still had fun last night. That said, I will put the necromantic fire and brimstone preacher on file and save it for another game.

"And so the grave will release the dead, and all shall be judged."

>character keeps dying due to the dice
>I've been brought back 7 times now
>no longer feel like a hero, just feel like a waste of space
>just want to play a different character but DM is strongly against changing characters when you're waist deep in the story

>>53967559
>just want to play a different character but DM is strongly against changing characters when you're waist deep in the story
Fuck this so hard. Leave my man, it ain't worth it. I was in the same situation just a few months ago, and let me tell you something, I felt great to be out. It was a little sad because I put some work into alternative characters only for the GM to shoot me down anyway, but given he wasn't letting me change in the first place that was no big loss.

>>53967559
Play it up as the Kenny of the group?

>>53967559
I've been trying to get my DM to understand that we play D&D to feel like cool badass heroes, and he doesn't get it. Insists on the campaign being brutal and gritty and realistic, emphasizing how insignificant and powerless our characters are constantly

>>53958866
>run a weekly game at my FLGS for some kids
>game says online that it'll run for three hours
>one kid has to leave after two hours and tries to get me to skip to the boss fight so he can get whatever treasure there is
>every fuckin' week

>>53967612
I've the same problem really, my friend decided that despite having no experience with any rpgs, hell insert "realistic" houserules in his first go. Nerfs on shooting attacks all around, you dont normally heal outside of dice, which never come back unless you spend a week doing literally nothing (and we never have the time, there is always an artificial doomsday clock). Healing potions are incredibly shit, cost an arm and a leg despite loot not really being a thing until recently. If you are downed and get healed your turn is skipped.
Last two years were spent complaining that our characters are mostly based around spells and interactions that allow us not to get hit much.
Since the campaign started as a bit more episoding kind of a thing he went through at least over a dozen people, none of which though the houserules fit the game very well.

It was my first game of DnD despite knowing about the system for ages beforehand, but I really have to agree that this system doesnt do realism whatsoever and probably shouldnt be treated like it should/can. That and houseruling a ton when you don't know the system and because some experienced grognards did that on some RPG show is a truly bad idea.

>>53958900
>Players make snap judgment about other characters or courses of action.
>About half the time, they turn out to be wrong as fuck, largely because they made these decisions before getting any relevant information.

My latest character has that exact trait as his primary character flaw and his habit of wading into situations and immediately forming opinions actually largely steered the campaign.

Of course he would admit he was wrong when he found evidence to the contrary and those moments have been really good RP moments.

Some examples from the campaign we have:

>Initially campaigned against a persistent bandit group only to realize they were a rebel force trying to take down an awful racist tyrant, so we joined them and took down the tyrant.

>Concluded that fey were essentially soul eating cosmic horrors (thanks to repeated hag encounters) and had quite a few aggressive run-ins with faeries before we met a good fey that managed to convince him some fey are good (or at least not evil)

>>53967872
I don't understand the appeal of trying to make a tabletop game "realistic" or "hard" anyway...

If I wanted to feel like an insignificant, unimportant person who struggles to do anything of note I'd just go outside.

>>53967623
Talk to the group and maybe drop it to two hours?

>>53961687
>QUIT HAVING SOME MEME ANIMAL BE PART OF YOUR CHARACTER
This.

>>53961761
It's always bears or wolves.

>>53968238
Or drop the guy who has to jet. 2 hours is so short, it's hardly worth it, especially considering that it's unlikely to all be game time.

>>53968002
That's not nearly as retarded, and it's only restricted to one character.

Meanwhile ,in m campaign.

>Party heads to this one little town.
>Everyone in town is acting all weird
>Players don't know this at first, but an evil wizard has connected his soul to each and every person in the town, whcih gives him not quite outright mind control, but a huge amount of influence over everyone.
>All the townsfolk talk about how great their "Lord Protector" is, and how they don't need any other defense, and all live in peace and harmony. I was going for a very Stepfordish sort of climate.
>Instead, players take these guys at their word
>The Lord Protector really is an upright, honest, good guy.
>And sure, he might be assembling this arcane rod in the center of town for purposes unknown. And that same rod might be giving off an aura that pings the detect evil radar like a mofo, bu he's a NICE guy, so he clearly has a good reason for doing so.
>The original plan was supposed to be about how he blackmails them and they're going to either bite the bullet and just kill him (which would severely fuck up everyone in the town), or try to outsmart him and come up with a way of getting him to let his guard down, release the villagers before striking.
>Instead, they gullibly get all the pieces he needs to make his Doom Rod, at which point he massacres the entire town (don't need those fucks anymore) and heads off to places unknown for purposes unknown, while the players stand openmouthed at how it all happened.

>>53968462

They seem awfully gullible. So it sounds like this was a good learning experience for your players.

Always find out why they want the spooky Doom Rod parts!

>>53968238
There's not a set group, there's just a rotating group of middle schoolers who show up (i.e. get dropped off by their shitty parents) every Saturday and the owner asked me if I could run herd on them so that they stop getting under people's feet. I get paid for it so I can't complain but will anyways because goddamn I hate children.

I'll give you an example:
>running a story where in the PCs have been hired to guard a group of settlers on a ship during it's week long voyage
>the cook dies from 'getting his throat cut syndrome'
>they meet with the captain who wants them to investigate subtly to keep the settlers from panicking
>the first reaction from one kid is 'I loot the kitchen and steal all the onions!'

>>53968853
To be honest, I hadn't planned that far ahead; I thought that no matter what they did, they wouldn't let him get away with his blatantly obvious schemes. Now I have to come up with something suitably nasty, but I'll have something ready for the time they cross paths again.

And yeah, it's not so much gullibility; it's that they always seem to go with wahtever their first impression is. The first time they heard about the Lord Protector was from a blacksmith under his mental thrall who endlessly talked about how great he was. That made a positive impression, and nothing else they ran into later, like anyone in the town with enough mental fortitude to resist his control (if not the soul-linking) saying what a horrible bastard he was meant anything. After all, they're just malcontents, you have a few in every town.

>>53968975
Lol. Sounds like they're children who want to act like silly children, imagine that. Sorry these ADHD kids don't want to take your super serious game super seriously

>>53969148
Okay, fair point. I'm a bit of a grouchy old man in that regard. But when this sort of hyjinks makes the game go long and then the parents come up to me afterwards and tell me how rude I am because they had to wait thirty minutes for me to wrap up the story it's hard for me to be a model of neutrality and understanding.

>>53967612
As a GM, I don't give a fuck why you play system X. You don't like the basic premise of the campaign, you leave. You're not entitled to get your way.

>>53961812
>unoptimized munchkin characters

I humbly request more details as that makes no sense to me.

>>53969341
>badwrongfun is not allowed at MY table

>>53969502
I run MY game MY way for MY own enjoyment. You adapt to me, or you find somewhere else to play.

Elsewise, you're welcome to be the one who does all the work, and GM yourself.

>>53969253
Try making something that plays to their strengths instead?

>>53969605
Hahah holy fuck

>>53968975
I agree with >>53969634, I think you may want to either dumb down your games or make something more relatable to small children, or both. They could be behaving ridiculously because they are kids, or because they aren't invested in the game.

You might even want to forgo planning in favor of improvisation. For example, as they run to steal the onions they encounter a rat man, who is taking all the onions for himself. Now that bit of ridiculousness becomes an important plot point.

>>53961777
>No you can't make sir bearington

or any meme characters you read up on teegee.

I don't know what it was, but about 3 months ago there was a period of about 2 weeks where almost every new player wanting to join my group was rolling some fucking Old Man Henderson rip off.

>>53969148
Eh it's still the same when playing with 30 something's

>>53969634
>>53969840
I'd run something improvisational but I have a time limit and can't just leave things to spin out. Maybe you didn't notice the thing about their moms getting all pissed at me which means that my boss then has to come have a talk with me. These people are treating the store like a daycare and I'm left to find something to keep the kids from running around in the parking lots trying to get into fights (which they have done). They show up, don't spend any money and leave trash all over the damn place. I'd break their scrawny fucking necks like so many goddamn chickens if I thought I could get a jury that wouldn't convict.

>>53969425
Not him, but I imagine he's talking about the type of player that looks up builds and ability combinations on optimization forums but doesn't understand how the abilities work together.

Or he could be the type of player who doesn't fully read abilities and willfully misinterprets them, like a guy I knew who tried to take levels in both barbarian and monk in D&D 5e so he could add both Wisdom and Constitution to his AC, even though both Unarmored Defense class features point out that they don't work together.

>>53969980
Time limit.
Run Paranoia.
Do timed missions, like "There's a bomb going off!"

>>53958866
>spend weeks building world, designing recurring NPCs, and hooks to adapt to player motives and desires
>never once bother to touch base with your players to discuss their characters and help them fit into the world
I mean, this one was kind of your fault.

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>>53968031
The idea is to make the achievements feel like you worked for them. If success is easy in a game it probably isn't rewarding, you wan't to optimize that 'by the skin of their teeth' success rate in players, the best victory is a phyrric victory where they just barely made it out alive. Long rests at my table are 7 days, short rests are 1 day, and thats just because I want my players to strategize their moves and not be able to take a nap in the dungeon to refill their hp. Its not because 'realism', thats a side effect, but its mostly because I just want my players to crawl to the finish line but to also be able to say that they overcame something worthy of feeling accomplished about.

Realism in D&D is overrated, but its still a potentially valuable part of a campaign constructed around it.

>>53970002
The owner insists that I run 5e D&D because if someone in the store runs D&D on a Friday or Saturday every week he gets free shit. I'd gripe about having to run D&D but that's a different story (nothing against the system, I'm just tired of it).

>>53970047
Then do timed missions.

>>53970074
But then there's not room for improve because I have to railroad them along on the time limit or else we'll get caught up in trying to steal poisoner's kits and selling them back to the people they stole them from or stealing onions or throwing potatoes at the hag's cottage or finding an enchanter to enchant all their equipment (and arguing over costs) or buying horses (and arguing over costs) or whatever new shit they come up with.

>>53970166
No? If they fail, it all blows up. The end. Sucks for them.

>>53970018
>the best victory is a Pyrrhic victory where they just barely made it out alive

But every single time? That's what I'm complaining about, is that there's never even once an opportunity for us to just stomp our enemies or totally outwit an opponent. It almost feels like playing a video game against an opponent that cheats, where no matter how good our plan there will always be a group of enemies 1 level higher than us right around the corner, or no matter how high we roll the enemies will have rolled 1 higher.

I wish he'd listen to our complaints that there be a little more balance and indulge the party every once in a while. Like, why are the town guards always 3 levels higher than us no matter where we go?

>>53969425
>>53969984
Yeah, stuff like this. It's a huge pain in the ass because someone makes a two-dimensional characters that's based around a single idea, and then the idea doesn't work. One of mine asked for a new character because of that, but I let him, because his original character was crap in every way.

Still, you get a munchkin without any of the actual combat capability. It keeps them more in line with the rest of the party, but somehow it's still something you can't really respect.

On the other hand, builds that use munchkin logic to make something that shouldn't be viable actually work are fine.

>>53970216
Yeah, not every single time. Its just climaxes that should be like that. It sounds like he's arbitrarily rough, guards usually should be pretty damn Yamcha tier in power level and should only be a threat in even fights during early levels. Late game if guards are a problem it would be because someone assembled an army of them.

If he likes 'Realism' bring up that its not realistic for guards to be so powerful. If he still maintains his position, then he likely actually just wants everything to be hard because hes a sadist or something. I couldn't see how he thinks thats fun to play against, personally.

>>53970175
Did that twice. A single character died and he got pissed off enough and raised a big enough stink that I had to retcon it. The other time a monastery burned down and they didn't get the treasure and they were all griping next week and demanding a bigger treasure in case they 'fell behind'. I can't just say 'sucks for them' because then they don't have fun.

The system I've found that works for them but is incredibly dull for me is to just throw a shit ton of magical items at a every single player and then just sit back as they engage in the whole sale slaughter of whatever enemy I set up against them. There's no longer a question of 'will they be in any danger' but instead 'will any enemies survive beyond a round or two'. Their munchkin-y delight at getting to kill whole armies of orcs is able to keep them focused.

>>53970355
Sounds like a pointless waste of time and effort. Stop running the game and tell them to get lost.

>>53970454
It's my job to run the game. The kids get dropped off by their parents, the manager realized he could get free shit and keep them from running around kicking each other in the shins by having one of us run a game for the kids, I'm the new guy and can't run any of the other tournaments so I got asked to do this since I mentioned, not realizing what I was getting myself into, that I like DMing.

>>53970216
>Never fudge rolls
>run appropriate CR encounters with one or two spikes
>Enjoy combat where the players mostly win with maybe one moment per session where they shit themselves but come out victorious in the end with at worst maybe one PC death.

I don't know why so many GM's find this so hard. If D&D can do anything it's tactical combat well that has natural highs and lows due to the linear distribution of the D20.

>>53969605
In other words, you call yourself a GM, but you've never GM'ed for more than 2 sessions before your players find themselves a less overbearing asshole to GM their fun and you keep sitting on your unfinished campaigns wondering why the fuck nobody but you understands how enjoyment works.

>>53970500
CR has been a shitshow in every edition except 4e, and everyone hated 4e.
Nobody actually wants tactical combat D&D, they want some amorphous, nostalgic feels game and are actively repulsed by anything that breaks their mad illusion.

>>53970339
>then he likely actually just wants everything to be hard because hes a sadist or something
Sadist GMs (in the actual BDSM sense) are actually some of the best GMs you can hope for, as they know a thing or two about how much pain and suffering their charges can take.

>>53961687
>QUIT HAVING SOME MEME ANIMAL BE PART OF YOUR CHARACTER
I'm an idiot; explain what you mean by that? Having an animal familiar/companion that acts like a meme?

>>53970496
It's your job, not your sacred duty. Leave and see how long he puts up with them.

>>53970955
Easy to say if its not your income on the line.

>>53971043
Get a different job.

>>53970719
It's working fine in 5E for me.

The problem is people don't read the rules. 5E is designed for 6-8 encounters per day with a mix of easy, standard and hard encounters. If this is too much then you can have 5 encounters but most need to be medium or hard to provide an overall challenge. While a hard encounter by itself can actually be quite simple for a group eventually they'll have their resources worn down. They're however meant to beat most if not all of the fights as they're the heroes.

I mitigate some long rest spamming by having random encounters that can interrupt a long rest and prevent it for the day.

Granted there's a few spikes as it's hard to quantify a creature like an intellect devourer and the game assumes that the GM hasn't been attacked by an intellect devourer himself and can actually read what the monster does and contrast it to the power level his party as to decide whether it's appropriate.

PUT THE FUCKING PHONE DOWN FOR FUCKS SAKE WOULD IT KILL YOU TO PUT THE PHONE DOWN HOLY FUCK YOU HAVE BEEN TAPPING AT THAT THING FOR 2 HOURS ALMOST CONTINUOUSLY PAY SOME ATTENTION FOR FUCKS SAKE!

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>>53958866
>DM constantly snubed us at every moment he gets
>stuck in his dark fantasy zone for over a year
>powerleveled from 13 to 20 in less than 2 weeks (ingame) on slow exp progression, on characters we wanted to take our time with
>inserts characters into our backstories that never existed, but then decides to kill them at the very last second or never brings them up again
>story had no real conclusion
>we had no downtime to plan for anything or roleplay, we were always on the back foot for every encounter, which sometimes would last multiple sessions
because of the sheer amount of enemies he would throw at us
>we got downtime once and two of our party members died because they decided they wanted to try to have fun
>his reoccurring "villain" was beaten fair and square three times prior to his actual death but was always got away from an asspull or the DM nerfing a spell after the villain failed the save

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I've got an idea for a cool campaign, wanna join?
>A: Oh yeah, I've got time!
>B: Same here!
>C: I'm totally up for a game, looking for a group myself right now
> etc.
Planning out the campaign, preparing hooks, preparing NPCs, go through various material and books to find cool shit
>A: Hey, here's my character concept
Sounds great, working together to finish and flesh out the character
>B: I'm gonna make this character
working on it for a while, sounds neat
etc for every player.

Couple of weeks later, everything's ready, good to go;
"Okay, so when do we play? Does Saturday evening work?"
>Nah man, can't make it. Got another game then
Sunday?
>No I'm working
During the week?
>Oh sure, I can make Wednsday 6pm
>I can't. I can only do Thursday and Friday 11pm to 6am
>Only Mondays 9am to 13pm
>I actually joined another game got no time anymore

YOU FUCKERS SAID YOU'VE GOT FUCKING TIME AND ARE FREE

>>53971337
I banned phones at the table.

Now the player who was the only one with the phone issue just sits on his laptop browsing the internet and says his sheets on his laptop and he can track it better.

So.im going to enforce paper sheets only now. But I wish I didn't have to be like some fucking school teacher.

>>53970850
Yes, exactly that. Like bringing your bear into a tavern. Trying to get it into the tavern cellar. Bringing the bear everywhere without a leash. Lots more than that.

>>53970850
There's a handful of animals that nerds latch onto, and place a great deal of symbolic weight on. These animals are regarded as "meme" animals, because the reverence people show for them resembles the kind of fad-like obsession that people have for internet memes.

Animals that are usually viewed in a romantic light are common objects of this obsession, such as wolves, foxes, lions, bears, eagles, etc. There's also a certain strain of hipster that likes to obsess over "unpopular" animals, like bobbit worms, pistol shrimp and pangolins; animals that are ugly or obscure, and which most people have never heard of. Their obsessions are no less stupid and cringeworthy than the wolf-lovers of course, though they love to claim otherwise.

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>That feel when you like doing worldbuilding / setting design and are actually pretty ok at it.
>tfw you're also a shit GM because you can't write individual NPCs with any hint of soul or personality so your cool setting doesn't mean anything
>tfw you're at the point now where you start drafting a setting, then just sit back and wonder "What's the point of it" before just scrapping it.
>tfw you also have no games to take respite in because you're a filthy RPG hipster that doesn't like D&D or Pathfinder.
Just end me senpai.

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>>53969605
>retard alert
What you're saying could have been reasonable ("I have a type of game I like to run, so I'd rather play with PCs who enjoy the same sort of campaign") if not for the fact that you stated it like a self-centered moron.

>>53971862
You just need to learn to design on a very small scale. Start with a small village , detail the people who live their, their wants and needs , what conflict the village is currently in , who leads it, what it's quirks are, what it's miltia look like. What produce it creates. Don't worry about it's place in the wider world beyond being very brief. 'This village belongs to Lord so and so of the Kingdom of Zod'

When you come to run the village have the entire party come from that village and weave them into the various threads you've already created.

This is actually much harder than designing in broad brush strokes. It's the little details that bring a setting to life and that the players /reader actually get to see and interact with.

It's the difference between ideas and implementation.

>>53971568
What the fuck? You didn't talk about the schedule first before anything else?

>finish d&d campaign and go onto cyberpunk2020
>PC makes literally the same paladin character except as a rockerboy
>same name and roleplays the same as well
I'm going to do a homebrew Matrix campaign and I'm scared he'll do it again.

>>53971065
As someone who doesn't currently have a job, and would kill to get the job he just described, disgusting, shitty-acting little human maggots included, sometimes that's not an option.

>>53972605
I don't know why, but in my town no-one fucking decides on schedules BEFORE planning games. I't sreally annoying, but people always say shit like "well, I don't know my schedule ahead of time, so let's look at that last" and it's really starting to piss me off so fucking much.

And If I somehow ask people about schedules and such as the first thing, they look at me strange with a "oh , let's not worry about that at this point, let's look at that when we cross that bridge"

Gods, I'm a player in another game, worked an hour or two on this really awesome character (basically a broken down and insane war-machine/robot tank that smashes into the enemy lines like a wrecking-ball) and I'm afraid that game is never gonna happen because of this bullshit, and I also don't want to be THAT GUY that constantly has to ask for plans and schedules and planning (even though....that is sorta the type of guy I am; I want everything to be planned and neat and tidy)

>>53972655
That's kind of cool actually, maybe he's like the Dalai Lama and gets reincarnated whenever there's hero stuff to be done.

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>>53959115
this shit.
do you people WANT me to railroad you?

>>53972813
Be the change you want to see in the world. Insist on schedules first.

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>>53959115
Add to that the situation that instead of interacting with NPCs, they rather have their characters beat it each other up because "in character lol rofl" (spoiler; it's really not in character but fuck it); and you pretty much have the fucked up game I (try to) run

>>53971862
Jot down a few personality traits for an NPC, their social position, and their goals. That should give you enough to go off so that you can simply roleplay them.

>Henk
>Captain of the town militia, tanner by trade
>Suspicious, but practical
>Goal: Stop travellers from disappearing on the road to the city

The thing that gives NPC's personality is their agency in the world. The fact that they aren't cardboard cutouts that cease being human the moment they run out of exposition to dispense. When you define their authority and their goals, that means they can approach the players in certain ways. Henk here could obviously offer to pay them for their trouble, but given that he's the captain of a volunteer militia, he can only pay as much as the community pools together. He can also suspect the party of being involved, and have his militiamen follow them. Or he can start sending his militiamen to guard travellers, and refuse to let anyone leave the town without an escort.

As the game goes on, you can expand on these characters.

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STOP MAKING EVERY NPC A
>le so quirky xP so smug and puntastic
PIECE OF SHIT YOU FAGGOT

AND STOP MAKING THEM ALL SUPER POWERFUL SO THAT AS SOON AS WE GET FED UP WITH THEIR SHIT YOU PROTECT YOUR NPC WITH ITS HORRIFICALLY BLOATED STATS

AND STOP TELLING US OOC ABOUT HOW POWERFUL AND COOL THOSE SAME FUCKING NPCS ARE

>>53973002
>Henk here could obviously offer to pay them for their trouble, but given that he's the captain of a volunteer militia, he can only pay as much as the community pools together. He can also suspect the party of being involved, and have his militiamen follow them. Or he can start sending his militiamen to guard travellers, and refuse to let anyone leave the town without an escort.

I think this is actually the bit GM's who struggle to write NPC's need to write out for each of their NPC's until it comes second nature to extrapolate that from the brief bullet points you suggested which imo don't actually make those more expanded points in of themselves.

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>players make non-stop puns at the table
>it annoys me so much that i actually start sweating
>have to bring in a hand towel because it keeps happening
Should i get rid of them

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>>53971568
I have a variant of this

>Text in group chat
Alright guys, you free for a session next week?
>"Yeah"
>"I'm free whenever"
>"Can't do Monday, but other than that is good"
Alright, how about Friday?
>no response

I have to repeatedly remind them that I asked them a question, if I don't I'll never get a response.

>>53973328
>Try to make interesting, emotional, intimidating or otherwise deep NPCs
>Players won't stop cracking fucking puns and quips at their expense

>>53973356
I'm sorry anon.

Players are remorseless cunts.

Have you ever been to a movie with people who nitpick every single fucking detail either during the film or in their faux review afterwards.

That's most players. Only they're doing it to your face in the thing you've lovingly hand crafted in a vain effort to entertain them for an evening.

Honestly gas chambers would be too good for most players.

You just arrived in the city. The "Doomsday Mission Timer"™ is going to annihilate everything, and it's somewhere here, what will you do? As you remember the best lead you have is the mec-
>I visit the brothel to bang whores XDXDXD
Uhm....okay. Well...so while he's doing that wha-
>I tell them I want a clean one
Uh...f-fine, I guess? I mean...this really doesn't matter
>What kind of whores do they have?
They...uh...various ones...I'm all for roleplaying but this really doesn't matte-
>Who's running this? I'm talking to them and demand a thicc redhead
Fine they have on of those...as I was saying, what is everybody el-
>How much does that cost me?
I don't fucking know and care
>Well, it can't be for free
Fine fucking 10 gold
>Are you kidding me? That's way to expensive
Fine fucking 1gp
>That seems fishy. I roll to see if the owner is trying to deceive me
No they obviously aren't; I just don't care and you're holding everything up.
>Okay, I pay and follow her into the room. What now?
I don't fucking care. I'm not gonna role-play you having sex with the whore you weirdo.
>I'm just playing in-character
You contract magical super aids and die immediately

>start session
>Go around and ask players to describe their characters and a goal for this session
>Ask players interesting follow up questions in an effort to link them together and get them roleplaying more
>One player asks me about some game lore which I start to explain
>Another player chimes in 'does it matter can we start playing the game yet'
>This is the fucking game...

Fuck me.

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>Team member playing op as shit character. Hogs all the glory, gloats about it.
>DM is kinda getting annoyed with it but doesn't want to be big bad GM
I understand senpai
>gm realizes just how obnoxious and broken he is after he kills off an encounter before he could do much
>Talks to op player. Player put up a fight being a little shit about it and refuses to change "its muh pride"
>DM conspires killing him but keeps giving him second chances
>One day the op character does something stupid and ballsy
He likes doing the stupid ballsy character so he can get loud and talk about how mighty he is despite he supposedly being the edgy well learned orc
>His character eventually dies after a scene that was needlessly heroic
>Op character player rolls up stats
>three 18+

I hate.

>>53958866
>GM complains about my character spending all his resources way too fast and treating every encounter as the last one. "Orders" me to micromanage better
>GM complains about TKP because I didn't spend all my resources in next combat and decided to micromanage a little

>>53974047
I think I'd start burning spells on random rocks and passing woodland animals and drinking potions for their taste just to piss him off.

Nothing annoys me more than a GM teing my character what to do.

>>53973022
Holy fuck this

Why is every bartender, every beggar, every petty noble, every craftsman a smug smarmy asshole who has absolutely no fear of the armed mercenaries who just walked up to them shimmering with magical energy and divine power??

I honestly think the DM is just using our game to play out his fantasy of chumping out all his friends and telling us to get bent all the time

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>>53958866
>run a game for about a year
>goes pretty good
>one of the core players has to leave due to being redeployed on the other side of the planet and likely being out of contact
>group agrees to hang up the game and maybe try something else
>get writer's block and spin wheels
>eventually during casual talk with group reveal various plot threads that the PCs were likely to get sniffs of, the details on the 'big' quest they were on
>not much later it works out that everyone can game again and I've spoiled everything for the old game which everyone was enjoying

time to kmsms

>>53974119
Oh and god help you if your character decides he's done taking the little homeless urchin kid's insults and wants to teach him a lesson, because invariably the small mudhole farming village has a Level 10+ captain of the guard who despite his massive power has nothing better to do than stand around podunk nowhere waiting to whomp on errant PCs

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>>53974119
>Okay so this fucking asshole chats some shit to you and calls you a cocksucker etc etc
Okay well I uh respond with [intimidating stuff] and all that
>He laughs in your face and calls you a piece of shit and tells you you're weak and kicks your dog and shits in your bed
Right okay, in that case can we attack?
>Oh, uh, are you sure you want to do that? Because you can if you want but I'd advise you not to do that. I don't think you should.
Alright fucking fine
>Haha wow good thing you didn't attack him. That wouldn't have gone well for you. No spoilers but he would have kicked your asses. Like it wouldn't have been an easy fight. So it's a pretty good thing you didn't fight him.

>>53974191
I fucking hate you, Dave

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>>53972866
>>53959115
>When you fell for the no railroading /tg/ meme
>When in reality most people just want to be told what to do and roll some dice

>>53974624
Pretty fucking much, yeah. I've found that players pretty much almost always seek out an NPC or some sort of roll that'll tell them what to do, or just follow any obvious lead or clues I give them. The no railroading meme comes from people who are or play with ADD people and can't focus so they need a whacky sandbox.

Like, I definitely can imagine a railroad that would be fucking awful to play in and I'm sure people have put up with such an experience, but this /tg/ idea that players will do some completely random whacky shit you could never possibly expect and it'll lay all your plans to waste seems bogus.

>>53969980
You may have tried this already, but if your adventures tend to run long you may want to plan shorter adventures.

On the other hand, if it's inconsistent that won't really work well unless you feel like planning in optional things to insert if things are going faster than expected (but that's more work).

>>53971790

>Popular animals people think are cool are meme animals
>Ugly gross animals are hipster meme animals

So every animal is a meme animal then?

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All this complaining, you guys should still feel lucky.

I don't get to play at all.

Even when it feels bad and things are annoying, always remember your gameless brothers and sisters.

>>53975094
No. Popular animals, like wolves, bears, and foxes that are oh so loyal to the PC and follows them around, goes into places wild animals are not welcome, and carries out the orders of the player perfectly despite the player never actually SAYING anything to the animal are meme animals.

Similarly, but not exactly the same, ugly gross animals, like worms, snakes, and spiders that are oh so loyal to the PC and follows them around, goes into places wild animals are not welcome, and carries out the orders of the player perfectly despite the player never actually SAYING anything to the animal are hipster meme animals.

If your character has a pet that acts, and is treated as, a pet or wild animal who just doesn't feel like eating them, then it isn't a meme animal no matter what species it is.

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>>53971862
>tfw you like designing NPCs, homebrew abilities / gear / creatures, places, and lore, but when it comes time to actually run the game you lose all motivation

>>53971304
>The problem is people don't read the rules.
That's one of the issues I have with a campaign I'm currently involved in: Sometimes, it seems like nobody but me has actually read the rules and retained the information. Key highlights include there being a mechanism for tied contested rules, but the GM going "roll d2 for it" and attempting to offer an option with well defined rules in the book apparently without reading those rules at all.

>players say they don't know 'what the right move is' to scene x
>regularly remind them that there are no wrong moves, and that the story follows them not the other way around
>players make camp in a newfound foreign area, durdle forever
>rip
>obsessive anxiety keeps reminding me that I should've just applied more pressure on the PC's and make them run into the next plot hook
>rip
>brain reminds me that I already gave them like two overt plot hooks that they're not touching
>for some reason brain says it's still my fault
>RIP

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>players don't ever discuss games
>most would prefer to 'go with the flow'

>>53974624
>don't want to railroad
>someone literally wants exactly that
I don't know why I keep trying honestly.

>>53975157
No game truly is better than a bad one.

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>want to run a game
>get excited for an idea
>can't decide on a system to run it in
>every system I try seems cool but then I lose interest in the idea halfway through planning it out
>even if I could stick with an idea, can't get anyone around here to join because it's not a bog-standard OSR dungeon crawl

>>53975504
Youre a fucking retard

>introduce minor NPC
>players get attached and want to make him the mascot, dragging him everywhere
every time, just fucking let it go already

>>53977179
I was in a campaign where this happened four times. We would just straight up kidnap any minor NPC we liked and drag them across the world with us.

>>53968462
>in which detect evil is a stupid fucking thing

>>53975504
Considering one of my favorite characters my players played was Hector the Dwarf and his Beer drinking Bear Boskov, Fuck you.

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>>53976901
>>53977055
>give the players agency, tell them directly that they have to make their own plan on how to steal the macguffin/stop the kidnapping/defend the fort, that sort of thing
>none of them really take any initiative, they get stomped or end up doing nothing when it's crunch time
>throw in an NPC acting as a guide/mentor/tactician that helps them, actually just me not-so-subtly telling them what they should do
>They get attached to them

I'm pretty sure that I'm an awful DM for doing this, but it keeps them satisfied.

"Let the Normie's in, itl be alright"

We deserved this

>>53970496
Oh, you were that guy. Well, if the money's worth it, just run whatever then and let the dumbass kids have their fun. Put in the minimum amount of work.

>>53970659
Stay entitled. Hope it works out for you.

>>53958866
One of players in a Werewolf the Forsaken game decided she had a brilliant idea to solve the spirit murdering people: get arrested by the cops for trying to break into a (dead) person's house and telling them that a Wolverine cosplayer serial killer is on the lose. Cops laughed until it turned out that every person she said was dead was missing from the town. Oh, and then she implicated her packmates in this mess also forcing them to flee after fixing the mystery. One more session where everything went off the rails because I had no theme or notes to keep me grounded and that campaign died an inglorious end.

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>>53961584
What if I want to play a jackal version of a tabaxi and only wish to do so is egyptian themed, anubis is fucking boss, and dream of stabbing an enemy with a shortsword and cleaving then with a khopesh while praying to a large portion of the egypt pantheon, learning from good and evil gods, that still furry?

>>53966059
Literally my old group except they were even worse. God forbid they were ever put into a situation where they didn't have a massive IC advantage. They'd through a hour long bitch-fit or just kill people randomly until the GM bent over for them.

>>53961687
>meme animal character
elaborate pls, what does this mean

>>53978139
Animal characters meant to be jokes or omnipotent assists.

The former would be something like having a raccoon and giving it a bunch of guns.

The latter is like having a crow that can scout out locations, provide a distraction so you can sneak attack, fetch items at the drop of a hat, act as a messenger, and provide a skill--essentially a creature that acts as a second player character.

>>53978065
>nothing to do with setting
>nothing to due with any hooks
>nothing to do with furthering the story
>is literally about a beast penetrating other things

Yea it's a furry

That is exactly what happened to me a few months ago. We created plans to start a new campaign in a month. The understanding was that I'd have the world ready, and they'd have their fleshed out characters ready, with team synergy and history and all. I spent that month preparing. I even gave them a cool little questionnaire primer to help get their cogs turning. I didn't demand a novella, just a rough sketch would've been fine. Month went by, I'm super jazzed and ready. We sit down at the table "So where are the sheets I gave you?" One person out of four filled theirs out. 2 people had no idea who their character was. The 4th person was Token Dumb Strong Barbarian.

We haven't had another session since then, pretty sure it's dead now. It is disappointing when nobody cares. Meanwhile I sit alone in my room and read up on dozens of different system core and lore books, never actually playing or GMing.

>>53978288
Shit are you me

>>53978233
>Friend is playing a Cowardly Werewolf in DnD.
>One guy keeps sperging about MUH FURRIES
>Werewolf is a rogue who is amazing at escaping, lockpicking and other non-combat shit causing the muchkin to get angry he's not tearing people apart as a wolf man
>Asks why
>He's a reluctant Werewolf.

Best fucking thing happening in my games. No other fucker gets the reference

>>53967012
I would suck dick for as many as 5-6 sessions.

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>GM wants to make a snowflake fantasy setting.
>Players want linked dungeon crawls.

If players wanted to think about things, they'd be way more open to playing games other than generic-fantasy-system-#384

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>>53978065
Anubis is like, a furry symbol.

>>53958866
>Bitches incessantly whenever the group trys a new system
>Never even reads sourcebooks and has to have his hand held through everything anyway

Im on the verge of kicking him out. I would be more drama then its worth though, as we are all friends off the table.

>get group of friends to try Shadowrun 5E with me GMing
>after much deliberation, agree on weird 2020s-set post-Goblinization game (basically no decking/rigging, only basic cyberlimbs and some cyberware, and magic is
>figure out ways to scale back 50 years of setting to let this shit work
>it kind of works
>really wish I was doing base setting 5E though

>wind up getting new player during second session
>they're new to tabletop in general
>trying not to sour their experience, try to put a little bit of emphasis on their character's specializations for a couple of runs, to let them shine for a bit
>other players keep cucking them out of their moment by destroying any plans I have
>have heard from other player that the player in question is a little upset they have so little to do so often

>with this also have semi-experienced player wrongly
>also trying to spread attention across 6 players
>it's also my first time touching Shadowrun or GMing in general

Why did I do this to myself

>>53961603
>>53961699
I just set my day off to the same day as my dnd session but yeah same boat as i missed like 3 of my offline sessions before I changed it.

>>53977448
Sounds neat, now I wanna flesh out my Tiefling horse find steed summon with some fitting quirks too.

>>53978572
>with this also have semi-experienced player wrongly backseat GMing

>>53967417
>I will put the necromantic fire and brimstone preacher on file and save it for another game.

That's the spirit, take constructive feedback and make it into good, solid plot material.

>>53978572
My dude, 6 players for Shadowrun first time is way too many. Cut it down, seriously.

>>53978857
Yeah, it's actually a little overwhelming.

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>>53973715
what is it with people trying to turn everything into erp? how are they not embarrassed.
>>53975504
I hate this so much, why do normies think every animal has the disposition of an extremely obedient dog. The best sort of pet to have in rpgs is a trained bird. Birds are generally pretty smart so it shouldn't break immersion when there useful and are likely small enough to smuggle into a place without having to deal with npcs. They have uses like scouting, hunting for food and mail but although an eagle could take on one random dude it won't be able to fight a band of warriors and can just fly off away from danger until the encounter is over.

>>53958866
Speaking as someone who's in between the person you described and someone who doesn't mind a little depth, I can tell you some people just don't get into that kind of stuff and can't appreciaye the work that really goes into it from your end. These people should just not be invited to play, because they will always be a flaky trouble point for you from here on out.

>>53975504
I'm in a similar boat where a player in my game has a pet that is explicitly under his direct control via rules, and even though it's a dumbass animal, he's playing it just as intelligently as a person. To the point where I had to flat-out tell him that, no, your dog isn't smart enough to know what a special, just-introduced magic item is and does. Nevermind exactly how to use it and retrieve it off the person it had no idea was even carrying it

>>53978065
What does that have to do with the post you replied to?

>>53969605
I don't think this was actually meant to be bait, but I'm saving it for later to use as such.

>>53978349
Gee Scoob.

>group consists of three people including me
>autistic engineer who puts Tolkien to shame with world building
>grill who is a low key feeder and is really good at role playing, but less so when it comes to dice and systems
>me, recovered weeaboo and neckband. Almost went full fedora and katana, but had a character arc that turned me normie
>we only play our home brew we've tweaked for a decade
>we're thinking of publishing in a few years
>engineer Bro is fucking genius
>he's always busy
>I'm a lousy GM, although enthusiastic
>can't play other systems anymore
>can't play with other people anymore
>everyone else feel like that meme with the penguin of doom or like that guy.
>just want to play with my friends.
>lie awake at night worrying about what will happen if he disappears from my life
>have love blossomed on the tabletop?

>>53979776
He's completely right, though. He might have stated it in a less asshole-ish way, but what it boils down to is that the GM gets to decide what kind of game he runs. Don't like it? Either GM yourself, put up with it or get out.

>>53979979
Or talk to them and see if they'd be willing to make adjustments, if it's only something minor.

>>53974119
I had a DM who did this with shopkeepers, but only because his little brother was playing. Kid was the murderiest hobo who ever murderhoboed.

It was actually kind of funny fishing him out of a portable hole. Dude deserved it.

>>53979983
>Sensible suggestions on /tg/
>Acting like a mature adult in an TTRPG
I don't think you know where you are, anon.

>>53979983
Oh, sure. Talking is the first thing you should try whenever you have a problem at the table. But the GM still gets the final say.

>>53973075
I've found the triad of status, personality, and goals to work well in roleplay in order to extrapolate behaviour from. A lot of people who struggle with NPC's work under a more script-like assumption. But important NPC's have to be roleplayed by the DM, and so must have a certain independence from the players.

Nothing stops them from working out some more details, though. But this format really helps with that, because it establishes a shorthand for what the means of these people are. I like to note the resources they have at their disposal, too. So in this case I'd make a note that Henk has 20 militiamen under his command, of whom 5 are on the job at any given time. So if he decides to send an escort with travellers, he's going to have to demand his people put in more time next to their dayjobs. If that escort gets killed by the threat, he grows more desperate. That's all soft stuff, but it provides a jumping off point for roleplaying the character.

But you can't write out everything. The key to playing NPC's rather than having them be exposition bots is to have them react organically to the world. It could very well be that the players ignore the plot hook and instead get drunk in the tavern. And that's when you have the tavern owner be called up to serve in the militia, and maybe be killed on the road. And he made that nice ale the PC's love so much.

>>53979973
>lowkey feeder
is this some lingo i just don't know or she a fat fetishist?

>GMed in the past
>was good at it
>enjoyed it
>eventually the group burned out, and we went on hiatus
>promised them to run the next campaign
>should be planning
>they're all ready to play again
>I have been sitting still for so long I completely forgot how to plan a campaign or even get any joy out of it

Kill me.

>>53980073
I think it may be referring to the feeder/gainer fetish, where one person wants to gain weight and a feeder who...feeds them. Some people get off on that sorta stuff

>>53980200
dude, I'm the one that referenced it, I know what it is, I AM one. step up your game dude. it just seemed like a weird thing to mention.

>>53980073
He's referring to the character low key in American gods who probably listens to feeder.

>>53977448
Holy shit you walking meme

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>>53958866
while not exactly recent, this has been a recurring problem for almost a year and a half
>couple of friends of mine are a couple
>girlfriend is super possessive of boyfriend and can't seem to handle boyfriend having fun without her
>she joins literally every single campaign he is a part of
>any that he was in without her, she would constantly be texting/calling him because he almost had fun without her
>she at least tries to play to her credit, usually for an hour or two
>after she stops trying, its time to leave, no matter what's going on in the campaign
>in the middle of battle? in the middle of an investigation? in the middle of a conversation? doesn't matter, time to go
>it ends up fucking up almost every single game they're a part of
what really grinds my gears is her characters though
>"im a barbarian bard who doesn't care about anything except adopting every child we run across"
>"im a druid who doesn't care about anything"
>"im a wizard that doesn't care about anything, convince me why i should join this party and literally save the world. whats in it for me? I don't care about money, i have all the magic power i need, so why should i help you?"
The dm (her boyfriend) had to sit there and try to convince her character for 25 minutes to accept the quest to literally keep the world from being overrun by demons and being completely destroyed
JUST ACCEPT THE FUCKING QUEST OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE?

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>want to run a game with friends
>everyone's schedules conflict
>rarely ever get to find a day we can actually get together
>months will pass between sessions
>become interested in running a different game or a different system
>can't because we're stuck playing a campaign in Hiatus Hell

>>53980393
I know that feel bro.
>Coming up on the 1 year point since my last game got put on hiatus "for a couple weeks until work straightens out"

>>53970729
>as they know a thing or two about how much pain and suffering their charges can take
What. I need to develop these skills, regarding.. D&D ofc. Any advice / books? Inb4 "just analyze your players more"

I designed a campaign where PCs are hired by an exiled noble to build his fortune so he can return to his homeland to make a bid for the throne through revolution. Tell the players this as they build characters. When I rp the noble's majordomo, (who is hiring the party to do an initial simple dungeon crawl) he points out that the current king is expansionist, violent and that his policies both foreign and domestic are untenable in the long term. Noble would be a better ruler for their homeland (the party all chose to be from the kingdom in question) is explained clearly. Player keeps telling me "No, my character wold never commit treason like this, you can't keep telling her that (noble) plans to take over; she wouldn't go for it!" I sigh internally and retcon in a bunch of doublespeak and assurances that direct conquest is by no means (noble)'s intentions. When the entire premise of the campaign, which was TOLD to the players, was that of political exiles taking their homeland back. I love my friends, but sometimes I really hate GMing for them. I had all sorts of intrigue and stuff ready for them, but I just dropped the campaign. :'(

>>53980387
>WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE?

Because

>girlfriend is super possessive of boyfriend and can't seem to handle boyfriend having fun without her

>>53958866
just give the player diferent options to choose you autist.

>>53980387
"your girlfriend is a determent to the group. I'd rather not do this but I'm asking you to step out"

He freaks out at you or is so whipped that he goes. Either way its better to nip these problems before they fester

>>53981592
>girlfriend's boyfriend is DM
I think you have not thought this through.

>>53980387
But next time just say in character "You are right, you have no reason to go on this quest. Let us go and leave this person behind and start the quest without this druid." Then go on the quest.

I'm pretty content, aside from a Titansgrave game that is taking forever to start thanks to a bunch of scheduling bullshit. One player just runs off to Chicago, only telling us the evening before game night!

Beyond that, it's another game with a different, online group that just can't hold on to players, and every time someone finds "a friend that's interested" they never bloody show up for game night.

>>53959115
>game's pace stumbles and drags because nobody is willing to step up, even without the domineering player there to steal the spotlight

This notion that the player was domineering and stealing the spotlight was your mistake. The other players were just timid and beta. (In the actual sense of the word) Meanwhile that one guy was actually interested and actively participating, in turn making those other players seem dissuade.

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>>53981172
I have to admit, I did a bad job at venting with the caps lock statement, it was more of a complaint about her characters motivations. why go through the trouble of making a character who literally doesn't have any reason to go do things.

>>53981592
this has actually happened roughly half a year into their relationship. They didn't take it well, and had beef with the person who asked him to do something about it for almost another 6 months before they patched shit up
>>53982328
We actually did do this in game, It was pretty funny when she realized that we were dead-ass leaving her behind. I'm the sort of person who exaggerates like 80% of the time I tell a story, but I WISH I was exaggerating about how long it took for her to finally decide that we could move on past the meet and greet of the story.

All of that said, I do feel like I should be clear on the fact that they are both good people and my friends. They have their minor quirks, but they could be far worse overall.

However, they tend to bring in their fights and it affects the entire game (she purposely gets him killed and vice-versa. like I think they have like 5 kills between each other across campaigns). It does create some good drama though Its the kind of drama where you aren't sure if it was just an in game arguement/fight, or if you are actively watching their relationship fall apart

>>53982628
>We actually did do this in game, It was pretty funny when she realized that we were dead-ass leaving her behind
Please tell us how she took it, and what she did!

>>53982328
>>53982628
well shit. I didn't see that. Cut and run then

>playing pragmatic fighter
>walk into the bosses final room
>"FOOooools blah blah evil monologue the ritual is nearly complete! blah blah"
>I'm going to roll initiative, trying to throwing a javelin at him
>'Alright fine just wait'
>What? No I'm going to use this chance to hit him with a javelin to stop whatever he's doing
>'Alright fine. As you ready your throw he stops and throws a fireball at you all. Roll dex, take 35 damage'
>'NOW roll initiative'
Who is in the wrong here? Keep in mind that I at least tried to follow the rules of initiative because the boss could see me. Also, this DMs speeches last 20 minutes, and every single one always ends up with just them trying to goad our no-nonsense good party into working for them (whereupon they will OBVIOUSLY betray us because they work for the self-proclaimed 'God of Lies' for fuck sake)

>>53967559
Use that for character development, might lead up to something interesting

>>53958866
>Party is sneaking around in a hostile castle.
>Rogue is the prominent character in this operation, what with the stealth, scouting, and lockpicking abilities.
>They run into a door which doesn't have a lock, only a mosaic with some letters on them that can be shifted around (think those Windows Puzzle things, but with letters)
>He announces he's picking the lock
>Remind him that there is no lock or handle, or obvious way of opening the door
>Throws a bitchfit about how I just pander to the casters and never let him do anything cool.

>>53982625
You're right, which means instead of discouraging the outgoing and initiative-grabbing player, I should be encouraging the timid players more.

>>53982799
>"You find a door with no lock"
>"I pick the lock"
>"nigga I just SAID"
>[crying, farting]
God I hate players like that. What a whiny bitch piece of shit.

>>53971453
>his reoccurring "villain" was beaten fair and square three times prior to his actual death but was always got away from an asspull or the DM nerfing a spell after the villain failed the save
God this SHIT
>DM has been hyping this boss up as his strong as fuck, recurring villain guy
>we aren't having that shit
>slap the boss around a lot
>get lucky with the damage and CC rolls
>end up doing more than double his health according to his stat block
>eventually he noticeably stops recording our damage when we call it out to him
>wail on him for a bit more
>'uhhh roll perception'
>one of our guys gets a nat 20 + proficiency
>'you manage to spot a magically hidden trap door but its too late, he disengages and dashes (keep in mind this was a big ass fighter guy) to jump down it and then the trap door disappears'

>>53982748
You. Interupting villianous monologues is extremely bad manners.

>>53959115
>tfw the player that does everything because everyone else has the strategic thinking of a hammer in a land of nails.
>tfw you're missing for one week and two of them die because they didn't take the hint to maybe get inside after the dragon breathed ice at them twice

>>53982869
>You attempt to pick the puzzle-seal on the door despite there being no obvious lock
>Your picking tools fuse to the puzzle's surface and are slowly absorbed into the metal

Best way to deal with stupid shit like that. Trying to put a round peg in a square hole is just going to get your peg snapped.

>>53982930
so is being a villain, usually.

>>53973022
EXACTLY.

STOP MAKING EVERY ANTAGONIST
>woah you don't want to fight them yet, they're epic level
JUST LET ME DIE HORRIBLY THEN
I WANT TO PUSH THE STORY FORWARD, NOT MASTURBATE IN THE CORNER WAITING TO GET HIGH ENOUGH LEVEL.

>>53975504
My latest character did animate a purple worm into a powerful skeleton and wrapped it in steel to turn it into a subterranean subway train. Does that count?

>>53982930
I don't mind villain monologues, but this one is just the same played out 'oo join the dark side for literally 30 seconds before we just stab you in the back'. EVERY villain of his does this.

Worse still when they are literally claiming to be cultists for the God of Lies. Why would my fighter even consider joining them?

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>>53973022
This is the problem you get when your DM actually wanted to play a Hero, but still wants the unlimited power of a DM, and to "Win" the game as well, at the cost of your enjoyment.

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>>53966860
>urban fantasy

>>53959115

I'm the 'domineering' player and I hate it.
I want other people to take the lead and make decisions so I can goddamn roleplay with them.

I've been trying but they just don't have any initiative.

>>53983256
On the rare occasions when I get to play, I end up being that player, too. Everyone else is just so fucking slow and indecisive.

>>53982328
>But next time just say in character "You are right, you have no reason to go on this quest. Let us go and leave this person behind and start the quest without this druid." Then go on the quest.

I had one game where the group did this to a character and he didn't take it well. Except his character, the instant the game started, bolted at maximum speed away from the party to the nearest town, then spent an hour insisting he was never with them(they all woke up in a field of corpses with no memory how they got there, and him sprinting away like that made them suspicious). They finally browbeat him into joining, but he kept trying to find some reason to ditch the party. I'm not talking "split the party" ditch, but "my character wants to go off an have a completely unrelated adventure on this other continent" ditching.

Actually, I don't know what it is about That Guys around here and boats. Had another one try to do this "take a boat to another continent because lawl" even though one of the things about the setting I mentioned was that there are no other continents, that had been destroyed in a calamity almost a thousand years ago (not really. They were sunken, but it was only "temporary", not that they would have know that) and ships are only to circle around the continent to avoid deadly mist that was starting to spring up around the land.

I eventually let him have his fucking boat, and then he sailed out and died because he couldn't find any land. Cue much bitching from him.

>>53972655

Run a crossover campaign, have him try to kill himself.

>>53983598
>have a good gm
>have a good group
>only ever play campaigns in which our characters are basically normal humans with slight powers such as, "The first question you ask someone they have to tell the truth, but it has to be one of these seven specific questions that aren't helpful in any way." or "hey when we get into a very specific situation, you can ask me the GM any question."
>never feel powerful or impactful
>just talk to people and roll dice

What is the point of playing in a post apocalypse or cyberpunk future if all we do is talk to people

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>>53973022
>AND STOP TELLING US OOC ABOUT HOW POWERFUL AND COOL THOSE SAME FUCKING NPCS ARE
Jesus Christ this, my current GM does the same shit and it's so fucking annoying. Just write a book or something if you just want to wank all over your characters in your setting.

>>53961690
Not Op but what tabletop do you recommend?

>>53961584
...wasn't that persona one was it?

>>53971790
Im i part of the problem if i want to give my character a crow?

I have one irl and they would make the best pet for an adventurer

>>53958866

I have a great group with players who are really vested in their characters and campaign.

That is, once they're agreed on a track to a particular goal. Before that, they cannot make decisions. It's an issue of too many cooks. All of them can find flaws in each other's plans, or simply have their own ideas about what should be going on, so they talk in circles forever.

I've taken to simply directing them (you're going to x to do y), and they're okay with this, but it's not really the style of game I wanted to run. Lesser of evils, though.

>>53983981
No...? Crows have symbolic significance, same with Ravens and Foxes.

>>53982966
>DM pulls me aside one day and asks me to stop dictating where the party is going all the time
>Not to be mean or anything, but the party just kinda goes along with whatever I decide and he just wants them to do what they want for a change
>Which I'm fine with, I've basically been controlling the story for weeks now, good to let someone else take charge for once
>3 weeks later the DM tells me to forget what he said earlier because without me leading everyone around by the nose, the party's just been meandering in town for 3 sessions in a row not doing anything
>Everytime the DM asks what they're PC is doing, he just gets blank stares are "Uh..I dunno" in response.
>Whenever I decide to do something minor, because I don't want to control the story, they all decide to just follow me anyways, so we have a crowd of adventurers going shopping for curtains because I decided my house needed some sprucing up.

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My GM went off on me like a nuclear bomb and dropped me from every single one of his games, past present and future, while blocking me from every form of social media.

Because I wanted to play a taxi driver in his cyberpunk game.

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>>53984570
It's weird, what sorts of things can set autists off. The most insignificant, silliest little things can cause them to go nuclear.

>>53980073
She brought us sixteen pastries for one session, she ate two throughout the day while Engineerbro and I acted out that one panel of Mr. Toad and Mr. Frog.

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Playing a starwars saga game with my group that isnt the problem

And they recently tried to find illicit cargo to make some exra credits, so they find a drug den and try to get jobs as drug mules not the problem

Shit goes sideways, and they end up killing everyone and torching the place, but let a slave Chev run away alive still not there yet

Immediately try to go find the rest of this drug gang and find other drug mule jobs. They are activley looking for the owner of the crack den they just blew up to ask for a job.

why are the smugglers always the dumb ones?

>kid at the local looks like he's picking his noes using a guardsmen
>holding it by the base and digging for gold with the bayonet
>oh no wait, he's just trying to stimulate sneezing because it "feels good"

Got snot all over the primaris marines he was painting. Didn't even care.

>>53983227
>Mage: the Ascension.mp4

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>>53958866
>players never investigate anything
>players never ask questions or talk with NPCs
>a lot of things remain unexplained and unknown to said players
>players think the story is full of plot holes, the world isn't fleshed out, and the GM is lazy with the NPCs

What the fuck do you sorry cunts want, walls of exposition and infodumps? Why the fuck would you get to know stuff if you just run through it like it were a modern day video game?

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>>53984570
>>53984702
Its probably the culmination of a number of instances that have been going on for a while. I distinctly remember a time where I lost my shit on a player just because their character wasn't 100% complete at the start of the first session, and ragequit the game, but that was because of a string of stupid bullshit that player had done over the course of several games, nothing which, on its own, was enough to get me angry, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

>>53984890
>Hey bro can I borrow your halberd mini?

>>53974727
I have A.D.D and I hate "muh sanbox" games. Am I just an anomaly?

>>53985072

The worst is when the PCs intentionally alienate the people they want things from.

You can't have it both ways, guys!

>>53959115
>>53983256
>>53983437
This, I'm that one "domineering" player who always talks, takes initiative, gives out orders, and comes up with the plan on the spot.

It's fucking torture. When I come up with a plan and start talking, I do so expecting a two-way street, maybe some opposition too if the others don't like the plan, but all I get are nodding heads. Sometimes I try shutting up and letting others speak, but it just ends up with a massive drag and people barely doing anything (even worse, they'll just all turn and look right at me expecting me to give orders).

Why the fuck do you even come to a P&P session if you're just gonna watch?

>>53984570
What's wrong with taxi drivers?

>>53985180
This shit is the worst. Occasionally, like just for once, I'd like to play the dumb muscle that doesn't have a plan, or doesn't do most of the talking, but half the time I have to find some weird meta way to be both the party brains and the party face while playing a social stat-less bruiser.

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>>53985072
I have the opposite problem.
>players juice every NPC for info and want to talk for hours
>can't have an NPC present without them trying to discover their deepest lore
>even those five-minute NPC encounters where a random is giving them directions is not safe from their inquisition

>>53985180
I had a group with the best possible dynamic. There was me and this one chick playing a support type character, a quiet guy playing a quiet warrior type and a mascot.

Me and the chick did almost all the planning and suggestions and decisionmaking and we were in pretty good synch, quiet warrior dude was mostly quiet IC and OOC unless he was required to act (which actually worked pretty well considering his character) and the mascot was a wildcard who occasionally made snap decisions and dropped sizzling bants.

Was the best group chemistry I've ever had. Then it fell apart.

>>53985180
>>53985212
I have a guy like that in my group. I usually end up having a play the wingman because literally no one else has any initiative and I feel like an ass making the poor guy carry the campaign.

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>smug retarded player thinks he's the Doctor/Sherlock/Whatever that has my mind figured out
>"Oh I know what's going on here!"
>acts based on what he thinks I was thinking when making the campaign
>looks at me in the eyes thinking it's fucking poker and my eyes will give something away
>always gets it completely wrong, puts entire party in dire straits

>>53980073
probably the idea of "feeding" to characters that kil yu

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>>53985344
Dealing with stupid people who think they're smart just because they're participating in a traditionally nerdy hobby are the fucking worst.

>Begin a scene with something familiar
>One player goes, "Oh boy, it's /this/ episode"
Nigga how about you shut the fuck up and let the scene play out before you start bitching?

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>that one guy who thinks he can exploit gamebreaking loopholes, be it in the rulebook or in house rules, or in whatever the fuck
>he gets mad when I tell him no
>he says the rulebook says so
>he gets even madder when I tell him this isn't a videogame and ultimately the GM, not the rulebook, decides
>he ragequits the session when put to the vote and, unsurprisingly, none of the other players want to let him ruin the entire campaign

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>>53985538
>what do you mean I can't polymorph disintegrate, it's right here in the rules
>let him
>next enemy polymorph disintegrates him
pottery

>>53970216
All town guards being relentlessly powerful is always stupid, especially if the guards just do nothing but patrol and stand at gates all day. If they're that powerful, why the fuck don't they just handle all the situations themselves instead of pawning all their problems off on adventurers?

>>53974727
i'll say it depends
experienced players generally do fine, take intiative, do random perception checks, search for mushroom and wildlife and other shit just in case it might be useful, make strategies that goes between stupid to genius etc
maybe it's just a question of investment into the game, or game experience
maybe you should have smaller groups, which dilute the actions and end up with one dude leading everyone
i've never had more than 4 players

>>53985538
>>53985601
That look of autistic rage is just fucking exquisite, isn't it? When you have an enemy using their oh-so-clever loophole, exploit, or willful misinterpretation of the rules against them, or when you outright tell them no.

>>53985105
>Have a player who bitches all the time about minor things
>Causes problems during game by hijacking other people's turns and then complaining when people even make jokes during his
>Won't bring up issues he has with the game after the game, insists on doing it during play and breaking flow completely

I'm scared that I'm going to end up snapping and calling him a fucking faggot for asking if he can have a magic item, or something.

>>53985180
There are times in a game I'm not DMing for once when I'm the only one doing anything. Several instances of 15 minute intervals where I'm the only one fucking doing anything and when the session is cut short the self-proclaimed leader whines that he didn't get to do much. Doesn't help that he runs off to do his own shit and goes from point A to point B for muh quests and nothing else.

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>>53958866
>running a new edition of a game
>player tries to take a combination of abilities that he thinks results in a brokenly powerful character
>"Those things don't work that way together"
>"Yeah they do, look"
>"Here is the exact page that tells you that these things do not work that way"
>you can see the gears in his head stop going and the infantile "I'm not getting what I want" tantrum on the horizon
>"Well it worked that way in the previous edition, so I thought--"
>"No it didn't dude"
>"YEAH IT DID"
>take the previous edition down from the shelf, turn to the exact page that says those things don't work that way
>he gets sulky and sullen for the rest of the week and participates only the bare minimum

Why are people like this? This combination of stubbornness and stupidity and childlike temperament makes me want to do a murder-suicide.

>>53986793
see, when he said:
>"Well it worked that way in the previous edition, so I thought--"
that's when you should've gone
>"Oh, it's no problem, you just didn't see, i'm sure they fixed it because it would've been broken."
Patronising your player and proving him wrong beyond what was necessary breeds resentment.

>>53986951
Nah all social interactions are competitions where you should strive to humiliate your opponent in front of everyone else.

>>53958866
>guy at LFGS asks to help play test a system i've been brewing
>thank him for offering but decline since i've already got a full group of seven
>he keeps bugging me about helping play test
>tries to snatch a copy of the rules from one of my player
>cave in and give him a copy and tell him to make a character and join the game on friday
>he shows up with a character he made, says he's change the core mechanic from cards to a d20 and 'fixed' some of the talents
>i tell him to remake his character and use the rules I gave him
>he spends the next three hours bitching about the core mechanic and trying to correct other players on the rules

I tried a dozen times to get the owner to remove him, we ended up scheduling the next test at my house.

>>53983956
Nope.

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>>53986951
You're right, but I still don't feel bad.

>>53987145
and that's fine. just don't wonder why he was sulking.

>>53958866
>DM sending us to go kill some giants
>I make an offhand remark to the 8 int barbarian about how it's okay if we don't get rewarded because giant toes sell for mad dosh down south
>DM has me roll a check
>I pass, they aren't worth shit
>Have to out of character walk back my comment
Really frustrating especially because it's all my fault. I'm too used to DMing or playing in super narrative games. Send help.

>>53959115
>be me
>players go to place
>present players with a room containing LITERALLY NOTHING and two doors
>they turn over every sofa and needlessly drag on a simple milkjob for no reason
>when they come to an obstacle which is an electrified door they take ages to figure out that they can just take the backdoor to get directly to their objective without rolling anything

>that one player that won't look up the rules
>that one player that gets distracted by IRL stuff during the game
>that one player who calls everybody a "sir" when he tries to be diplomatic even when hes speaking to savages
>that one player who cannot roleplay for shit and won't even try
>that one player who dies once with his murderhobo character and then immediately rolls up a non-combat pacifist
>that one player who doesn't do anything with his non-combat pacifist so his character doesn't die
>that one player who sits idly in the haunted mansion only to jump around as soon as i play the spooky music

I dunno what to do honestly i just want to play some rpgs

>>53987545
>>that one player who calls everybody a "sir" when he tries to be diplomatic even when hes speaking to savages
If you think this is wrong, I hope to god you never have to represent you unit or company in the field.

>GMing my first game
>one of the players is a rules lawyer munchkin
>have a plot related to how the players unleash magic unto the world
>make the mistake of telling the players that they will get access to magic soon, as a result of the story
>munchkin player asks "magic when" every minute of his existence
>pisses me off and I call off the campaign

To be fair, I wasn't a good GM, however it was mainly because I didn't prepare properly. But he had been doing munchkinny shit for a while and getting into disagreements with him about rules. He also wanted some of his silly houserules put into my game, and tried to sell them as if I should have already been using them. It was distracting and sucked the life out of the game.

>>53987576
His characters are not soldiers and the people he speaks to that way are not sir characters

>>53987576
>talking to orcs
>calling them sir
have you considered that different cultures warrant different responses?

>>53980387
>>"im a wizard that doesn't care about anything, convince me why i should join this party and literally save the world. whats in it for me? I don't care about money, i have all the magic power i need, so why should i help you?"
>"im a wizard that doesn't care about anything, convince me why i should join this party and literally save the world. whats in it for me? I don't care about money, i have all the magic power i need, so why should i help you?

THIS IS THE FUCKING WORST

I mean honestly i just spent a good amount of my time preparing a game with quests, characters and a whole new land for you fuckfaces and you just refuse to play the game?

How are these people even real you guys

>>53987611
Unless you're talking to a woman, it's a sir. This is basic manners.

>>53987616
Obviously you would use that Orc tribes equivalent of sir or ma'am then.

Being polite isn't difficult people, and it goes a long ways towards creating, maintaining, and repairing mutually beneficial relationships.

>>53987711
There is no reason to always be polite in an roleplaying game

Doing different, interesting stuff is the point of RPGs

>>53987854
>There is no reason to always be polite in an roleplaying game
This depends entirely on the character being played.

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>>53987680
>there's a player in my group that doesn't care about money because of his background
>always acts like hot shit
>tries to get everything to revolve around him
>wonders why no one wants to interact with him
If the DM wasn't a friend of mine I would've dropped that shit so hard.

>>53987901
Yes that is correct!
Which is why its a problem because he does it with every character!

>>53987934
Guess he just likes polite or kiss assy characters then.

Nothing wrong with that.

>>53987908
The whole
>why am i part of this group
is a good reason for metagaming desu
Theres no reason to play the game if you don't have something interesting to do, if what you do doesn't help develop the plot or if it isn't fun for the other players

Just trying to hog the spotlight or staying in the background for extended periods of time because "my character isn't part of the group" is stupid, borderline retarded behavior

>>53987955
Except he doesn't
>tells me character is a retard punch everything soldier
>allow it because it might be fun with the premise we're playing with
>he still calls everybody he talks to a sir and is ass at roleplaying whatever concept he had in mind
>the only time when he's playing his character is when i force him to do charisma/intelligence rolls because his retard puncheverything character could not possibly be eloquent/smart enough to charm the people they meet

Why is every other thread on /tg/ a low-key blog where DMs bitch about their players?

>>53988032
Its good therapy.

>>53979979
What makes his comment bait-tier is the fact that he's obviously a shitter.

It takes a certain type of person to make that point(correct though it is) that specific way. Being right doesn't negate the fact that it's obviously the sentiment weapons-grade bitch, and that will bait people.

>>53988032
Every other site about rpgs expects you to gush about how much you love your players so this is the only place to properly vent

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>>53958866

> Chaos Lord fires plasma pistol one turn and then tries to use flamer next round
> Uh Anon pretty sure you used a plasma shot last round.
> Small argument ensues
> Well lets check the list
> The list is in my head Anon


AAAAA YOU SOCIALLY AWKWARD SAUSAGE SMELLING DICKHEAD.

>be me a few years ago
> WHFB 8th edition in full swing
> been building tons of cool terrain for months
>gf helps out, often even paints me a unit or two
>my dwarfs are actually pretty playable
>having tons of games
>new dwarf book comes out
>it's a very nice book, fairly balanced and with many fun options
> having even more games
>in the span of 2 months, my business goes under, my gf leaves me, get half of my OOP artillery stolen
> get depressed and bitter about everyhting, abandon completely any interest in the hobby
> about 7 months ago
> see old half finished terrain project behind some furniture
> pick it up
>finish it
>WOW I got that spark going again
> i really want to play
>I wonder how cool the new armies that must have come out now are
> WHFB is no more
>well not too much of a big deal I can probably find people to play and invite over at my place
>I live in the 4th largest city in north america and I can't find people to arrange more than a game every 2 months

>>53988148
oh my god im so sorry

>>53987576
>muh military service

Fuck off nobody asked

>be Me
>be designing my own RPG (Built out of PBTA, inspired heavily by Enter the Badlands, Fallout NV, The Gunslinger Books, Trigun, and with magic/mythos elements)
>Keep building more and more
>Keep realizing there is more and more to add
>Realize I have 2 weeks to have a competent Alpha together
>Slam face into desk repeatedly

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>Play weekly sessions with friends
>GM's kinda inexperienced and wavers between having to look everything up and making up houserules that end up biting her in the ass later
>Group simply does not RP at all beyond finding intricate ways to torture enemies they round up (when playing evil campaigns) or finding ways to ruin the GM's plans for us (when playing good campaigns)
>Find myself tuning out more and more each session and only snapping to attention when it's my turn to attack
I feel like I should be the one taking the initiative for playing a character but I can't really find good times to pipe up. Everyone seems very preoccupied with finding wacky ways to do something or just how quickly the enemies will die.

>>53985244
>Then it fell apart.
Let me guess: it's the women's fault.

>be the leader/face of the party
>also the only member of the group who remembers important information, takes notes, and is generally able to interact with the GM's NPCs realistically like I'm actually talking to someone
>talking to important NPC
>party members butt in to say dumb memeworthy comments or do other shit-disturbing things for no reason (one time they decided that repeatedly knocking on a door would be funny, which unsettled the old man I was talking to)

If you want to be able to participate in social interactions just say so, don't act like a bratty two-year old tugging on his parent's sleeve when adults are talking

also
>party paladin regularly gets piss-drunk and goes on benders of killing random creatures/people out in the wilderness and then raping their corpses
>somehow the GM hasn't taken his powers away and is okay with him maintaining Chaotic Neutral alignment

>>53988508
>(one time they decided that repeatedly knocking on a door would be funny, which unsettled the old man I was talking to)
Literally what one of my players did last session, except with an really dangerous and hungry vampire

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>try to create an emotional moment - make things tense, scary, sad, etc
>always that one fucking player who can't handle it and has to try and make a joke to lighten the mood

>>53985212
>Play a 6 CHA character with no investment in social skills
>Have to be face anyway since we're in the Fantasy Imperium of Man and everyone else refuses to play a human.
>My socially inept brick of a monk has to convince the gate guards of every town we go to that they shouldn't investigate the small army of cloaked and hooded men standing behind me

>player neonates get send out by the prince to investigate werewolves
>werewolves ambush them fuck their shit up
>they wake up barely conscious
>one of them has the genious idea to badmouth the werewolves who fucked their shit just yesterday
>me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y

>>53988586
humour is a pretty natural response to uncomfortable situations, anon. as long as it was in character, why would you get mad?

>>53988586
>typical party jokester understands dramatic tension and has pulled some heart-tugging antics to counteract their usual dickery.

Feels good man.

>>53988508
>party paladin regularly gets piss-drunk and goes on benders of killing random creatures/people out in the wilderness and then raping their corpses

Wat

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>>53958866
>A: "Alright, so as I see it, we've got two plans."
>B: What about third option that gets us both bonuses with none of the penalties?"
>A:" That's interesting, let's see if anyone else has an opinion."
>C: is asleep
>D: Says nothing, because busy playing Trials in Tainted Space in the other window
>E: Blithers for five minutes without choosing a side
>F: "We should drop everything and go wander aimlessly in the wilderness to prove that sandbox games are better than this shitty plot"
>B: "Looks like nobody has too much of an opinion."
>A: "So... looks like we've got two choices. Which should we do?"

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>>53989038
>busy playing Trials in Tainted Space in the other window

>>53989038
This shit is why having a 'party leader/caller' is actually great despite sounding like a weird control-freak holdover from OD&D

Assuming the usual party composition of a few guys and a bunch of dudes who don't care, having one guy arbitrarily choose what the plan is and then say 'we do this plan' makes the game move disgustingly fast.

And if a player has a problem they can go 'wait hold up I think we need to do XYZ instead' and they can always decide not to go along with the plan or to call for a new party leader

But for all those dudes who just don't really have any strong opinions/an attention span of more than 5 seconds, a party leader is great. They follow the leader and engage when they want to, but the game doesn't come to a screeching halt whenever you try to get people who don't really care to contribute.

>>53989112
>do this
>party leader is incredibly indecisive and you have to rush encounters so they can actually finish the adventure this century

>>53971918
>t. Entitled player.

>>53970719
It works fine in 5e and even in 3.5 it was decent about 70% of the time. It onky suxked in 3.5 because power level was so disparate am on parties (i.e. the tier system)

>>53989146
Well yeah, if everyone's useless and afraid of taking action you're screwed, but if you don't have a single go-getter maybe you should just look for another group or start demanding decisions and actions lest you spring wandering goblin ninjas on them

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>>53989064
I don't care, and I don't wanna know, as long as you react when your turn comes up and you cast a vote in party decisions.

>>53971862
I gad a similar experience where i tried to make a qhole world for a campaign brcfore even starting. Tfaguht me to start small necayse otherwise you have way too much work to do . But yeah i keep scarpping and restarting becayse i want to make something comfy and lowpowered and frontier by I keep restraint it . F u k me.

>>53961806
Are you from literally every game I've ever GM'd?
I'm tempted to start going over this every session because they do not stop.

>>53988006
>soldier
This might be why everything with the appearance of being an officer or official is a sir to said character.

>>53988183
Did you get disqualified at MEPS anon?

>>53982993
Sounds more like undead commanding. "go here, wait until all organisms have stopped moving around you or 3 minutes w/e, then go to here, do the same thing for these 15 points on the map in a loop forever or until I tell you something else to do" it's just a skeleton, not a pet, unless you were hugging it and talking to it like you would your puppy and trying to bring it into villages/stables and not just treating it like your own private land submarine.

>>53976772
I'd love to read the rules if the damn GM would give me a copy of his fucking beta homebrew system fuck!

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>Party is sneaking around some necromancer's crypts
>Rogue is doing well with rolls, pretty much indetectable.
>Comes across a pair of guards, which the DM told him, and I quote "It's a pair of guards, they are completely encased in metal armour, save for their mouths. You can hear them gently moaning."
>"I wanna take a closer look at their mouths"
>They seem to have completely rotted teeth, gums and skin
>Has a bottle of sleeping draught in his bag
>"I apply the sleeping draught to a cloth, and sneak up behind the guard, then press it to his nose."
>You do this, it has no effect. The guard bites your hand.
>After the party kills the guards and takes down the necropolis, the rogue dies in an inn and rises again as a zombie.
>WTF man that's bullshit there was no warning for that.
>Had the DM repeat several times "The bite on your hand THAT CAME FROM A ZOMBIE feels like it's getting worse/is infected/has started to rot.
I get that you should give everyone a fighting chance but he pretty much killed himself because he never paid attention to what the DM told him about his enemies, only how heavily armoured they were and what weapons they had.

>>53970339
It's sad because a really well-done pyrrhic victory can be a really good way to end an arc or even a campaign - you're battered and bruised but you're overjoyed that you survived, you did it, you managed where you thought you were going to fail, and players and characters feel like what they risked was worth it and it's real rewarding. Then there's the sobering point where you have to realize how close you were to failure, or even that you lost NPCs or PCs on the way.

But it's hard to feel that way if every fight is like that. Sometimes you want to be able to fuck up things that gave you a challenge a long time ago, or you just don't want to feel like you have to run from fights because you've barely made it through three already and just want to recuperate.

Party taking literal months to clear a dungeon, was planned to be a heavy time investment because it's challenging, but holy fuck we'd go multiple 6 hour sessions without even clearing a new room.

Decide fuck it lock them in just so they make some god damn progress (some of their associates financing the operation are also growing impatient).

They have no way out, teleporting only works on elves because it's warded vs humans. Whole party is humans or at least non elves, so the team healer who uses teleporting as a major crutch can't just have the group bounce.

They spend two sessions locked in, tense desperation, kill a boss and clear more rooms in two sessions than in the whole dungeon arc combined.

Oh yeah did I mention there's an elf player? Oh no, I didn't, because he never fucking shows up. Like ever, he's only in because he's a nice guy and he's the hosts friend, otherwise he'd be fucking cut.

Anyway, this MFer is literally like dying from a trap he sprung weeks ago (days ago in game time), but burned some metacurrency to survive, so I couldn't just kill him.

Anyway, he decides to come back, the party finds and heals him, and then the healer teleports him to the surface and they let him out and they leave the dungeon, not even half done.

And even if they come back it's gonna be the same over cautious craziness no progress deadlock again. Oh and I guarantee that the elf player doesn't show up next session.

This has happened twice now with flake players dropping in, fuckin shit up, then dipping out.