Yeah as a perpetual DM myself, I’d give a lot of leeway early on. It was indirectly stated by level 6 after 40 sessions is wild. And the fact he let a player take all their stuff and bail is insane. I’d only be okay with that if the party then could hunt them down as an NPC and then it’s like a plot hook
Sounds like a controll freak dm. "please sir, may I have some more"? stingy .rewards are a balance thing too much or too little is detrimental to a good game.I would have walked after no, (even minor,) treasure, given to players. Be the Dm you would want to be a player in. Characters are the heros. period. I love to dm and have started 2 IRL GAMES. Dm Dikery begone.
Absolutely same. I like to defer a lot to DMs, even when they are newer. As long as a cool story is trying to happen, I'm ok with bumps along the way, but this one sounds so atrocious
I would of bailed the moment the whole 'kicked player said they were gonna steal all the stuff' and the dm actually went through with it and had the theft happen even when they could of just gone 'yeah... no.'
For the second story: Even if you never intended for the assassination attempt to go according to the vision (the vision that you gave them!), if the players spend that long prepping, you change your plans. If you didn't want that to be how the story went, find a way to stop them from waiting 2 months worth of sessions prepping for a fight you know will never come. The two easy fixes are to give them new info so they change their plan, or just go with it and let the amazing fight they've spent so long prepping for happen!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace My pirate game is about to go up against a red dragon they've known about for a while. They have spent occasional down time prepping and planning, and last session was 100% gearing up, gathering allies, and making a plan. Now imagine they get there with their army and the dragon just wasn't there. That would suck!
If the DM wanted to merely write a novel, they honestly should have written a novel instead of stringing a party along a unsatisfying and ultimately game-ending railroad. At the very least, the 6 players are still playing and have formed their own campaign, so props to them :D
Yeah I think it has a happy ending. I love when the bulk of the people in a story get to continue to play together. I get sad when it’s a “and I haven’t touched the game since” ending.
Glad to have you, I try to keep up on all the comments. I feel like for my videos is a good amount. There are just so many in shorts but I still try to read them all and share what gave me a good laugh!
Oh wow no context needed is right, I heard the 2nd part but never the 1st. Yeah, this DM is scummy. The player should've gotten SOME kind of new info the first time they broke like 25. Then to say they actually lose HP for daring to try and learn about a non-cursed item YOU dropped on them in session 1 is some hypocritical spite. Finally, the party should've left when the DM basically just took 80% of the party's money and possessions with no saves or anything but they went a step further and argued tooth and nail against the level 5 character getting some basic leather armor and a WORSE buckler shield. Like... c'mon, dude. Do you just hate your players at that point? It's really not hard to win as a DM, you can say boulders fall and everyone dies. Trying to handicap them at every turn like this is extra.
Also, being a dm is not dm vs. player it is a shared story and your job is the guide/helper you are not trying to hurt your players cause the game is for fun
As a DM to railroad players when I NEEDED them to do something I would use a random spirit I nicknamed "the spirit of plot progression" the spirit had to be used because there was this one guy who wanted to make a giant homunculus so I gave him a rule that if he wanted a customizable homunculus he would need to get a soul-gem so he got one and it broke in a fight he then found another while the bbeg's main servant was trying to get away. he decided the best course of action was to leave the servant behind because he "got what he came for" so I had to use the spirit of plot progression to say "a vengeful spirit of one of the MANY npcs you have killed grabs the gem form your hand and floats in the general direction of the servant" it worked and now if I give them obvious "go this way" signs they actually follow them
It doesn’t hurt to nudge them a little in the right direction, especially if they are more or less asking you to do it. I think what you did sounds good!
I’m guessing either that or he favored another party and wanted them to succeed in getting all the orbs first (cause there was like 3 party’s all in the same world).
Great videos my guy! Perfect to listen to on the background while I'm drawing, you've got a very soothing voice. I also love that you give your viewers your opinion and insight and not just read the story out loud. Also these stories reminds me of my first ever campaign, I just threw into the pot a lot of leads that ultimately led mowhere. I was a teenager with no real knowledge of how to structure a story. But people I was DMing for were playing for the first time as well, so instead of ending in a disaster it's a beloved memory for all of us.
Second story in, and I can hear (Den of the) Drake screaming about DMPCs. If it were me between the mysterious marble the kept fucking me and the this gunsliger AH showing up all the time I would have noped out, and encouraged all other players to do so.
Wait hold on hold on, where are all the other comments and likes and views, something ain't right. Don't tell me it's another underrated channel for goodness sake-
I as a gm always had a rule where everyone die roll had to be visible; even my own. It prevented players from claiming favoritism, I was targeting a character, and kept everyone honest.
My war forged artificer apparently was not water proof despite me making it abundantly clear that I was l, and I somehow set off my nuclear reactor core that I did not know I had
@@theworldsgreatestjidiot9667 wtf? So your dm homebrewed your warforged to have a nuclear reactor? Really sounds like a DM that has no idea what they are doing. And it's roo bad you didn't know about the reactor. You could have had some fun exposing it and doing radiation/radiant/necrotic damage.
@@theworldsgreatestjidiot9667 excuse me the fuck? Even if you weren't waterproof that's not how a fucking nuclear reactor works! It has to be submerged in water to COOL IT SO IT DOESN'T EXPLODE
When I made my castlevania campaign, I made three key elements: 1) I drew a map in the style of the Metroidvania maps, and the idea was that as the players explored, I would draw the map on the whiteboard so they could see it fully. 2) A prologue, soundtrack, and pre-made character sheets using the characters from said Metroidvania castlevanias. 3) And a need to try and replicate how playing a Metroidvania feels...but accidentally railroading the correct path. I really want to retry running this campaign, because the idea seems really really fucking cool, especially with the map being filled out as they go. There's just so much planning to do, but you can only do so much before you have a player try to stick their dick in a locked door...
I know exactly what this player is feeling me and a buddy recently departed a game sense the dm repeatedly tried to knee cap us anytime we did anything and sense it was play by post westmashes style we ended up getting ignored most of the time
yea the dm seems like he has an attention issue focusing more on one player than the rest of us for context: the dm is running a turn based space opera play by post we hang around for the majority of the day and get ignored and at the end of the day we discover that 1 player is on turn 13 and we are on turn 6
@@lootgoblinmarketplace its a work in progress sense me and @magjumper8966 are a week out form our departure from that game soo more engaging is gonna be me running cyberpunk red and hopefully not screwing the pooch so hard i end up in a video
Honestly I'm curious on what the comments the post had. Awesome video! It's a great way for me to keep note and how to improve myself as an upcoming DM.
It's been a little while since I watched one of your videos, love the new character sprites! Stuff like this is great to listen to in the background and save my sanity during long things like drawing lol
It’s stories like this that make me feel like I dodged a bullet by not playing D&D. 16 years ago I had asked my friends if I could play with them and if they’d teach me. Their response was “we are too advanced and don’t have time, or want, to teach a noob how to play”. At the time they were the only people I knew that played. Now I have more friends who play but I won’t ask to play because I don’t want to be a burden on an existing party. At least I have my Drinking Quest table top RPG… 🍻
I think that it’s important to have the right group. I think it was a good call to avoid playing with people who have an attitude where they aren’t willing to teach.
Ask to play. Seriously. If they’re your friends they will be happy to show you the ropes and definitely enjoy your company. It they don’t then they aren’t all that much of a group of friends.
First Story: Dude got an amazing arcana roll and wisdom roll and got HOSED. That DM was being an A**. What was he thinking? Was he writing a book and f*""ing around his players? Oh, just got to the second story. What a POS
The idea of a 'campaign' that involves 2-3 different groups going for the same world-goal sounds interesting (and painful as a DM). However picking "Main party" and letting the other parties be just "NPC fillers" is both bad in general, but also wasteful. Imagine having 3 parties with different stories about how they got here but now have to do one final world-hinging battle together. It sounds fun.
As far as I can tell, the best mod i can get off a character (in 5e mixed with 2024) is somewhere, with a base of 18, adding gnomish +2 to int for a staring +5, add expertise for a lvl 20 character, add cleric +5 to arcana, totals to +22 at lvl 20, but still, youd need to roll a 17+ to even have a chance at beating that, add some inspiration and guidance and then even that check actually becomes pretty managable
Makes me glad the guy I jad as a DM, when he had a DMPC he just used it to round out the holes in our party (small group) or to occasionally nudge the story. Never heavy handed with them, either, just very much like another PC.
At one point I was in a game where the DM decided that we were too overpowered. Rather than just adjust the encounters, she decided that we would No longer receive XP, but instead level up via a milestone system. We never leveled up again. It was BORING. And even though we are all friends still, we never told her that it was an issue. Still, it was and is a contributing factor to us playing as a group currently or not.
I actually had something similar. I play in a homebrew setting with a lot of world building going on. I recently took part in a campaign where we were never meant to be the heroes. But for us it was explicitly the opposite for us. We were told we were not meant to be heroes. Only travelers to help build his towns and cities. Explorers for his environments. Businessmen for his trades. But his other group that we dubbed as 'The Heroes Group'. Started to not fill his idea of what they were doing. So in a twist of fate of sorts. He forced us to become his new heroes. Which none of our characters were really designed for. We ended up going on this heroic quest. But most of the other players dropped out. I stuck with it because our DM and I are stupid for these kinds of stories. After finding new motivation and a reroll for my characters class and attributes. I started the quest. Which has been a bit hollow because the campaign has been gaining and losing Players and Characters quickly. I don't know why they have been trading and falling out. All I can imagine it is personal reasons because they tell me they want to play but can't. So I've been basically in this game from the start with not many consistent allies. And it is getting hard to keep up in combat because items disappear with them and some characters that join are not that strong to begin with.
If any GM wants to actually run a campaign like this to where there are players interacting with the world to make it more believable, say that first and foremost and make it clear that you are Johnny Guardsman of the Town watch and not an adventurer. If you look online you can probably find people who are willing to play a campaign like that, but to use the bait-and-switch makes it feel like you just want to have a party of your own NPC's doing everything and you have a captive audience for your ego
Haha i played in a campaign for 10 months, became 8 level warlock, with 0 (zero) magic item when other members of the group had magic items more than they could attune. When i asked for specific item, they said the person with 4 magic items needs it more than me. Sometimes it is not just DM, your party members matter too.
The sad thing is that orb, the hardness of the test, and absorbing 12 HP could all be really cool story if told better. Give more details and hints as he attuning, ex. the Natural 20 opens the seals on the item briefly where you touch "something intelligent" before it throws you out but, you now know "it's name". The 12 HP being absorbed being the artifact bonding with the artificer and using that to help rekindle it's lifeforce. The orb, when held by the attuned, will give them natural compass leading to the remaining orbs, always being drawn to the closest. And no, unless you are going to allow the manhunt for the disgraced rogue, you don't get to rob the party before they kick you out.
I played till 13 level. At 1st level there is a artifact given out and a +1 spear. That was the only magic items given out the entire game. When we got to 13th level if we had spent no money we had 1,000 gold pieces just enough for a +1 weapon for the final boss fight
It seems to be a common thread for bad DMs to try to control the players at every turn. Railroading, changing backstories, whatever. They just can't help themselves, they *have* to be in charge of everything about the story and that's just not how D&D works.
I don’t even run one-shots that don’t have loot to gain in them cause that’s one of three core components of D&D. Roleplay, Pummel monsters, Gain loot. If you can’t provide one those three things to your players you’re forgetting a huge aspect of why people play D&D.
As of the 5 min mark, everything done is TOTAL BS. The problem player would not and should not have been allowed to do anything to the others. Taking their money maybe, but not the BOH. And should have been tossed after the third failure and not being able to attune to it. And up to the 11 min mark, it's pretty clear this DM is no DM. He just copy and pastes from other scources to run his own personal fantasy. His players honestly ( Even hoping for good fun ) should have packed up at the four month mark and told him off. as of the ending, he proved his lack of DM skills and showed who he really was when they all tried to talk to him about improving things and banned them and stopped the game. He got caught and ran because he didn't get his way. People like that don't deserve to be in a DM seat and more players need to be careful about these types so as not to ruin the game for themselves.
I get that, but it's not inherently a bad idea. Imagine this, a person you thought was your friend steals not only most of your party's money but also your magic gear and the plot McGuffin :3 Knowing how important this item should be, the party makes it their mission to track down the thief, get their gear back, but they do not get the Orb back. She reveals in her dying breath that she was either paid or blackmailed by the BBEG to steal the Orb from the party and bring it to them for reasons unknown. Instant set-up for the next objective and possibly the next arc. :3 Not only do you have a new objective, but a new potential BBEG and a potential avenue to learn more about this mysterious Orb and why it might be a good idea to collect them all. The issue here is that not only did the DM not do this, but the Orb itself also sounds like it was just a big red herring that punished the players. I can understand not wanting to immediately divulge the info; our DM did something similar in our campaign where no matter what we did, we could not find the main hide-out/HQ of the BBEG and their allies. (Looking back, we now know why, if we did find out back at level 9, we would have dropped everything to rush there with the intent of saving the hostages... and likely ending in a TPK in the process. So, having a high DC at the start isn't unreasonable.) But constantly punishing the player with unconsciousness, and when they finally rolled well enough at Level 6, they were again punished with being knocked out and getting a reduced HP of 12. Now, this could have worked if the Orb offered a trade. HP for power. Imagine the player can imbue the Orb with HP up to... 50, cutting their max HP down in the process. And in return, they get access to maybe a certain amount of Spell Slots, and using those Spell Slots slowly gives the player back their HP. Is this balanced? Heck, no, but it could have been an interesting way. Sacrifice for power. It is a shame the game ended up like this, but at least there was a happy ending to it.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace I agree completely, I want to give people a sense of having done something, even if that is just levelling up. The DM didn’t even do that!
Nah this DM is one of those types that very clearly wanted to write a book and tricked this group into wasting 40 sessions of their lives merely reading his narrative when they thought they'd get to contribute. A DM should be thinking about how to get their players characters to fit into their world and sory, not how to keep them from changing how you want things to go. What satisfaction do these types of DMs get from railroading like this? whatever you say goes, it's not like you have to compete with your players or something. This is why people hate DMPCs when the makes it crystal clear they're only running the game for you to admire their oc rather than letting you play and interact with theirs and the others.
I don't think I'll ever understand the screws-over- the- PCs approach. This sounds like new DMs who think theyre supposed to be the players' adversaries.
Sounds like an egomaniac on an ego trip like some of the current writers working for Netflix who love to insert themselves into some stupid fantasy Mary Sue's power trip they want to then try to pawn off as a legitimate show when there is zero original and nothing good about it.
I'm actually more angry at the OP and the players snowflake attitude which enable the toxic dm bullshit instead of calling him out for his BS and leave him right after few sessions. A dm that grants the Last wish of a problematic player ? What a joke... Worse, op even compliments the dm telling he still had "fun". As a dm i would be so happy to have players that are so invested and preffering to RP instead of fully min/max their character with nothing else. This dm just wastes players time, no bbeg, no main plot with rewarding subplots, nothing that rewards PC with unique loot or features or titles... This Also irritates me when i struggle to find players on the plat form i'm using while much less competent DMs like this one are getting such loyal players despite him pulling BS like that.
I do think it should have been addressed a lot earlier. If he actually thought that there was room to resolve this then waiting and then having a list of grievances was always going to blow up the situation.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Hey Friend ! Thank you so much for replying to my comment. That means a lot to me. I Will do my Best to deliver better and more interesting comments Next time !
Matt Mercer running baby games has tricked these players AND this DM into missing the total point of D&D, everyone does these days. The WHOLE POINT OF D&D IS YOU'RE NOT THE HEROES! THAT YOU START AS A NO-ONE AND EARN YOUR WAY THERE, AND IF YOU DIE, YOU DON'T GET TO RESPAWN, YOU STAY DEAD. That's always been the point of D&D, that you AREN'T the chosen one, that's how all the video games differ too from other games. This DM is so stupid, and the players are a bit too, if they earn it, they earn it, anyone can, this isn't an anime, it's effing D&D. A DM is meant to be the neutral world, the laws of physics for the players, that's it, their ego isn't meant to enter into it.
Honestly, if I was a player in that game... my character would have been out a long time ago. Imagine you're an adventurer in this world, tasked with protecting the city. I haven't been able to take down a single villain; they always escape. They're constantly toying with the party because of how weak we are compared to them. To the point where the GODS themselves can be overcome. I mean; think about it. The God of Visions themselves contacts us and is like 'This WILL happen!'. So you spend MONTHS preparing for this event, to finally take down a single villain... only for the guy to not show. The God of Visions themselves is silent and has been since the event in question. So, the only logical conclusion is that this villain not only learned that we knew their plans, but was able to silence a literal GOD from telling us things had changed. And you want my level 6 character to protect the city? From someone that can stop gods? Madness. Every villain is so far outside of my paygrade that it's laughable. This new villain alone is so far beyond my character that I'm like a child pretending to be captain of the guard, swinging a stick and pretending it's a sword while I slay 'vile dragons' that only exist in my imagination. Sounds ridiculous? Like such a child would be literally no threat? Welcome to how my character feels, Mr DM. Maybe if we went up against villains OF OUR LEVEL instead of what's clearly epic level foes, maybe we wouldn't have this problem. And what few foes we do face that're on our level always seem to have special powers we could in no way ever be prepared for; like the guy who cast a "special" sleep spell that affects all foes instead of how the spell normally works. Or their ability to conveniently know our every move no matter how secretive our plans are. This is just a classic case of a World That Can Save Itself. The heroes, ultimately, don't matter, so it's better to just let the world save itself since it's CLEAR there's a lot of people out there who're better qualified to do it. And if they're all villains? The hell am I supposed to do about that? They treat me with kid gloves and I stand no chance against them. I'm not even in mortal peril since they just let me go, like I'm a child having a tantrum and they're just putting me in time out. Am I supposed to slowly get strong enough to deal with them? How? Nearly everyone I come across that COULD be a source of experience (not exp, I mean experience as in building the skills necessary to Save The World) either constantly evades me or is so strong that I can't do anything against them. I'm spending literal MONTHS preparing for singular confrontations only to get some base mook that, in the end, will do NOTHING to get me any closer to taking these foes down. I'd wager these players spend loooooong stretches of time before they get ANY exp or loot. In short, DM sucks and his story sucks. None of these guys have any business defending the city from these god-killing badasses the DM is putting in as villains. DM has no sense of scaling, no idea how to balance encounters, and, it sounds like, he doesn't know how to tell an interactive story whatsoever.
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Wow. I'm the "trust the DM, he knows what he's doing" guy at my table, and even I would've lost it early in this story.
Yeah as a perpetual DM myself, I’d give a lot of leeway early on. It was indirectly stated by level 6 after 40 sessions is wild. And the fact he let a player take all their stuff and bail is insane. I’d only be okay with that if the party then could hunt them down as an NPC and then it’s like a plot hook
Sounds like a controll freak dm. "please sir, may I have some more"? stingy .rewards are a balance thing too much or too little is detrimental to a good game.I would have walked after no, (even minor,) treasure, given to players. Be the Dm you would want to be a player in. Characters are the heros. period. I love to dm and have started 2 IRL GAMES. Dm Dikery begone.
Absolutely same. I like to defer a lot to DMs, even when they are newer. As long as a cool story is trying to happen, I'm ok with bumps along the way, but this one sounds so atrocious
I would of bailed the moment the whole 'kicked player said they were gonna steal all the stuff' and the dm actually went through with it and had the theft happen even when they could of just gone 'yeah... no.'
2:07 I'm calling it here. The "one of seven identical orbs" are the DM's homebrew dragonballs
For the second story: Even if you never intended for the assassination attempt to go according to the vision (the vision that you gave them!), if the players spend that long prepping, you change your plans. If you didn't want that to be how the story went, find a way to stop them from waiting 2 months worth of sessions prepping for a fight you know will never come. The two easy fixes are to give them new info so they change their plan, or just go with it and let the amazing fight they've spent so long prepping for happen!
Yeah basically you got their hopes up for nothing!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace My pirate game is about to go up against a red dragon they've known about for a while. They have spent occasional down time prepping and planning, and last session was 100% gearing up, gathering allies, and making a plan. Now imagine they get there with their army and the dragon just wasn't there. That would suck!
If the DM wanted to merely write a novel, they honestly should have written a novel instead of stringing a party along a unsatisfying and ultimately game-ending railroad. At the very least, the 6 players are still playing and have formed their own campaign, so props to them :D
Yeah I think it has a happy ending. I love when the bulk of the people in a story get to continue to play together. I get sad when it’s a “and I haven’t touched the game since” ending.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace I definitely like hearing about happy endings as well :D
Apparently that Dungeon Master was not familiar with the concept of Chekovs gun.
Yeah, the orb was such a bait and switch for no reason!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace On an unrelated side note. I love how you interact with your community Glad to be a part of it
Glad to have you, I try to keep up on all the comments. I feel like for my videos is a good amount. There are just so many in shorts but I still try to read them all and share what gave me a good laugh!
Oh wow no context needed is right, I heard the 2nd part but never the 1st.
Yeah, this DM is scummy. The player should've gotten SOME kind of new info the first time they broke like 25. Then to say they actually lose HP for daring to try and learn about a non-cursed item YOU dropped on them in session 1 is some hypocritical spite. Finally, the party should've left when the DM basically just took 80% of the party's money and possessions with no saves or anything but they went a step further and argued tooth and nail against the level 5 character getting some basic leather armor and a WORSE buckler shield. Like... c'mon, dude. Do you just hate your players at that point? It's really not hard to win as a DM, you can say boulders fall and everyone dies. Trying to handicap them at every turn like this is extra.
Yeah I’d be furious if I had what happened with the problem player and DM happen to our group.
Also, being a dm is not dm vs. player it is a shared story and your job is the guide/helper you are not trying to hurt your players cause the game is for fun
Honestly, i feel like the DM used the exiting player as an excuse to remove gold and magic items that he couldn't handles.
That would of been the moment I would of left.
As a DM to railroad players when I NEEDED them to do something I would use a random spirit I nicknamed "the spirit of plot progression" the spirit had to be used because there was this one guy who wanted to make a giant homunculus so I gave him a rule that if he wanted a customizable homunculus he would need to get a soul-gem so he got one and it broke in a fight he then found another while the bbeg's main servant was trying to get away. he decided the best course of action was to leave the servant behind because he "got what he came for" so I had to use the spirit of plot progression to say "a vengeful spirit of one of the MANY npcs you have killed grabs the gem form your hand and floats in the general direction of the servant" it worked and now if I give them obvious "go this way" signs they actually follow them
It doesn’t hurt to nudge them a little in the right direction, especially if they are more or less asking you to do it. I think what you did sounds good!
Players who limit their own powers for flavor are the MVPs. Appreciate the challenge over just mindlessly powering through.
Me having a fighter sorcerer who doesn't know about their sorcerer abilities in game so I just play them as a fighter
My guess for the first story is that he didn't expect you guys to succeed in your skill check before more of them had been found.
I’m guessing either that or he favored another party and wanted them to succeed in getting all the orbs first (cause there was like 3 party’s all in the same world).
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Or perhaps he was hoping that the parties might meet up and compare them?
Or steal them from each other etc?
Great videos my guy! Perfect to listen to on the background while I'm drawing, you've got a very soothing voice. I also love that you give your viewers your opinion and insight and not just read the story out loud.
Also these stories reminds me of my first ever campaign, I just threw into the pot a lot of leads that ultimately led mowhere. I was a teenager with no real knowledge of how to structure a story. But people I was DMing for were playing for the first time as well, so instead of ending in a disaster it's a beloved memory for all of us.
I’m glad you like the readings. I always found comfort in listening to critcrab videos and I’m glad you enjoy the commentary too!
Second story in, and I can hear (Den of the) Drake screaming about DMPCs.
If it were me between the mysterious marble the kept fucking me and the this gunsliger AH showing up all the time I would have noped out, and encouraged all other players to do so.
Yeah Gun Guy has to be some weird self insert DMPC that he probably finds hilarious but the party HATES
Must be a boat signaler cause that's a lotta red flags
I haven’t heard that before, that’s great!
The dm's campaign must've been the Nantucket lights ship.
Wait hold on hold on, where are all the other comments and likes and views, something ain't right. Don't tell me it's another underrated channel for goodness sake-
I appreciate it, I’m on the rise. I appreciate everyone who is along for the ride!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Let me buckle in, i don't want to fall out through the back window.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Oh yea, love your content and your take on the stories, can't wait for more. Cheers.
@@lootgoblinmarketplaceI'm happy to be here for the come-up. Don't forget us when youre a big channel 😁
@@Veilhunter I definitely wouldn't have so many amazing stories if it wasn't for you guys!
I as a gm always had a rule where everyone die roll had to be visible; even my own. It prevented players from claiming favoritism, I was targeting a character, and kept everyone honest.
Still better than the time I was killed off in a nuclear blast while fighting the bbeg vampire
Yeah, that sounds kind of rough. What led up to that?
My war forged artificer apparently was not water proof despite me making it abundantly clear that I was l, and I somehow set off my nuclear reactor core that I did not know I had
@@theworldsgreatestjidiot9667 wtf? So your dm homebrewed your warforged to have a nuclear reactor? Really sounds like a DM that has no idea what they are doing. And it's roo bad you didn't know about the reactor. You could have had some fun exposing it and doing radiation/radiant/necrotic damage.
@@theworldsgreatestjidiot9667 excuse me the fuck? Even if you weren't waterproof that's not how a fucking nuclear reactor works! It has to be submerged in water to COOL IT SO IT DOESN'T EXPLODE
That's just a terrible DM. You can love your friend and they can still be a terrible DM.
When I made my castlevania campaign, I made three key elements:
1) I drew a map in the style of the Metroidvania maps, and the idea was that as the players explored, I would draw the map on the whiteboard so they could see it fully.
2) A prologue, soundtrack, and pre-made character sheets using the characters from said Metroidvania castlevanias.
3) And a need to try and replicate how playing a Metroidvania feels...but accidentally railroading the correct path.
I really want to retry running this campaign, because the idea seems really really fucking cool, especially with the map being filled out as they go. There's just so much planning to do, but you can only do so much before you have a player try to stick their dick in a locked door...
You should retry it.
I know exactly what this player is feeling me and a buddy recently departed a game sense the dm repeatedly tried to knee cap us anytime we did anything and sense it was play by post westmashes style we ended up getting ignored most of the time
yea the dm seems like he has an attention issue focusing more on one player than the rest of us
for context: the dm is running a turn based space opera play by post
we hang around for the majority of the day and get ignored and at the end of the day we discover that 1 player is on turn 13 and we are on turn 6
I’m really sorry that happened, hopefully you’ve found a more engaging campaign since?
@@lootgoblinmarketplace its a work in progress sense me and @magjumper8966 are a week out form our departure from that game soo more engaging is gonna be me running cyberpunk red and hopefully not screwing the pooch so hard i end up in a video
Honestly I'm curious on what the comments the post had.
Awesome video! It's a great way for me to keep note and how to improve myself as an upcoming DM.
I totally recommend you check them out. I always screenshot the title and username so people can look up those stories after!
It's been a little while since I watched one of your videos, love the new character sprites! Stuff like this is great to listen to in the background and save my sanity during long things like drawing lol
Thank you, I tried to up my video quality a lot. Glad to see you back!
Omg, this is my first time watching you, and I LOVE your voice! So soothing!
Thank you. I have plenty more to come!
I Got my first ever shoutout lets fricking go!
You deserve it man. It looks great!
It’s stories like this that make me feel like I dodged a bullet by not playing D&D. 16 years ago I had asked my friends if I could play with them and if they’d teach me. Their response was “we are too advanced and don’t have time, or want, to teach a noob how to play”. At the time they were the only people I knew that played. Now I have more friends who play but I won’t ask to play because I don’t want to be a burden on an existing party. At least I have my Drinking Quest table top RPG… 🍻
I think that it’s important to have the right group. I think it was a good call to avoid playing with people who have an attitude where they aren’t willing to teach.
Ask to play. Seriously. If they’re your friends they will be happy to show you the ropes and definitely enjoy your company. It they don’t then they aren’t all that much of a group of friends.
First Story: Dude got an amazing arcana roll and wisdom roll and got HOSED. That DM was being an A**. What was he thinking? Was he writing a book and f*""ing around his players?
Oh, just got to the second story. What a POS
Who can make a DC 38 other than someone with expertise, max mod, and a bardic inspiration?
Yeah, it’s nearly impossible.
The idea of a 'campaign' that involves 2-3 different groups going for the same world-goal sounds interesting (and painful as a DM). However picking "Main party" and letting the other parties be just "NPC fillers" is both bad in general, but also wasteful. Imagine having 3 parties with different stories about how they got here but now have to do one final world-hinging battle together. It sounds fun.
As far as I can tell, the best mod i can get off a character (in 5e mixed with 2024) is somewhere, with a base of 18, adding gnomish +2 to int for a staring +5, add expertise for a lvl 20 character, add cleric +5 to arcana, totals to +22 at lvl 20, but still, youd need to roll a 17+ to even have a chance at beating that, add some inspiration and guidance and then even that check actually becomes pretty managable
Just found you today and I love your voice mate!
Thank you!
Man, I expect that "immersive" rise of the runelords campaign that I just dodged to go just as well
Makes me glad the guy I jad as a DM, when he had a DMPC he just used it to round out the holes in our party (small group) or to occasionally nudge the story. Never heavy handed with them, either, just very much like another PC.
At one point I was in a game where the DM decided that we were too overpowered. Rather than just adjust the encounters, she decided that we would No longer receive XP, but instead level up via a milestone system.
We never leveled up again. It was BORING. And even though we are all friends still, we never told her that it was an issue. Still, it was and is a contributing factor to us playing as a group currently or not.
I actually had something similar. I play in a homebrew setting with a lot of world building going on. I recently took part in a campaign where we were never meant to be the heroes. But for us it was explicitly the opposite for us.
We were told we were not meant to be heroes. Only travelers to help build his towns and cities. Explorers for his environments. Businessmen for his trades. But his other group that we dubbed as 'The Heroes Group'. Started to not fill his idea of what they were doing. So in a twist of fate of sorts. He forced us to become his new heroes. Which none of our characters were really designed for. We ended up going on this heroic quest. But most of the other players dropped out. I stuck with it because our DM and I are stupid for these kinds of stories. After finding new motivation and a reroll for my characters class and attributes. I started the quest. Which has been a bit hollow because the campaign has been gaining and losing Players and Characters quickly. I don't know why they have been trading and falling out. All I can imagine it is personal reasons because they tell me they want to play but can't. So I've been basically in this game from the start with not many consistent allies. And it is getting hard to keep up in combat because items disappear with them and some characters that join are not that strong to begin with.
If any GM wants to actually run a campaign like this to where there are players interacting with the world to make it more believable, say that first and foremost and make it clear that you are Johnny Guardsman of the Town watch and not an adventurer.
If you look online you can probably find people who are willing to play a campaign like that, but to use the bait-and-switch makes it feel like you just want to have a party of your own NPC's doing everything and you have a captive audience for your ego
Haha i played in a campaign for 10 months, became 8 level warlock, with 0 (zero) magic item when other members of the group had magic items more than they could attune. When i asked for specific item, they said the person with 4 magic items needs it more than me. Sometimes it is not just DM, your party members matter too.
Did the party in the first story find a dragon ball?
Honestly they might have 😂
The sad thing is that orb, the hardness of the test, and absorbing 12 HP could all be really cool story if told better.
Give more details and hints as he attuning, ex. the Natural 20 opens the seals on the item briefly where you touch "something intelligent" before it throws you out but, you now know "it's name". The 12 HP being absorbed being the artifact bonding with the artificer and using that to help rekindle it's lifeforce. The orb, when held by the attuned, will give them natural compass leading to the remaining orbs, always being drawn to the closest.
And no, unless you are going to allow the manhunt for the disgraced rogue, you don't get to rob the party before they kick you out.
Sounds to me like the “DM” was playing a video game with the players as the NPC’s.
Yeah that dude needs his DM license revoked....
40 sessions, holy crap, would never stick around that long with this type of crap going on.
I played till 13 level. At 1st level there is a artifact given out and a +1 spear. That was the only magic items given out the entire game. When we got to 13th level if we had spent no money we had 1,000 gold pieces just enough for a +1 weapon for the final boss fight
It seems to be a common thread for bad DMs to try to control the players at every turn. Railroading, changing backstories, whatever. They just can't help themselves, they *have* to be in charge of everything about the story and that's just not how D&D works.
I don’t even run one-shots that don’t have loot to gain in them cause that’s one of three core components of D&D. Roleplay, Pummel monsters, Gain loot. If you can’t provide one those three things to your players you’re forgetting a huge aspect of why people play D&D.
Break the orb. Lol
kept them in a city for 5 months? i cant believe theres dms like that and players who would put up with it. this is insane
As of the 5 min mark, everything done is TOTAL BS. The problem player would not and should not have been allowed to do anything to the others. Taking their money maybe, but not the BOH. And should have been tossed after the third failure and not being able to attune to it. And up to the 11 min mark, it's pretty clear this DM is no DM. He just copy and pastes from other scources to run his own personal fantasy. His players honestly ( Even hoping for good fun ) should have packed up at the four month mark and told him off. as of the ending, he proved his lack of DM skills and showed who he really was when they all tried to talk to him about improving things and banned them and stopped the game. He got caught and ran because he didn't get his way. People like that don't deserve to be in a DM seat and more players need to be careful about these types so as not to ruin the game for themselves.
I get that, but it's not inherently a bad idea. Imagine this, a person you thought was your friend steals not only most of your party's money but also your magic gear and the plot McGuffin :3 Knowing how important this item should be, the party makes it their mission to track down the thief, get their gear back, but they do not get the Orb back. She reveals in her dying breath that she was either paid or blackmailed by the BBEG to steal the Orb from the party and bring it to them for reasons unknown. Instant set-up for the next objective and possibly the next arc. :3
Not only do you have a new objective, but a new potential BBEG and a potential avenue to learn more about this mysterious Orb and why it might be a good idea to collect them all. The issue here is that not only did the DM not do this, but the Orb itself also sounds like it was just a big red herring that punished the players. I can understand not wanting to immediately divulge the info; our DM did something similar in our campaign where no matter what we did, we could not find the main hide-out/HQ of the BBEG and their allies.
(Looking back, we now know why, if we did find out back at level 9, we would have dropped everything to rush there with the intent of saving the hostages... and likely ending in a TPK in the process. So, having a high DC at the start isn't unreasonable.)
But constantly punishing the player with unconsciousness, and when they finally rolled well enough at Level 6, they were again punished with being knocked out and getting a reduced HP of 12. Now, this could have worked if the Orb offered a trade. HP for power. Imagine the player can imbue the Orb with HP up to... 50, cutting their max HP down in the process. And in return, they get access to maybe a certain amount of Spell Slots, and using those Spell Slots slowly gives the player back their HP. Is this balanced? Heck, no, but it could have been an interesting way.
Sacrifice for power. It is a shame the game ended up like this, but at least there was a happy ending to it.
LEVEL 5 SIX MONTHS IN??? WHAT THE HELL???
Yeah, low level I feel like it’s a max of 2 sessions before I give them a level up maybe 3 because there was a slow session or two.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace I agree completely, I want to give people a sense of having done something, even if that is just levelling up. The DM didn’t even do that!
Ohhh i will give you 5 gold for the story, take it or leave it
6 MONTHS to get level 5? WHAT?
Dude that’s what I’m saying! I feel like the writer glossed over how crazy that is
2.3k views nah we gotta add some zeroes
We’ll get there!
Nah this DM is one of those types that very clearly wanted to write a book and tricked this group into wasting 40 sessions of their lives merely reading his narrative when they thought they'd get to contribute.
A DM should be thinking about how to get their players characters to fit into their world and sory, not how to keep them from changing how you want things to go. What satisfaction do these types of DMs get from railroading like this? whatever you say goes, it's not like you have to compete with your players or something. This is why people hate DMPCs when the makes it crystal clear they're only running the game for you to admire their oc rather than letting you play and interact with theirs and the others.
Wait is this game?
Here before 1 Million
Thank you, you’re too kind.
(feeds the almighty Algorithmo of DOOOOOM!!!!!)
what in the fuck is going in with these kinds of DMs
I don't think I'll ever understand the screws-over- the- PCs approach. This sounds like new DMs who think theyre supposed to be the players' adversaries.
What a bull game. This was so stupid. The dm seem to want to mess the team.
Yeah, the DM seemed to really just wing things and ruin fun just to amuse himself in this story.
Sounds like an egomaniac on an ego trip like some of the current writers working for Netflix who love to insert themselves into some stupid fantasy Mary Sue's power trip they want to then try to pawn off as a legitimate show when there is zero original and nothing good about it.
Heyo
Hey!
I'm actually more angry at the OP and the players snowflake attitude which enable the toxic dm bullshit instead of calling him out for his BS and leave him right after few sessions. A dm that grants the Last wish of a problematic player ? What a joke... Worse, op even compliments the dm telling he still had "fun".
As a dm i would be so happy to have players that are so invested and preffering to RP instead of fully min/max their character with nothing else.
This dm just wastes players time, no bbeg, no main plot with rewarding subplots, nothing that rewards PC with unique loot or features or titles...
This Also irritates me when i struggle to find players on the plat form i'm using while much less competent DMs like this one are getting such loyal players despite him pulling BS like that.
I do think it should have been addressed a lot earlier. If he actually thought that there was room to resolve this then waiting and then having a list of grievances was always going to blow up the situation.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Hey Friend ! Thank you so much for replying to my comment. That means a lot to me.
I Will do my Best to deliver better and more interesting comments Next time !
They stuck with him for a year, I have no sympathy. Just look at his message to the DM, what an incel
Huilo
Hi!
Pretty sure he meant 'wheel'
@@zorgonvoir6896 i did not
@@hugzar9797 Gasp
Matt Mercer running baby games has tricked these players AND this DM into missing the total point of D&D, everyone does these days.
The WHOLE POINT OF D&D IS YOU'RE NOT THE HEROES! THAT YOU START AS A NO-ONE AND EARN YOUR WAY THERE, AND IF YOU DIE, YOU DON'T GET TO RESPAWN, YOU STAY DEAD.
That's always been the point of D&D, that you AREN'T the chosen one, that's how all the video games differ too from other games.
This DM is so stupid, and the players are a bit too, if they earn it, they earn it, anyone can, this isn't an anime, it's effing D&D.
A DM is meant to be the neutral world, the laws of physics for the players, that's it, their ego isn't meant to enter into it.
Honestly, if I was a player in that game... my character would have been out a long time ago. Imagine you're an adventurer in this world, tasked with protecting the city. I haven't been able to take down a single villain; they always escape. They're constantly toying with the party because of how weak we are compared to them. To the point where the GODS themselves can be overcome. I mean; think about it. The God of Visions themselves contacts us and is like 'This WILL happen!'. So you spend MONTHS preparing for this event, to finally take down a single villain... only for the guy to not show. The God of Visions themselves is silent and has been since the event in question. So, the only logical conclusion is that this villain not only learned that we knew their plans, but was able to silence a literal GOD from telling us things had changed.
And you want my level 6 character to protect the city? From someone that can stop gods? Madness. Every villain is so far outside of my paygrade that it's laughable. This new villain alone is so far beyond my character that I'm like a child pretending to be captain of the guard, swinging a stick and pretending it's a sword while I slay 'vile dragons' that only exist in my imagination. Sounds ridiculous? Like such a child would be literally no threat? Welcome to how my character feels, Mr DM. Maybe if we went up against villains OF OUR LEVEL instead of what's clearly epic level foes, maybe we wouldn't have this problem. And what few foes we do face that're on our level always seem to have special powers we could in no way ever be prepared for; like the guy who cast a "special" sleep spell that affects all foes instead of how the spell normally works. Or their ability to conveniently know our every move no matter how secretive our plans are.
This is just a classic case of a World That Can Save Itself. The heroes, ultimately, don't matter, so it's better to just let the world save itself since it's CLEAR there's a lot of people out there who're better qualified to do it. And if they're all villains? The hell am I supposed to do about that? They treat me with kid gloves and I stand no chance against them. I'm not even in mortal peril since they just let me go, like I'm a child having a tantrum and they're just putting me in time out. Am I supposed to slowly get strong enough to deal with them? How? Nearly everyone I come across that COULD be a source of experience (not exp, I mean experience as in building the skills necessary to Save The World) either constantly evades me or is so strong that I can't do anything against them. I'm spending literal MONTHS preparing for singular confrontations only to get some base mook that, in the end, will do NOTHING to get me any closer to taking these foes down. I'd wager these players spend loooooong stretches of time before they get ANY exp or loot.
In short, DM sucks and his story sucks. None of these guys have any business defending the city from these god-killing badasses the DM is putting in as villains. DM has no sense of scaling, no idea how to balance encounters, and, it sounds like, he doesn't know how to tell an interactive story whatsoever.