DM gripes thread

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>>54913405
>(((Rosenberg))) managing money

They get mad at you when monsters/enemies use strategy in combat.

They come up with complex OOC while in the middle of combat.

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>>54913405
>thief player says "I search this area for traps"
>every
>five
>seconds

>>54913456

*complex strategies*

>>54913470

I'll give you the inverse, which is just as bad if not worse.

>Players never search anything, even when you hint that something may be suspicious or out of place.
>"Nah, we keep going."

>>54913405
>Players whine whenever they take damage
>"I shouldn't take that much damage! I only got slapped off a wall by two gray oozes and fell twenty feet onto stone spikes!"
>Even though they're characters with 100+ HP each and have a life cleric

To be fair it's mostly one player. Said player also frequently interrupts me:
>During my introductions/descriptions of things
>During other players' turns to ask about things he wants to do on his turn
>To make dumb jokes during climactic moments

Said player also tries to min/max, to the point where I can predict what his character will be before I turn up to the session 0.

>>54913437
> kenku have been profiling and tracking party for months
> setup ambush that the players fall right into
> use COMICALLY/ TROPE WORTHY RED BARRELS, and have them placed everywhere
> kenku dumps barrel of flammable liquid out, creating a line of fire while other kenku fly around chucking daggers
> player decides to shoot one (a barrel) point blank (with a musket)
> COMICALLY/ TROPE WORTHY RED BARREL blows up in his face, setting him on fire, and KO'ing two other PCs, one of whom falls face down in fire
> Party TPKs
> player goes on drunken tirade that lasts a week about how no matter what they did, they were gonna die and I was railroading them.
> 5/6 players side with DM; they fucked up
> 1 player holds a grudge and believes no matter what they do from here on out in future games, it doesn't matter because the DM can just overrule anything.

I feel bad, because it was this players first character and we had been playing the same campaign for nearly two years. Gotta cut them teeth boy.

>>54913616
There's also another player who is a complete coward. In fairness to him, he's had a bad run of characters - at one point he turned up to a session with a new character after he died the previous session. Not only did this new character die, the character he made up to replace them died as well.

But he usually plays a wizard so he almost always has piss-poor hp, and he tends to rush ahead of everyone else if he's bored.

>>54913616

>Interrupts during other players' turns to ask about things he wants to do on his turn

Dear god...fuck this guy.

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>>54913616
>interrupting during introductions and descriptions

My biggest pet peeve. Like, I'm trying to describe an area and set a mood and tone. And there's always one fucker who asks some dumbass question that will be answered IN MY FUCKING DESCRIPTION. It's not even that long. They can shut up and pay attention (get off your fucking phones you addicted twats) for one minute while I set the scene. I don't write this shit for me, you know, I write it so you can have some idea of where you are and what's going on.

>>54913405

When your players directly ask for meta knowledge OOC.

>Is this thing immune to fire damage?
>Is this wizard going to counterspell my fireball?
>Will the goblins run away if we kill their leader?
>How many hit points does this monster have left?

For the love of god, ask that shit IN CHARACTER.

>Does this creature look like it might be immune to fire damage?
>Does this wizard seem skilled enough to have mastered counterspell?
>Do the goblins seem to be fighting only because their leader is commanding them to?
>How damaged does this monster look?

>>54913405
>Forgetting that we're not playing DnD every 5 minutes
>Treating the NPCs like they're dirt.
>Wondering why the NPCs they consistently treat like dirt don't like them.
>Never thinking about the rather direct consequences of their actions, such as the guy they are trying to talk to might die if they try to get entry to a building by setting it on fucking fire.
>Whining like hell if you ever build a character who isn't made along the same lines as PCs are built.


>>54913783
Oh god this. Wasn't one of the games I ran, but in one I was playing, we had a guy pretty much out and out demand to the GM that he reveal something that was obviously a major plot point that we were supposed to investigate if we ever got a chance and weren't just running and hiding for our lives. When Dan refused to tell him, he threw this autistic shitfit and left the group.

>>54913652

I would call this one:

>Players don't like it when their (stupid) actions have consequences

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>>54913405
>I want a pet dragon
>repeatedly explain why that wouldn't work
>Well I want a pet dragon

>>54913470
I've seen this birthed by
>well you didn't ask to roll perception ;)

>>54913470
This was probably just created as a survival instinct after dealing with GMs who spring a trap on you the moment you don't check.

>>54914027

Why not let them try and get a pet dragon?
NPCs could explain why it wouldn't work.
But they could still insist.
After a lot of research and rumor hunting, they could eventually get a dragon egg.
And experience why it wouldn't work on their own skin.
Bonus points if it's an inherently evil, but cunning dragon.

>>54913405
Are you my DM?

>>54913783
>MFW my party asks this shit in character and the DM explains in character without either side needing prompting
feels good, man

>>54914027

... Have you tried a pseudodragon?

>>54914086
Yeah it's pretty understandable since bad DMs love to throw traps and encounters out of absolutely nowhere.

>>54913839

Alright, you have arrived in a town and rested up. What would you like to do? You have several choices my son:

-Leave town and continue on the main quest to bring down the big bad
-Check the local fighter's guild for jobs
-Investigate the rumor you overhead about a strange dungeon a day or two into the wilderness
-Respond to the letter you got about helping to uproot a spy who has infiltrated the king's royal guard

>"I would like to rob and kill a random townsperson"

...O-okay...

I hate it when players never do any exploration, especially in urban environments.
The most interesting stories are ones that involve people, yet they would rather keep searching for more wolves to kill in the forest.

I mean, sure, I made do, but any sort of complex politicking, conspiracy or even warfare was impossible.
It's why I had to stop DMing for them, after 8 years, because despite talking about it, trying to teach them or letting them eyeball it, they never got beyond "get quest to kill guy/steal thing" and that's just boring.

>>54914157
wouldn't accept it I explained drakes and lame psuedo dragon familiars
>>54914127
we were moving dragon eggs in HoTDQ and kept being annoying about it and wanting to keep one

>>54914138

Yes, and you will all die next session.

Mwahahahahahahaha.

>>54913405
>80% of my players play rogues and other dex classes in anything i run

>>54914194
Well, DEX is the godstat in 5e again.

>>54914086
>players keeps provoking a villain organization
>one player keeps soliciting the front door of their hideout
>rebel leader responds by trapping that door and telling his men to use the other doors
>revealed like 4 hours later that they're the bad guys
>players argue over if sneaking in through the roof or walking through the front door is a better idea
>first trap of the game
>almost kills two of them
>the rest of the game broke down into "CAN I TAKE 20 I NEED TO KNOW IF THERE ARE TRAPS HERE"

they never fucking forget

Ugh, there's one guy who plays in my group who gets super upset if anyone else in the party has any overlap with his character's role.
>He makes a big jolly strongman prospector
>Fights with a pickaxe too heavy to be held by almost anyone
>Idea is to be a tall tale sort of character
>Has a touch of magical ability that gives him an affinity for sniffing out metals

>Other player makes a stoic druid
>Heavily focuses on earth magic
>Throws around boulders and raises walls from the ground
>consequently, can also detect ores

Player 1 actually bitched that player 2 made basically the same character, just because they both can detect metals.

>>54914246

Not really, it determines AC if you don't wear heavy or medium armor and can be used to attack and damage for finesse and ranged weapons.
The really good DEX skill is Stealth, which is a pretty powerful opener and largely a survival tactic once combat begins.

While it's true that strength is only used for Athletics, it does have the benefit of being applicable to the best damage weapons AND classes that use STR for damage tend to get multiple attacks.

>>54914246
i even ran paranoia and they all insisted on playing anime ninjas by taking only melee combat, stealth, and hand weapons

half of them got killed in gunfire because they never bothered to keep their blasters

>>54914180

How would one structure complex politicking or intrigue in games?

Are their certain building blocks that you stick to when planning something like that. Honestly, I would like to throw in different quest types other than "go in here and kill this thing," but I am afraid of making it shitty.

>Players that think just because they have a shared interest with you they can derail the fucking game every 5 minutes by bringing it up.
>Yes guy, we both like anime, no I do not need to hear about how this NPC is like weaboo-san from (Hot new anime of the summer)
>No, I don't want to hear about how your spell looks like that one move from Naruto, nor do I want you to stop to talk about how cool that fight in episode 295 was where they used that move.

Jesus I don't play with fuckheads like that anymore but the experience haunts me to this day.

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>>54913405
>player spends all session either drawfagging, playing on tablet, or napping
>I know it's not my fault, cuz the other players are always engaged and having fun
>every time we ask him to do something or otherwise try to engage him
>"Huh? Sorry, what's going on?"
>give him a brief summary
>"Oh okay. I'll leave that to the other players."
>ask him why he keeps playing if he's clearly not interested
>"I just like hanging out with everyone, and I don't have anything better to do."
>mfw I live with this fuck so I can't exactly kick him from the group without making things hella awkward
>mfw I can't say no devices because that's how we all keep track of our character sheet pdfs

Making a character concept they aren't willing to play

> Lawful Good Wizard, wants to save the world

Okay, cool. I can get behind that idea. But once in session:

> Robbing people opportunistically
> Turning his back on the plight of people that he doesn't like
> Holding serious grudges over stupid shit (some from other games that aren't even related to this)
> Solving everything with violence
> Wanting to murder people

Just... why. Make a neutral evil character to begin with and be done with it if you can't step out your autism zone.

>>54914027
Honestly, I wouldn't say no, I'd just let them try to get a pet dragon. If it's nigh impossible for some reason (like these are LotR dragons or something) then either he'll give up at some point for something more manageable, or his character will die. or. against all odds, he'll come up with an insanely clever way to actually get what he wants

>>54914319
is he dragging the others down?
does he contribute at all if/when he actually participates?
does he buy snacks and does he share them?

>>54914319
Is this really a problem if he likes hanging out with you and the group of people? I get he isn't the most engaged player but unless nobody else likes him I don't really see this as an issue.

>The player who deliberately has their character do dumb shit or overcomplicated shit just so that it's funny or cool in the vein hope the GM will mention him in a /tg/ greentext story.

>>54914287

It's a blade you have to hone. Start small and put it onto what you're doing already.

> Go in here and kill evil monster for poor businessman
> Monster is actually resource for local town, businessman is now selling them that resource at a 400% mark-up. Thanks chumps

See how they feel about being used like that. Then move to 'who supplies him? Who gave him such orders?' How high does it go?

Intrigue can be as complex or simple as you want it, just like cooking you add it little by little until you know what's tasty.

>>54914287

Phew, well, that's basically worldbuilding.
And it essentially boils down to the scale you want to operate on.

I, being a consummate autist, plan out the power structures of the city/town and surrounding lands, along with factions that vie for power, foreign influences and religious feeling, and then I throw in some instigating event that would upset the balance of power.
Then, I work out what would likely happen if the PCs never got involved. I then make a few possible outcomes, where the story could branch out in several directions depending on uncertain variables.
The key to this is understanding the scope of the organizations, their leaders and the general principle of the Fog of War.
This method is very tedious, and should be done partially, as the story advances, or else you'll drive yourself crazy. Generally, know where things are going and what the relevant agents want to achieve (and how). In terms of minutia, you only need to write down 3 or 4 sessions in advance, and the players will be slower than you anticipate, most of the time.
You don't need to plan out absolutely *everything*, but you do need to be aware that systems exist to facilitate an action and those systems leave tracks. Similarly, you only need NPCs that are going to interact with the story or the PCs, so don't feel the need to figure out how many snitches work for the guard in the Thieves Guild, only that some must exist. Unless the plot is now concerned with finding them all.

There are other ways to do this.
A good one is to read a couple of really good books, universal literature. Something from Dostoyevsky can give you enough characters and plots to work with forever, if you mete them out correctly.
Read "The Devils" or "The Demons" if you haven't already.

The simpler a political system, the simpler the plot can be. Early Feudalism is pretty simple. Monarchy is incredibly complicated.
Merchant Republics are basically the worst.
City States are most balanced.

>>54914275
>that first character idea
Gonna steal that, might steal the druid too if I ever play one

>>54914275
My issue is that the druid character is straight up just a generic druid that can do what the prospector guy is able to do, except better because magic>martials always.

>>54913839
>>Wondering why the NPCs they consistently treat like dirt don't like them.
I have met people irl who function like that.

>>54914319
I had this problem.

I fixed it by making that person not a player. They'd just sit at the table and hang out with us.

>That one player that skype called me at 4am just to say that he knew what ability he wants now
>He couldn't tell me at the next session. Nope.
>He had to tell me there and then. At 4am in a skype call.

>>54914319

If he doesn't want to be that way, perhaps use him more as a utility as opposed to a character?

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>>54914324
>MFW playing a lawful neutral wizard and I'm acting closer to Good than the supposedly good sorceror and paladin
I just want to be a fucking hero okay

>>54914407
>>54914409


Thanks. I will take this advice into account

>Players are so against the idea of 'railroading' that they ignore any dangling story hooks they're offered and try to come up with random bullshit
>whenever it feels like I'm finding a way to turn their dumbass decisions into a new plot thread, they detect 'railroading' and actively attempt to avoid any coherent story that isn't 100% of their making
Why do you fucks even need me around if you'd rather be in control of every single aspect

>>54913670
My last campaign we had one player have character deaths (Although I got lucky with things like wild magic letting me get reincarnated).
She lost I think 4 characters.

>>54914027
Just give them a Dragon and have the Dragon burn the guy to death.

>When players spend too much time trying to throw a wrench into things
For example I had a trap room set up where there were alternating runes on tiles on the floor. If they stepped on one rune type a fireball would shoot out. Basically a magical version of the trap from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course they sniffed it out right away and tested it and found out what to step on and what not to.
The rogue tried to explain to me how he could roll for his Disable Device check and disable the whole room. To which of course I asked him how and he replied "I don't know, I disable it, I rolled a 20 does that disable the traps?" Then got grumpy when I said no and gave him the reason.
Still gets me heated to this day just thinking about it.

>>54914472
Mage Hand would've been my go to

>>54914361
>>54914366
>is he dragging the others down?
Not really. It's mostly just irritating to everyone when we have to stop and explain stuff every hour or two. Not rage-inducing, but frustrating.

>does he contribute at all if/when he actually participates?
This is where our main gripes with him arise. Like I said, he usually needs a few minutes of exposition just to know what's been happening in the last hour or two that he wasn't paying attention to, and then his input is to either say he doesn't have an opinion on the matter, or just occasionally roll dice to attack the nearest target. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't even remember his own character's personality or backstory (which he came up with) any more, so if I try to draw on any of that, he just gives a blank stare.

Again, not game-breaking rage-worthy or anything, but annoying to the rest of us.

>does he buy snacks and does he share them?
No, he usually tries to bum food off of everyone else. On the rare occasions that he actually does contribute food, he does share, however.

>>54914180
>tfw the players will never experience the various fleshed out NPCs that you had, neither will their characters change and develop due to various actions within the story.
>tfw you were willing to let them influence the world politically with their actions, with massive changes coming to the world if thats the route the story took
>tfw they throw that away for generic dungeon run full of mobs and treasure #77

>>54914472

You made a bad call there.

Your player is not a fantasy rogue.
He doesn't know how the trap works.
You don't even know how the trap "works".
He can't be expected to tell you how to do it.
It would be nice if he did.
This is an act of imagination that requires some training, but it might never work out. Some people aren't technically minded at all.

You could:
1. Start with mechanical traps that have an obvious way to disable them, so that anyone could do it, thus giving you a RP solution, without any roll. This was a rule in PF, I don't know if it is in D&D.
2. If he beats the DC, which is the *only* mechanical way to do this, describes what he does, so he gets an idea of what's supposed to happen.
Eventually, that player will probably supply you with an answer.
But you can't just blankly ask him "Well, how do you repair the space station?/Remove the magic tumor from the aboleth?"

>>54914472

>When your players roll play instead of roleplay.

That's like finding a dead body and saying, "I rolled a 20 on Investigation. Do I know who the murderer is now?"

When the one solo rogue edge lord always sneaks off a lone and it bogs down the time in the city because Batman is chasing a fucking pickpocket who stole money or bread for his family.

He straight up took this guy to frown town and had to abandon him at a hospice because he nearly killed him. He was in disbelief that there wasn't some sprawling criminal underground that stole bread from people.

>>54914539

Okay, so I, who am a florist IRL am playing a character with high Survival and Investigation.
Assume I don't read much and I watch mostly wrestling and sports on TV, with some soap operas thrown in.
How am I supposed to know how to investigate a dead body?
What should I be looking for?
Wouldn't this be something my character, the detective, would know?
People don't just start off knowing shit. You gotta slowly expose them to knowledge, or else they feel frustrated because you're punishing them for not liking what you like. And breaking the rules as you do it.

>>54914472
Well, you can either let the rogue do something actually cool that is his fucking job, or you can let the wizard trivialize it with a single spell.

>>54914472
Also
>Always insist on playing evil dicks or murderhobos
>Always insist on minmaxing the shit out of everything. So much so that I had to ban everything except the PH and Complete series
Playing 3.5 of course so shame on me for complaining about players minmaxing but still I just want some normalish D&D not every character be a crazy psychotic killing machine able to make anyone do what they want because they found an exploit that let them have 40+ CHA at level 4.
>Always play characters that are complete and utter douchebags to each other, so much so if there wasn't a universe ending horror they'd murder the shit out of each other.
>Never play a character other than "I hit enemy with hitty stick. My goal in life is to become the best at hitting people to death with sticks" for a personality.

>>54914504

Oh, I don't make dungeons. I haven't in years.
They still got to experience the world, even all the backroom politics, or at least, the result of it.
They just never realized their agency in the world and remained forever the pawns and tools of others, almost always to their detriment.
Eventually they were exposed to the truth, but they never learned.

>When the player takes forever to say what they do next because they spend minutes dicking around trying to get a laugh with constant 'fake moves' such as "I go up to the guy and slap him in the face! Hahaha. Just kidding, man. I go up to the guy and drop my pants and tell him to suck my dick! Hahaha, nah, I dont really do that."

>>54913405
>Player at table is massive chili-head.
>Brings her own snacks that have god knows what in them.
>Half the people at the table get their sinuses clogged up and eyes watering just from whatever it is they're giving off.
>Ask her to stop.
>Oh, but it's not bothering anyone, is it?
>Stupid thirsty dumbasses at the table trip over themselves trying to exclaim how tough they are and how it doesn't' bother them at all.

>>54914579
>>54914488
Well we didn't have any magic users in the party. My real gripe was that he just couldn't even explain how he'd do it. Just that he rolls a die and the action is completed or failed.
It's a thing they all do all the time. Like it took forever to break them of the habit of "I rolled a 19 for Diplomacy to get this NPC to be my friend, is he my friend now?" Type of thing. Like >>54914539 said.

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>>54914287
It's actually surprisingly easy. All you need is 2-4 factions who all have competing methodology and interests, and then just roleplay them accordingly in reaction to what the PCs do. As long as you keep track of everyone's goals and motivations, the story more or less writes itself.

An example from my campaign:
>The PCs are gangers in a hive city district.
>The district is dominated by three main gangs.
>The Sabre Tribe are Mongol/Mad Max-style honor-bound warriors who make most of their money from the slave-trade.
>The Red Dragons are aggressive Soviet Russian gangsters who rely on brute force and intimidation to get what they want, but also employ guerilla tactics when necessary. They primarily deal with stolen vehicles and smuggling.
>The Fang are a gang that specializes in subterfuge. No one knows much about them but they're very good at presenting an intimidating appearance, so most people don't mess with them. Secretly, they plan on toppling the other two from within, and are slowly infiltrating their competitors. Their primary income is from the drug trade.

So, based on this, we know a few things:
>Sabres and Dragons aren't going to get along because the Dragons fight without honor.
>Each gang has a trade they specialize in. If the PCs attempt to get involved with these trades, they could make enemies with the gang in question.
>However, making enemies with one gang could make them allies with another.
>The PCs could also decide to go into a completely different business, giving them more freedom with which to negotiate with the other gangs.
>The Fang are infiltrating their competition, which could include the PCs if they get too powerful

And so on. Once you have the groundwork laid, the rest of the game will almost write itself based on what the PCs do. For more complexity, you can add stuff like having some of the gangs be part of a different religion or things like that.

>>54914604
fucking annoying. I just tell the dude that he's taking the dodge action and blathering like an idiot whenever they pull shit like that

>>54914660
Yes, but if he has no idea how to start to disarm the trap, and you as the DM aren't giving him any sort of leads/hooks/notes on how the trap might work, he can't really do much besides say "I try to disarm the trap" and then roll.

>>54914539

You reply, "No, but you know how they were murdered... and your discovery doesn't fir with the obvious knife left at the scene."

In regard to that earlier roll about the trap room I would have played a similar way: "No, you don't disarm it. However, your investigations allow you to understand specifically HOW the trap works. The fireball runes are fed from a reservoir buried beneath the tiles. It'd be tricky, but you could dig up one or two key tiles in the middle and try to sabotage their connection to the reservoir."

That way, while there is a way to disarm the trap and bypass it, it too has a process.

The one player whose character is always some weird ass special snowflake race that nobody has ever heard of. I hate how some people make sure they always have to be as unique as possible. They'll drag out some bumfuck book you've never heard of or some rotting away magazine issue and point to this wacky ass race they wanna be. Then if you restrict the races you can play to a handful of your choice because those are the races in the lore of that world then they call your campaign "boring" and the races "boring" because they can't be some weird ass race with flaming wings or made out of crystals or have eyes made out of water or whatever.

Then there's always the furry one who tries to get their character to be as furry as possible. If they can't be a furry race, they're ALWAYS a lycanthrope or druid instead.

Then there's the player whose character is just an obvious copy of an anime character and tries to be as anime as fuck with their class.

Then there's also the player who is pretty set on what kind of specialisation he has later down the line and what kind of traits his class will have, but then gets pissy that he doesn't get to 'become' that role by session 2 as if I'm gonna instantly give him a crazy class like that.

>>54914573

Yes, your character would know how to investigate a dead body. You can even say, "I would like to investigate the body."

However, rolling high doesn't automatically solve the murder completely. Your character would find a clue or have some sort of minor insight into the murder.

>You can tell based on the stiffness of the body, that the murder happened 24 hours ago.
>You notice that the victim fought back during the murder and seems to have clawed or scratched at whoever killed him.
>You remember hearing that this person had many gambling debts, perhaps that has something to do with why they were killed.

Then from that information, you can attempt to find more clues or solve the murder. Rolling dice isn't an instant win button that replaces roleplaying and genuine thought.

>>54914663

Not your target, but well worded response with examples there. Just saying.

>>54914604
Have you considered they're using humor as a coping mechanism for being under pressure to make a decision?

>>54914579

>Rogue
>being able to dispel magical runes with a long stick and a lockpick...

Why not:

>Rogue detects subtly inscribed enchanting runes before the party stumbles into them
>Being guided by the rogue, the Wizard is able to dispel certain enchantments without triggering them.

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>>54914604
>MFW one of my party wanted to duel a guard but didn't say at any point that e had asked for a duel, so he literally just attacks a guard
>The GM rolls with it
>MFW I have to bail his ass out of jail

>>54914700
I find that special snowflake races actually make their character concept less creative. Its always "I'm an elf who lived in the forest." Anything else about your character? "You know, he's really haunty and standoffish and wields a bow." Its like they get boxed into a role and cant escape. I usually tell them to play a human. Then suddenly the player has all these ideas about why his character lives in the forrest and his childhood friends and his favorite type of game to hunt and all this stuff. Really weird.

If they really want some race bonus, I'll let them refluff that race as human and keep racial traits.

>>54914663
>>54914734

I am the target. And I am taking notes.

>>54914287
>structure complex politicking or intrigue
>throw in different quest types

Kek.

You need to build a web of characters with their own motivations, likes, and dislikes, and ways of satisfying those outside of the players. An interesting politick campaign happens with a crowd of NPCs that would be interesting to watch without the players being there.

So you need to put a bit of effort into them, but not so much that they become the focus of the story at the expense of the party. You want to create situations where violence isn't a good answer (and talking is), without making your players feel like they're caught in a JRPG cutscene where none of their attacks or phoenix downs work.

There are ways around this - they might not be able to stab a plotting vizier in the middle of the court without having to fight every guard in the kingdom, but they can sure stab the hell out of any assassins that happen to be doing things in line with the vizier's interests after dark.

You've got to be able to refocus the whole web on whatever the players find interesting, rather than force them into the stuff you've got planned. Party wastes a bunch of time talking to a flower girl after getting into town? Fuck it, she's the long-lost daughter of some character involved in the intrigue. The players haven't read your notes, so they don't know you didn't plan it all along.

The trick is keeping consistency with what you've told (or implied) to your players, so they can puzzle things out, while keeping everything else fluid. Give plenty of red herrings, and if the players think one of them is important, then make that the important one.

It's a lot more difficult to manage than a string of combat encounters.

>>54914693
They figured out how to get around it almost immediately and all discussed it. Step on the white tiles not on the black ones. I made it that easy. It would have been fine and more could have gotten done if he just stepped on the white tiles to get to the door and continue on. But he had to argue for ten minutes about how he's a rogue and can disable all traps just because he rolled for it.

>>54914168
Congratulations, the random person just happened to be the spy, you have saved the day.

>>54914729
>Rolling dice isn't an instant win button that replaces roleplaying and genuine thought

If you're rolling Charisma and Intelligence checks, it kinda does.

D&D-style systems are bad at this side of things.

>>54914409
>>54914663
>>54914855

Overlap these answers like a Venn diagram.

Your failure state is if you ever feel like you have to haul out your Tome of Backstory and lecture your players about why what they did was based on a truly awful reading of the situation, and they didn't pick up on any of your hints about what was going on.

>>54913768
If a player interrupts me during description, I go back to the start of the last sentence. Every time until they shut up and let me finish.

If you're being interrupted while you're speaking, it's because you're too polite. People learn in primary school that interrupting is rude. If they haven't learned it, treat them like they're in primarily school.

>>54915016
>If you're being interrupted while you're speaking, it's because you're too polite

Might be because you're too long-winded. (There's a spectrum between the player with a gnat's attention span and a GM who's trying to schlepp out a page and a half of Tolkein to describe a room, and both can yield the same result.)

My usual strategy if I start getting that sort of interruption is giving a short, broad-brush description, and then asking if there's any particular piece of it that the players are particularly interested in (possibly modifying answers based on various perception checks, depending on the environment and situation).

Gives info about something they're interested in, lets them roll dice, keeps them engaged.

>>54913470
I once had a player search for traps in a random church in the middle of a city. I have no idea where that impulse even came from.

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>>54913616
>Players whine whenever they take damage
It adds up.

>>54914324
You're within your rights as DM to change their alignments. I love doing it to murderhobo """Lawful Good""" paladins. You ignored the beggars and were dishonorable in combat? Get fucked, your god sees your lack of faith and your smites now do half damage until you reconcile your crisis of faith.

I have a guy at my LGS who will randomly guess what the DM's going to say next. I'm pretty sure it's just whatever's on the top of his head. It's awful.

>Your party turns the corner, and out of the shadows you see
>AN OWLBEAR
>...no, it's a bunch of skeletons. Roll for initiative.

He's very clearly autistic too, and it's a public weekly d&d event so the DM can't tell him to fuck off

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>>54914187
Dude, I was in that game!

Why did I save that tard from crit?
whywhywhywhy

>>54914265
This is why you have no more than 3 traps the entire campaign. And they all should be at the mid-end.

>>54913405

This gets me too. I understand that some games are more complex than others but if we're several months into a campaign you should be able to sail through a standard combat. At one point a guy in my group had actually stopped updating his character sheet and instead relied on the GM (who kept a copy himself for this) to tell him his attack bonuses or AC or whatever. He pretty much just updated his Hit Points and that was it.

And to top it off, he'd re-ask *every round*. Like, if he tells you you have +8 attack last round, and nothing changed, you have +8 attack this round. I don't even play your character and I can keep track of that.

He's a little better now. Still by no means "good" at the game we're playing, and when it's time to level up he generally stares dumbly at the two or three people with legitimate system mastery to have them do it for him, then immediately forgets all the new abilities he got until he's reminded about them a few times--but he's at least functional now.

His saving grace is that he really does enjoy roleplaying and gets super, entertainingly invested in the events of the game world. Frustrating guy to GM for but at least he has the decency to care about it and encourages the other players to do so as well.

>>54914471
we tried that but our DM chickened out.

Is it just me or are the majority of players frustratingly stupid?

>>54915559

Uninvested might be a better word. People who are smart outside of game but don't realize that tabletop games require investment to get returns on. Maybe they treat it like an excuse to hang out with friends and eat snacks more than a hobby in its own right. So they don't bother to learn (or often even read) the rules, show up, have some fun, go home, and don't think about it again until the next session.

I mean, it's clearly doing it "wrong" but I can understand it I guess. There are dabblers in every hobby.

>>54915584
I think they are deliberately sabotaging the game. Like they get off on it.

>>54915623
that or somebody is dumping them on us. It feels very much like a session of congress or a senate committee hearing.

>>54915638
you wouldn't believe how fucking half assed some of them are. they show up, wait for the clock to to run out, pack up and go home.

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>players all have characters that are all either lawful neutral or chaotic neutral
>races are all human, half-elf or dwarf, or another extremely human-like race
>only variety is "I want to make X character from Y franchise, but in D&D!"

I don't want everyone to play snowflakes, but jesus christ, variety is needed.

I used to enjoy this hobby.
I used to think it was like playing pretend when you were a kid.
The problem is they are about as focused now as they were back then.
A 5 year old can pretend he is an airplane for approximately 30 seconds before he turns himself into bigfoot.
Adults and teenagers are the same way. They have absolutely no focus.

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>>54913470
The solution there is to give the players time sensitive missions. It's pretty fucking tough to rescue the innkeeper's wife before sundown when it takes 15 extra fucking minuets to scour each room you pass through for hidden mechanical pit traps.

>>54914469
Ask them what direction they're aiming for, and build a plot around that. If they still won't cooperate, fuck them.

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>the group to implodes just because That Guy couldn't dial it back a bit while out of character

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>>54913425
>his kippah is coming off in the pic
>mfw

>>54914472
Do you ask him to demonstrate how to pick a lock whenever he picks locks?

If you wanted the trap to be more complicated than that, it's as simple as saying he's not skilled enough to succeed even on a nat 20 (I believe 2nd Ed had some good rules that work for this sort of situation.) Absolute success on 20 is a stupid rule that way too many people follow, when in reality, having a 5% chance to succeed at literally anything is pants-on-head retarded.

>This puzzlebox is a riddle left by the god of trickery. It has confounded thousands of scholars for millenia.
>But I'm a player character, so I have a 1/20 chance of just solving it, even with low scores in the relevant skills.

>>54915874
They literally hate the idea of the story being 'out of their control' in anyway. If it weren't for how uncreative they were they'd probably try to play all the npcs too. They really don't seem to get that a gm isn't just the 'guy controlling the enemies'

>>54914697
This is a good way to handle things.

>>54915698
>takes 15 extra fucking minuets to scour each room
maybe they shouldn't waste time dancing, especially where there might be pit traps

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>>54915877
>the group implodes just because That Guy couldn't dial it back a bit while in character

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>>54913405
>that player who pitches a personality and approach for his character, and then proceeds to play the polar opposite
So, your druid is the first to suggest burning down the forest to expediently kill enemies, prefers to hang out in urban taverns and drinking holes, and thinks undead are actually pretty badass, exactly unlike what you pitched to me? You know what, I hope the 'stealthy, manipulative' rogue who just strongarm robs people makes you the target of intraparty strife and you fucking kill each other.

>that player who asks you to clear the homebrew class they made up and get butthurt when you won't
I don't care if your homebrew Nasuverse, Servant wielding Mage class is "not any more broken than Thrallherd", that's a terrible baseline to measure against and you fucking know it. And even if it wasn't overpowered, this is not a Fate Stay/whatever campaign, you are not making some Akashic recording of Kass the Betrayer your personal bodyguard, nice effort tying D&D lore into it, but still no. Not appropriate for this game.

>that player who assumes anything that can touch him is doing so with the power of DM fiat.
Yes, your breath weapon provokes an attack of opportunity. Yes, I know it's a supernatural ability, this monster can smack you if you breath fire on it while directly in its arms. No, I did not pull the ability to do that from my ass, I found a feat tree that lets it get AoE on supernatural abilities in two splatbooks and threw it on to keep you on your toes. Is taking damage once this campaign really worth all the bitching you're doing?

>>54915959
Maybe some of them are itching to GM? Have they ever tried it? Letting them each run a session or two of quests of their own design might simultaneously scratch an itch, and give them some more respect for the role.
Both captcha words were like 20 letters long apiece, Jesus fuck.

Have one player who always goes off on his own and gets fucked up, or killed. Still has not learned his lesson. He min maxed his AC to fucking 23 or some bullshit. Decided to fight a 100+ bandits with only the help of a hill giant while the rest of the party did not want to participate. Actually does really good because he is a minmaxer. Complains whenever he gets hit, still kills like 20 bandits by himself including a leader. While this is happening the giant is down and I keep telling him he is being surrounded by more and more. They slowly wedge him in and dogpile on him because they couldn't hit him. He complains about it. They torture him before killing him. I just want him to learn to not be dumb about his combat orientation and fights instead of thinking he can win a fight due to just sheer minmaxing.

>ban D&D and D&D payers from my games
>this stops happening
>payers stop poofing
Uh...

>>54916050
Attacks of opportunity are designed to mimic lapses in preparedness and gaps in your defense. Characters should, generally, know what they can and cannot be provoking them with, and i can't really see how using a breath weapon should do so.
As a player, i'd be a bit peeved.

>>54916166
"you literally cannot see an end to the (demons/goblins/elementals) hordes" and if he really wants to endlessly fight them until death let him
if he's using some healing bullshit to fight endlessly, throw in some casters with silence/entangle and now he can't cast spells

>>54916300
Hard to have player issues when you're all alone anon

>>54916341
Ah yes the
>if you dont play D&D YOU WILL NEEEEEEVER HAVE PLAYERS!!!! -Meme
I wont have hordes of uninvested 80iq retards, instead I have 3-6 invested players.

>>54914168
Dnd support here have you tried not playing with spergs?

>>54916337
I never have a problem with dealing with him, as DMs we have infinite ways to deals with power gamers. Yes even if you have impossible high AC I can still hit or find ways to kills you. But as a DM my job isn't to force that, just want him to be more situational aware, make better decisions, and not run off by himself. I think I reached him this last session finally but took another character dying off.

>>54914604
Something I did in my last game to deal with that was I'd have a d10 hidden behind my screen. Every time one of my players did that "hahaha, nah, I don't really do that" shit continuously to the point it was obnoxious, I'd bump the D10 up a number. If it got to 10 in a session whatever the next stupid thing they said they're character did was, they're character would actually do.

>>54913616
>"I shouldn't take that much damage! I only got slapped off a wall by two gray oozes and fell twenty feet onto stone spikes!"
"You're right. Take double."

>>54916869
I love you anon.

>>54914536
>But you can't just blankly ask him "Well, how do you repair the space station?/Remove the magic tumor from the aboleth?"
Well, why not? Sure, the players can't be expected to go into detail, but they SHOULD be expected to be able to provide something basic like "I start by getting the reactor to work and then try powering up the other systems one by one, fixing the ones that aren't working."

> never play D&D before. Come from White Wolf and d6 games.
> other players get nervous when I start squaring up to challenge 6 enemies.

I have noticed that D&D players will absolutely not fight unless they are sure they can win, and that anything less than a straight win is considered poor gaming.

And people wonder why there are so many fucking edgelords around.

>>54916938
>noticed that D&D players will absolutely not fight unless they are sure they can win

I usually see the exact opposite in these threads. People who don't realize they can't win every fight

>>54915957
>Do you ask him to demonstrate how to pick a lock whenever he picks locks?
Picking a lock is straightforward in that there's pretty much only one way you could try doing it. That's very different from a situation where there's NO obvious way of doing something.

>>54916973
The difference lies in the impression the players have of the challenge. Our statements are one in the same but worded differently. Mine is simply more deferential to the player perspective.

They THINK they can win. My playstyle is to pick a fight, draw blood and then decide whether I stand a chance. Meaning I roleplay combat.

>>54916998
>They THINK they can win. My playstyle is to pick a fight, draw blood and then decide whether I stand a chance. Meaning I roleplay combat.
Sounds more like you play someone suicidal.

>"As you walk in, you clearly see.."
>"I ROLL TO LISTEN"
>"CAN I ROLL TO FIND TRAPS"
>"DO I SEE ANYTHING STRANGE? ANYWAY I ROLL TO SEE IF I SEE ANYTHING"
Y-yeah guys go on

>>54917008
D&D is a setting where someone can pull out an object the size of a frying pan and polymorph you into a housecat.

Are you telling me there is any situation in that setting where fighting someone isn't suicidal?

>>54913470
I just tell rogue players that if there's a trap I'll tell them to roll for it.

>>54913470
Have it slow them way the fuck down and create greater danger in the form of wandering monsters and shit.

>>54917047
There generally ARE indicators of how dangerous someone(or something) is. A high level character, for instance, will have weird jewelry or other objects that look like they're probably magical. A wizard will smell weird and have a spell component pouch somewhere on his person even if he isn't the type to carry a staff and have a pointy hat. And so on. Obviously there are exceptions(or they might just be trying to disguise themselves), but more often than not you can tell whether someone might be able to turn you into a housecat by wiggling their fingers or not.

>>54917059
Better yet, "Your rogue background helps you to sense that somewhere in this room there might be a trap, Roll".

Level of success determines where they think the trap might be. high success tells you exactly where the trap is and tells you what the trigger is. success tells you where it is. fail tells you that "This area of the room feels dangerous to you" and abysmal fail tells you "Though you feel like this room is dangerous, your ability is not great enough to give you an idea of where that danger is coming from".

>>54917104
It's kind of the opposite in white wolf. Generally speaking the more mundane the NPC seems the more potentially dangerous they are. That ordinary looking bloke reading his newspaper on the train you just used to get to the hospital was actually a Nosferatu antribu keeping tabs on you for example, using the discipline of obfuscate to go unnoticed (higher levels of this power are more noticeable if you have the appropriate countermeasures).

Basically my combat style revolves around the fact that you never know for sure what it is you're fighting, so try and cut it and see what it does. If i'm playing as an ordinary human I generally won't fight anything unless I have a way to overkill if I need to. Like an HE grenade which causes so much damage the enemy can't regenerate fast enough.

But the thing is with D&D I see people playing barbarians as cold, calculating motherfuckers. To my mind that class is more conducive to my style where being able to kill your enemy as quickly and as comprehensively as possible is the norm and only using berserk if they have additional abilities.

>>54913616
Hey I'm you and your player simultaneously.

>>54913405
>players are engineering majors
>perform all kinds of shit I can't understand daily
>feel retarded because they will all be more successful than I will
>players have to think every time they add or subtract
>sometimes use fingers
I thought people were joking, but engineers really do develop autism to the point where they think in complex concepts only.

>>54917209
I played a game where the DM expected us to cross a desert in order to get to a settlement, and had a host of encounters for us.

Except he gave me a jet engine and fuel.

>>54914265
My traps always glow, vibrate, come out of evil looking statues, have a DC of 10, or are the result of easy puzzles. I've learned not to ever do anything else, but still...

>you see glowing runes on the wall, casting a beam of light across the hall
If we just run, we should be fine.

>>54914278

And you can use DEX to get out of grapples, and it is a saving-throw for an awful lot of spells, like disintegrate and fireball; and for a good number of breath weapons.

DEX is OP in 5e.

>>54914187
Explain why you wouldn't let them keep it.

I wanted my players to keep one in HotDQ AND OotA but they smashed both

>>54914646
what does she bring? Ask her next time; it sounds tasty.

>>54916985
>picking locks irl is just like Skyrim

>>54914027

Why doesn´t it work, anon? I can think of a dozen better ways of dealing with this than just saying no as the GM. As a GM, you should strive to have your answer to players request always be "yes, but". In the case of the player wanting something unreasonable, there should be many buts which are hard to overcome.

>>54913405

>players try to bypass every encounter
>they refuse to play anything but D&D, which is all about encounters

>>54913470
Introduce wandering monsters, problem solved. To drive the point home make the rogue player roll for monsters appearing together with his searching roll.

>>54913470
>playing a game with traps then complaining people look for traps
>2017
>2007
>shit that was embarrassing even in 1997

>>54917209
>be doing calculus
>can do vector calculus in head
>can do Fourier transforms in head
>have to stop and think when asked what 6*7 is
These aren't letters, what the hell am I supposed to do with these?

>>54914469
Stop giving them quests. Roll on an appropriate random encounter table whenever they travel between towns.

>>54914536
>>54914539
Took me a little while to work this out as a GM. The balance is to make sure the players give enough description that everyone can visualise what happens.

"I disarm the trap" as compared to "I open the side of the casing with my tools and cut one of the wires."

"I roll damage" as compared to "I swing my axe at the enemy."

>>54917368
More like oblivion DESU

>>54913405
>Had a player who couldn't make a decision to save his life. Constantly afraid of playing bad options. Offers to take time out of my weekend to help them build a character a week after everyone else is done so I know what 'role' would be unique.
>"Nope, I'mma complain and waffle, until session 1."
>Offer to let them play an NPC because maybe they just don't know the system and are overwhelmed. They accept.
>Proceeds to spend entire session griping about the character not being theirs.
>Ask them what the hell after the game. "You should have let me make my own character"

>>54917864
This is good. I also ask my players to describe why they do something. They have to describe what their character physically does and what they want to happen. "I swing my axe at the tree. I want to chop it down." vs "I swing my axe at the tree. I want to stick my axe into the tree to form a foothold." If they ever say something like "I roll perception, I describe their character rolling dice and skip their turn."

>>54916378
Son, where I live I have trouble finding 3-6 d&d players. Ones that aren't 4 years into their Pathfinder campaign, at least.

>>54914278
>>54917234
A fighter with a rapier and a shield deals the same damage as a fighter with a longsword and a shield (1d8 + stat). In light armour with a high Dex you can have more armour than full plate and have up to +5 to initiative.

Sure, a strength fighter rolls more damage but having higher AC, no disadvantage on stealth, a boost to initiative and the ability to whip out a longbow for precision distance shots is really hard to beat.

When I DM I make sure to give strength attacks some fringe benefits like cleave damage or innate knockback on some hits.

Alternatively, just make strong plate armor more common and let Wis or Int boost initiative instead.

>>54917996
Not all of us live in retard ville, lazy town in sissy county son.

>>54913405
I've had this problem for a long time so I made them literally write it down like a fucking macro and stick it to their sheet, I'd get it if there were some other unusual effects to the diceroll but no I'm literally talking about the Barbarian using a standard attack like he always does.

>>54915959
Well that's not an unreasonable complaint at all. If the players feel like they have no control over what happens in the story, they have no reason to try and follow it.

>>54917996
The best way to keep STR relevant is to enforce it's use. Are you really going to Tenser's Disc everything all the time?

>>54919091
*its use
I hate phoneposting.

>>54914536
You can ask player "how do you do it", but then you also have to accept that this is the way it works if player beats the roll DC.
I.e. my acolyte in Warhammer tries driving an unfamiliar model of a tank.
GM asks: how do you do it?
- "I politely ask the machine to start"
And if my roll is good enough then it has voice interface.

>>54914027
I would make a powerfull, but really perverted dragon kidnap him and make him his pet for some time.
If the party want to save his character, they can try, but he would need to wear diapers from this point forward.

>>54917008
Well, trying to avoid a fight you think you likely cannot win is roleplaying your character having common sense.

>>54917996
>In light armour with a high Dex you can have more armour than full plate

You can't, AGI in light armor tops out at 12+5, fullplate is 18 baseline. If you get Mage Armor you match it, I guess (but then you need a +2 armor to upgrade from there to match a +1 full plate).

>>54919091
Or just buy a mule or a henchman or something.

You need to benefit high STR so there's a point in investing in it, not punish low STR, which they'll just sidestep anyway.

>>54914319
A group I recently joined (only played one session, but already friends with some of them so it went well) has a good drawfag (I've seen some of his art and I can see why people buy it) who doesn't want to play, but hangs out with them and draws all the maps as they go. I haven't met him yet because he wasn't there when I was

>>54914027
interestingly enough this has only been a problem for me when DMing for my little sister and her teenage friends. My adult male friends have never been bad for this when I DM for them. The worst they'v been are
>a Cleric keeping a pet hawk which he caught and tamed with his bare hands. The only real problem here was that the hawks name was pronounced 'Johnny" but spelt 'Nigger". Only the player and I knew about the spelling though so it was more a stupid joke between me and him.
>A halfling bard who kept a pet rabbit. At first it was fine and I justified a halfling having some cultural ties to rabbits in my setting. It only became a problem when he started trying to teach the rabbit how to swim and read by using animal handling checks. I obviously shut him down every time but he kept trying because he thought it was funny. Eventually I had some witch curse the rabbit and it turned into a Lovecraftian Horror.

>>54914319
N O
D E V I C E

P O L I C Y
O C
L I
I L
C O
Y C I L O P

but yeah I feel you. I used to track character sheets on phones and just accept that some players got distratced, but we tried a no device policy just to try it out and its honestly revolutionary. It's worth printing character sheets and printing class pages from the PHB. It changes everything. We went from about 60% playing 40% getting distracted to full sessions of fully engaged play.

>>54919458
Reading is obviously nonsense, but rabbits know how to swim. Not particularly well, but if they fall into a pool or a stream they can paddle around, well enough to move in a particular direction (usually to the closest point of dry land, they don't really like swimming).

.t has a rabbit.

>>54919510
I guess that's nice if you want GAME TIME to be super serious but I've always liked a mix of OOC socialising and IC gaming. It's a social event after all.

>>54918821
That's not the problem: they don't want ANYTHING to be out of their control.

>>54919785
Are you railroading them at all? Players will all have different reactions to railroading.
Most good ones will understand that some railroading is fine and will go off the rails when given the chance, others will try to just ruin the entire campaign.

>>54919890
I'm really trying to avoid forcing them to do anything but whenever an NPC suggests something to them they adamantly refuse to listen because they think any sort of GM guidance is railroading.

New to Dnd and am playing the 6th session of my first game this Friday. Reading threads like this are extremely helpful but I still feel self conscious about how I come across. I play a chaotic neutral teifling bard and everyone else is good alignment. I try to keep it copacetic and stay true to the alignment but when I do something like mention the selling of slaves while bartering with a vendor the others get slightly.. tiffed or try to immediately shut me up and back track the conversation.

Is there a fundamental problem being an alignment off from the rest of a group or should I play my character more closely to theirs in a group setting and then how ever I like on my own side issues and scenes.

>>54919956
If you are part of a party, you should lean your characters slightly towards the overall alignment of it, otherwise you're going to cause pointless interparty strife.
Plus if the party is actually trying to do something while you switch to a different topic, that's your fault.

>>54913405
Players needing to 'correct' me about alignment, often in a completely moronic way.

>Anon anon, character is LG, he would NEVER take a private revenge.
>Anon anon, character is CE, what do you mean he has a good friend he'll look out for?
>Anon anon, character is TN, what do you mean he has firm moral convictions about a given topic?

What the fuck is so hard to grasp that these are very general tendencies and outlooks on life, and that you can simultaneously hold those sorts of convictions and not have every single action in accord with them?

>>54920042
Why are you telling your players how their characters think?

>>54919956
IRL tiffed or RP tiffed? RP tiffed just roll with the punches and be witty (bard is a charisma class after all) IRL tiffed your group sounds like a bunch of knobs. I would leave

>>54919601
But then you might as well play a board game, no? Usually less complex ruleswise which works better for socialising

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>>54915402

>>54920063
I'm not. I'm annoyed when they get in my face about how NPCs act.

>>54919956
Alignments are a chain that binds you from roleplaing well. Instead of thinking "my character is CN", take a note out of Burning Wheel. What are your characters goals? What do they believe? How do they react to certain circumstances?

>>54920109
I wonder if there's some Charm Person/ Command jank to pull off "your next line is" memes in 5e.

>>54919956
There are no fundamental problems as such, but it's tricky and you need to be smart about it. Shit like slave trading is definitely not going to fly when there are Good characters around.

>>54913616
holy shit that player sounds like literally me. I just don't give a fuck about roleplaying, I just want to smack things

>>54920074
I'm not that familiar with the guys so it can be hard to tell sometimes.

>>54920127
You can probably just cast Detect Thoughts on the person you're talking to.

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>>54919274
...why dude...

>>54920125
The only thing Alignment has brought to my table are players picking CN, ruining the game, then whining they're playing their alignment.

>>54914409
I feel like I might have played with you. Does the phrase "Have you seen this demon?" mean anything to you?

>>54917864
>"I swing my axe at the enemy."
what if he says "I swing my the enemy's neck" ? do you give him bonus damage?

>>54913652
>Kenku
>Fly

>>54913405
I've the exact same problems, but with DMs.

>>54920506
Roll at disadvantage and if you still hit and the target fails a con saving throw or they take the same hit next round and their major arteries begin to bleed internally or externally.

>>54920927
Not bad, anon. What about "at the enemy's arms" ? Would that be at disadvantage too?

>>54914027
Give them one. A baby one. That has a breath weapon, the temper of a 4 year old and the ability to hold grudges.

>>54914282
Oh man, in paranoia I used to kill characters on a whim.

>>54920992
>>54920927
>>54920506
Or play GURPS.

>>54917107
This. I like how 5th uses passive skills, so that certain skills don't become useless if you don't ask for them all the time.

>>54915498
>>54917226
running 5e with new players soon. i'm going to experiment and try to start giving all the dangerous traps similar themes. first few will be slaps on the wrist, but they'll get progressively more lethal. dunno if i'll ever go full instakill trap, but i want the later ones to actually be fucking dangerous if you fall for it after all the hints i've given over the sessions.

>valuable object on a pedestal will almost ALWAYS be trapped
>weird room with a unique shape i'm going to keep using over and over again? if it looks similar to it, never go in the center, walk around it
>2 wide corridor that has a single random 3-wide row in it, then it continues? 100% tripwire.
>H shaped passage with a pressure plate on the 1 wide chokepoint. two arrows fly, but they don't hit the person who triggered the trap, they fly across different, predetermined columns and hit anyone's there
>more ideas i'm too lazy to think of now

the less uniform/blocky the room looks, the more likely there would be a trap. i'm trying to make it so that like the players intuitively know when they should be scared of traps, but i'm afraid of making it too easy, although traps just seem unfair if they're hard so i'm kinda at a loss

>>54914324
>Make a Lawful Evil Assassin
>is a bad dude, but has his own code of honor and prefers to avoid inter-party conflict.
>Otherwise is a typical, edgy, *teleports behind you*, nothing personel kid type assassin.
>Another one in the party is a Dragonborn Paladin
>stated to be a pretty average Lawful Good Paladin
>the other two were a Barbarian and a....spellcaster of some description, they're not important.

>Party begins in a festival by the sea celebrating..something.
>Very important political figure there.
>Paladin is hired as his bodyguard, I was hired to assassinate him
>Thanks to some poor rolls on the Paladin's part and my fucking amazing stealth score, I'm able to sneak up and start garotting him with no issues
>Suddenly zombie outbreak
>First thing the Paladin does in response is go "Fuck this" and turns around to start stabbing the guy he's supposed to guard to death. For no reason.
>We get chased by zombies onto a boat.
>They set up a magic circle to prevent undead from attacking the normal folk.
>Paladin wanders off to ransack the boat of all it's valuables while I, the edgy assassin, am stuck keeping on eye on the people.
>One guy inside the circle starts turning
>Being the pragmatic sort I am, I simply drag the guy out, dangle him over the edge, and slit his throat before dropping him overboard.
>Paladin gets upset because "Hurr durr why so edgy, we could saved him."
>I explain my logic
>A: I'm not good for much beyond killing.
>B: I don't know any divine magic that would help
>C: I didn't have time to wait for you to get back from your ransacking.
>Still insists against all scrutiny that he's Lawful Good
>The player is dead serious.

He ended up leaving before anything else came of it though. Was one amusing part where I jumped off a building because "fuck stairs", and my acrobatics score help me take no fall damage. The Paladin followed suit, without the same benefit, and almost killed himself from the fall, which got a good chuckle.

>>54914319
Make him vice DM, he can run mooks or villians or be NPCs when shit goes down. Just give him something other than player.

>>54915584
The players I had who did that were on the other end of that intelligence spectrum. They needed to be reminded constantly which dice to roll, what they did for damage, etc. They're simply do not want to bother with something like p&p gaming since it requires too much of their attention.

>Players dont wanna read the rules for a game because 1 book is too much.
>I make them cheat sheets in spanish for them.
>Then complain that the enemies have powers and abilities they dont.
>Complain that the isnt a "easy mode" for the game.

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>takes forever to make character beforehand
>have to postpone so he can get done in time
>"can't play today, im too tired"
>the only player who is unemployed and only sits in his fucking room
>does the same shit next time
>play without him
>"REEEEEEEEEE Y YOU PLAY WITHOUT MEEEEEE"
>mfw

>>54921946
I have a general policy of not cancelling a session because of just ONE player who can't make it unless it's absolutely vital that he's present. It can get annoying, but it's better than missing or postponing a game.

>>54916166
>min-maxed AC to 23
pfff look at this guy
I love it when people try to armour tank.

You just start grappling the fuck out of them with your infinite guys.
One of them's going to manage, and instantly the guy either loses dex to AC and -4 to hit, then MORE guys start grappling. You can get up to 4 people grappling, and you bet your ass someone's going to pin the fucker.

Then it's coup-de-grace time.

>>54921614

You are really trying to be a good DM.

This is great.

>>54920506
For called shots I give the mob +2 AC on the attack roll, and the player has to get +5 above that to actually hit where they want.

So AC 15 mob is now AC 17 and you need to get a 22 or higher to hit the neck specifically. If the player got a 19 they'd just do regular damage.

>>54916985
Says someone that doesn't know shit about getting through locks. There are loads of ways of opening a locked door.

>>54914573
Perhaps you could do a little preparation and maybe learn a bit about the studded your character ought to know?

Or I guess you could just demand that you DM spoonfeed you.

>>54922447
List three different ways of picking a lock that would actually exist in a typical D&D setting and would work on the same type of lock.

>Player has been playing DnD since before I was born
>We still have to explain to him how saves vs checks works, where his proficiencies are, what bonuses he can add to damage
>Gets annoyed when I imply he might not know something

Dude's a great guy, I enjoy playing with him in RPGs and wargames, roleplays the fuck out of everything, but he's been playing so long and has so many editions of so many games in his head he doesn't know what's what. Then he'll compare everything to how it worked a decade ago as if it's some sort of elder's wisdom that ultimately doesn't matter.

>>54922533
Picking, breaking, popping the hinges, disengaging the latch with a knife/credit card, breaking the tumblers, bump keying, drilling a hole behind the handle to access the inner workings, lol magic, strong magnets, cutting the latch with a file through the crack, etc, etc.

>>54922611
>>Gets annoyed when I imply he might not know something
imply instead that he is confused, not that he doesn't know. I mean he probably knows just doesn't remember/has mixed knowledge from all the editions

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>>54913405
>The one guy who's head over heels for Warhammer and thinks every setting he goes to either is or should be Warhammer Fantasy or 40k

Great man to play the 40k RPGs though

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>Player invites a friend to join the campaign
>"He wants a throaway character. No armor, and extreme combat capabilities"
>For an rp-centered campaign

>that player that gets angry and leaves when his dice rolls go badly
>he spends more time complaining and counting the number of times he rolled below 10 on a d20 than he spends actually playing the game
>when he rolls well he's happy and smiley, makes jokes

>>54922941
Yeah, because breaking the hinges is certainly one way of PICKING A LOCK.

Fuck off, retard.

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>>54923112
>letting players invite random people to the group
>without the DM's consent

>>54923288
I'm the GM, and I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game with him before, which was honestly one of the best games I had. I had taken him as a proper roleplayer, but I guess things change.

I just told him that if he wants a throwaway character, he can just wait for my next one-off, since it goes against the purpose of the campaign I'm running.

>>54923213
Not your Anon, but to be fair, all of the ways listed get a locked door open

>>54923357
>Not your Anon, but to be fair, all of the ways listed get a locked door open
Precisely. The question was NOT how to get a door open. That question was already answered: The rogue(or whatever) was PICKING A LOCK.

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>>54922447
>>54922533
>>54922941
>>54923213


>there are loads of ways of opening a locked door

>>54914086
Most bad players habits are born from bad DMs. Kinda like Dogs and their owners.

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>>54923044
You dare insult the greatest fantasy setting which has ever been devised my mankind?

>>54922971
Yea that's more or less what happens. He's just irritable sometimes when he gets confused.

>>54923383
See >>54923377 The question was never about opening a locked door, regardless of how much you try to move the goalposts.

>>54914433
atleast the player cares

>>54923529
Last one and I'm done.

Lol magic, picks and torsion wrench, jigglers, bump key.

That's four.

>players who never ever interact with each other

only so many tables for one in the world lads.

>>54923752
Neither jigglers nor bump keys existed before 19th century, and "lol magic" would almost certainly not be described as picking a lock. Nice try, though.

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>>54919274

>>54920125
>>54920362
>>54919956
Chaotic Neutral does NOT mean retarded and incapable of understanding consequences. Yes, a CN bard would likely be indifferent to slavery, but that doesn't mean he's incapable of understanding it's a social taboo and avoiding the subject because there would be backlash. If you're playing a CN character in a good party, you will generally act good around your comrades, without feeling obligated to if nobody's looking.
Why does everyone play CN like it's an alignment of autistic people? CN just means they enjoy freedom and are indifferent to cruelty. How you play with that doesn't have to be "I do things totally off-the-wall all the time because I don't care."

>>54914027
>playing a dragonborn sorcerer storyteller
>He's looking for the copper dragon he think gave him his magic
>Not exactly obsessed but definitely likes dragons
>Run into a black dragon who tricks us into finding something of his in the feywild
>It's a faerie dragon he had been keeping prisoner
>Becomes my familiar
>Bail on black dragon
That was because the GM didn't really know what to give my character as a reward because he wasn't a very material possessions or power hungry kinda character so he asked if I'd like a little dragon familiar and I said hell yeah

But then the dice gods made magic happen.
>On the way to orc hideout
>Stumble upon weird mound of earth with fuckey magic going on
>Big shiny glaive in the middle with a riddle next to it
>Answer riddle, get glaive
>"when you pick it up, you start to feel that having rare metals and minerals would be good"
>It's a glaive from the plane of earth, +1 and bonuses against slimes with a caveat that you gain a lust for treasures of the earthen realm
>Sorcerer cannot use this thing at all but will not give it up because the greed is setting in.
>In mountains
>Dm rolls on random encounter table
>Find red dragon wyrmling, feebleminded
>Manage to sort of communicate to it with faerie dragon empathetic mind link
>want to take it with us and heal it
>"you can try but you're going to need a crazy charisma ch-
>"What about 26? Would a 26 do it?"
>Now have another dragon
>Save the town and everyone gets loot
>I get a large plot of land
>Use stone elemental to excavate a lair beneath it
>Fill it with treasure, faerie dragon becomes a plantation style lady of the house and runs it for me
>Fill it with treasure, keep track of every bit and don't let my party know how much I have
>Alignment has shifted from Chaotic Good to Draconic Neutral

More things happened but basically by chance my character became more and more dragon obsessed to the point where I was looking for spells to polymorph into a dragon permanently

>>54923859
a table for 10 is just a table for one with nine chairs too many

>>54924072
I played a chaotic neutral barbarian whose best friend was a paladin. Because Paladins always find interesting monsters to fight. He knew that his friend was kind of straight-laced and uptight so he behaved himself around him.

>>54921623
Ever feel like most people who play a paladin play it because they think the abilities and stats of a paladin are op, not because they are actually excited about roleplaying a holy warrior?
Sad, because almost every story on /tg/ about paladins involves them being played by someone who clearly doesn't actually want to roleplay a paladin.

>>54924216
It's weird because it was 4e. Paladin's don't have any alignment-specific obligations. We even told him this. This just resulted in him getting angry and swearing up and down he was Lawful Good and properly roleplaying a Paladin.

This was after he chewed me out for the aforementioned "Kill a zombifying guy to protect others because I don't know what else to do about it" thing.

>>54924072
>Why does everyone play CN like it's an alignment of autistic people?
Because second edition fucked it up for everyone.

In the AD&D 2nd edition player's handbook, it described CN as the alignment of the insane, deranged, inconsistent and maladapted.

So, for once, we can't really blame 3rd or 3.5 or even pathfinder for that one.

>>54924102
Your story is amazing, and you should feel draconic good about it.

>>54920992
Same schtick with the setup but if they fail their con save they drop whatever's in that hand (If they're holding something two handed they can't bring it to bear next round).

>>54924529
That's also because PCs weren't imagined to be CN, on the whole, the bad guys were.
The opportunistic inn keeper and bandit, the unscrupulous taxman, they are CN.

>Player who min-maxes to the extreme
>Every time I roll for enemies to hit him, constantly reminding me about his AC
>Gets upset whenever they do hit him
They have their own modifiers Tyler, just like you do.

>>54924102
Best part was that the DM loved it and gave me some leeway because he trusted me to be cool about it and not power game.
I start fluffing his spells to fit, stuff like thunderwave being a mighty draconic roar, any evocation spells being launched out like dragon breath, get a slightly buffed version of Alter Self to give myself even more exaggerated draconic features that I used more than I should have, wading into combat biting and clawing and roaring rather than standing back launching spells. Start getting worse and worse at diplomacy checks and much better at intimidate checks.

God that was a fun character. Shame he got punched by a mummy, resurrected by a vampire queen who he chose to kamikaze into rather than betray his oath to heal his feebleminded red dragon ward. A pointless one, but a good one. And due to the fact that he was being forced to basically swear a really magic oath of loyalty to her but switched from "I will not harm or betray you" to "With breath or without I shall bind thee to this place!" I'm pretty much certain that he's some sort of revenant hunting her down after the rest of my (neutral barbarian and fallen REALLY evil lycanthrope/eldritch monster paladin) party took her deal.

Somehow the character after that ended up even cooler. A Tiefling who wants to be a big damn hero knight in shining armor type but since everyone kinda thinks he's either bad luck or evil can't get any sort of training, uses the fucked up shit he found in my sorcerer's lair (I hired him to take care of the red dragon. Not judgy, needs a place to crash and has built in fire resistance) to try and summon the evil moon monster that fucked up our paladin to become a warlock but MISSED and called something way older, bigger, and more bored. Essentially gave him powers because he hadn't seen earth and thought it was neat. Called him the whispering void. Then he did magic cocaine and got truesight and tried to build a church.
Fuck that was a fun game.

>>54924529
>CN as the alignment of the insane, deranged, inconsistent and maladapted.
Insanity should be totally separate from alignment. Hell, your character could be ostensibly Good, but struggle against some mental tendency. Maybe he has occasional bouts of bloodlust. As long as he attempts to resist the compulsion, he can still be Good.
Insanity doesn't shift one toward evil or chaos; it's a disease. Only your characters conscious convistions determine alignment.

>>54924689
*convictions
Fuck me.

>>54922206
That's exactly what happened.

>>54913504
How is it your players' faults that you put traps where they won't go????

If you design a dungeon that has areas that a player is unlikely to go because you've given them no reason to go to that area--even if it's just along a certain wall in a room they will travel through--AND then you put something interesting in that area, it's your fault.

Learn to design better encounters.

>>54921158
Not everyone needs a book to tell them how to GM, anon.
>>54914127
Because I don't give things for free.
I had a player who wanted to start the game with a pet fairie dragon.
I gave them 2 options, either to use one of the several feat options to gain some manner of companion, or he would need to put in the work in game to get such a thing, and not simply be handed it due to "muh backstory".
My reasoning, which I did not state, was that if they spent time or resources on this, I would be less inclined to see anything unpleasant, willingly or not, happen to it.
The player refused to put any character resources to it, and demanded to have it at chargen, and I refused out of hand.
Meanwhile, the cleric has a baby dragon whose egg he purified from corruption and hatched, and the barbarian has a dragon blessed wolfhound, both earned via good roleplay and strived for in game.

>>54917039
Un the Bright side they are really engaged

I felt bad for my GM when our group first started playing. He had a lot of adventures premade for us to go on, but the group always just followed the right-hand wall. As luck would have it, this ended up being nearly the shortest route through all his pre-planned areas, so he had to redesign a bunch of shit after 3 or 4 times.

>>54924958
>Unwilling to trade a feat or something for it.
Pretty ungrateful. That's honestly generous. A problem other than "appreciating it", though, is that other players would be at a solid disadvantage from the get-go with that.
>My character trained his whole life to become a fighter. I spent all my customization in character creation to be a noble swordsman
>Oh, cool. My guy's the same way, but he also somehow found the time to seek out, tame, and raise an exotic mythical beast without it cutting into his training at all.

>>54922611
Tell him to get his facts fucking straight. Decades of outdated edition crunch is worthless garbage so not only is his so-called wisdom irrelevant, it is actively incorrect. Don't tolerate any "in x system/edition we did it this way" BS

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>Party SO WHACKY bard literally tried talking to a rock during a high tense moment.

Bards are fucking attention whores and I hate them.

>>54914275
That doesn't sound wrong in and of itself, unless he was too much of a bitch about it. Character specialty overlap kills fun dead, man.

>when the player entrusted with the blueprints to the first Weapon of Mass Destruction introduced to the in-game world, capable of destroying entire mountains and cities, sells these plans
>for precisely one blowjob

If youre going to be evil at least be interesting and not Stupid Evil

>>54919333
You're right, I got mixed up because my dex/int blade wizard had an AC about 4 points higher than the party paladin. He was minmaxed to shit though.

>>54924689
Insanity isn't even a term used by mental health experts. It's such a wide spectrum that can contain anything from "I can't sleep properly" or "I throw up if I eat" to things like "I feel bugs crawling under my skin" and "I hear voices in my head constantly that tell me to hurt people."

>>54924946

What you're saying doesn't even make sense. If you want to intentionally take someone's text the wrong way and then insult them, go right ahead. Allow me to explain:

1.) I wasn't even talking about traps you fucking retard. These are good things like loot, secret doors, and clues. Way to assume.
2.) I put things where the players go, you fucking idiot. Here is what happens:
>You enter a room that contains an ornate fountain in the center, several crates arranged in the far left corner, and a strange crease in the wall to the east. There is also a door on the opposite side of the room.
>"Alright, we are going to go through the door and keep moving forward."
3.) If their goal is to...I don't know...EXPLORE AN ANCIENT CRYPT FOR TREASURE, then they have reason to go EVERYWHERE.

You sir, are a fucking buffoon. My encounters are awesome most of the times. It's just that sometimes players completely ignore things that would normally set them off. If there is anything you learn from DMing, it's that players are unpredictable and can come up with insanely retarded reasons for skipping sections.

Get more experience and then come back to me with a better comment.

>>54913405

>No matter what, you always (ALWAYS) have to move the action forward
>If some players are pulled aside/invited to something/being spoken to/fighting elsewhere, remaining players will inevitably sit still and do nothing until spoken to or interacted with
>Always feel like I should throw them some sort of bone

Agh, my anxieties.

>>54917783
Except that's literally only because you're a rotemonkey. Sorry anon, you're brainlet-tier.

>When players say they are going to make a roll for something and then proceed shake dice in their hand for 5 seconds.

Just fucking roll for god's sake. Your extra shaking isn't going to do jack shit.

>>54929640
>wasting time on /tg/ instead of doing something productive
>calling someone else a brainlet
lol

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>One year deep weekly campaign
>Party serving under the same Lord NPC since 1st session
>Players won't take notes beside inventory
>They all look at me with the "what's his name again?" expression every single time
>filename.jpg

>>54929710
Shh, you'll jinx it.

>>54914324
That's why people at my table start at True Neutral and their alignment is determined by what they do.

So far it's worked nicely.

>>54930028
If they're a paladin/cleric/something else where alignment's important, do you let them start at another alignment?
Or do you start them level 0, and just let them get to the requisite alignment somewhat quickly for being devout?

>>54930065
>>54930020
>playing old editions
top lel ;^)
You can solve this issue by playing an RPG that isn't older than a Mastiff :D

>>54930133
So a priest of a zealous god doesn't have to match the alignment of said god in your system?
And what does >>54930020 have to do with anything?

>>54916329

>>Attacks of Opportunity
>>Opportunity

Attacks of Opportunity are just that: your character sees an opportunity and seizes upon it. This CAN be a lapse in defensive preparedness, it can ALSO be finely tuned offensive readiness! Hell, it can even be good ol' random luck!

If a dragonslayer has trained for years to grapple dragons, and has learned the telltale signs of a breath attack and knows when to slam their snouts to avoid getting cooked, it's well within their character to have an ability that would be out of left field to anyone NOT familiar with this specialization.

>>54930065
Well, if they're true to their beliefs they'll be just fine.

Alignment doesn't really matter in early levels anyhow. It's when you have gear or spells that work with or detect good or evil that you can have some fun.

>>54930214
What are you playing, Fourth Edition?

>>54920651
>Cursed by unknown God to never be able to fly, create new things, or speak in any way other than perfect mimicry.

There lore is so cool but the only thing anyone ever sees are boring raven people.
Feels bad man.

For example:
>Make flamboyant, landsknecht inspired kenku swashbuckler.
>Take all the deception
>Specialize in disguises and make backstory all about hiding true race because their race are not trusted by anyone.
>Make layers of fake backstory to tell NPCs about the race and person I am disguised as.
>First session GM says NPCs can see through my disguise without rolling deception.
>I ask him about the roll.
>Doesn't understand the main point of my character and says I don't have to wear a disguise because we are in town.
>He has me roll once in town and uses that roll for every following NPC the rest of the session including the villains in the swamp miles from town later.
>Shelf character idea and wait till better GM who understands concept is running their game.

>>54913670
Sounds like his own stupidity.
A glass cannon needs to play like they are a squishy marshmallow, not a tank.

>>54914074
This shit got me recently, actually. The GM had a character try to stall for time and then rolled their deception AFTER he was done stalling for time and the event he was trying to get to stall for had already begun, and it was a check my passive insight would've caught him out on. The GM's excuse was that I'd never stated any suspicion that he was trying to deceive me in some way.

>>54930762
>faggoty pimpcrow
>wants to be people
I'd let you play in my game anon

>>54919450
That's awesome. Ask the GM to make a mute NPC cartographer and make them his character!

>>54913470
>Not rolling perception for your players in secret.

>>54914594
>not banning core and allowing only the Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum and the Complete series

>>54924658
>minmaxes
>doesn't fly above melee range, with various spells or enchanted items to stop or protect him from ranged attacks
He's not minmaxing right.

Before you say 'what if he's inside', then keep in mind that you can always Passwall things from the outside. If a fight happens, passwall straight up, fly up there.

>>54919274
are you my GM?

>gm'ed a one shot
>players LITERALLY stared at walls for entire campaign instead of taking any of my increasingly obvious plot hooks
>i mean LITERALLY STARED AT WALLS

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My own two cents:

> "I roll to stealth"
> In the middle of combat
> In what amounts to a fully lighted huge hall with zero cover save for the other combatants
> After stabbing an enemy in the face
> While surrounded by the rest

Yeah sure, you're just gonna vanish into thin air, huh? Nope.

Another one I absolutely hate.

> One player insists he does these mega-autistic "moves" to show how he attacks
> They're always stupidly exaggerated
> Always two-handed swings to the head/neck
> Always accompanied by an autistic screech
> Always result in sulking if he misses even twice during a battle

And one more:

> One player in the group
> Actually starts pouting if 2-3 things don't work as intended or if his attacks miss
> Literally just throws dice around not even caring to look at the result after that
> "It won't work anyways, bwaaah"
> Like, he's a smart person, he should understand the fairly simple concept of statistical chances of success

And the last one:

> "My character likes gold and shiny things"
> "So she tries to steal all the loot mid-combat before anyone else notices it"
> "She tries to steal health potions too and demands payment for them"
> "She tries to steal magic scrolls she can't even fucking read, and demands payment for them"
> "All downtime she has is spent by going into random houses and stealing whatever they have"

I'm just waiting for the day she gets the glorious idea of stealing from the rest of the party while they're asleep. We actually had to change into the "loot falls from sky, divided equally upon your persons"-system because of this shit.

>>54932543
>My own two cents:
>> "I roll to stealth"
>> In the middle of combat
>> In what amounts to a fully lighted huge hall with zero cover save for the other combatants
>> After stabbing an enemy in the face
>> While surrounded by the rest
>Yeah sure, you're just gonna vanish into thin air, huh? Nope.
Somebody's played too much Skyrim

>>54916938
My group is the exact opposite, the main dps/tank doesn't like to fight unless theres an actual chance of him getting killed and the mage support sticks with him because he likes a challenge,so I tend to usually double the numbers or enemy threat level when making encounters for them. Really pisses me off though when mister Kenpachi manages to shrug off a CL 6 or 7 force at level 3 damn near by himself with half his health left.

>>54913405
Most of my current gripes as a GM are with one guy, as the other annoying people have all left the country.
>Reads guides and manuals to exploit the rules and build the most mechanically powerful character possible and then whines when I New those obvious exploits.
>When told that the campaign will involve subtelty, stealth, and conversation he builds a thuggish, antisocial, dumb meathead with more hit points than brain cells and whose only skill is kicking down doors and beating people to death.
>Plays an atheist who constantly berates religious people for being "gullible sheep" in a setting where divine intervention is a common occurrence.
>We, as a group of friends, often argue and joke about politics, but we don't bring the arguments into the game, only the jokes... (I.e. "We're going to stop the Orcs by building the wall and making them pay for it"), except for him, who can't go one session without whipping out his phone to show us a terrible meme that 'proves' "Lol, Drumpf is literally Hitler".

He's a friendly guy but he really can get on my fucking nerves.

>>54932543
Are you in my group? Does pout-over-bad-rolls guy have glasses, and played a shapeshifter the first campaign?

>>54932543
>steals loot and won't share with the party
So don't play with that person. I know you're a socially quadriplegic aspy but at least try to be a functioning human

>>54932696
You sound like the victim in an abusive marraige

>He hits me and tells me I'm worthless, but he's really sweet sometimes you don't understand

>>54914646
Sounds like you're a bunch of weak pussies, if a smell makes your eyes water.

>>54933330
I love crazy hot foods, and it still makes my eyes water if I chop onions or smell some crazy spicy thai food. It's an involuntary response; not really an indicator of anything (other than that your body is reacting properly to foreign irritants)

>>54933124

>implying one bad quality makes a person not worth spending your time with

who's the aspy here now, dumbass

>>54933028

Nah, but I suppose these are common enough

>>54915186
You know I don't think I've ever actually seen an episode of Sienfield to the end besides the Soup Nazi one. Should I give the series a watch?

>>54932543
>"My character likes gold and shiny things"
i feel like everyone i know goes through a "LMAO THIEF AMIRITE" phase where they just played a personalityless character that just stole shit

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>>54935138

I'm just thankful the character isn't actually 100% that. Redeeming qualities exist, but this is a gripe thread so no positive words are allowed

>>54932543
>steals loot and won't share with the party
There is nothing wrong with that

>>54914855
Good answer.
In my experience there's nothing players love more than doing what we all wish the characters would do when we watch game of thrones. Which is to say go Conan the barbarian on the plotting vizier... in the middle of court, when he fashion himself invulnerable because "that shit is just unthinkable"

Prefferably after being blue balled on their murder lust for a few sessions.

Im not saying that you should just let them get away with it, but there's something exquisitely satisfying about might making right after being dicked around by a court manipulator.

>>54913652
My players went down into the hold of a ship on a shady dock to track down a mutant assassin. The hold was filled with black powder. One of the PCs wisely pointed out that a dark, narrow, cramped ship full of explosives seemed very likely to be an ambush, and the PCs managed to avoid other traps by deciding to back out. The assassin attacked them anyway, but they turned the tables on him by pushing over crates to open space so he couldn't used the cramped environment to his advantage.

>>54913783
>>How many hit points does this monster have left?

I secretly add hit points when they do that.

>>54930762
>want super special PC snowflake race that also hides their race
>GM doesn't immediately appease me by letting me roll deception on literally every NPC
>He doesn't understand the main point of my character
Your DM didn't let your snowflake PC derail his game by constantly trying to make his hidden identity the focus of play. Poor you.

>>54935352
Then there's also nothing wrong with roleplaying a barbarian who strong-arms that character into sharing like a good little boy.

>>54935645

Sperg-alert

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>Player tells everyone what his plan for his turn is whilst he's still five places away in the iniative
>Gets to his turn
>"Oh no everyones moved, things have changed shit now I have to think of a new plan"
>Opens PHB
>Checks his spells
>"What if I do this?"
>"What will happen?"
>It can literally takes over 10minutes unless I start counting down from 30s

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I keep coming back to this thread because I keep remembering things that peeve me.

>Making game with mysterious monster hunting included
>Want to have players learn by experience, especially since the system has no monsters yet, so I had to homebrew them all
>"Ah hey GM, once you're done with the bestiary, could I take a look at it?"
>Think nothing of it, but then remember how he's like and known he'll just read the entire thing so all the suspense and mystery is gone and he can metagame to the entire party what to do or what their weaknesses are

If you want to learn about monsters at least try talking to NPCs please

>>54913470

Not my game, but I guy I was playing with told me a story about a guy like that. He checked for traps everywhere and it was pretty annoying. Then one session while they were in a tavern, he started chatting up this chick. Suddenly, he realizes he hasn't checked for traps lately and he goes "I check for traps." The GM just smiled at him and goes "It's a trap."

>>54914646
>consider myself a big spicy food fan
>festival in town has a stall with hot sauce, sounds tight up my alley
>includes a Trinidad Scorpion hot sauce
>consider this no problem, get a sample of it

Tasty as fuck, but boy did I regret that for about 20 minutes

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>Player stops the entire game because I forgot a rule, and would rather spend ten minutes looking up the exact wording and argue that it's not "fair" that the Rogue got Sneak Attack on that enemy than just keep playing the game

>>54930762
You're a fucking bird, I don't think it's unfair to put a limit on how much you can disguise yourself as something else without magic.

>>54940226
My group does this, but thats because we've all been playing for just around a year and we actually don't know some of the rules.

This is the only scenario i would say its acceptable, though.

>have to make a speech at the start of games that no, you cannot take back an action you have declared after it starts to be enacted.
>have players that try to do it anyway after bonehead maneuvers like insulting the mob boss they owe money too.

>>54941143

God, I hate this.

>"I do [INSERT RIDICULOUS JACKASS THING HERE]! huehuheuheuheue"
>Things start going south
>"I w-w-was just j-j-j-joking"

>>54941143
>>54941524
No take-backsies at my table.

Only takes once or twice before they figure that out.

>>54941725
Where do you get your players? I've had some of them on 5-6 repetitions, and they still haven't worked it out.

>>54942277
Oh, I have to fight them on it. It takes some time.

>Players leaving for college, ask to be written out of the story.
>Write the session around their characters
>Ends with the characters merging with their evil god
>They spend the next twenty minutes pulling up obnoxious quotes from video games and saying they throw monsters at the party that will kill them

Every time you do a favor, every time you give a fucking inch, they take a mile. I rolled up reasonable stats for the monsters and finished up the session with the party calling on Bahamut ex machina, so it's all good.

>>54913652
I thought Kenkus didnt have wings

>>54940786
Landsknechts wore all sorts of crazy shit man.
A carnival mask with a beak or some shit wouldn't be that much of a stretch

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>Player wants to play homebrew class
>Spends three minutes every turn looking up rules for his actions