Shit GM's deal with

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>>54530499
>Player wants you to look at his homebrew before the game's even started or anyone's discussed what it's gonna be about.
>Player wants you to look at his homebrew ever.

>>54530499
So, rather than try and obfuscate his power for later, he explains how his abilities interact to help gauge the characters strength level...?

>>54530499
>>54531731
Yeah, I mean, I don't just want to spring Life cleric+goodberry on him.

>>54530499
Oh cool, cool.
Well, this seems a bit overpowered.
I'll nerf it a bit. That's okay with you, right?

>>54531731
I would guess that generally means either the player is doing something sketchy, or alternatively that the GM is known for banning haphazardly and the player is just staying on top of things

>>54530499
>hey, so don't bother coming to the game
>just a heads up, yeah?

>>54531773
>>54531749
>>54531758

I find when players are doing something sketchy, they make no mention of it and try and keep it in reserve, trying to sneak it past the GM.

If they're actually hesitant enough about it to bring it up and say 'Look, this is technically rules legal, but..." then I'd view that as a sign of honesty. A player informing you that something is 'technically legal' is the same as a player informing you that it might not be reasonable, as opposed to trying to pull a fast one, just phrased slightly differently.

The real problem is how they'd take your input in response to this. Say you say 'nah, can't allow it, sorry', the difference between a good and a bad player is "That's fair enough, you're the GM and the ultimate arbiter and I understand your decision' and 'But it's technically legal I should be allowed this'. One of these is a thoughtful, considerate player who just wants to ensure everyone in line and has this cool idea he wants to make sure you're okay with. The other's an asshole and stupid for actually bringing it up. And it's unreasonable to assume that they're automatically doing the wrong thing here, just because it requires having all the intelligence of a bag of bricks when they could just say nothing at all and pull it out later, claiming mid session 'no its perfectly fine' (even if it is, they knew it was iffy and deliberately didn't bring it up? That's far more of a concern then them trying to bring it to your attention prior to the game)

>>54530499
>Spend hours preparing the game
>Ask players to give a more detailed background about their characters with a week's notice
>Players don't even bother telling me they don't want to do it

>>54531975
Yeah, unless they're the rare type of asshole that just wants more time to argue in favor of it, I would generally interpret something like the OP's post as a sign of good faith and them actually just being unsure if the GM would like to allow something

>>54530499
And what's the other option? not tell anything and then see the GM get mad because you're """""cheating""""".
Back in 3.5 I picked improved natural attacks for my monk (both RAW and RAI, with example characters having it, explained in FAQs and Erratas, etc), he didn't know about that and accused me of cheating because that feat didn't work with monk (according to him). After proving him wrong he got buttmad of being wrong and cancelled the game.

I'd prefered if that happened in session 0 in where I can step out instead of ruining the game for the other players (though with that kind GM the game was bound to be ruined sooner or later)

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>>54530536
This honestly.
99% of Homebrew is shit.
Even worse, 100% of Homebrewers think THEIR homebrew is part of the 1% that isn't.

>>54530499
I never tell shit to my GMs unless they ask, I give them the character sheet and use only whatever they allow, if there's something they don't get or understand is their fault and they shouldn't GM the game if they don't know the game.

>>54532205
It's the presumption of their interpretation of the book over your authority in the first place
Instead of just saying "I can and intend to do this neat parlor trick" they feel the need to reinforce it with some authority that literally does not exist as every rulebook regardless of publisher or game says "ignore rules if you want to" and every good GM will ignore or implement shit as needed for a good, not orthodox, experience

>>54532247
You must be a joy at the table.

Why are GMs perpetually assblasted?

I've GMd and I've played in other peoples' campaigns, and the one constant is that GMs are salty whiny fucks

>>54533371
Because there are a ton of asshole players in the world, and the GMs have to deal with them for at least a session or two when they invade a game.

>>54530499
He wants to give you the chance to confirm it and/or tell him you won't allow it. This is likely because it involves some really tortured rules-logic that he imagines will just piss you off if revealed in the middle of a session. Also it means the player has the requisite shred of decency to not spring it on you without warning.

Source: Used to do this back in my minmaxing/charop days.

>>54533247
>It's the presumption of their interpretation of the book over your authority in the first place
That's your interpretation to make them look worse without extra context. In which case you're probably annoyingly insecure yourself. But the fact is the person bringing this to your attention sooner rather than later is more a sign of honesty than not. Otherwise they'd be more likely to try and pull a fast one on you and not tell you about it.

Also not every scenario will be so vaguely worded that it is down to subjective interpretation of the rules. Often rules are very clear and the function is there even if definitely unforeseen and should be nerfed. Especially if you're playing 3.5

>>54533247
Players can't read your mind, when you say "I'm going to play this system" they're going to make their characters by using that system, they can't know you're going to change stuff beforehanded, people dont' read minds. Fucking basement dwellers who have no conection with other human beings.

>>54533321
I'm honest and never cheat, I give my GMs both my character sheets and backstory following their homerules, I expect at least they know what they're doing and to be coherent with what they're doing, and if they have a question I answer it without problems. But if you accept shit without knowing how it's been played and decide to not ask and be a cunt later, fuck you.

Also I never heard a complain about my behaviour, I keep being invited to a games and people keep asking me to GM games.

>>54533247
>We're going to play X
>Rules of X have no authority
Yeah, I keep playing football with a baseball and kneecapping people and referees keep kicking me out for some reason, I still dunno why.

>>54534229
Because that's not how you play football...

>>54534261
>Play a game expecting the rules to be used
>"Rules have no authority! only I!"
>Play a game ignoring the rules
>"That's not how you play game!"
Make your fucking mind!

>>54531975
It can be sketchy and unsubtle. Arguing that it's RAW before the GM ever sees the sheet is like I kid saying "it wasn't me" right when their parent gets home before they see whatever the kid broke. The parent IS getting big to notice it, so the kid figures his best bet is to start denying it early.

>>54534304
Is a trick made by expert GMs, see, you have to make players play the game blind, so they never know how a situation is going to be played
>My character is agile, he should be able to jump this 1 meter long pond because rules say I can?
WRONG
This allows you to railroad them super easy

>>54530499
>look at what he's talking about
>it's rad
>"Do it up motherfucker."

>look at what he's talking about
>it's shit
>"Too bad, not letting you do that."

>>54532231
faggot

>>54533371
Because GM's are to managers what players are to employees.

You're expected to carry a team of morons through each task and nobody is willing to help take the weight off you but are more than willing to fuck you over just because they can and think that they'd do better than you.

Excuse me if I start to get sick of players when more often than not, they ignore my primers, build whatever the fuck they want, start bullshit arguments and discussions when I'm trying to run the game, and criticize every minor thing I do while getting defensive as fuck whenever I ask them to sit down and focus on game.

If anything, you cucks should be happy I bother running a game at all, let alone invite you to it.

>>54530499
>player invites a new player to the group without telling you

>>54531749
Because God forbid there should be any form of HP recovery that is action efficient except Lesser Vigor.

>>54536220
Then the RAW is the OSHA keeping you from mistreating your employees.

>>54536438
Not him but RAW would actually be more analogous to sick days with how some DM's treat it.

It's given to you the first day you sign up, but you better not actually fucking use it if you want to stay for long.

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>>54530499
>GM: This is the setting, and here are the playable races and classes. [Banned Class] doesn't exist in this setting, and neither does [Banned Race].
>Player: I WANT TO PLAY [Banned Race] AND [Banned Class]!!!!!!!!!!

Every time. Every fucking time. It's like they forget these things exist until you tell them they're banned. It's like some kind of infantile "I want it because you told me I can't have it" impulse. Fucking shit. I should just write a fucking novel instead of dicking around with these gibbering retards.

>>54536975
Yeah, that can be annoying, but I could protest depending on the case, many GMs use their status as GM to ban stuff to players then use it freely and in excess for DMPCs and NPCs, is infuriating when they tell you "human only" and then it turns out humans seem to be a fucking minority and every fucking body is a weird halfdragon halfcelestial kitsune. If you ban something because it doesn't fit or is scarce, make it fucking scarce or non existant.

>>54537075
Yeah, I can sympathize, and I've been in games with shit GMs who pull shit like that.

As a GM, I make sure to never, ever do that. I always try to keep in mind the shit I hated putting up with when I was a player, and to never repeat those mistakes.

>>54531975
You took a lot of time to say "sometimes that's legit."

>>54532231
The only homebrew I've ever liked is the sort where the DM just kinda leaves it there like 'if you want to use this, go ahead,' but isn't a salty asshole when you don't.

Player-made Homebrews never, ever work out

>GMing Dark Heresy
>one guy starts going on about how the party needs to find an ancient cache of primarch geneseed and use it for experiments
>I just tell them it is beyond the scope of the campaign at the moment

>>54530499
The one that I will never understand is GM chicken. You know, where you get this.

>Hey, GM, what would happen if we did X?
>The plan would fail and you'd probably all die horribly because of the following reasons...
>Players do X
>It fails and they probably die horribly.
>Get mad at the GM.

Through that exact sort of exchange, I've had players summon demon princes using their own souls as a portal, blow themselves up by putting in a power source an order of magnitude more than a teleporter could handle, attack armies that outnumber them 15:1 against, attempt to impersonate a deity to said deity's high priest using system's equivalent of prestidigitation, burn down their city's main food storage while under siege, and admit to a king with a reputation for insanity and short temper that they aren't actually part of the elite unit they entered into the palace by impersonating; among other not quite as egregious examples.

I really have no idea why people do it, outside of a belief that the GM really won't go through with it and mete out the logical consequences of that sort of stupidity.

>hey GM, do I have the resurce that helps me in this specific situation that just never ever came up before?

>>54537224
I have difficulty comprehending this kind of player behaviour. It feels like they think the GM is running the game entirely for their amusement and will bail them out no matter what stupid bullshit they try, which explains why the dumb idiots get mad when consequences happen.

>>54537224
The GM Arms Race is also pretty stupid. D&D 3.5 / PF was (and still is) rife with this kind of nonsense.
>player finds broken ability combo
>dominates a couple fights with it
>enemy groups counter broken combo
>player finds new broken combo
>enemy groups counter broken combo
>player gets butthurt
>enemy groups start using broken combo themselves

One other thing that mildly annoys me is when players are too dense to consider that a spell/ability/piece of technology has a use that is different than whatever the players are using it for.

>Running Dragonquest game
>There's a spell that makes the person it's cast on more resistant to fatigue.
>Party has access to it, mostly uses it to travel further when they march, or to be in better shape on marches that they think will end in combat.
>Adventuring along
>In a country which is noted for a high degree of magic usage
>Come across some people who are building a road
>Notice they have a spell on them
>It's the same fatigue reducing spell.
>Someone comments on it, and the leader of the work crew mentions that yeah, it's great, they can get a lot more done with adept Gunble helping the rest of them like that.
>I don't get it GM, how does it help? They're not traveling very far.

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>players keep plotting to kill each other because they think the other players are plotting to kill them

>>54537900
>player keeps plotting against the DM because he thinks the DM is the enemy and his goal is to kill the party and make it impossible for them to advance in the campaign

Fuck you, María

>>54537900
And everyone is right!

>>54537900
but that sounds like a good time

>>54537900
I won't lie and say I didn't have contingencies ready to go off on other players in most of my games

>>54537900
I had 2 players try to betray the rest of the party in one session. One succeeded and joined my cast of villains, the other's attempt was foiled when I told him his scopeless gun wouldn't be able to hit at the bottom of the 500 meter tower he was standing on top of as a coup de grace.

It was honestly my favorite session because the players who weren't stabbing the party in the back were super confused and lost all trust in their comrades who tried betraying them. It's gonna make for an interesting situation here in a couple weeks when we start back up

>>54538398
*hit a target at the bottom of the 500 meter tower

>>54536975
I heavily prefer to have some sort of limit on party dynamics that way you can't have the typical

>P1: I want to play a Drow/Illithid Assassin/Mage/Psion.
>P2: I want to play a (fun ruiner)!! If you don't let me your shit LMAO
>P3: I'm a human fighter.

Situations. I prefer using base books in games just because there are so many annoying ass players. Sadly then I'm the >that guy GM. You just can't win with this shit unless everyone wants an all in troll game, or everyone wants a classic DnD story.

>>54538601
>P2: I want to play a (fun ruiner)!! If you don't let me your shit LMAO
Explain.
>P3: I'm a human fighter.
Explain further.

I hate it when players can't get hints.

>group wants a story driven campaign
>npc gives an express courier quest to group
>has to get there next day
>players just dick around in town for another day
>meanwhile giving them generic shit to do
>they get annoyed how there's "no interesting plot"
>monster raid
>through a series of very thin connections they now think they are fighting a god

This is just annoying for the most part because I already had a campaign loosely planned out. Now it's just more unneeded work.

>>54538642
>P2
Players who make characters directly just to fuck with the other players, whether it's alignment, build, or just straight up attitude. And you KNOW that these type of people will try and be cunts if a GM is just like, "No you can't play this retarded ass shit" for whatever reason is given. "DUDE I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT." Yeah, you can also find a new GM if you want to ruin games n purpose with shit characters.

>P3

People who want some normal shit but all their party members are either retarded or minmaxing so hard their character basically does nothing all game. This isn't really a bad thing but in the hypothetical described they are shafted if they don't have some sort of gimmick, or if the player just isn't in the mood for a bunch of corny shit.

>>54534304
Not that guy but sometimes to keep a game going I will fudge rules. There are times where my players walk into death and I realize it's because I am a faggot and I did not properly give them context to the situation. So i'll just fudge the dice if I feel I have been unfair to the players.

Also, it's literally in the 5E rulebook that all rules are to be altered or implemented at the GM's discretion. So the rules of the game are literally "no rules lmao."

The players and I are knew so I don't try to homebrew rules myself, but your baseball/football analogy doesn't really work since neither of those games has a "Game Master" who according to the literal rules of the game can do what he wants.

>>54538678
Oh god, I've had this, combined with the worst sorts of tunnel vision ever. This group was delivering a message, and in the course of it see a man stumble up to them, convlusing, and shout "For the love of all the gods someone help me" or something to that effect, before vomiting a tide of beetles and collapsing into a husk.

>You think that might be important?
>Nah, someone would have told us about it if it was.

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>>54531749
Wow. So much hp healed. How will I ever out dps the crazy healing of Life Cleric + Goodberry combo? These players suuuuuuure are meta-gaming.

>>54530499
Players changing their mind repeatedly on major encounters.
They were planning to assault and take an imperial ship. Go completely rogue and f-the imperium.
Next session the characters have a discussion,
>they all good imperials ave emperor, gonna take that fight to the xenos.

Next two hours is me making social ackward intrigue that doesn't make sense instead of running a multiple outcome, multiple stage space battle with the imperial ship that was planned out.

>>54538741
I had a case of the opposite, which is equally annoying

>give players some simple "rescue this guys" mission
>they somehow get to the conclussion that obviously the guys they need to save are actually the bad guys, because they're rich and rich=evil
>kidnap the guys and torture them to get some unexistent info
>get angry because I'm not giving them something to progress further in the plot

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>>54537075
>Halfdragon halfcelestial kitsune
Who hurt you anon?

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>amnesia backstories

>>54539060
While tropey I don't find anything actually wrong with this so long as it's not the same person with every character they make.

It can be fun as the DM to basically go to town on who and what they were before they lost their memory and tie it into the story so long as you're not boring/predictable.

That being said, it's certainly something that needs to be done in small doses or it loses any staying power and just kind of becomes annoying.

>Hey everyone, let's meet this Wednesday at 8. Does that work for everyone?
>Players affirm that it'll be fine
>Time comes, one player never is able to show up because he "forgot" he had something
>Continually happens and everybody else wastes their time showing up
>Player who never shows up lacks common decency to actually tell me beforehand so I can rebalance the encounter

The funny thing is I've never had to deal with players complaining about me banning things, it's always people who don't show up on time or who don't show up at all due to scheduling

The worst part is they're all my friends and it's hard to tell if they're just absent a lot or if they don't like the campaign

>>54531749
I don't understand. Why would that be a good combo ever? Even if disciple of life triggers on the berries(Which it wouldn't) you're still using an action to heal 4 damage which even at level one is still mostly useless.

>>54539279
>tropey

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>>54534229
I hate railroading referee's.
What do you mean I can't kick people in the nuts.
Fact:
The only good sport is a sandbox sport

>>54539060
As far as I'm concerned, The player is giving the GM written permission to fuck with them at every opportunity.

If you come to me with a character who has amnesia, I'm going to make them into a bisexual ex-circus clown and serial arsonist, who is wanted by an organised crime syndicate for impregnating the boss' daughter. And you will have only yourself to blame.

>>54539733
>Not having him impregnate the boss's son.
You had ONE job.

>>54539733
That actually sounds like a lot of fun.

>>54539733
>impregnating the boss' daughter
>not having him be a eunuch

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>>54539666
Pic related non-withstanding the idea of 'correct' language is a lie, all that matters is that you are able to understand the meaning of what is conveyed. Being smug or otherwise elitist about it is a waste of your time and mine friend.

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>>54537224

>play with people who aren't autistic
>don't have to deal with powergaming bullshit

It's pretty refreshing to play with a party of people who just made characters they thought would be cool, instead of having munchkins using five different feats and racial boons from six different splatbooks

>never have npcs betray party
>players always think npcs will betray them
>can never use betrayal because the are paranoid as fuck

Additionally
>party memvers are assholes to all npcs
>cant understand when npcs do not want to work with them
>get pissed when any npc ever does not back down from intimidation

These fuckers threatened a arbites lord marshal three days into a investigation and got pissy he had them takeb to the hab outskirts for discrete execution.

>>54539783
But then he won't have heavily-armed men with no sense of humour confronting him over grievances he doesn't remember causing!

>>54539060
>>54539279
>>54539733
In my experience, one time out of ten, the player gives an amnesia backstory because they want the surprise of whatever the DM comes up with and the fun of figuring it out. The other nine times, it's because they're too fucking lazy to write something.

>>54539964
I have one munchkin but it's expected and all he can really do is fight. To his credit the player pulls it off well in RP, and dude has become so infamous for his lack of charisma and intelligence that he's regarded as an invalid or a savant in some of the regions they've visited. Plus he takes bait to fight big dudes one on one which allows me to balance encounters easier.

>>54539060
The one time I used amnesia, I think it was OK because I used it as a starting point. Essentially, he woke up in the focal city a while ago (I think somewhere from six months to a year), and since then had done some stuff, working for a crime boss and then leaving because he didn't kill a target, so at the start of the game he had a home and a father figure and some local investment, with the amnesia giving the DM some scope for shenanigans. Specifically, it was a Planescape game based in Sigil, and later on a succubus turned up who kinda implied there was a thing going on with them in the past and I might've been another PC's dad.

>>54539060
I allow amnesia backstories on the condition the player gives the character a couple faint memories and possibly a memento from their past I can work off of.

>>54530499
oh it's legal in the raw? that's nice. it's not legal in my game, fuckface. get out of my house and don't come back.

>>54531975
The player is always doing the wrong thing.

>>54532205
Don't be a faggot that brings weird shit to the table. Just play a normal race and class and choose normal abilities. You're not special and neither is your character.

>Party levels up at the end of the adventure
>"See you all next week"
>Player shows up next week, everyone's ready to go
>"Hold on, I just gotta level up real quick"
>He's so indecisive and unfamiliar with his own class he takes 30 minutes to level up, even with help.

>>54530499
>oh that's cool, hey have you heard of template stacking?
>uh, no?
>okay cool, the innkeeper wants you to clear his basement of were-zombie-vampire-construct-minor god-rats

>>54537900
So Paranoia?

>>54541392
>don't be a faggot
Should have taken your own advice mate.

>>54531749
what's wrong with that?

>>54536975
why are you do something you don't enjoy?

>>54537075
nah get fucked m8, banned shit is for me only, I'm DM and god :)

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>The only reason a player wants in on the campaign is so they can shoehorn in a character they came up with in a vacuum up to several months beforehand
>The only reason a player wants in on the campaign is because they see potential to shoehorn in a character ripped off from the latest game/book/movie/anime/whatever that caught their interesting
>A player wants to kill off their current character because they want to play a character ripped off from the latest game/book/movie/anime/whatever that caught their interest instead

>>54539792
your word is shit and so are you :)

>>54541753
stay mad :)

>"Why does my character care about this?"
This infuriates me so god damned much. The only time a player dropped this line on me I lost it. Told him that the PCs are literally the only thing I don't control and that it's up to him to figure that out. If his character has no reason to travel with the party, then he should make one that does.

>>54541991
nah, you should make an adventure that revolves around me, bitch

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>lay out some magical, gimmicky gear early on
>character takes it, never uses it
>ask why
>"because my character thinks its stupid, but its got mechanical benefits that might come up, so I'm keeping it on me"
>mfw

>players always want to loot the bodies of enemies, especially if they're using unique weaponry that they can't/won't use
>this goes on for months
>players complain of being overwhelmed with so many items
>mfw

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>" Competing" against your DM instead of working together with him
I found your problem.

>>54541991
>>54542003
You should both do a proper session zero and compromise
>This is what I will be running
>This is what I want to play

>>54542324
this

>>54542324
nah compromises are for losers, i always get what i want

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my players have played their characters from 1-11, over the course of about 6 months of weekly - biweekly sessions. This is 5e.

They frequently forget basic shit about how to operate their character.

>"uhh how much damage does my bow that I've used for five months do? Check my weapons on my sheet? where are those?"

>"uhh alright, I cast fireball (for the 50th time), that's 28 damage to the bad guys."
>"durr that hits me and the rest of the party too? well then I don't do that, what do you mean I've already done it?"

>"uh so I have a strength of 17, that's a +6, then my proficiency is +4, so my attack bonus is at 12, then I get a +2 from archery and I'm at +15 to hit right??"

And when they level up, every time, they ask me

>uhhhh how much HP do I get?
>durhhh did any of my stats go up?
>DID I LEARN ANY NEW SPELLS

My players are fucking braindead, it's incredible. They killed one of the members of the party because they stuffed his UNCONSCIOUS body into their bag of holding, forgetting that the bag had limited air (which they fully knew was a thing, it's come up like six times because they try to store dogs and animals they find in it and fucking suffocate them)

bunch of brainless murderhobos, but it's been a goddamn hilarious ride

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>>54541966
Riveting

>>54539398
>game day in 3 days
>"Just checking, everyone still good for dice fights in 3 days?"
>all yes
>day before check again, affirmative
>30 minutes after start time, player missing
>"Hey man, where you at? Traffic bad or something?"
No I'm in [city 4 hours away], I won't be able to make it tonight.

>>54539398
This one's easy: Stop pressuring your friends to play games with you, look for humans who actually want to play, and do normal shit with your friends.

Roleplaying gets really sad when it's the only vehicle you have for social interaction.

>>54539060
Infinitely better than a ten-page backstory that contradicts half the campaign setting.

>player wants a political intrigue campaign
>wants to take over city
>makes zero moves, just sits in his tavern and makes beer
I am going to lay out some more hooks for him but I swear, why can't players be proactive? I am in every campaign I play in, and I get yelled at for "derailing" things. Like RPG characters are supposed to be reactionary and nothing else.

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>>54539398
>having to "rebalance the encounter" because of the absence of ONE (1) player
Holy shit, why is D&D this bad?

>>54541916
Thank you for posting this. I feel the same way.

>>54530499
>Is the game balanced?!

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>Hey, Anon, here is my character's background and description
>Oh by the way, what's your setting like, would you mind making some changes to the setting so my character would work?
>What's your character like in a nutshell
>Oh, basically like [character from anime]
>Google the character, and it turns out he fucking ripped off the entirety of it, background and all

>>54531975
I had this situation come up where I made a cross between the Hulk and Asura from Asura's Wrath to see if it would work.
I broke down exactly what it did, how I did it, and what the result would be to the GM, looked him in the eye and ask him if this was cool.
He said it was. Then he say what it could do at it's limit, and got mad at me for making a powerful pc in a supers campaign.

>>54542676
Like, does he just rp sitting in the tavern making beer for several hours every session while the other players do shit?

I don't know if this is a common issue, but I hate having to deal with a drop in player

>IRL friend of the party joins the game as a PC, doesn't know how to do anything because they don't really play, always asking questions etc.

>>54542819
If he had the audacity of just straight up copypasting some animu character I'd play with him. Who knows where that shit would go

>>54537075
Anon, your complaint is literally "I am not getting things, why am I not getting things!".
To be sure, it's something I have only ever heard on chan sites, and knowing the, eh, questionable quality of a lot of posters, I've learned to ignore roughly half of the complaints in these threads.
Especially since your complaint is a campaign's hook. It speaks of the habit of chan posters to actively mistrust and antagonize the GM.

>>54536975
>[Banned Class] doesn't exist in this setting, and neither does [Banned Race].

But why? I'd probably just drop a game immediately if some of the basic shit in the game is banned. We wouldn't even get to the point of me turning in a sheet with the banned race and class on it.

>>54543006
And that is exactly why [Banned Race] and [Banned Class] are banned in my game. To filter out unwanted players like yourself.

>>54543053

>I don't want players who like having options

Have fun with your railroad adventures and copy/paste party composition every time, I guess

>>54542968
Sorry, Bill, nobody is going to play in your game with your DMPC with a class that spending 1 HP gets a spell slot of level 5 or lower for the day, and has 1d12 HDs, deal with it.

>>54541392
Improved natural strike is literally on the example monk in the DMG, is not weird, is a human with monk class and with a feat also from core. It works both RAW (monk unarmed strikes count as weapons and natural strikes for feats and effects such as spells) both RAI (Devs had stated 1001 times it works).

>>54543098
In all games with banned races I've played, it's just small stuff like "You can't be a drow because there is no Underdark in this setting", not like we're being forced to pick from one or two races.

>>54542819
>Take character from [Media I saw and liked]
>Combine with 2-3 characters from [Other Media I saw and liked]
>Tweak backstory and concept so its clearly original, or at least composite
>Take character that already exists, possibly one of the 2-3 chars I used as inspiration if they're obscure enough, and say my char looks like that so I have tons of reference art.

And that is my general character creation process. Am I a bad person?

>>54543166

That's fine then. Banned classes still sounds like a red flag.

>>54539060
I'm playing an orphan and left it up to the DM to decide who my parents were, or if he's gonna care at all. Plot potential, but no obligations.

>>54542394
I have some players like this.
After THREE (3) YEARS of playing Dark Heresy, I had to explain to them what Penetration meant.
I was so thunderstruck I didn't comprehend the question at first.

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>>54536975
I'd be with you except my GM specifically banned certain classes/races because, and I quote, "I don't fully understand how they work, you guys could be pulling anything out of your asses and I wouldn't know the difference"

It's obnoxious when the person running the campaign doesn't know what the fuck they're doing.

>>54543197
I think it's legit if there are thematic/setting-history reasons, like how Dark Sun lacks clerics and paladins because it's a bleak world with no divine forces to help you.

>>54543229
...odd when in the cleric and paladin descriptions that they don't have to follow a god to get their powers...

>>54530499
>Steal a page from the Amber books
>There's this one inn that the party keeps going to, in a bad part of town.
>It's named a rapidly changing roster of "Bloody (Last owner's name)" as the proprietor is inevitably killed and the place passes on to the new owner.
>EVERY. SINGLE. TIME, the PCs assume that the name on the sign is the owner/bartender, and address him as such.
>They've been through 6 names already, and I always have someone IC explain it, and it never sinks in.

>>54543182
If you're always using the same 3-5 characters as a base then that's a shit way to do things. But if it's a different set used to blend each time, and you are copy pasting a back story, then it could certainly be worse.

>>54542676
>player wants a political intrigue campaign
Well, it's come to a point where the words "political intrigue" actually fucking trigger me. I always start raging silently when I hear them. It's always associated with lazy, bitchy, idiot players.

>>54543102
Gross, nonsensical hyperbole is also a big "I AM A CHANNER :^)" sign, makes it easier to tell who will be a possible problem.

>>54543302
Not him, but it's just a bad idea in general; unless you have a really weird hybrid setup where the players are involved in worldbuilding in a significant way, the GM is always going to have a lot more information than the players, and intrigue games thrive on information.

At least in my experience, players don't want to do actual intrigue. They want to feel like Machiavellian masterminds.

>>54543253
Well, I think in 2e or something Dark Sun had clerics of non-god things anyway, but in 4e those classes were specifically empowered by deities so Dark Sun didn't have them. I guess I should have specified.

>>54543225
The GM isn't obligated to know the entire library of a game line, anon, and it's sad you are so entitled that you think you.

>>54543098
>He thinks that diversity comes from class/race instead of personalities and backgrounds
D&D players disgust me.

>>54543390

>he doesn't realize it comes from both

If everyone is a longsword wielding human fighter but they all have amazingly diverse backgrounds your game will still be boring as shit

>>54543253
Odd how you clearly don't know how Dark Sun works, anon, fix your faggotry before you talk next time.

>>54543365
insert smug game of thrones scene
"Hoho but he doesnt know that i know and i will do that"

>>54543411
>your game will still be boring as shit
That says more about that group, rather than the game.

>>54543225
I apologize anon, for I was this DM the first time I DMd. Although, I didn't ban anything from the core books of the system, just extra stuff because I wasn't able to get as much reading done before hand as I would have liked. I allowed additional races and classes for new characters (my players died often) as I read the supplements.

To be fair though, my players had only played free form before me, so none of them were in your situation.

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>>54543437

>>54543351
Honestly, the whole "Banning everything but human" thing is a 4chan activity as well.
I've never run into that in real life.

>>54543411
>Not knowing about single class party compositions
>Never playing an all brad group, going musically from town to town
Do you hate fun as well?

>>54543448

yeah, that they were dumb enough to play with a guy who bans classes from his game

>>54543414
I'm not, that's why I'm saying that Clerics and Paladins don't have to follow a faith or a god to get powers, so I don't know why "no good gods to power you up" will matter for those kind of Clerics and Paladins

>>54543477

That's fine if everyone agrees to it, not if the DM forces you to

>>54543182
Being inspired by something and making a thing similar to it is completely different from shamelessly copying.

>>54539964
>munchkins
>playing races
Why would you do that when humans are so powerful?

>>54543484
Clerics and paladins get their power from extraplanar entities of some sort who can not access the sphere that Dark Sun is on.
It's like people not being able to escape Ravenloft.

>>54543507
Being clear about what you're about to run isn't forcing anyone, you can always not play if the setting or the history doesn't appeal to you.

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>>54543414
>Doesn't know that clerics and paladins don't need gods to fuel their powers

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>player thinks everything is a reference to something
>constantly """"calls me out"""" on it
>it's always some generic as fuck concept, like 'people dressed in suits with guns'
>half the time I haven't even played/watched the shit he accuses me of referencing

>>54543525

see

>>54543006

>>54543575
He doesn't want you in your table and you don't want to be in his table either, why do you keep pushing this?
Clearly, "doesn't personally appeal to me" does not equal "is wrong or bad thing to do"

>>54543541
Is this a motherfucking Jojo reference?

>>54543536
see
>>54543523
>>54543575
Then the problem solves itself?
If a player is so basic that they can't wrap their head around something not being available for *insert reasons*, then they probably wouldn't be a good fit for the group anyway. No one loses anything.

>>54543605
He's seeing someone be an asshole on the internet, anon.
What kind of world are you from where you don't expect him to rise to that level of assholitude and them to bicker forever?

And then you get shits like
>>54543618
over here throwing in personal insults, and the bickering is set to never end.

>>54543605

He has to know that his table is SHIT and he has to know why

>>54543411
Game of Thrones is a popular TV and book series, and the majority of named characters are longsword-wielding human fighters with amazingly diverse backgrounds.

Many claim Game of Thrones isn't boring as shit.

>>54543618
>>54543523
So no rangers and druids in dark sun then. Because, again, some clerics and paladins don't need gods, only divine forces like the ones power druids and rangers.

>>54543673
So you're saying you want to write a novel.

>>54543669
But he never explains why. He just says is a big red flag and he doesn't get it, that's not even a bad explanation.

>>54543697
Unrelated guy, but anyone who has red flags and X cards or whatever the fuck else you kids are calling them these days usually is a shit payer or GM.
Damaged goods, at the very least.

>>54543697
He's saying dungeon-crawling RPGs aren't the only kinds of RPGs.
There's also ones dedicated to skulduggery.

>>54543716
Fuck, sorry >>54543697, meant to reply to >>54543695, getting too nappy for this shit.

>>54543695
No, he's saying that he wants to emulate an specific feeling for the setting, and restrictions are a good way to do it.

>>54543411
Yeah, just like medieval history was all boring as shit. Or maybe you are just boring at running games.

>>54543673

Game of thrones doesn't routinely pause the talking to have turn based tactical combat. And when it does have any fighting, let's be honest, the fighting is shit. And this is me being generous with the "not boring" part, I don't even like Game of Thrones.

>>54543697
>But he never explains why
see >>54543098
It removes options from the game.

>>54543783
>It removes options from the game.
That's not a problem, that's the point

>>54543774

DnD isn't medieval history. In medieval history, the difference between wielding a longsword and a warhammer was more than just a (S) or a (P) next to the damage.

>>54543803

Yes it is

>>54543783
>routinely pause the talking to have turn based tactical combat

D&D and other tactical games are not the only games that exist. Who's stopping you from playing Medieval FATE or something?

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>>54543869
>Who's stopping you from playing Medieval FATE or something?

no one I know plays it

>>54543827
No, is something that you might not like, but is not a problem.
The DM is being upfront an already setting the restrictions from the get go you should be well aware if it is your piece of cake or not.

>>54543906

Why is it a problem for me to say I wouldn't lay his game, but it is a problem for him to say he wouldn't want me in his game?

>>54543947
Neither is a problem, so it's not something that should be consider criticism.
You are asking people to believe that somehow having fewer options is a red flag, when in fact is not.

>>54530499
*ahem*
"So, you know how i multiclassed from Dusk Blade (Pulls out Players Handbook 2) to Swordsage (pulls out Book of Nine Swords) and as a result I have both magic spells from the dusk blade, and martial maneuvers as a swordsage? Cool. Now, Sword Sage martial maneuvers (points to passage) "count as standard attack actions", right? and Duskblade spells (points to passage in other book) "Can be cast as a swift action *and*", emphasizing that, "*and* applied to any standard attack." So. I'm attacking this guy, who is far too high level for our party to be fighting, with my greatsword (2d6+ strength-and-a-half, 6) and using the Burning Blade maneuver (1d6+1), and casting Blade of Blood (1d6 damage) but i'm sacrificing 5 HP to increase the power of that spell (+2d6 more) so this melee attack is 6d6+7 damage. Yes, I am level 2. We good?"

>>54544037
You got banned at book of nine swords

>>54544037
He's both right RAW and RAI, what are you trying to say there?

>>54543411
Oh my all means tell me how dark vision and a +2 to sucking dick makes you an overflowing well of character and personality.

>>54544077

I don't play elves so I wouldn't know.

But if you're banning all darkvision races just so you can railroad all the players into a cave and have them get ambushed by shit that can see in there, fuck you.

>>54537900
Troubleshooter problems.

>>54544107
>completely assblasted That Guy detected

>>54543385
When you tell them ahead of time what you want to play and their response is shit like that? That's on them, it's sheer laziness.

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>>54544077
Not ever the guy you're replying too, and I don't necessarily agree with him but breaking down an entire race into its mechanical benefits like some kind of smug cunt is an even worse mindset to have.

Different races and their histories allow you to tell a different kind of story, and while there's nothing wrong with a DM limiting options because he has a certain idea or setting in mind, making your argument against him like this just kind of makes you seem like a shit heel.

But this is 4chan, which means you came for an argument, not a discussion.

>>54544107
>But if you're banning all darkvision races
Why are you immediately assuming that I'm running a human only game?

>>54544037
>Be barb
>2 BaB
>With rage 22 or even 24 Str so 2d6+10
>Unless you have the feat that adds twice str for 2d6+14
>Power attack means 4 more of damage
>Be actually a Lion Spirit totem barb so you have pounce, can make full attack on charges
>Be actually actually wirdwing frenzy barb so you get an extra attack when raging, and you rage 2 per day for almost a minute everytime, unless you also pick extra rage for 2 more times per day
>At 2nd level you deal 4d6+28 (avg 42) on every combat
And that isn't even very optimized. Your duskblade deals 28 on a SINGLE attack per day

Don't tell me, you see monk and think is the most OP shit ever, right?

>>54544162

>so buttmad that his shitty traps and ambushes can all be countered by a single racial trait he has to gut the game in order to keep his railroad on track

>>54544107
You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

>>54544170
It's perfectly reasonable when the only mechanical distinction between races are a small smattering of numbers as opposed to anything which actually distinguishes them in any meaningful way from humans with painted skin.

Imagination isn't a low budget scifi series, there's no fucking excuse for that kind of lazy design.

>>54544181

You're the one who brought darkvision up and implied I wouldn't be able to have it. Maybe there's just humans, lizards, and halflings, I don't know.

>>54544188
So assravaged that they can feel your buttpain on the ISS. That Guy of the fucking century here boys!

>>54544183
This, even if you're vanilla barb with 24 str and greatsword you're dealing 2d6+11 to every attack for 4 minutes a day, that's 40 turns dealking 18 damage.

>>54537224
Fuck me, THIS.

>the border is currently an active battlefield in a setting just slightly between the widespread use of cannons and the widespread use of rifles
>neither country currently has reason not to shoot you on sight, and one is outright hostile towards any living thing that crosses into their lands
>entry into Nation X is not currently viable unless you take a roundabout journey by sea into a neutral country (where some stuff might happen) then from there to Nation X
>or you can try to sneak across the border through the woods where the elves live. Nobody is dumb enough to fire cannons near their forests (and some stuff might happen!)

>"lol let's just cross the border"
>Cannons, you dumb fucks
>"I'm sure we can find a way SOMEHOW *gives me a pointed look*"

Nigger if you think you can sneak past not one but TWO fucking armies in the middle of a war you deserve the death you're walking into.

>>54544259

>so mad he can't think of anything to say except for "u mad"

I was laughing before but now I think I'm going to have to just pray for you

>>54544107
>>54544188
"I know if I focus on a single word I won't actually have to address his point, while also throwing a hissyfit like a small child! That will sure prove his claims invalid!"

>>54537224

Never seen this happen. For me it's more like:

>"GM, what would happen if we do X?"
>either vague non-answer or literally "I can't tell you that"

> I want xyz house rules to fit the theme better
> NO YOU AREN'T PLAYING THE GAME RIGHT

> I want environmental hazards to matter
> NO THAT IS NOT HEROIC

> I only want the races and classes that make sense
> NO I WANT TO PLAY A KITSUNE VAMPIRE TIME WIZARD

This is why GMs should always do their own thing and disregard opinions. There's no shortage of good players who are cool with whatever as long as the rules are fairly applied and the campaign interesting.

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>>54544286
Damn son if I knew you were going to be this hilariously bootybothered just because you are obviously massively That Guy I'd have called some more people over to watch you sperg out!

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>player that usually plays edgy sorcerers and rogues hands me his character sheet
>"I want to play a paladin!"
>read character description
>blonde hair
>blue eyes
>yada yada yada
>oh please god tell me he's not just going to play as--
>"If you want a better idea what he looks like Google image search Arthas from warcraft"
>mfw

I WONDER WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THIS CAMPAIGN, GUYS?

>>54544335

umm, listen sweety this is no reason to get bent out of shape ok honey, I think you might be a bit tuckered out fro along day of shitposting and need your blankey-wankey. Just take a nap for me while I fix up your din-din, k sugar?

>>54544311

You need to actually make a point first there, champ

>>54542394
Lmao

>>54544385
"If I ignore the people I'm talking to that makes me the winner"

Must be great being that young.

>>54544429

Can't ignore what isn't there, can I?

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>>54544373
>So mad he starts sweetieposting
Ha! Priceless.

There's no cure for a cunty personality, no matter how the DM tries to manage the player.

>player says his character is from a mining town to the east
>"Okay cool, any specific details?"
>'nah'
>"All right, we'll keep it vague. Let me know specifics if you come up with any. Otherwise, is it cool if I adapt things to the campaign?"
>'ofc'
>sessions pass
>"Player, you receive news from a messenger. Your hometown of Mineton is being attacked by the Nomad Tribes! Your family is in danger! It's two days' travel to the east, but-"
>'wtf i don't have a family'
>"Well you said that-"
>'and the town has a wall, how the FUCK was it attacked?'
>"The Nomad Tribes are allied with the cult you angered, so they-"
>'but it's hundreds of miles to the east, what do you mean it's only two days away?'

How do I stop this? No matter how clear I make it, no matter how much of their writing I go through (whether it's a sentence or pages of backstory), it's never good enough.

>>54542394
that's honest-to-god fucking incredible like how can their memories/learning capacities be that bad? like it takes me half a session at most to get a pretty damn good handle on the modifiers attached to my most common rolls, jesus.

>>54530499
>Any player who fails to understand why there GM needs to approve whatever race or class they are playing.
I have had to explain so many times why a player can't play a Githyanki or Half Dragon it is just beyond me. I even once had to explain why a player couldn't play a elf in a game where the players where supposed to be monster races.

>>54544580
in his defense, killing your family is the standard so you don't have to deal with the GM killing it to rise the stakes

>>54544580
The trick is to never directly involve anything they've made up, just tangentially involve it.

In your example, I would have been like "you guys come across a small mining town. Character X, you are very familiar with towns like this and you feel like you already know this town like the back of your hand as you ride in, but something is wrong... this time of day, the mine workers should be returning from the mines, there should be pack animals coming in through the gates to get home before sundown, but the streets are empty. Something is definitely amiss."

This way they feel like their backstory gives them insight into the situation but anything you say about the situation remains unimpeachable. See what I mean?

>>54539060
Amnesia back story :
>Wakes in a tavern, reeking of ale
>Only got his robe, his hat, a pair of glasses, a broken crowbar and an empty box of biscuits.
>Only memory is that he can cast mage hand.

>>54538726
Actually the rules of Association Football state that any call made by an official stands. This means the rules of Association Football are essentially "lol whatever that guys says happened is what happened."

>>54539060
>Ok, Anon, what's your character's name
>An Nessya
>Fuck, not this again
I had a couple of laughs till the GM actually read my character sheet

>>54544346
Dude, this could actually be super fun. Just fuck with him. Make it so whenever he intentionally goes down the path of evil, everything somehow turns out alright for him, because he's the chosen one.

Finds a cursed evil sword of unimaginable power, but the moment he touches it his divine magic banishes away the evil leaving it a harmless shell.

>>54544731
ha! curing the evil sword by touching it is fucking priceless.

>>54544731
As fun as it sounds, anon, it doesn't work.

Either way, the campaign is dragged unavoidably down a path where This Guy becomes the center of the universe, which is what he wants.

He's got a bad case of Main Character syndrome.

>>54544731
>>54544346
Give him a succubi who slowly tries to him too evil.
He unintentionally converts her to his faith and she becomes a nun.
"No great knight, I know I tried to tempt you, but I realize through your light and piety it was not the correct path. I shall swear myself to celibacy and devote myself to the cause of good from now on!"

>>54538971
A Gm back in the day
He had this DMPC, Ignatius, he was Half Dragon Aasimar with fucking spectral fox tails only special people could see, then he had this homebrewed class called BloodSwordMage or something like that who was a Fighter + Bard spell progression who on top of a bonus feat every odd level he also got a feature that allowed you to spend HPs to either cast a spell without spending spell slot, cast the spell as swift action, make an extra attack, etc all stackable, these HPs could be healed back no problem so basically infinite loop with healing spells, and we the players were pretty much his pages.

>>54544775
Take the importance away from him. HE is not the one who is the main character he is just a tool that whatever god is out there is using to cleanse the world of evil.
Hell he could be the biggest evil person and the god could just be "Yeah I am just using you as a carrier for my goodness virus, I knew you'd turn bad that's what I wanted."

>>54544802
He'd smite immediately, because his desire to fall (and literally usurp the throne of the Lich that was the BBEG) is second only to his desire to be a huge hypocrite and kill anything that so much as smells evil.

He thought that if he just killed a lot of evil stuff it would make it so that he couldn't be called evil himself, no matter how much of a bastard he was to npcs and the other players.

>>54536284
Kill me.

>>54539060
>actually fleah out the backstory, but the character doesn't remember any of it

>>54544650
I almost threw in an extra line of greentext but I figured 12 was enough.

Killing off family members is a cliché but I think it's a risk that should be there, plus there's the reverse which is a mundane, useful, or flat-out good occurrence.

>"You receive a letter from your wife saying that Tribesmen have been spotted outside the town, she worries for-"
>'wtf my wife is a barbarian and also the town is in space'

The ONE time a DM has decided my characters' family member actions I really enjoyed it. The wife was going to church, the son was growing into a ranger, it felt refreshing. No 'REEEE that's not what they'd do!', because I hadn't said otherwise. I said it was okay to make something up, and it was fun.

>>54544652
That's true, but players always tell me they WANT some direct involvement with their characters when they ask. Then it's never good enough, whether it's one sentence and my "can I have some leeway with this?" or if it's a four-page backstory that I follow to the letter.

>>54544839
I'm so sorry.

>>54537075
I suffered this in my first campaign
>homebrew system
>my boxer guy cant have something to allow him punch twice every few turns
>few weeks later a npc martial artists joins the party
>has some double strike feature
I was mad

>>54541843

At this point? Routine.

Maybe I should just play video games instead.

>>54544346
>>54544731

Go Team Aquabats! If anyone could post the relevant screencap, I'd really appreciate it.

>>54534304
The fact that there is no rules is a rule itself. Rule 0.

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>>54544881
>>54544346
Bro you just gotta make it so that every evil thing he does is just coincidentally the right thing to do in that circumstance.

Also, give the party an NPC who they rarely ever interact with that swoops in and steals the credit for all their hard work at the end of the campaign and immediately ascends to godhood or something.

Pic fucking related.

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>>54545631
>>54545692

Related and extended.

>>54536975
I feel like part of this is on you.

You need to say upfront: "This is the type of game we're playing."

And what that sounds like is not: "Let's play 5e at my house on sundays" it's more like "I'm trying to run a political intrigue game/ lighthearted fantasy romp/ dungeon-delving meatgrinder this weekend, are you up for it"

Then you explain why certain things don't work with the game you've outlined.
If all you do is say you want to play a game system. People will want to fuck around with the game system. If things don't exist because they don't make sense in your snowflake setting, you'd better try damn hard to sell your players on your setting before the game starts, or this is what will happen, guaranteed.

>>54530499
An npc is standing up on a box trying to calm down the crowd after a bunch of cultists attacked a festival.
>I shoot him in the face for 10 points
The npc dies
>It was nonlethal damage
Shoot him in the face
Non lethally.

>Oh no someone hit me for an inconsequential amount of damage.
>I'm going to die, we might as well give up it's all over, just fucking kill me.
I wasn't going to before but you can bet your ass I'm going to try now.

>>54540002
>but muh authoritah!!! they screamed as the sound of industrial machinery echoed out across the rad blasted wastes.

>>54546901
Rogue in the last game I played was like this. He also got all pouty and quiet if he got a single bad roll. (Which is funny, since the dude has the best luck i've ever seen when it comes to dice rolls. Even super difficult rolls only seem to fail 1/10 times for him.)

>>54544037
Cool, you can blow away a third of your health to barely do over half of a CR 4 monster's HP while only being able to hit them a little over half of the time. What's the problem here?

>>54544077

Having diverse Races and Classes opens up many roleplay options that aren't normally there, and are instantly recognizable by the players and NPCs.

>Having to disguise/sneak a Drow/Tiefling PC through a checkpoint or city that is persecuting said race
>Instant IC roleplaying when the Dwarven PC starts talking shit about the High Elf PC...then after months of slaying monsters together, they develop a love-hate friendship
>An NPC having an implicit reason to trust or entreat one of the PCs with a request. They happen to be the only members of their race the NPC has seen in months.

It's not about the stat bonuses man. It's about the world building and racial interactions that can be had. If all the detail is in a character's background, then you won't have anything instantaneous. You and the PCs will have to slowly discover the character's intricacies. Race and class gives your DM something to use for plot hooks right off the bat, THEN you start using backgrounds and histories once the characters have revealed that info.

>>54544373
Is...is this sex ?

>>54544037
I hate you for two reasons: wasting my time describing that and wasting my time with weak ass shit.

If you have to walk through your character's bullshit again, it better be an infinite loop or I'm hitting you with my copy of the Spell Compendium until you learn how to practically optimize, you gigantic faggot.

>>54530499
>player responds to a polite request to be less disruptive and derailing in their roleplaying with "how dare you tell me how to control my character"

>>54547079
>optimize
lol

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>>54544839
My condolences.

>>54544346
To be fair though
By the end of the frozen throne the Lich King is made up to be very heroic and almost made out to be the "good guy". He is the primary opponent of the demons.

WoW lore is retarded so don't even get me started on that

>>54530499
>Set a time for everyone to meet up.
>Everyone shows up 1 to 2 hours late to every session.

>Set a new time that's more convenient for everyone to show up.
>Everyone still shows up 1 to 2 hours late.

5'6" half-elf.

>>54547232
dammit wrong thread

meant to post that in a thread called "how tall is your character?"

>>54547206
Why not just set the time 1-2 hours earlier than the initial meeting time?

>>54547206
>>54547276
>Set a new time that's more convenient for everyone to show up.

if you can change the time so easily why not just play 1-2 hours longer?

>>54547276
>people show up at the original time
>"You're 1-2 hours late!"
>Wait, we changed times?
I guarantee this will be the result

>>54539437
it's 40hp off of one level1 spell slot. shit in combat, amazing for keeping your party going all day.

Not really broken, more that it means you have to plan more encounters, and more painful encounters

>>54547344
Isn't that the point?

>>54547276
I actually did do something similar, I don't even bother showing up early anymore and I now use the hour they're late to prep.

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>>54541596
>template stacking
Let me tell you about the kaiju half-gold dragon paragon salmon of legend...

>>54547401
If I eat it, do I gain infinite knowledge?

My players have had since May/June to talk to me about their characters, what they want in the campaign, and just generally help me with world building as well as get help with their own shit. I've been reaching out to them and made sure that they were aware that I wanted their characters almost finished (it's fate so I wanted them ready for review before getting the ok for guest starring) by the end of this month so that they can be 100% ready for our first session at the start of september. I have basically nothing from most of them and piled a fair bit of potential storylines on the three I have a tiny bit of info on but at this rate I know they won't even be ready by september. I'm thinking of just giving up on them for a month and maybe even upping the potential difficulty of the plots from here on but that might in part just be the depression talking.

Anybody have any ideas on what to do?

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>>54541916
>when you realize you're that player
Fuck.

>>54547390
It will be until the next week when they'll show up late anyway, and then ask when you're finishing up because of the new start time.

Reverse psychology doesn't work on flakes, anon.

>>54547462
heh well fate is a terrible game so that's out, run something good.

after that, sit down with them like an adult and make characters together, millennials don't ever do anything if you give them a window, they just waste a bunch of time

>>54547518
I gave them the option of my building something from scratch in M&M or playing a DC game in that system but when we were discussing it somebody brought up Dresden Files fate and I've wanted a chance to play/run it so we are even though the system isn't the best. The group is the sort that would do better with a little less crunch.

I would have sat them all down but the plan was so that they'd have everything done over summer vacation so that we can start playing next semester. Ironically two of the three players who I have the most info on both graduated and are working full time. Right now I'm going to have to sit them all down at what was supposed to be our first session and have a session 0 then I'll have to scramble to get more done on the campaign due to that while also starting up my second degree (part of the reason for my depression getting worse than I'm used to).

>>54547466
Not him, but I wouldn't even say it's necessarily a that guy thing. It's pretty common among inexperienced roleplayers who tend to find the process of making Original Content(tm) to be overwhelming.

If you keep doing it for a while and have a good group, you can learn the ropes eventually.

>>54539792
fnord

>>54547006
Human ethnicity the post with a +2 to sucking dick the post

>>54543477
Fucking Brad. That guy is a total dick.l

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>>54530499
>Party tackles every single problem through a combination of situational bonuses and explosives. Try to adjust fights to make it harder to cheese and they just double down on the strategy.

>Entire campaign is now about trying to create scenarios where they can't just blow up the enemy. It doesn't work.

>>54548173
is there a way to restrict their access to explosives? sounds like that'd be one way to solve the problem.

>>54548235
Or have a fight or two happen where they can't detonate explosives without getting the objective destroyed.

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I feel like I'm betraying my group typing this out, but I have one thing that's been on my mind. I should preface this by saying that I love my players. I find that I have a good group and sometimes there are disagreements, the group gets along well.

That being said, as their DM, I can only describe my grievance as a pervasive feeling of being... left out.

Now, my group is pretty cohesive. They do their best to play their characters and the party interaction is wonderful. They all seem to get themselves immersed in their role and the game can take hours of just the PCs talking to each other, whether it be tactics or just rp flavor. I suppose this is part of the problem I seem to be having. Sometimes I feel like I am just there to provide bad guys to fight and generate loot tables. I mean the players say they're immersed in the story, and indeed the campaign goal serves as a motivation for the party to stick together and it feeds into more roleplay.

For my part, however. I do my best to provide interesting NPCs and allies for the party to interact with. They're not usually the kind of people to take prisoners and interrogate enemies, so my bad guys rarely get much dialogue. But the party's talks with the NPCs are usually just enough to glean what they need and then the party is off again. They express no interest in acruing allies or working together with NPCs. I have inquired why the party is so quick to shrug off the non-player characters, and the answer I get is that the party wants to stick together. They don't want NPCs tagging along and any NPC that expresses a willingness to actively help the party is met with snide OOC remarks about "another DMPC."

I'm at the point where I feel left out of my own game, since I've become convinced that my role could be better filled with a random encounter table and a loot generator. This is unfortunate since I don't have the heart to call off the game because literally everyone but me is having so much apparent fun.

>>54548445
You need to have fun, too.

If they can't handle that, then they can fuck off, IMO.

>>54546952
>Cool, you can blow away a third of your health to barely do over half of a CR 4 monster's HP while only being able to hit them a little over half of the time. What's the problem here?
having to sit there and listen to this convoluted rules-lawyering.

>>54537143
I've seen successful homebrews, where the campaign is fairly centered around the homebrew to begin with, and everyone is on board from the beginning.

>>54548466
I'm reasonably certain that they are under the impression that my version of fun isn't roleplaying, but trying to kill them at every turn.

They're 100% convinced that every NPC is secretly plotting against them, and don't believe me when I say their sense motive checks reveal someone being honest.

>>54530499
>They are incorrect about its legality per RAW, they'd be a nightmare beast if they were right
>Wrong in at least a dozen ways
>They demand to argue it out on every single point, citing random opinion forum posts and rules from the wrong game/edition, optional rules you aren't using, third party material you didn't approve, etc
>If you pull through and fight their shit for weeks on end they eventually kill off their character, whip out a new sheet they already had prepared
>"heads up, this character has a specific ability con-
NO.

>>54548445
Yeah, you are just as much entitled to fun as them and maybe you need to be a touch more forceful in explaining that you are not having fun when they don't bother to try and interact with the setting beyond "hit hostile thing with weapon" or "bug-off you're not in our clique". Make it clear that you want to interact with the characters too and as a GM the only way you can do that is through NPCs and the environment.

>>54548679
honestly? if their suspicion is so impeding the fun you're able to have as DM, just tell them OOC that your NPC(s) isn't up to anything and just genuinely wants to help the group. it may "break immersion" or whatever the fuck, but the problem's not gonna go away until you can establish a pattern with your players that lessens their suspicion instincts.

>>54548679
>I'm reasonably certain that they are under the impression that my version of fun isn't role playing, but trying to kill them at every turn.
I don't think they've figured out yet that if a GM really wanted to kill off the party, he could with zero effort.

>>54547425
My favorite answer to any question as a GM:
"You can certainly try."

>>54537497
Your players are fucking retarded. I've never met anyone else who's been that stupid.

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>>54541662
>>54544126

>>54548445
MAKE them interact more, maybe the npc does not give infos to some random ragtag band, but want´s to know them better first?

>>54549221
I have serious issues with names in real life, almost always having to refer to people i'm not close to in vague terms, and it's significantly worse for characters with just descriptions/dialogue

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>>54542693
Making a whole lot of assumptions there, friendarino.

>>54543197
It's an utterly context sensitive thing that needs to be judged on a case by case basis.
i.e. If you're playing DnD without psionics in setting, no one is gonna be playing a psion.
If you're playing L5R set in one of the early time periods, no one is going to be playing a Dragon.
If you're playing some 40k based thing and the party is drawn from a guard regiment no one is going to be a sanctioned psyker.

That sorta thing is fine, and justified by the setting/set up. If there isn't a setting based reason for it then there needs to be some other justification. Don't kneejerk and flip out like some people in this thread. Talk to the DM and find out their reasons.

>>54537224
It's like players have a terminal case of the Stupids sometimes. I also can't comprehend what goes through their skulls when they do something retarded like attempting diplomacy with a pack of rabid beasts that they knew had been mistreated by humanoids for all their lives and which they knew attacked all travellers on sight, disregarding any attempt at distracting them with food or otherwise.

It's as stupid as saying
>"I attack the king"
whilst being in the middle of court with all of the king's guards and wizards there to protect him...

>>54548235
Easy way is to decide that a barrel of oil is priced at 7000gp.

>>54538206
no, it really isn't. Unless you are an avid Paranoia gamer, in which case... Yes it is.

>>54538398
Sounds like they had a lot of fun :^) ;) XD

>>54544218
See the problem is you're assuming that this assortment of whatever races are nothing more than some numbers vomited onto a character sheet. Which, sure, is lazy if that all there is.
This is why settings exists, so you've got actual world building with which to build character details from.

>>54541531
Oh man, this so much.
>Party levels up
>the group already meets only once every blue moon
>of course, I am the only one who levels up their character during my free time while we aren't meeting
>meet up again
>spend *literally* two hours levelling up characters with the others

The only excuse they have is that we were playing Das Schwarze Auge. And even then...

>>54549618
I'm assuming nothing, that's literally d&d after ad&d. Not like detecting slopes should fucking count as a racial ability, but at least it was unique.

>>54547060
No that was a pair of idiots laughing because they thought the other one was mad.

>>54543182
No, you are not a bad person. Originality is overrated: there's nothing new under the sun.

Here is what I think: as long as your sources are not revealed to the party and the GM, as long as they don't know and are entertained by your hijinks, it is fine.

>>54538717
>>54538601
Some of the best characters I've played have been human fighters.

Playing a sane everyman in a world of magic and elves has a lot of potential for fun, not to mention all the other angles like being an old ex-warlord or a powerful mage who's powers were permanently sealed.

It's literally just a case of playing that character badly, which can be done with any class/race combination.

>>54541991
Anon,my players have gone through so many characters because their character just stops caring and leaves the party

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>>54549646
No you're assuming that the DM doesn't have any setting beyond 'El Generico Lands'.
You're also assuming that different races need to have a strong mechanical difference to be interesting/diverse.
Who cares if there isn't a striking mechanical difference between one group and another if they come from radically different places and cultures?
Well I guess you care, so my condolences then.

>>54548679
Did you try talking to them?

Because if you tell them "From now on, whenever an NPC might be dishonest with your character, it will be me who will tell you to roll Insight, okay?" instead of forcing them to roll for insight during every bit of dialogue.

>>54549729
>No you're assuming that the DM doesn't have any setting beyond 'El Generico Lands'.

Call me a faggot, but all I could think about was a typical fantasy setting, but with Mexican theming everywhere.

>>54549729
Again how is this different from human ethnicities covered in paint that always carry flashlights around with them?

>>54549821
Probably because I expect some Role Playing in my RPG.
Wherein things like culture and personal experiences are relevant.

>>54549860
Which again can entirely be done with human ethnicities that don't cover themselves in paint. If you're going to include other races make them actually matter.

>>54548679
Maybe they enjoy being "scared" of you? Like kids gettings spooked my scary stories told around the fire, or on Halloween or whatever.

Maybe point out that if you wanted to kill them you could just collapse a building on top of them.

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>>54549874
Sounds like you're setting the bar so far above your own head that even you can't reach it.
We do these things for fun anon.
Enjoy being a grump about it, I guess.

>>54549901
Please explain to me how an entire race having some meaningless numbers is a good design decision.

>>54543182
You might as well make a new character jesus christ

It's fine to take a character from a media and change stuff as necessary to make a new character, as long as you acknowledge that you're heavily inspired by something else and don't treat it like OC.

>>54549917
Please explain to me how you can play RPGs with so little imagination.

>>54549946
Numbers are now imagination I guess. Sure showed me.

>>54549553
Old foreverGM here

I think part of the "intermittent player character retardation syndrome" is because players aren't actually physically present in the game world. The GM might've been unclear, or might've described details in such a way that a player just attributes way way way too much or too little importance to it, for example.
Players are always engaged in this complex task of listening and interpreting what the GM is describing (which leaves plenty of room for variance; every player sees the scene differently, some might see it wrong, some might have trouble really piecing it together at all based on what the GM is saying) and this sometimes just leads to complete blindness to certain things while totally over-focusing on other things.

It's especially egregious from the GM's perspective, because he's got his internal model of what the game world looks like and what's happening, but he doesn't have to interpret anything, and he doesn't strictly know what the players are actually imagining.

Sometimes when things get complex and people's noggins get overloaded, this also seems to genuinely cause a total disconnection of logical and sane assessment of a situation sometimes.
But usually only until someone else re-frames what's going on, causing the player to snap out of it.

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>Run prefab adventures because I'm not creative enough to make my own original campaigns, but I'm the only one in the group who knows the system well enough and is willing to DM
>Always prepare the entire adventure before the first session to make sure I know it front to back.
>Generally the ones I run are good about anticipating any kind of odd choices the players might make, I make sure to make notes whenever I find a hole.
>During the session, players suddenly decide to do something neither I nor the book anticipated they would do because it's completely counter-productive to progressing the plot.
>They're ignorant of all my subtle hinting that they should be doing something else and what they're currently doing won't have any effect.
>In fact, they're interpreting all of the speed bumps I put in their way as "This is difficult to accomplish, and therefore it MUST be the correct thing to do!"
>Have to come up with an entirely fresh encounter, possibly with it's own unique mechanics, all for something the players weren't supposed to do in the first place.

One time my group dedicated a good two-thirds of a session to intercepting an angry mob that was unrelated to their current objective and diffusing them with diplomacy. The event was just supposed to be a random flavor event, but they were vehement on trying to diplomacy them down. I told them that like 5 percent of the mob dispersed, but the rest of them just ignore you despite your attempts. They would NOT stop until 99% of the entire mob gave up and went home. The players didn't even know WHY the mob had formed in the first place and had no reason to believe it was for anything related to their tasks.

>>54537302
>playing PF
>DM handwaves enemy spell resistance for no reason
>Complains that my gf's sorc can instantly nuke everything with empowered fireball and homebrew item he gave her as a reward that adds +1 damage for each die rolled
>gives her "spell shape" feat that doesn't function properly, gets to make any spell any shape avoiding friendlies even if the shape is dumb
So why don't they have their SR?

The game turned into one of these arms races until at level 15 we were fighting a Glabrezu and Balor at same time. We were going to win regardless, though it was definitely difficult and I was probably going to die when the battle resumed. a deus ex was showing up right when the store was closing, though. Then there was a 2 week hiatus on the game. The next time we played there was a time stop. Apparently we were going to lose and some dude took us back in time hundreds of years to guide new PC's into making the demon never exist. He claimed he was written into a corner, even though we were only on a detour and he already had an out. He claimed we were too powerful even though there are plenty of ways to make the game more challenging(it never is because he makes us auto win if the store is closing on multiple occasions).
Everything I worked for and earned playing for ten months developing my character apparently doesn't matter anymore.
Then he points to everyone and dictates whether they can play a caster or a martial. He tells the most inexperienced player(only joined the open group a couple months before) he has to be a caster.
I have to make my own, this guy's and my gf's (3/4 of the party) level 2 PCs while DM doesn't help anyone at all. He constantly talks about dumb unrelated shit distracting them while I'm trying to get them to pay attention. This is PF so it is pretty complex and I need them to know what's going on. Spend almost whole time just getting the characters ready before we can even start playing PF that week. Couldn't have told us before?

>>54543385
The GM should be able to trust his players not to bullshit him. Otherwise you shouldn't be playing together.

>>54550007
The problem there was the DM complaining about blaster damage. Spell resistance is a shit mechanic because it doesn't matter at all to the kind of caster you need to be wary about but completely shits all over the kinds that aren't capable of raping the game effortlessly.

>>54543411
Well if they take the exact same feats etc., then yes. But otherwise you can have a very enjoyable game with a all fighter-longsword party.

>>54550063
I'm not sure what feats you expect guys who are all the same class and are using the same combat style to take. Presumably they'd be the ones that let them suck less.

>>54543459
There's nothing wrong with only playing with the core classes / races. There's nothing wrong with allowing players to play something else by request.

>>54550076
There is everything wrong with doing that in 3.5.

>>54543541
I have a player that does the exact same fucking thing!

He has no life outside of work and spends all his free time playing video games and watching TV or movies. I don't get half the references he thinks I've put into the game.

The worst part is that it ruins any sort of NPC interaction I might try to have with him because he'll just go, "Wait, you want me to find your missing brother? This is just like such-and-such 80s film!" so I've just stopped having NPCs ever approach him on anything.

>>54544190
>you think it's just dark because you're in a cave with only a flickering torch
>you're actually facing a giant grue

>>54546476
>not having nonlethal arrow switches

>>54547206
'Hey guys if you don't show up on time I wont be running the game anymore.'

Thankfully none of my current groups or players pull this shit, but.
>Be playing D&D (First mistake I know)
>Decide to put the money sink of 5,000 fucking splatbooks to use beside paperweights.
>"Alright guys if you want to play a non-standard race like a Hobgoblin or a Tengu or something we'll try to work something cool out"
>That Guy, being the massive faggot that he is: "Can I play a Half Dragon Celestial Cloud Giant Swordsage?"
>No you retard you can't

>>54549976
Yeah I agree with this, and have experienced it as a player once. You interpret something the GM says in a different way than they do, and it just goes down from there.

>>54550074
Longsword fighters.
>noble dilettante, takes feats focusing on knowledge such as alchemy
>crusader knight, takes cleric spells
>dusty sword for hire, takes dungeoneering
>wanderer from the eternal forest takes druidic magic / survival/foresteer feats
>crazy chef-extraordinaire takes the cooking feat, dungeon meshi style

And so on.

>>54530499
I have a player who consistently seeks out the most powerful builds in every campaign we play, and then gripes and whines about it when I or another GM either tells him to stop doing it or changes a rule to be more reasonable.
This is particularly annoying because he openly acknowledges and even brags about his power gaming.
I'd definitely consider kicking him if he weren't a generally nice guy to hang out with, and even with this aggregious annoyance he's still a good friend.

>>54550329
Try doing that in 3.5 and tell me how far it gets you.

>>54550093
There is not. The core classes already allow a lot of variety. Other classes can usually be refluffed to fit into the core classes.

And as I said, the GM should allow other stuff by request (if they deem it 'fitting and fair'.)

>>54538849
>party rigs a prize fight to rig a sizable bet between nobles. the other noble found out he's been cheated for years and arranged for the fighter to not show up to counter cheat.
>one member impersonates the masked fighter in the ring
>Rest of party finds arcane trickster helping the other guy cheat
>he manages to get away when the jig is up
>party intimidates other noble into telling them who he hired
>No one actually asked them to look into this or to find the guy who went "missing", only to rig the fight and take his place.
>The guy is the real masked fighter. They just accepted the payoff and he just didn't have to show up. Easy money for a bunch of thugs. He was there anyways to see what happens and only interfered because lo and behold some guy pretending to be him is there.
>through investigation and information brokers they find the guy and some of his gang at a local hangout.
>Chase him through the streets
>they catch him
>Cleric player couldn't be there that session, so rogue decides he's got free reign to torture a dude
>Rogue player is in CG faction tailor made to his character ideals as a part of background so that the party has jobs to do. He was doing small-time smuggling jobs for them as a freelancer before and only just became member
>Already established that while they constantly do illegal things they don't use or condone excessive show of force or unnecessary violence to accomplish goals, only subterfuge.
>breaks two of the guys fingers
>Never asks him where the masked fighter is, only where his boss is. Literally tortures the guy he's trying to save for no reason.
>poor guy has to take him down there and watch his friends get wounded
>cleric player is back at this point and Zone of Truths him and the injured leader only to find out the guy was the masked fighter.

they're only giving him one warning about this torture shit.

>>54550345
6/11 classes being mediocre to shit is a major problem. You're straight up retarded if you think core only 3.5 is a good idea.

>>54550341
>how far it will go
Your GM can adjust encounters of all kinds to the players. So 'optimal feats' aren't necessary in the kind of group we just discussed.

>3.5 unique feats
You can easily focus on various different skills with your feats.
Potions too, for alchemy.
Disarm or trip builds for duelists or something.
Leadership if your character is a mercenary captain.
Crafting spells for the wandering smith seeking ancient recipes.
Demi-rogue and demi-ranger feats.

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>>54539060
In a scigame I played a robot character and my I told the DM "[OTHER PC] found me busted in a junkyard and fixed me up, what happened before and how I got there I leave up to you."

DM turned me into a hell portal and we spent the campaign chased by DOOM deamons untill my PC sacrificed himself to save the rest of the party after we got captured.

>>54550465
3.5 doesn't work that way.

>>54550341
why would anyone do anything in 3.5 though?