GM Whining thread This is for GMs who want to let loose after

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only have myself to whine about

>was a bad GM
>not good at roleplaying either

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>>54349464
It's ok.
I'm sure you will improve

You sound like a great GM.

Also- a campagin is never wasted. All those written NPCs and minis can be reused for a better group.

>"I want to play DnD."
After rolling stats 1 week later
>"I'm gonna be gone for about 3 weeks of next month."
>"I can't play until 2 months from now."
>"I'm gonna be pretty busy for the next few weeks so I can't play immediately."

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SIGN UP NOW

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>>54349716
This kills me from the inside, too

>They roll characters
>Play for one session at best
>Afterwards they're always busy
>Or they show up halfway through
>Or they leave halfway through
>Or they don't show up at all despite saying they will
>They also get mad if you ask them for their schedules

>>54349849
>they get mad when you ask them for their schedules

THIS IS THE FUCKING WORST
Like you try to get them to show up on time and you put a bit of effort in ask them beforehand and they just snub me away

Is it that difficult to let me coordinate my game?

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>code a whole website with django nginx and postgres to play rpg by post with my friends + keep a teamspeak and sinusbot with 100% uptime on a fucking debian serv in my living room
>some don't even bother to look at the website despite my invitations for 2 weeks
>"sorry I love you mate but i'm too busy right now"
There are 5 fucking webpages holy shit fuck you, you're too busy ? Looks like you're not too busy to watch some shit tier tv series tho, because you keep complaining they're shit despite watching the whole season you faggot
I'm playing with other people since wednesday and it's fine. Fuck these """"""friends"""""".

>start a campaign
>i ran a seperate session 0 for each player to let them develop their characters and give them each unique connections and allies they can reach out for
>none of the pcs havent actually met up yet though
>start the first session
>explain that theyre about to recieve their first mission, questgiver npc that theyre all affliated with leaves the room for a moment to collect relevant documents to explain mission
>purposely did this so that the pcs can be alone for a couple minutes to socialize and introduce themself to one another
>one pc reads a book quietly ic, another one just waits, another one takes a seat, another one looks at a clock
>...
>questgiver npc comes back, gives quest, they head out
>while theyre gearing up rp out their equipment buying and the trip to quest
>none of them spoke to one another the entire way there except for one guy who pointed out which of the merchants offering holy water was legit to another pc that was window shopping
>now that theyre at the quest place they've engaged combat mode and are too busy searching for traps and investigating stuff to smalltalk

establish your character relationships you fucks

>>54349994
And after that session they probably complained about a lack of "immersion" and why they should be on an adventure instead of doing farmwork or stuff thats not interesting

>that one player that makes characters who are superficially normal without anything interesting
>that one player whos character always asks why they're travelling into dangerous areas
>that one player whos character always wants to go home
>that one player who is also constantly disinterested and quiet

>>54349356
Cheers for the work OP
Your campaign should be played with other people, at least it's not prepared for nothing.

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>>54350035
Why does anyone ever think making a character with no reason to be involved/invested is a good idea?
It's because people are dumbasses.

>>54350072
I'm communicating with one guy and he's got schedule issues which means we have to postpone the next session

Its incredibly annoying when you put a lot of work into something and then your guys expect you to do EVEN MORE while they put in less effort than you want them to

friends my ass. how the fuck am i supposed to juggle npc roleplaying, quests, locations, all of the rules and play motherfucking soundeffects on top of that?

Am i some kind of kiddie entertainer?
What the fuck is going on here?

Also i made them quickrules for the homebrew
>once in an image
>and another one as a 6 page word document

And nobody bothered to read them so i had to spend the first hour explaining the rules again!
And i told them the rules during character creation as well!

>>54350245
I know that feel too well. You can't even starve them because they'll just drop the ball and move on. The only way is to either talk about the issue (which will make everyone walk away) or walk away. At this point it's too late i'm afraid.

>>54350369
>54350369
Dude life fucking sucks man

>>54349716
Do I know you? This sounds word for word like a friend of mine's problem.

>>54350457
The good part is that being a GM you are pretty "rare" especially if you put some effort into it. I guess you have to gather new people around your table and not be afraid to choose the people you enjoy playing with.

>>54350492
I have to make a fucking facebook account now to look for new players
This is especially annoying because the guys i currently play with have been my real life friends since like 6 years
Fuck me in the ass

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>>54350512
>I have to make a fucking facebook account now to look for new players
What
No
Better not play than recruiting on fucking facebook

>>54350533
Where else?
I can't go to random people on the street and ask them if they play tabletop

Going into nerdstores is only going to get me retarded autists

Making new friends takes a lot of time

>>54350544
Yeah alright I get the issue
You met some players who you never got around playing with ?
Do you have a local RPG association ?
Some RPG forums might be an idea
Lurk Roll20 forums to get some contacts ?

I don't know, TTRPG is so popular in my country that I never had the need to recruit.

Godspeed good gm

>>54350589
Thank you
I will try my best

>>54350533
I did that, worked out pretty well. Players are great, none actual aspies, just too busy to get more involved with any community.

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>>54350245
>Do all of this
>Craft my own television table with an old TV and plexiglas I have to display custom maps I made in photoshop. Don't have a lot of minis so improv. a few from my very old pathfinder starter kit (those karton/paper ones)
>Wanted it to be really good because a year ago I kinda dropped the bomb but since then I've been DMing a few games more
>Prepare custom maps, items, small little curios like written notes ect. for a small yawning portal campaign
>Day comes
>Player characters: a slutty elven whore, a solid floating cube (as in an actual solid white cube) wizard that calls itself "1" and a standard template human fighter
>S-sure I can work with that
>At first sign of adventure the elf runs off to a river because she is thirsty and wants to roll for clumsiness to fall in. starts going into the opposite direction of everything
>Tell the group this is not going to work after about an hour and 30 minutes and that we agree that we're better off just playing talisman, elf agrees. Its not as fun as he thought it would be and that he might just like LARP more.
and I really thought they would like it, too.

>Guy makes a beatstick melee guy minmaxed to kill most dudes in one hit and not get hit
>Never walks in front when going through a dungeon
>The whole party will literally stand around in the hallway waiting for this guy to take the in character hint that he should go first, this has happened dozens of times, party starts sounding like goddamn Dora the Explorer

>Wizard: "Fuck that, I'm not opening the door. Last time there was a minotaur waiting right behind it. I don't want to be standing in front of a minotaur..........I like to be in the back where I can cast spells.......Sure would like someone else who likes to be in front to go first......like someone wearing full plate armor.....Can you see a party member that needs to be in front to be effective? Let's ask my familiar Boots....."

>Most of the time the party just gets frustrated and the cleric is just like 'fine, I open the door, oh, look, a beatstick monster, sure would have loved to not be in melee with it, oh well, guess we have to spend a couple of turns desperately managing the positioning of the party because we're all single file walking down a hallway and for some reason the fighter is wandering around the back of the line'

Why even make a character like that if you aren't gonna do stuff?

I think we've had quite a few noteworthy adventures but my group never storyriems anywhere

>>54350737
>At first sign of adventure the elf runs off to a river because she is thirsty and wants to roll for clumsiness to fall in. starts going into the opposite direction of everything

Did the player do that on purpose or out or because he didn't know better?

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>>54349464
>tfw

I'm still not sure what I should do when it's my turn to GM again. I hate it. Maybe I'll bring a lot of booze and start the session in a tavern. Then I can force everyone to get drunk for roleplaying purposes and nobody will remember in the morning how awful it was.

>>54350806
he did it on purpose because "that was what his character would do"

>>54350806
Not him but I think the player just got confused about what "thirsty" means. He was playing a thirsty elven whore after all.

>>54350843
Yea those are the worst kinds of players
You fucking signed up for an adventure not for wandering around like a retard

>>54350798
Maybe you should just straight up tell him

>>54350798
Was in a campaign (as a player) with a dude kinda like that. He and I were both fighters, him more of a tank and me more of a dps kinda guy. Then he decides to start multiclassing as a bard while all the characters are level 7, and now insists on playing only as a bard. So he's hanging back, casting all the bard spells he can as a fucking LEVEL ONE bard, leaving me to try to tank as much as I can before being inevitably knocked out almost every fight. Luckily the DM was a good guy, let me exploit a few things in the game that basically let me actually be one of the stronger PCs in the party to make up for the bard being an idiot

>Players ask for an intrigue heavy campaign
>All right, give me a bit to spin up a setting.
>Why would you need to do that, GM-anon?
>Because an intrigue campaign requires multiple NPC powerbases who are competing and need adventuring sorts like you to slip through the gaps in the power structure, I can't just conjure all that up out of thin air.
>What do those words mean?
>Make a detailed setting with lots of scheming rival important sorts, players have lots of choices who to align with on what issues, and how far to go in service of their allies.
>Players pick a few missions to do.
>Are honestly surprised and outraged when the people on the pain end of their missions are now mad at them and won't hire them or even sic their guards on the PCs!

I've come to the conclusion that people who want "intrigue campaigns" simply want to be fellated at how they're Machiavellian masterminds, regardless of how stupid their plans actually are.

>>54350942
He didn't name his character Fflewder by any chance, did he?

>>54350994
>>Players ask for an intrigue heavy campaign
>>All right, give me a bit to spin up a setting.
>>Why would you need to do that, GM-anon?
>>Because an intrigue campaign requires multiple NPC powerbases who are competing and need adventuring sorts like you to slip through the gaps in the power structure, I can't just conjure all that up out of thin air.
>>What do those words mean?
>>Make a detailed setting with lots of scheming rival important sorts, players have lots of choices who to align with on what issues, and how far to go in service of their allies.
>>Players pick a few missions to do.
>>Are honestly surprised and outraged when the people on the pain end of their missions are now mad at them and won't hire them or even sic their guards on the PCs!
>I've come to the conclusion that people who want "intrigue campaigns" simply want to be fellated at how they're Machiavellian masterminds, regardless of how stupid their plans actually are.

Thats why players are fucking retarded. Can't think further than the length of their penis and have to complain and go quiet with every obstacle they encounter

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>Be only member of group that's a useless NEET and not getting swamped by college and work
>Try to GM something so that they can just enjoy a game without all the prepwork and other GM stuff
>Also be the shittiest member of the group in regards to writing and RPing.
>Know for a fact the game would be 10 times better if one of the other guys was running it.
>So far they haven't called me out on being terrible or told me to fuck off.
I guess mediocre gaming is better then nothing?

>Have a player who keeps using "I'm only playing my alignment" as an excuse to be a dick
>Beating up randoms
>Threatening locals
>Threatening me
>One time he actually defaced our druid's sheet for not playing True Neutral properly, nevermind the druid was neutral good.
>He treated us all to taco bell last evening and forgot to get drinks, this was the last straw.
>Running a game, he starts his whining, then gets off his sweaty ass and stinks out my bathroom.
>He returns and puts his dumper on my seat. We continue for half an hour.
>Tries to get up
>Realizes he's stuck in the chair
>While he was in the bathroom I splattered the sweaty chair with gorilla glue
>I pull my mask off, oh it had been days since he ruined a 4th edition game and I was getting pretty smelly under it.
>"YOU!!" he screamed in terror as tears ran down his face, flashbacks to when I bombed his table during a power outage could be seen in his eyes
>A cheshire smile split my cheeks
>Drop trou and leave a a nice big heap of taco tish right on his lap

>>54351062
Or maybe you just don't have enough self-confidence to see how good of a gm you are

>>54350798
Im in the exact same situation but reversed right now
>play tanky fighter that is great for gridlocking 2+ foes at a time
>Instead the wizard is the party "initiatior" and keeps doing dumb fucking shit and running into stuff

Finally got my revenge though, he brazenly interrupted a lords festival of some kind and I just blended in with the crowd and saw him and his equally retarded cleric friend detained.
I did bail him out in the end by a planned escape and a few good rolls

>>54351062
>NEET
>Know for a fact the game would be 10 times better if one of the other guys was running it.

You have too much free time that you spend on overthinking shit and keeping yourself down.
Share some of your GM stories or plot ideas and let /tg/ be the judge.

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Not a GM rant but a player rant instead

>I'm the only one in my group who takes things seriously, tries to roleplay and move things forward
>Feel like an asshole because I don't give the others the chance to do anything
>Decide to let my group do things on their own
>They sit there, mill about, do nothing and waste time
>Feel like an asshole because the game isn't going anywhere cause no one is doing anything
>Repeat

>>54351062
what setting are you hosting anon? tell us about it. As long as its all fun and good and the players are enjoying themselves theres no need to beat yourself up. In fact they are probably grateful for you taking the time they don't have to set it up in the first place. I know I would and I love our DM for it.

If you want to ask for reassurance or something, don't straight up ask what they liked and didn't like(perhaps thats fine after session 1 but it gets annoying after a while) but rather ask what their characters think of the story thus far. If they are thinking about what to do the next session, it means they are involved and are enjoying themselves and you can get some insight on what to prep for the next one

>>54351277
You could try engaging the players until they've come out of their autism shell

>>54351090
things that happened

>>54351104
>>54351177
>>54351294
See, now I know I'm not an absolute shit GM, I am better then the Roll20 baseline and would probably blow away a group of normies.
The issue is that the dudes I'm GMing for now are semi-professional writers with decades of RPG experience, I am not and didn't manage to have a group last for more then a month until 2 years ago.
It's the skillgap being so large that's intimidating more then anything else I suppose.

>>54349356
>Don't actually enjoy DMing all that much
>Only do it because literally every single other person in the group is a terrible, terrible DM, the stuff that makes horror stories either out of magical realming, railroading to hell and back, or sheer stupidity.

>>54351090
>Have a player who keeps using "I'm only playing my alignment" as an excuse to be a dick
I'm sure your alignment would make you stop him or restrain him so, do it

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>>54351439
Think about it like this: You are enabling a space where they can portray their creativity. There's a reason voice actors, witters and in general creative people love D&D. Regardless of skill, experience or style, they are most likely grateful enough that you are bringing them together for a fun game in the first place.
Just have fun with it

>>54349356
>the complainer demands that i use sound effects
Is this normal for GMs? Could you guys tell me if its good or bad or a waste of time?

>>54351716
complete waste of time. i'm going to mute your music so i can hear everyone.

>>54351478
I find it funny how THAT'S the part you take issue with

>>54351716
Music and sound fx only work if you play IRL and only when its played really softly
Digitally everyone experiences it differently in terms of volume ect and it'll just be annoying.

>>54351439
>It's the skillgap being so large that's intimidating more then anything else I suppose.

You can always ask them for suggestions on what to improve and how.

>>54351478
>>54351818
Alignment is a shit system and anyone using it should stop playing RPGs all together

>>54349849
>>54349896
>>54349716
Jesus christ what kind of subhumans do you people play with

>>54351818
I was wondering how to make my creatures more menacing when they attack, or as a warning sign for the player that the dragon is now pissed off.

Also I don't play online and we all at the table enjoy background 'music' (not actually music since they have no lyrics), plus shuts down the car noise outside so we immerse better.

I couldn't care less about OP's dumb problems. I'm here to learn how to be better nothing more.

>>54351865
You'll find out that most people are boring, indecisive or indifferent.

>>54351884
Fuck I replied to the wrong anon. Whatever

>>54351277
Similar issue except people complain I'm going "too fast" and the GM calls me out saying I should stop moving the scene along.

Next session there's about a 10 to 20 minute window of nobody. saying. anything. I got the last word in the conversation, the GM can't move the scene for us, and nobody else does shit.

Only in text games, man.

>>54350598
id suggest attempting to recruit off of here as well
tg is filled with autist but at least most of us are high functioning
all the games ive played on roll 20 have really fucking special snow flaked people
Like a hermaphrodite lizard person
or a weird race that is basically a elf+ squid was another one i saw
People on roll20 tend to be fucking strange

>>54351857
I still find it funny that's what you take issue with.

>>54350035
>that one player who is also constantly disinterested and quiet
That player is me.

But its because the GM is shit and built a
homebrew Isekai setting where we use characters from a game he is 'developing' and are transported into a different world, objective is to go back to each character's respective world. And I couldn't give less of a fuck about my character because I have no attachment to him, nor do I have any desire to go back to 'my world' that I know nothing of.

>>54351933
>Only in text games, man.
>Implying you don't have just as many indecisive fucks in voice games too.

>>54352015
I'm not sure what message I'm supposed to get from your post other than the fact that you're a huge retard

>Play a 5e game with a 3.x fan, someone permanent attachment to their smartphone & a house plant
>Do a sandbox city adventure with guilds, noble houses and plenty of adventure locations/pre-written material for players to go through
>Give the players a single page handout with a short paragraph of all of the POI in the city
>Start the session, "since you've all returned to the city, what would you like to do?"
>Crickets, then player with a smartphone suggest "go to the quest board?" And goes back to looking at FB on her phone.

>>54352015
That's your own fault anon. If you leave the rest of the party "because my character has no attachment to the rest of them" or you have no motivation "because my character is a blank slate and I know nothing about my backstory" it's your own fault.

If you come up with a backstory for your character, your DM can write you interesting content that focuses on your character.

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>Run perfect campaign
>Can't enjoy running/playing in anything else ever again

>>54351967
If i recruited of here i'd get a lot of english speaking americans who are up for online play

I'm gonna search at my local places using facebook i think

>>54352276
Tell me about the perfect campaign.

Help me out here
>Invest time in drawing hand-drawn maps
But if there comes a point and I have to improvise a map, then it will be very apparent that I improvised the map. what do?
Do you just make maps for the "special" zones and dungeons or do you prepare a ton of backup maps? or do you forgo maps completely and just use them as your mental notes?

>>54352281
ah you wanted a irl game
Well good luck to you anon may you part the sea of That Guy's and arrive at the holy land of Good roleplayers

>>54349464
same
How do I stop being shit?

>>54352326
I make notes beforehand, then i create the maps based on those

Thats mostly because i know my players fuck up everything and i have to make stuff easier for them

>want to play D&D
>think I'd be good at it, both as a DM or just a player as I have experience writing and spent pretty much my entire life creating little worlds in my notebooks
>work 40 hours a week and my schedule is never the same from week to week

Man I want to play D&D or anything similar so bad. I've tried 3 times but scheduling issues always rear their ugly heads.

>>54352351
>>54352326
I think making maps for towns and special zones is fine, also if you want a dungeon with some sort of unique layout it's a good ideal to make a couple rough sketches beforehand

I don't think you have to have maps prepared for every encounter, thats a waste of time imo

>>54352297
I could do really long greentexts but it was basically a non-serious campaign with a character interaction focus where all the players got super invested and were constantly having a good time even off-session
It was just the kind of perfect culmination of the group all getting along with each other without a lick of drama, and it was online which made it even more miraculous that it turned out that way

It was also a semi-generic fantasy setting where the PCs' goal was initially to find legendary ancient dragon-slaying weapons, which turned out to actually have been giant robots all along
And then things escalated from there until there were no limits, including a session where they literally played Everybody is John as an NPC, another where they invaded a castle that was a transforming mech and shed its rooms while they were inside it, another where they fought Kek (the god), and so on, with the wacky tone accepted and perpetuated by the group the whole way through

Now other campaigns tend to come off as too serious with players that hate fun in comparison, and everyone from that group pretty much immediately got jobs or other schedule-fillers the second it ended
I still see my players mentioning it on /tg/ every now and then though, and it always makes me smile

>>54352428
You don't need maps for every encounter, but you need environment that can be interacted with or secondary objectives to keep it interesting.

>>54349716
I've got a player that'll tell one of the other players if he needs to leave early or something, but not me when I'm running the damn thing. For what goddamn purpose

>>54352351
>>54352428
>>54352455
I was talking more about the sense of disconnect, since the quality of the maps can vary quite a lot and it might come across as either lazy or just out of place, so in order to not lose the disconnect; just lower the quality to the same level of all your maps

>>54352455
I agree

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5e
>one of my players ALWAYS A L W A Y S makes a half elf rogue, every single campaign i've run he's been there in with his dagger and crossbow but each with different backgrounds and goals. they are always varied enough to each stand out.
>this campaign i decide to make a QT 3.14 bookish drow druid for him
>he'd love it, i know his taste.
>give her detailed history and a plot with branching quests
>go all out for my players
>my campaigns often end in character marriages so i have that all planned too
>shut up, it's not weird.

>have it all planned
>player comes in
>"HEY ANON THIS TIME I THOUGHT I MIGHT TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT, I'M GOING TO BE A DRAGONBORN MONK"

FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOU DUUUUDE
(however i'm glad he is branching out to other classes, it will help make him a better player.. it still doesn't take away from the fact THAT MY PLANS ARE RUINED)

>>54350891
this

>>54350232
"My character basically has their entire life figured out and no real motivation to do dangerous things. In fact, they hate doing dangerous things and will complain consistently when dangerous things are done."
[two months later]
"I'm starting to feel like my character doesn't have a reason to stay with the party."

>>54352484
Rebuild her slightly as a QT 3.14 bookish Dragonborn druid that works at the local monastery.

>>54352563
he doesn't like how dragonborn look, but loves their stats

he's currently questing for a spell or item that will turn him into a half-elf
alternatively, he gets killed in combat and the priest uses reincarnate.

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>be perma-GM for friends
>work super hard on opening of new campaign segment
>one player shows up late
>five minutes into game: "I gotta leave for like 45 minutes"
>why
>"it doesn't matter"
>other players/friends call him out
>he goes to have sex with girl on a backstreet
>is gone for an entire hour
>we bombard his phone with Hitler/Jesus/hentai the entire time he's gone
I didn't know what else to say.

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>>54352484
>shipping

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>>54352599

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>>54352663
it's fun anon!

>>54352663
Not that anon, but I have a female player who has been nagging at me the entire time that I do not include romance in my games for players.

She is gf of another player...

>>54352599
>but loves their stats
cancer

>>54352663
>Not having some light shipping in the game
It is great when done right and players accept it or indulge themselves in it
Just don't ERP

>>54352769
No it isn't, it's sappy.

>player asks me if i can gm a d&d campaign
>usually i gm gurps, whfr or brp stuff
>i say "why not? Nostaglia tiem!"
>present idea about setting, mood, charcter archetypes, consented manuals
>players are ok with all of above
>working really hard to wordbuild
>day of character creation, all the player are excited
>player joe says "i want to play a tiefling"
>puzzled i ask "why do you want to play a tieflig if we concurred that this is an only humans + elf campaign?"
>discussion.jpg
>"very well than i play the elf!"
>another player protests since he already had dibs on the elf
>more_discussion.jpg
>"ok than i am a c/n rougue"
>that guy feels intensifies
>discuss even more about setting a common moral between party members
>"reee i don't like how you gm!"
Now i remenber why i had to drop d&d in the past

>>54352945
>Session 0
>mainly human + elf game
>anybody have a problem with this?
>"nope anon im cool with it"
>onto character creation
>i wanna be a tiefling
Throw a brick at him for wanting to play the edgiest race ever
or better yet ask him if he can give you a good reason how he was even born or has lived if every fucking god in existance most likely hates tieflings and would sick their worshipers on them
(that might just cause him to go with the "wolves raised me after my parents where killed" thing though at that point throw 2 bricks at him)

>>54349356
>Be GM for same group for long time, just over 6 years.
>Campaigns have come and gone, but the group stays.
>Have recurring joke cameo character, a gnome sorcerer who mostly just shows up, casts a few spells, and then leaves.
>Not a big deal, just silly randomness.
>Everyone on the table loves him, usually start chanting his name when he makes an appearance.
>Except for one guy, let's call him "Dave".
>Dave hates our gnome.
>Just shuts down whenever he appears.
>Sometimes spergs out when it happens. Embarrassing all around when that occurs.
>Won't leave the group, insists that everyone else stop their fun.
>Don't want to kick him because he's a longstanding friend.

>>54350491
Yeah! I'm that guy you know. What a total coincidence meeting up like this.

Tee hee hee, maccaroni maccaroni!

>>54350843
Literally never play with that person again.

The best option would be to kill him now so no one else has to suffer his bullshit too. But cutting him out of your own life is a close second.

>>54352890
fuck off, I don't care one bit for romantics, but even I know that using the word 'sappy' is a lazy boys way of dismissing all romance.
Emphasis on boy there by the way. The only age/sex demographic that broadly dislikes romance is young boys.
Romantics can be short and sweet, which is how I would most prefer them to be in a game about slaying evil and finding great treasure.
I would not want romance to take over a game though. Ever. Melodramatics are annoying as shit. There I would become a lillte angsty boy and use a word like sappy.

>>54353315
>I don't care one bit for romantics
>The only age/sex demographic that broadly dislikes romance is young boys.
Projecting a little there, Anon?
inb4 banned for underage.

>>54351439
It's actually a nice chance to improve your writing and etc.

>>54352655
If you can't even wait the fucking 3-4 hours it takes to play a game, probably once a week, then fuck you and get out of my group.

I don't care how good that poon is. You signed up for this, so fucking go through with it.

>>54352380
Find a NEET party. I am semi-NEET myself and only schedule trouble for me is not be sleeping when I should be playing or GM-ing.

How do I engage players? My approach so far has been to create lots of content and see what sticks, but they've been unengaged so far.

>>54352945
>this is an only humans + elf campaign

You deserved it.

>>54351454
God damn, I know that feel verbatim

>>54353315
No anon, sorry, people don't want to see you romancing a NPC (since clearly you won't ever have a rl gf) and trading kisses while we could be progressing the plot.

>>54353643
That's not even the whole reason why that Anon's a retard. If people want to play out romance shit let them run their game like that.
But going "If you don't like romance in your games then you must be 12" just makes you look like a fuckboy.

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>>54353836
>Using the word "fuckboy"

Do you assholes have any idea how embarassing you sound?

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>>54354064
>The fuckboy is triggered

>>54353643
this guy is right, everyone else is a cuck or a selfcucked cuck

why are you all so mean

>>54349716
This kind of happened with me, but from the player perspective.

>never played rpgs before
>want to start playing dnd
>get some friends that say that they want to play
>get a dm, make characters
>they just keep delaying
>end up with a mad dm and no even playing the game

I feel bad for making the DM mad because I'm the one that convinced him to DM to us

Shipping should stay far FAR away from my beloved hobby. Fucking thing can stay in tumblr and deviantart for all I care.

The only thing that ruins a perfect game is players.

The world would be so much better off without them.

>>54355001
Yes anon, close yourself in your dark room and imagine your perfect campaign.

>>54355105
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

>>54355342
anon, i think he was joking.

>>54355342
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

>>54349356
most players a lazy bastard that want to be entertained.

YOU have to put out major effort and dedication in THEIR entertainment while they do jack or they will walk. a GM is a free netflix account for a lot of players. and like netflix, theyll just not be there if the mood is not literally perfectly in your favor. fuck (most) players

>>54355408
Yes, you need to read that page. The only way your comment could be construed as sarcasm is if miy own was serious.

>>54351022
too much modern bethesda game. man those game love to suck the players dick at every single possible time. makes egos overinflated.

you are not a social genius, they are easily convinced!

>>54350994
>I've come to the conclusion that people who want "intrigue campaigns" simply want to be fellated at how they're Machiavellian masterminds, regardless of how stupid their plans actually are.
Or they want the Game of Memes feel.

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>>54349356
Party: "we like puzzles"
>Give questline leads them to a wizard tower with puzzles to get through, can't figure it out immediately, give up and never come back.

Party: "we're all good aligned characters"
>After idiocy that inadvertently killed a clan of good dwarves party unanimously agrees to join a pack of daemon hellspawn that were trying to kill said dwarves and invited party to kill a peaceful human village.

Fine. Whatever...

Party: "We'll go in at night and open the gate for for the demons to come in and start the slaughter"
>Party walks into town in broad daylight, attacks first NPC they see. Town guard swarm them and kill them.

I just don't even know what to do anymore...

>>54356013
Give them a couple of those helpful smart pills
Im sure those could help

>>54356102
About ready to give them a couple of those helpful cyanide pills. Im sure those could help

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>First real game
>Party is made up of two new people and some friends
>One of the new ones writes a lot of details about where his character is from, details on his family, writes about the country as a whole, and it's politics
>I didn't have a lot in the way of setting notes and this is overwhelming to me
>Two of the other players get a miniature cold war going, which is so bad I'm considering ending the game
>Next session is coming up soon and I haven't decided whether or not to kill it

>>54356216
Cultivate the new players, tell the other guys to cut it the fuck out

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>>54356216

99% of the stories on here can be solved by just talking to your players like adults

Holy fuck how autistic are you /tg/

>>54356352
>talk to my players about them being autistic fucks who cant roleplay
>they still cant roleplay
??

>>54356216
what's a fake game?

>>54356379
if your group consists of low-functioning autists you really just gotta bail

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>>54349356

>half the players fuck with their phone and have no idea what is going on when their turn comes up
>randomly look up and do or say something stupid and retreat back to their phone after
>No idea what to do when their turn comes up and take 10 minutes to do anything
>other players pay attention and their turns are over in seconds before they wait there bored for 30 minutes
>people refuse to not have their phones at the table, seem indifferent to how rude they are being to their "friends"
>banning phones leads to not enough people showing up to play and getting pestered by players about whatever small couple players game I try to run

I miss running games before smart phones, I really do.
Honestly I miss doing any group function before smart phones.

>>54356413
They are my only friends.

>>54356430
Well that sucks dick good luck

>>54356423
maybe you should have a what'sapp group so that you message the player that is looking at the phone that it is his turn

>>54350737
Anon you sound like you put in a lot of work to have fun. Perhaps ask around other related social circles or nearby game stores to make some new acquaintances that would appreciate your dedication. Nothing against your old friends, but why let that work go to waste?

>>54350994
>Players ask for an intrigue heavy campaign

Sounds like they wanted Game of Thrones without realising that passively watching a show is a lot simpler than actively engaging in a setting . I've had similar issues where players wanted low fantasy, gritty with intrigue but when they actually played that didn't enjoy it at all because being relatively powerless in the face of multiple scheming factions vying for power is difficult and not that fun. Likewise watching someone get fucked over in a show is entertaining, getting fucked over yourself feels really bad.

Not being able to simply kill everything that upsets them because combat is super dangerous and has consequences. Instead they have to work together and think long term to get on top which takes far more thought and effort than your average normie can manage. In reality they just wanted D&D with Game of Thrones memes.

>>54349356
The only thing for me to whine about is about my GMing ability.

>Create decent storylines and scenarios that the players enjoy.
>Lose interest in GMing towards the end of the adventure, and stop GMing.

I love the making encounters, monsters, items, character, and stories, and characters---hell, I like even tinkering around with character creation options (races, classes, feats where applicable) but I never seem to want to see things through. I'm not sure entirely as to why, but I think a part of it is definitely because I want to play my own campaigns more than I actually want to run them. My desire to be a player hasn't been fully met due to subpar GMs.

I'm thinking I need to find my happy spot. Adventures seem to take too long, and I should really look into running some one-shot adventures. I like the idea of having one, solid adventure over a 5 hours period than maintaining a narrative over multiple sessions. Or, maybe I need to start treating each session as a self-contained piece with the same characters---using a "villain of the week" format.

>>54353189

Macaroni Macaroni

>>54356831
Lick my pepperoni

>>54356895
>>54356831
Tee hee hee

Your cardinal sin was putting too much investment in the campaign. As a rule, all players are idiots

>>54351884
>(not actually music since they have no lyrics)
Sometimes people slip in the most retarded shit in their posts like nobody will notice.

>>54352195
>The quest board
I fucking hate when players expect there to be an adventurer's version of craigslist.com that they can just browse "quests."

>>54353189
Force his character to have sexual intercourse with the gnome and when he tells you and the group its not funny, stay in character and push the boundaries through not the third, fourth or fifth wall, but the 6th wall and keep just keep on going without ever breaking character. leave him scarred for life as his friends try to hold in their laughter and not break character. When the gnome reaches his climax lean in and with your most gnomish gnome voice whisper into his ear Say my name, Dave. Say it

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>>54349356
>Group of friends stated a campaign this summer, all pretty ok
>One constantly tries to bully me into making him overpowered because he's an Artificer and should be able to craft magic items off of his list with no restrictions
>Two are bros, one has much more experience than me and the other plays a goofy cowboy so both have excellent RP
>one's my brother, first time, he's doing pretty good, but a little aimless
>Another is another friend who is super awkward and doesn't know how to play tabletop, told him to stop after several missed sessions and clear lack of interest, but he came back after he talked with everyone and me and he's not doing to bad so far, only two sessions returned though
>Last is a piece of shit who plays MMOs 18 hours a day, doesn't know how to roleplay, plays a bard but can't think without retarded videogame benchmarks like damage per turn, asks retarded questions to NPCs like "can you identify this magic item for me, random beggar" when HE KNOWS IDENTIFY, restricts all of sessions to be late either Friday or Saturday because he raids in WoW from 8:30-12:30 every other night and other people have work until 7:00, constantly complains how he's useless he is when he can't fathom the idea of non-combat encounters, and constantly crashes and forces us to end games early less than two hours in because he falls asleep
They're all my friends so I'm better off than some but people who can't discern the difference between videogames and tabletop. I'd kick MMOfag but in truth he's doing his best I suppose, he's just one of those people with no experience and can't get out of such a restricted mindset.

>>54356423
Skip them and have the monsters target the character standing around doing nothing. YOU should not be allowing 10 minutes for someone to hem and haw around. If they don't take their turn promptly, their character stands there slack-jawed and does nothing.

>>54351884
>I was wondering how to make my creatures more menacing when they attack, or as a warning sign for the player that the dragon is now pissed off.
Describe it more menacing, hinting at the surroundings and creature behavior such as a cunning elf assassin taking out the strongest of the group first or a frenzied shark going after the weak/bleeding.
You could always speed up or slow down the pace of the fight by quickly going by players their actions or detailing epic fights. Also sometimes limiting the time the players have in terms of reinforcements, raising water traps, crumbling mountainside duel with another group, the imminent death of a party member or simply just an actual time limit can really up the dread of the current encounter.

Usually something like this will suffice though:
"The creature bellows its chest and a slight spray of fire sprays out of the corners of it mouth. It lunges in for a bite and *roll attack die*
fail "just in time your character dodges the creature, it face now slamming and grinding against the cobbles of the ground as several scales are torn from its body"
miss "the creatures blow barely misses you, the burning heat slightly scorching your clothing."
hit "the jaws snap and rip clear a piece of your armor. you take *roll damage die* damage"
crit "the jaws snap shit on your arm as the creatures massive force *roll strength check behind screen* tears your arm clean from your body"

>>54356216
So the players are interested in the game, getting involved in the plot and helping you flesh out the setting. What's the problem?

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Is this less bitching about players, and more bitching about game mechanics and balance.

I'm trying to find a system to use in a cyberpunky setting and might (if the players ever get out of this shithole city) spin out into full on space stuff. And maybe I need to be more open to different types of mechanics, but some of the stuff I've read sound like complete fucking nonsense. Why does Technoir make you choose verbs and adjectives and shit? Why does The Sprawl count player damage through a god damn CLOCK? It just goes on and on.

I wish I could just use DND mechanics, but those would fall apart once everyone has fucking guns. How am I even supposed to balance that.

Maybe this is why I'm still a lackluster GM, but I just fundamentally don't understand how to properly balance encounters in the first place, even less so if I were frankensteining mechanics together.

>>54356352
Yeah but if fa/tg/uys could solve their problems we wouldn't get the schadenfreude of reading about their awful games.

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>>54357003
>>54352195
>when you were thinking of doing a literal quest board
Should I drop the idea?

I-I thought it was a good idea for them to get easy access to what to do and not waste time, since the BBEG is coming, and they need to level up to be ready for him.

I-I thought it would also be realistic for a town to have a quest board where travelling adventures can check what they can do to earn their dinner, learning what they have to do, how much they are paid, and where to find the contractor so they can meet the guy that wrote the note on the quest board in person and solve the little details as a group.

It's a bad idea, guys? I'm sorry

>>54357247
No, it's a good idea. Realistic too. If there are adventurer guilds surely there would be quest boards. Usually on taverns.

>>54356423
Get a signal blocker that blocks Wifi, GSM, 3G signals and shit. Turn on at the start of every game. Don't tell anyone.

>>54357295
Cool, thanks! I didn't think where to place it, but a tavern sounds perfect.

I was planning to have joke characters and recurrent characters that keep getting themselves in trouble to spice things up. Thanks anon! You have restored my confidence.

>>54357247
It's a shit idea, 9 times out of 10.

>>54357325
those things are illegal in large parts of the world. They're extra illegal in the US.

>>54357390
Only if they go past a certain area.

>>54357295
>If there are adventurer guilds
The idea of adventurers as an ongoing profession and adventurer's guilds for the purpose of adventuring is equally retarded.

>>54357390
I'm not sure I see what your point is.

>>54357247
Do a mix of the boards in FF12 and the ones in Witcher 3. Have half of the notices be inane shit like "My Goat Betsy has wandered off and I'm offering a reward" to "Let it be known to all that Hrothgar is a whoreson that cheats at cards" With the occasional "Wyvern spotted near the old mines, stay clear."

>>54357455
Depends on setting.

If he wants to do that, I would suggest doing something like Goblin Slayer.

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>One half of the party complains that Pathfinder is too complicated.
>The other half complain that 5e is too simplistic.
>Play 5e because I'd rather hear some complaining than babysit half the party.

>The players, who think Pathfinder is too complicated, never roleplay. They also always try and pick the same race/class every time.

>Had to go old school DM on them and make them analyze every situation because before they would just murderhobo everything in sight, even if they were vastly outnumbered or underpowered (which lead to some TPKs).

>Players sometimes just don't pay attention.

>>54357520
As DM you should make that every quest has a violent and a skilled (diplomatic, sneak, etc) solution.

A peaceful or skilled resolution may bring more rewards, but violence is fun too. Like in Payday, players go loud even through losing potential loot and exp because it's so cool.

>>54357429
wrong
https://www.fcc.gov/general/jamming-cell-phones-and-gps-equipment-against-law

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>>54349896
>try to schedule sessions with a group chat
>half of them tell me when they're busy
>the other half don't even give me a response
>suggest a day
>never get a response from any of them

Am I a bad GM, is that it? Do they just not like me anymore?

>>54357811
>Am I a bad GM
Not necessarily, maybe:
a) they don't like to play anymore
b) they don't enjoy something about your GMing (doesn't mean you are bad, just not their taste)
c) they actually have other shit more important to do than play pretend, like starting a family and get a second job or something, I don't know

My point is, don't think you are a bad GM. You are good anon, just talk to them.

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>>54352705
>>54352484
Good grief, guys.

>>54357557
Well yeah, of course every solution has a violent solution. But I'm so tired of doing the same thing every single time and never challenging the players.

The first TPK is when I wanted the players to find a solution to getting inside a cave (with an artifact inside) with 60+ soldiers who had a camp set just outside the cave. The players had a multitude of options to get in (convince them, sneak in, steal uniforms, etc, whatever they could come up with) but instead they decided to immediately kill the first two guards outside the gate and run inside swinging their weapons at 60+ soldiers.

>>54358486
I've found it helpful to run a one-shot to kill this idea in players.
Basically, you take a castle. Real simple. Put it inside a city, and challenge the players to loot the vault inside.
You're going to want 50+ pregenerated character sheets, stated up, geared up, and ready to go.
Reason being, you've balanced the castle around a level 15 or similarly late-game party. Yours meanwhile is stated to level 5 or equivalent early game. And it's not just raw damage numbers and saves (tweak the saves, make them lower than level 15), it's also a ways-of-thinking test.

The important thing is to have everything laid out, defined, and in writing. This is good session planning experience on your part.

Chances are, your players are going to get slaughtered until they stop being dumb. Then in subsequent games with you, they know how to not be dumb.
It works.

>>54357455
Do a Vassa if you -need- this sort of thing. Untamed land exactly random enough that risking soldiers would be unwise. The powers that be put out a broad call for adventurers and shit for monster bounty hunting. It's a front-ended gold rush that rewards reckless behaviour and puts the party in competition with every other rootless sellsword looking to make a fortune in goblin ears

>>54358563
I'm not sure what you're saying. Once a level 5 character dies, do you just replace him with a new one from the bank? Or do you wait for a TPK and restart the whole thing? Does game state persist between parties?

>>54359354
I prefer respawning in waves, so any non-dumb/surviving PCs can retreat and rejoin the group.
Of course, there would need to be risks associated with leaving, but the benefit to retreating and living is possible some item picked up from inside (a map, or a note for example).

>tfw GM is a wanker who enjoys making settings but loses motivation midway because what is execution
stay away from idea guys, people

>>54352004
Well I've yet to see someone go out of their way to torch orphanages and steal from the party in something used character motivation/flaws as opposed to alignment.

Alignment only gives bad player an excuse to be worse, like people who play drow who try to sell the party into slavery or a kender who purposefully steals the Fighter's magic ring because "lel it's what muh character would do."

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>apparently be really good DM
>more quiet as a player, usually stretching role-playing a little bit too far as my co-players rush into danger headfirst while I am playing a fighter

>>54356423
Work on finding more people that will tolerate a phone ban. I'd rather play with only one other dude than have 4 extra dudes that might as well not be there.

>>54359607
>tfw you have plenty of ideas
what do, anon?

>>54359748
How the fuck would a lone campaign even work lmao

like, how do you save the world if you are alone kek

>>54359764
Make a wordpress and disseminate your ideas there.
Compile the writings into a more-refined PDF and disseminate further.

If you can't manage that, you don't have enough ideas or motivation.

>>54358486
But battle is fun. If it's isn't challenging, then the DM should make the battles more challenging.

You really shouldn't make puzzle challengs unless your players enjoy those.

>>54359607
As an idea guy, I can vouch for this.

>>54352271
That ignores the fact if the GM will even let him have a backstory he can modify. The GM made the character, world, backstory, and thrust it into his hand without any creation or input from his end.
Railroading GMS rarely let you do anything to mess with their precious story or characters they created

>>54349716
I'm new to D&D, but due to scheduling hell our campaign is already on its third week of hiatus. Wish me luck.

>>54356423
Last session I spent a whole minute describing a magic item they just stumbled across, and they ended up giving to the guy who was texting or some shit and I had to explain its use all over again. Once he even started playing some dubbed over cat video at max volume in the middle of a combat encounter.

I'm currently running a game of Dark Heresy, and my players are having extreme difficulty grasping the concept of subtlety. Every time they try to be subtle (which is not often) they fail miserably at it. For every incident of them doing something to raise their subtlety score a point or two (like making up fake ID cards) there's another one where they tank it again by doing something incredibly obvious (like launching a frontal assault on a hospital suspected of being operated by Nurgleites). I mean, god help them, they're 'trying' to be subtle, but they don't seem to have grasped that there are other ways to acquire information than by kicking down the door guns-blazing and then and rifling through filing cabinets, or bricking somebody over the head and throwing them in the party van for a little enhanced interrogation.
The one time they tried to go undercover boiled down to "so... we're just looking around, minding our own business.... say, would you happen to know where we can find some illegal cult activity?"

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>>54349356
>Be DM
>Not want to be DM
>Friends want to try
>They're shit
>Give them tips
>They ignore tips
>Compulsively want to DM more as they continue to not take my advice
>End up back where I started
>Everyone seems to think I was trying to teach my friends a tragic lesson about how they will never be good at DMing
>Content that their lesson is learned, nobody will ever try to DM again.

Kinda off topic but.
See >>54352705 while reading GM thread.

I recall that my father (Who is our DM) was getting really into that anime. And He openly admits that he just rips stuff off from whatever he was reading/watching last.

Last session we were starting to deal with some snake cult.

Help, I don't want lamia waifus in my D&D, especially from my own dad- gonna be super fucking awkward.

>>54351328
As if that would work out in any reality ever.

>>54351439
Have you tried asking for feedback? That is the first thing I do after every game I run.

Just go to the players and ask "Hi man, can you tell me real quick what you liked about yesterday evening's session?"

I learned that one of my players felt slightly salty because he was the only one getting hit and knocked out in a game I ran and I did figure out that I should not focus him too much and instead go for the other players too, sometime.

>>54351454
>DMing
Have you tried not playing DnD?

>>54351884
>(not actually music since they have no lyrics)
No, it's music alright. The term you are looking for is song. Because songs are music that has sung lyrics.

>>54364936
Those players sound like Imperial Guardsmen to me. Are they playing Guardsmen?

>>54365403
>Mutant warrior who wants to become as mutated as possible, and practically orgasmed when he acquired an evisceratror chainsword
>Ex-priest warrior (new player)
>Bureaucrat that fancies himself as a run-and-gun sniper, widowmaker-style
>Religious fanatic who wants to be a knight but using a motorbike instead of a horse
>Magos Biologis surgeon played by an actual doctor who 'squee'd' the first time she obliterated a guy with her autogun (also new player)

>>54365472
Well, they would have definitely fit an IG if you ask me.

And how is the Mutant Warrior supposed to do anything sneaky ever? Aside from the Bureaucrat and perhaps the Ex-priest, I don't really see much sneakiness in general.

>>54351277
>Create 8 cha, stoic but quiet merc type
>End up as party face to stop 15 minute breaks between everything

>>54365136
Jesus fucking Christ, that is comedy gold. Please greentext it if (when) it happens.

>>54352484
kek

Well, you can keep the qt 3.14 for his next character. If you are lucky, he will go back to his trend of doing half-elves.

And given that you just had a break with luck, since he decided to play a dragonborn exactly when you were about to spring that on him, your chances are looking good.

>>54349356
>group is all great except for one guy
>guy always, every single game and system, makes some variation of ninja (not literally) with all stats stacked towards physical skills like dodge, athletics, etc.
>even when he allegedly tries something different his characters always default back to this (started as a doctor, turned into a fucking sniper over the course of one game)
>characters always have no personality, no real motivation, no backstory beyond a sentence or two even when I ask for more
>never roleplays or speaks up in character unless directly spoken to, never really has any ideas of his own
>we go long times between sessions so we do RP text posts between and even then he never starts scenes or participates in them unless prompted
>starting a new game soon, haven't seen character sheets yet but I just fucking know

He's not a bad player, it's just he has the RP ability of a fucking brick.

>>54365834
Some people like rolling bones and killing orcs in pleasant company, and are fine with doing just that. There is nothing wrong with this.

>after exausthing arguments about it i menaged to get a group of people willing on trying a gurps campaign (all whiney d&d-only players)
>wordbuild with extreme detail a wild west campign
>players gets super excited ("ttrpg other than fantasy setting!? Awesome!")
>had a great campaign, players gets really invested in characters and about gurps
>"thats was really fun guys but from now on i will have short time for playing since new job"
>players start calling and pressing everyday for a new campaign in different settings ("lets make a space adventure.. an horror one... l.a. noir style please?..")
>can't because of newjob
>after some time one of the player asks "since you don't have time may i borrow your gurps manuals for gm myself a campaign?"
>"sure thing buddy, here my pdfs since i prefer to keep my physical collection into my house", "awesome thanks!".
>after 4 months get more free time so i decide to call back the group for a new campaign
>all the players are busy except the new gm guy (lets call him steve)
>in this 4 months seems steve menaged to form a new group for his ongoing campaign with gurps
>it's 'game of memes' campaign
>foreboding.jpg
>asks him anyway if he and his new group would like to play a new campaign with me
>"sure thing buddy! Here the contacts fir tge new guys"
>call new guys: "of course anon, we are happy to play a new campaign with a different gm! We have only one request..."
>more_foreboding.jpg
>"...can it be a d&d campaign? That shit ruleset steve uses make no sense and, after all, it's just a cheap clone of d&d"
>figure out that steve homebrewed the shit out of gurps making an unholy hybrid of gurps-3.PF
>he also didn't point out that and presented that fiendsh spawn rulesystem as 'gurps'
>try to explain the new guys the truth
>they don't want to try it with me assuming anyway that gurps is a shitty clone of 3.PF
>in 4 months steve alienated the local game comunity from gurps
>thanks to steve i can't play gurps anymore

>>54349994
To be fair, this is a common problem. Most players don't know how to approach this better than "Hey strangers, let's be a party that goes through hell for each other for no good reason", so they don't bother at all.

It's up to the DM to make them experience shit that forges bonds, or to ask of the players to establish prior relationships.

For example, our DM made session 0 an extended childhood episode where we started with nothing but names, appearances and basic backgrounds ("spoiled son of the mayor", "adopted daughter of the village's cranky herbalist" etc.)
We then played some rules lite lowest-key adventures (playing in the forest, climbing trees and encountering wildlife, or attending the harvest fair) and established a shared backstory and common friendship. And suddenly, the plot happened, and we're out there murderhoboing. Comes very naturally then.

>>54365911
There's already a hobby for that, and it's called wargames.
The two genres diverged for a reason. You have the choice between having fun with other people who're also having fun and intentionally joining a game where everyone else wants something diametrically opposed from you, making everyone miserable.
If you can't roleplay in a roleplaying game, you find a game that's basically a roleplaying game without the roleplaying - simple, isn't it?
Anyone who intentionally chooses to ruin people's fun when they have a choice is either an asshole or stupid.

>>54366055
Worst part is, he doesn't do it on purpose, I think he genuinely couldn't RP even if he wanted to. There's no solution to the problem. "Make your characters not have autism" doesn't really work. And telling him to try a different build doesn't work either, as seen with the doctor > sniper devolution.

>>54356407
online play

>>54366031
How is participating in rp when prompted and 'otherwise being a good player' making everyone miserable?

>>54356407
freeform rp with strangers/acquaintances

>>54356013
It is simple. Plan for the opposite of their plans.

>>54366175
Did you reply to the right post? Because I don't understand...

>>54366031
how many childhood events did the gm do for each of you? That sounds kinda cool, like seeing the flashbacks in the movie 300 of when the dude was a kid and faced off a wolf.

>>54366295
I think it was 5 or 6? We started at ages 6-8, and then did a few irregular skips until we were 15-17. We always play entire weekends, so about 20 hours of game time.

>>54366295
>>54366317
Oh, and most events were shared. When you're the only kids in town, you play together. That's just the way it is. There were some other NPC kids in our age group, but they were mostly wusses. It's also incredibly easy for the DM to get things going.
>"You've described yourself as an outdoorsy kid. So one day, upon playing alone in the forest, you discover a cave between some thick roots, more like a hole in the ground, that reaches straight down into the depths of the earth. It is pitch black in there and you don't find any footholds beyond the first few feet."
>so naturally my character runs to her friends and goes
>"I found the coolest thing. Come, quick!"
>we scout a bit, then one player suggests we steal some rope and torches from his grandpa's shed first, and so on and on and we have an adventure

I might have just as easily climbed in by my own and maybe gone missing, and we'd have had a different one.

>>54356430
Run.
Run Nigga run.

>>54366587
My group consists of me. My friend with ADHD, my drinking friend who can only play a murderhobo, an asshole, and a guy who I think is mentally retarded.

It's fucking awful

I can't tell if I'm a bad GM and don't give my players much to work with or my players are boring and just want a straightforward railroad experience.

>>54366604
Why the fuck was there a link in that. I am not that anon, anon.

>>54365969
This steve guy seems like a huge asshole

>>54366611
Greentext and then i can judge

>>54366611
story time, go!

>>54357455
I know right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Merchant_Adventurers_of_London

>>54357003
Sometimes inserting such tropes is fun.
> Party are governors of a small city
> A dwarven fighter, elven mage, halfling thief (stole some silverware while they were talking) and human cleric come and ask for a quest.
> Shit, we're quest givers now
> They played along and sent those murderhobos to get 20 direwolf tails.

Cthulhu campaign, several sessions in, still not really strong mythos stuff going on (king in yellow campaign) (actually, it's my version of tatters of the king)

>4 players
>an actress, a reporter, a noble/psychanalyst and his majordomo
>actress and reporter doing a lot of stuff, I follow them in a lot of improv and side story, moving the plot forward
>psychanalyst doing some stuff
>majordomo is doing "I'm a majordomo, I would never do that" instead of giving advice or playing his goddamn character
>last session, the group split between actress and reporter going to an occult club meeting, while psy and majordomo went to discuss with several "important" npc's, throught several appointments.
>one of the npc is an influent banker and want to avoid any scandal, and try to hide several key information, just giving what is useful for him, the other is threatened by the aforementioned banker but also don't want to look crazy plus other elements.
>they just ask simple questions, never try to go deeper or tickle serious subjects
>also never ask for die rolls like psychology or spot, to try to notice something
>some cool stuff happens with the two girls
>some days later, the psychanalyst get a letter from one of the npc (who was obviously treatened and not allowed to talk too much), where a lot of stuff is explained
>majordomo and psychanalyst are outraged that the npc didn't give them directly these informations
>"we asked nicely" (no kidding)
>at least reporter and actress were facepalming too

When will they understand that a npc is not always just a fucking laying clue that led to another clue, but someone who also evolve in the setting...

>Ask /tg/ how to deal with problems in the system
>They tell me change stuff I don't like without consulting or informing my players first because GM is GOD, GM's word is the law
>Players complain and leave
I don't get it

>>54367148
>>also never ask for die rolls like psychology or spot, to try to notice something
This happens to me more than i want to admit to
>tell players explicitly they have to use their stuff themselves
>i will only tell them to use their skills when there's life-threatening stuff happening
>they still don't use their skills
>have to drag them through the adventure because of inactivity and retardation

>>54357247
No, it can work well :

1) if you do a hand-made "quest board", it's seriously awesome, and it doesn't feel like you're trying to lure them somewhere. Add stuff like advertisement, disappearance, local beer contest...

2) A quest board can also be a nice hook for something that look easy but is a little more convoluted : the wyvern attacking the farmer might be an illusion from a mage trying to hide his research, or (and I did that and it worked well) several "quests" and "problems" on the board are in fact linked to the same root, like a disappearance, the resurgence of bandit's raids, a problem in the sewers and the local great fair.

>>54356423

>put away your phone or leave

See? Its not hard.

>>54357455
well, Far West was basically playing farmers & adventurers

>>54367149
looks like you're a god without believers

>>54367218
So true...

Also, this situation :

>good player asks for a spot roll
>player 2/3/4/5 "I roll for spot too"

>>54367296
>>good player asks for a spot roll>player 2/3/4/5 "I roll for spot too"
this

Bunch of sentimental faggots.
DMs are at a premium. Just run sessions regardless of how many people are there, and if someone miss a session or two and doesn't tell anything, just invite someone else. I theoretically have 13 players, last session there were 5.

>>54367376
>taking the risk of having a dozen of players at once to herd instead of the usual 4-5
A recipe for disaster, famalam

>>54365969
Fucking steve

>>54349716
My life right now
>Started the first big campaign I've ever DM'd in my own handmade world
>myself and partner have both put in months of on-again-off-again work on setting between full time work for the both of us
>good four player party, all friends who have been wanting to play for ages, two of which are new players having a blast
>fifth player expressed interest for the longest time to me about playing
>"Sure, I'll make this campaign for us all"
>literally weeks of work on everything
>first game, fifth player can't come because of "family engagement"
>second game, fifth player can't come because literally the night before her partner told her they were going to a barbeque with his family
>I ask next time I see her what the deal was
>"Oh it's okay, D&D is easy to set up anyway so it's no sweat right?"
>Literally all four players and myself have full time careers
>Uninvite fifth player from group after she tells me this week "Oh I never know until maybe Thursday or Friday if I can come to the games on Sunday, no problem though right? D&D is easy to organize"

Fucking christ man, it's not like this is a fucking handmade adventure written, directed, and acted out by me for you or something.

>>54367708
Jesus christ you must be one slow ass thinker. Have you been writing that response since 5 minutes after >>54349716 was posted or something?

>>54367743
Some people actually read the thread and respond to posts they find response-worthy from top to bottom, you know?

>>54367767
No I meant physically.

>>54367708
I assume that you haven't been inviting her back anytime soon, right?

>>54367788
And that reply doesn't even make sense in context. Apply yourself.

>>54367788
Good on you for that fifth player, I would have done the same.

>>54350822
You... you mean most people don't do that? One of the best role playing sessions my group had was because our RP group leader got so drunk and belligerent that he ironically asked for one of us to kill the townsperson who sent us on a quest for not giving us a good enough reward. My very literal Warforged fighter took it as a command and immediately swung a blade at him, which the striker of the group attempted to stop, but failed his save roll.

Needless to say, it drastically changed the course of the RP.

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>>54367941
>drinking anything but water

>>54367296
>>54367358
Or when one player is in a position to be alert for something and you call for a spot roll, only for everyone at the fucking table to reach for their dice.

Are YOU assholes investigating the burned husk of Irminsul? No? Then you don't get to roll investigation ffs! How can someone on the far side of the clearing spot the chainsaw marks, or the fact there looks like there was a cavity inside the tree that may or may not have once held something?

And you assholes at the tree, stop rolling awareness for the spectral Nazi stormtroopers closing in on your position! You're too busy inspecting the tree! Leave lookout duty to the fuckers not occupied! Is this such a hard concept to grasp!?

>>54367743
Nah I only opened this thread maybe ten minutes ago, I always read from top down for good stories and sometimes I forgot that I'm not at the most recent posts.

>>54367833
Fucking christ no. Last time I spoke to me she asked if she could invite her boyfriend over to play in the session and I politely told her to fuck off.

Fuck that shit, I may be a new DM as far as D&D is concerned but I'm not a retard. First campaign with 6 players? I'd be astounded if they ever got out of the tavern.

>>54368066
she is a huge redflag, delete her

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>>54367998
Can I have a Mountain Dew?!

>>54368075
It's such a shame as well. She's a great fun person to hang out with and one of those people that you just know would have a field day with a TTRPG. If she was any flakier she'd be packaged in a box of corn flakes though.

>player is always injecting their latest obsession into games
>this time its some grimdark murderhobo from yet another game
>character doesn't fit in at all with players or the world
>constantly makes things harder for players by pretending to be said character
>ignores PCs and NPCs, only talks about obvious shit and tries to be the face despite the background I was forced to make for them
>try to correct them and they act super depressed
>they finally break away from needlessly stupid thing about that character to yet another aspect
I'm the only one still trying to fucking run games and some other guy refuses to learn shit because he won't give anything else a chance. The only time this person ever looks in the fucking book and it's because said character actually wears this shit. They're not getting away with it because it's just as fucking suspicious.

>>54350232
I was in a group with a guy who didn't 'need money' and tried to be a big dick bard and failed spectacularly.

>>54368014

Worst was group investigating an abandoned encampment. One of the player is inside a tent and, following his rp, steal some stuff which looked important... One of the player who was investigating a burnt truck call for a spot roll to see if he can see the player in the tent stealing something... Dear god...

>>54368066
even if she's a redflag, for situation like this (players wanting to invite other players and stuff), I have all the time several one-shots in the oven (most of the time cthulhu, but sometimes other settings). In one of my campaign, I even had several one-shot related to the main plot (with pre-gen characters) which would have been played no matter what but where a good occasion to be played when one player couldn't make it or when we had additional guest

>>54368326
>One of the player who was investigating a burnt truck call for a spot roll to see if he can see the player in the tent stealing something... Dear god...
How does one stop this from happening? Like on one hand, player does not want player B to do something, and you denying him ruins everyone's fun at the table.

on the other hand, the little bitch is metagaming

>>54368205
I miss my Bard. He was the leader of the group and had poor judgement and often made irresponsible decisions. Occasionally he'd have a good idea, but usually even those wouldn't work out.

Like "Hey, we think the leaders of the villians might be one of the people in town. Let me perform a song about how we killed all their men, on the final lyric, I'll pull the decapitated head of their Goblin army's general, and see if we get a reaction from the guilty party."

Skill check roll doesn't reveal any out of the ordinary responses to Goblin head reveal. Elven ranger girl comes up and asks if the stories were true. Brag about great deeds and how amazing we are (I am), ask if she wants to join us on an adventure. She says she's not interested and quickly leaves.

Later turns out she's one of the villians. My reaction is "And to think I was going to let you be my girlfriend..." to which she responded by shooting off her longbow at me.

Ahh, good times.

>>54368385
I favor sand-boxy environment where several clues led to the same conclusion/place, so if one clue is put aside, it's not a problem. Moreover, it depends on the player who hides the information, in that case, she finally revealed what she found in a critical moment which added to the creepiness of the situation : if the players know what they're doing it can be great (it also create a little tension as one player might know more than the other). Not giving all the information to all the players is a good way to create natural rp situation, especially with new players.

But for people who actively try to ruin the game, except directly talking to them that it's not in the interest of everybody to act like that, you can always add hints and possibilities for other players to uncover the truth (like seeing the player trying to steal other stuff and confronting him...).

>>54368469
He was like that but worse. I should've known he'd be a pain when he said 'I usually play leader' and tried telling someone else what they didn't condone.

>>54357247
You have to do it properly, don't call it a quest board unless it's a high adventure campaign with other parties roaming around. Otherwise make it the town notice board with random tidbits on it. Doing it with props can help too.

Random little things might interest the party on there, so be sure to have plans. I ran a witcher campaign and it had a few notices about a missing dog and goat, along with wolf activity. Someone connected the dots and figured out the town had a werewolf problem. These little things can either be a lazy cop out or a fantastic way to hook people in without making every tavern keeper a snowflake who somehow runs a makeshift adventuring network.

>>54368469
this trope is actually one of my favorite, with the over-confident and haughty wizard and the Rincewind mage. But fuck the mysterious elven ranger, the dumb half-orc barbarian and the greedy thief...

>>54357149
Im guessing you have but just incase you haven't, have you checked out shadowrun?

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>GMing a game
>player decides to roll for stats

>"I think you should do point buy, your luck with dice rolls is legendarily bad."

>"No, it'll be ok. I feel lucky!"

>"At least do 4d6 and drop the lowest."

>"I think I'm gonna do 3d6 down the line, make an interesting character!"

>"If that's what you wan't, ok, man."

>player is left with no stats higher than a 9, decides to play the game with those stats anyways.

>"GM, why is my character so useless in combat? Everyone else is doing interesting things. Could you throw me a bone here?"

>MFW

This is why I advocate point buy

>>54357149
If you did not check shadowrun, you might want to give it a try

>>54368557
Yeah, I never told other people they HAD to agree with me, but I would try my best to convince them my terrible ideas were actually the best choice in the moment. Here are some samples;

Convince one of the Goblins to betray his people in exchange for survival and better treatment. Turn him into our Goblin Butler. Ended up getting vaporized by a crit fail magic missile 2 dungeon crawls later. Moderate success.

Attempt to sneak into Duergar base to gather information wearing a Duergar disguise that consisted of wearing the skinned face and beard of a fallen Duergar and hunching over in a cloak. Complete failure.

Convince the Elven Cleric to wear the face skinned off a fallen Drow enemy to sneak into a Drow camp and gather information. It was working until he was lead into a place with better lighting revealing the horrific revelation that he was an Elf wearing a Drow's face. Moderate Success.

Attempted to make one super-wand by tying several wands together. It exploded. In another player's hands. Had to use all my heals on him. Complete failure.

Offered a surrender to the scrub grunts so that they would take us straight to their leader as prisoners. Once there, use charisma skill checks to trick leader into attempting to use my second built super-wand on us, blowing himself up, and giving us an easy boss battle, but followed up with a long and very difficult fight to get out of the dungeon in reverse order of how the DM planned the encounters. Lost one party member on the way out. Moderate success.

>>54368670

>roll as a player for DnD 3.5
>We're gonna roll for stats, it's more fun
>But GM-anon, rolling for stats is dumb (not even a 4d6 drop the lowest, just the pure old bad system...), you will simply end up with op characters and completely useless one
>No, it'll be fun, I'll balance around that
>I get obviously the shittiest stats of the group, I still managed to get a 14 in intelligence, and go with a mage
>the half-orc barbarian is completely overpowered and slice enemy easily
>GM start to balance the encounters around him and the high-stats cleric
>all the enemies are able to oneshot me, the ranger and thief are unable to hit them because fucking high AC
>I still manage to do stuff with control spells and out-of-the-box thinking (not incredible stuff, but things like shrinking the cement in a stone ceiling to make a rock fall...)
>also fail a lot of interaction rolls because low stats"
>"lol so funny, your character is bad and cannot do anything"
>fortunately, the campaign stagnated and eventually stopped

Now I GM most of the time and when I don't, it's only with trusted GM...

>>54368966

You have either a thing for skinning people's face or you are a huge scoobidoo fan.

Still fan of the super-wand

>>54368984
I can relate to this. In 4E we were using the character builder program from the D&D insider sub. I literally saw my roommate rerolling and building character after character until he got the one that rolled 2 18s and lowest stat a 15. Because of his OP character, the GM power balanced to him, so that it took us 17-20 to hit and him like, 15 and up to hit. Still not balanced. Boost it to 17 and up for him to hit, 19 and crits for us to hit even with maxed out gear. Was not fun.

Though that was mostly on my roommate for basically cheating by rolling characters til he got the stats he wanted.

>>54369026
I was a fan of scoobidoo, but the thought process went more along the lines of;

It didn't work the first time, but the second time I was all "No, this is perfect, see, it didn't work the first time because my facial structure was all wrong. You're an elf. He's a drow. You're basically cousins."

It was really really more a question of pride and wanting to prove that the first time I did it, it wasn't a stupid plan, just a poorly executed one.

The super-wand was pretty great. On the plus side, it did fire, frost, and lightning damage...to the person who activated it.

>>54368670
you have autism, 4d6 drop lowest, and then let the player arrange their stats how they want is best

point buy is for cucks

>>54352478
>>54352478
>I was talking more about the sense of disconnect, since the quality of the maps can vary quite a lot and it might come across as either lazy or just out of place
"Autistic" artist here.
I know your issue and have, imo, your solution:
Go for a polished, cartography look for the prepared maps and try for a "hastily scrawled while in the middle of adventuring" look for the improvised map.
I use a stack of wrinkled-then-smoothed brown paper bags with a sharpie and a scanner and it works great.
I used to add little touches like goblin blood from a battle, or one time I soaked it in the river, but I had to stop doing that as they started getting distracted by it.
I had fun with those and it soothed my, and really only my, aversion to the difference between the maps.
I hope this helps.

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>>54369711

I let my players do what they want, I just recommend point buy. 4d6 drop the lowest with allocation seems fine, but when everyone in a party uses point buy, it's easier to balance encounters, nobody feels like they got shafted by luck, and all the players are on equal footing so there are no situations where the one player who rolled 3 18s makes everyone else secondary characters.

>>54370550
Make it a group roll, and allow players to exchange numbers between them
>uh, guys I got 3 18s, this will unbalance the game, anyone needs an 18?

>>54352945
>Now i remenber why i had to drop d&d in the past
Because you're an idiot running games for asshats?
Nothing in that story was dependent on the system.
Do your players just go dumbass when it's D&D?
Really?
Or is it just then that you notice because you aren't enamored with the game?

Not even a D&D defender, just bothered by the stupidity there.

>>54370739
Such situation literally doesn't happen anywhere but in D&D

>>54356413
>if your group consists of low-functioning autists you really just gotta bail
>>54356430
>They are my only friends.
Good Friends =/= Good Players
There are all sorts of friends and they don't all overlap.
Church Friends aren't necessarily Orgy Friends.

If, say, you want to play in a band, sure, it'd be great if all your best buds could play.
But that's not how it usually works.
You find people that can play well and then play with them, hoping you will become friends.
Or, you have fun playing terribly with friends, accepting it will be terrible.

>>54370850
>playing online with my friends
>everytime one guy opens his mouth to unnecessarily complicate a quest or to do some real fucking retarded shit
>basic diplomacy mission
>he starts by insulting the guy
>i have to hold back like a motherfucker
>mouth winces i have to battle my body for self control
>"do you really do that?"
>no lol
>generic unimaginative diplomacy follows
fucking hate everything

>>54356762
>I've had similar issues where players wanted low fantasy, gritty with intrigue but when they actually played that didn't enjoy it at all because being relatively powerless in the face of multiple scheming factions vying for power is difficult and not that fun. Likewise watching someone get fucked over in a show is entertaining, getting fucked over yourself feels really bad.
I've thought about this.
I suspect that a high lethality to the game might help.
If you're constantly losing characters, it might seem less like your chapter losing and mire like a faction losing a pawn.
Anybody think it could work?

>>54349958
Wait what? You created your own web-platform for RP? That's actually pretty cool.

>>54352708
Oh god that's a powder keg.

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>>54352708
>>54370980
>lesbian couple at the table
>roleplaying a lesbian couple
>slightly dressed/makeup of their races
>they start making out midsession

>>54350798
I played with a player like that, a battle mage, he would walk in the back of the group, then when combat would start, would spend his time casting defensive spells to protect himself before drawing his axe and moving to the front. He could not understand that his defensive spells lasted about 8 hours and could cast them throughout the day, since he never used any other spells.

At least we were safe with our Cleric always standing front and centre, but that was difficult at the start of the game, as he was a cloistered cleric and planned on standing towards the back. But he was a good sport and changed his entire character to be front line using that DMM and persist spell.

>>54357247

I prefer rumours to a quest board. Feels a bit more naturalistic for the players to make a roll and snoop around chatting to people to pick up on what's going on than just going up and reading a board ( in arguably a medieval fantasy setting where most people are illiterate...)

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>recently got stationed in AZ, put in the on base dorms
>get gud friends, some as nerdy as me
>I mention d&d and some of the guys say they wanna play
>ive only been a player before, them none as all
>they dont wanna spend money on phbs and i dont want to spend money on dm book
>i spend a week writing a super simple system and a story for a zombie apocalypse theme
>made sure they'd all be interested with the setting and theme
>finally im done and they want to know when to play
>i set up a day we're all open
>all but one go out to a party instead
>didnt invite me and other because they "thought we would be busy with the game"

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>>54371084
There's a time and a place to gay it up
The table is not one of them.

>>54371204

Reminds me of when my girlfriend of 5 years.went out to a party with her new room mates and didn't invite me because' I thought you'd be a busy planning D&D but really she was fucking one of them and not telling me.

Jokes on her though because now I'm single and she's in a loving relationship.

>>54371084
Voyeurism is unironically a few steps away from cuckold. Especially when you know the engage parties will literally never have sex with you, or even take you to first base.

>>54370739
I had to drop becouse these players are deranged on a particular style of play when d&d is on the table: unbalanced mos eisley cantina with special snowflakes syndrome. Not that is their fault but it is so ingrained that only by changing rulesystem they seems to recover some sense

>>54371392
That will show her, I did the same thing as you when it happened to me. Her loss.

>>54351062
Maybe you and your group are actually friends and just enjoy spending some times hanging out with each other no matter how shitty the game is.

>>54365834
Kek, literally every player in my group does roughly the same thing of defaulting to the same archetype.

>>54368984
Please enlighten me how someone having a few +1/+2's while you have a few +0/-1's generates such a massive disparity.

>>54359942
>>54359777
There's some idiocy bordering on obvious trolling in this thread.

>>54352340
>>54350822

You could always run pre-written modules as a way to ease yourself into it. Although the ability to improvise is always gonna be the most important thing, no matter what. Don't take it too seriously, either. Even if its just something as simple as a monster to kill, if everyone's laughing and having fun, then job done. It's supposed to be fun, and if you're stressing this much about it, it never will be. Believe, bro

>>Have 3 in-game day long ferry trip planned
>>As DM plan for murder mystery to make it more than just "Get on boat, 3 days later arrive."
>>Plan out bunch of colorful NPCs to populate boat.
>>Stat NPCs, work out mystery, practice voices for each.

>>Players arrive on boat.
>>Player 1: I want to look at the water. Players 2 and 3 join.
>>Player 4 looks at NPCs, immediately goes to room and refuses to come out.
>>Player 5 attempts to seduce rich nobleman, fails, then goes to room without interacting with anyone else.

>>Scream in the night.
>>Party: Huh, that's weird, better stay in our rooms and keep out of it.

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>>54375128
Damn dude that sucks. I was actually planning something similar but on an airship. I just have no idea where to start. Care to outline yours and help a brother out?

>>54375198
Basically the idea was to pull from multiple PC backgrounds to stuff the ship with NPCs they would recognize/be prejudiced against. It was:
A traveling nobleman (recurring character in most campaigns I run. Mostly players know him as a joke).
An assassin who was open about his line of work and prone to handing out business cards (because obvious red herrings should be funny).
A blow hard wizard from the PC wizard's university (and the murder victim).
The boat master.
2 expendable hands on the boat (to serve as additional victims, should the need arise).
A young mage traveling to learn more skills and amass more power. (And the killer, who did it to steal the bound elemental the victim had).
And a barbarian warlord from the lands one of the monk PCs came from.

There was also a mer stowaway hiding the in the victim's room, who boarded the ship mid-journey as part of an unrelated deal between him and the victim, just to throw the players off and give the players another witness if they could figure out a way to speak with him.

In the end the players did manage to figure it all out and stopped the killer, but they later complained that they got thrown into the mystery with no set up, even though they blatantly ignored the set up in favor of looking at the ocean.

Only Bitching about myself

>Put no effort into world-building, monsters, plot, etc.
>make everything up as we go
>players still love my games

I mean, we're all having a good time and my players feel like their actions actually contribute to the plot, but I still feel like I'm doing something wrong.

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>>54351277
You are me. Hello, other me.

>3 players
>Security guard, doctor, and me, a janitor
>Security is a walking slab of meat with brains to match. I'm bitter with an inferiority complex. The doctor is supposed to be educated with a good bedside manner
>Security and I assume he will do the talking as he's the most social and educated
>He spills our life story to every NPC
>Who we are, why we're here, where our HIDDEN BASE is located, the works
>Practically sells us out to everyone without even thinking about it
>Brought this up in character
>Didn't help
>He's learned to simply not talk now, as for a while we literally had security hold his mouth shut when we met new people
>Feel horrible because the guy was honestly just new to TTRPGs and was making a shitty mistake and not learning very fast
>At least my character and security were forced to develop better people skills

>Also, at one point my character kind of fucked himself up body swapping, so security and the doctor had to adventure on their own for a session
>It was an impossible slog to listen to
>Doctor does nothing without being prompted in and out of character
>It took like an hour to get a boat out of a garage
>A flooded garage
>All they had to do was put some gas in and open the door
>Security jumps in and out of the boat like 7 times walking back and forth to do everything, as the doctor just stands there
>They reach their destination, an abandoned high rise
>They find mutilated bodies, having died an obviously violent and MYSTERIOUS death
>Doctor walks by them, uninterested
>They find a mysterious recording or someone screaming about something being in the water
>Doctor shrugs
>They find a strange wriggling blue plasma slipping about puddles
>Nada
>Finally, they find a lab with a jar on a table labeled "DANGEROUS SAMPLE" with the same blue stuff in it
>Security still has to tell the doctor to do some science on this shit to see what's up
>I feel like I hog the spotlight, but they missed me

>>54359696
Read the greentext in the original story again. All of it. Especially the end.

>>54350798
So the pcs are a bunch of betas in and out of character. Type of pussies that call the cops if the nieghbors dog is shittinf on the lawn instead bringing it up.

>>54349716
>"I want to play DnD"
Alright, sounds fun
>"My friend wants to join"
Super
>"My wife and her friends want to join"
Great, full party, this will be fun
>"We want to go on an adventure like Skyrim"
Starting to lose hope here
>"We want to use custom races like furries and centaurs"
Whatever makes you happy
>"We want to play passively since we don't know what our spells do"
You could read the spells, I started you at level 1 so you don't get overwhelmed
>"That cave is scary, we'll go somewhere else"
>"That town might have something suspicious in it, we're not going to fall for your trap, DM"
>"That boat will probably sink and we'll have to play under water"
>"That castle is probably evil"
>"That is scary"
>"That is boring"
>"That is boring"
>"That is boring"
>"That is boring"

Each session involved an increasingly growing food-to-game ratio and I pretty much just stopped showing up. Apparently the first night I didn't show up they played cards against humanity and had a lot more fun.

>>54352195
Which adventure? I'm curious

>>54352326
I make detailed-ish maps for locations the players will most likely visit. For other locations I make generic maps (1 castle map, 1 swamp map, 1 sewer map...) I can tweak and refluff at the last moment (add lava to the mountain map and suddenly you've got a volcano.)

>>54357811
some people just don't respond, because they are idiots and think no response is better than "I'm not sure, can I get back to you on that?"

>>54375893
holy that's terrible

>>54368385
>How does one stop this from happening?
My Ultimate Rule: Anything a player wants to do, they need to be able to tell me *WHY* they are doing it.
I don't ask every time.
But I can ask at any time.
If they cannot come up with an in-character reason that makes sense to me then, and this is the important bit, they can't do it.
At all.
Not even attempt it.
It just doesn't happen.
The end.

I am very flexible with what counts as "making sense", as the idea is to find excuses to allow things, not prevent them.

>>54349356
>Run a Star Wars oneshot for my siblings, most of whom have almost no roleplaying experience.
>Set things up so they have ample time to prepare traps and alliances for a big important combat
>Spend a lot of time prepping the big finale combat
>They spend the whole session planning how to avoid the planned combat encounter
>Fight guards, animals, and a local chef instead
>Never get to use the encounter I prepared because they actually did a decent job finding a reasonable alternative.
Not what I expected at all, but I guess they had fun.

>>54349958
>he wants to force people to enjoy things

Maybe find a target audience that will appreciate your efforts, honestly it's entirely your fault, don't blame others.

>>54356965
Underrated post also kek

>>54357149
>Why does The Sprawl count player damage through a god damn CLOCK?
... to fit with the rest of the counting-to-midnight themed mechanics?
i mean, shit, that one would be trivial to refluff if that's your main issue, everything's phrased as x-harm anyway

>>54375984
I'm just running a homebrew campaign with a lot of prep work already finished.

>>54356965
Underrated.