° Glad it ended whiny & bad for that "Monk"-player ° Glad it ended *_immersive_* for the Sith player ° Last story was just wierd. ( °_°) Thanks for Lord Critcrab showing me I was never in the worst player-groups (in other games - never played D&D).
@@redoover Start your own channel. Not being a wise guy. Its not hard to do the animation, the voice is just a mic from bestbuy, and the stories are free on reddit. You could set yourself up for less then $100. Be the change you want to see. I'm not going to because I don't feel a need to change what's going on with these channels.
He was either ignorant to how the sith operate (incredibly unlikely) or he was betting on his friends metagaming a little bit and let him walk because he is a player character. They did not.
Reminds me of the look of shock on Count Dooku's face in ep3. The man was a first-rate duelist and incredibly powerful in the force, but terrible in actual sith lore.
Yeah, that's why you need to have a session 0 to talk stuff like this out. Among other things (like how to handle sex scenes and how much graphic gore is acceptable) you should always talk about how far PvP is allowed to go. In one of my current campaigns none of the PCs would probably start PvP but if it comes to it we are agreed that lethal is fair game.
"It's what my character would do" shouldn't be for being a jerk to other people. "It's what my character would do" is for moments like when my prideful bard drank an unknown potion because the bottle called him a coward. I as a player knew it was a trap that would have consequences, but I knew that my bard wouldn't let an inanimate object call him a coward and get away with it
We had a warlock that was murderhoboing and that resulted in him being hunted by revenants. My assassin had recently had an alignment change (CN to LN) and had pledged himself to ensuring the survival of the party ranger. Having revenants hunting us was definitely going to get the ranger killed. I couldn't kill the revenants, so I killed the warlock in his sleep. I legitimately hated doing it, and after 6 months, I still feel bad about it, but I genuinely couldn't see any other way to solve the problem quickly
Well there are thin lines and such where things can be crossed and done that still make sense but if your characters gonna do a jerk thing it ruins the surprise a bit but you gotta tell the person or people you're gonna do it to
All well and good, but they were playing dark siders. The constant betrayals and civil wars among the Sith were the reason for the Rule of Two. Chub's betrayal of the party and Beans' reaction to it make for an excellent Sith-centered SW story. Working as intended.
“The dice fell heavy and swift like tungsten rods from orbit.” I gotta say, there aren’t enough references to kinetic bombardment in the world…. Well played to OP… well played
Man, the first and last one were some big yikes stories, the last one being some pretty heavy stuff, but I’m glad OP was able to get some closure at the end of it.
@@cthulhupthagn5771 Eh, I could’ve described it a bit better, but basically these stories show how some situations with players can get incredibly disturbing fast. Therefore I had called them ‘yikes stories’, since that would be the appropriate reaction. Thankfully haven’t been in such situations before, although through crit-crab I hear about them.
Here’s a plot everyone is free to steal. First, you need to make a stereotypical DMPC ( I know, CRINGE. ) Run that character as expected, medieval equivalent of a superhero, always swooping in to save the day in spectacular fashion. Here’s the twist, though. Run an evil campaign. Let the players get away with expected shenanigans. But, every time they come close to accomplishing something truly, monumentally evil, Hero Guy shows up. He thwarts their plot, rescues the oppressed, and completely misses their involvement in whatever he just stopped. If their involvement is too obvious to ignore, he treats them as unwitting pawns he just rescued, refusing to believe that they could possibly be the source of the evil plots. This is because of his history. Hero Guy was once a typical adventurer. Over the course of a long campaign, his party kept finding that every evil plot had connections to a single BBEG. But, they never got to confront him. Hero Guy slowly became obsessed. Now, every evil he encounters, in his mind, is directly connected to that BBEG. The kicker? BBEG retired over a decade ago. I hope others have as much fun with this as I did. 🤠👍
I had an NPC like that, but in reality he was actually the BBEG, the whole campaign revolved around them finding these items in time to prevent the portal of hell from opening up and allowing an army of demons to walk through. What the players did not know is the items they were gathering were actually what was going to open the portal. (The NPC had brainwashed another NPC to give the quest, and the NPC was helping the party on said quest) Anyway they find the final piece he no longer plays the hero as he kicked them down and grabs the item to open a portal. He opens the portal and we go from one thing to a full 180 on theme as the demons escape through the portal and overrun the world. It is pretty fun when your NPCs are all villains, cockling at the party's misfortune. Pandemic hit so campaign got shut down, but was fun while it lasted.
I never got why some groups have trouble with evil campaigns. Its just playing the other side. Replace BBEG with BBGG, you have the same choice of evil in control trying to stop good from liberating, or good in control trying to stop evil from wreaking havoc. Throw in whatever twists you want, x guy is really good/evil/lying or whatever, they still work no matter the side applied to. My personal favorite is running a neutral campaign, though that does take a lot more pre-planning. You take your normal plot hooks, mcguffins, encounters, dungeons and so forth, but you build npc forces for both sides, have a BBEG and a BBGG and put everything on a timeline, with a branch for either outcome at each plot point. The party is able to join either side, play them against each other, be double agents or eff about doing random crap. No matter what their choice you are already prepared for them to raid, defend, or infiltrate all your major locations. The kicker is when something comes up on the secret timeline, if the party isnt involved you simulate the battle between sessions. Theres many videogames that can do this for you for extra fun and surprise. If the party is involved, they replace the force on whatever side they have chosen, and if they are still undecided you have them come upon the battle, if they dont interfere just roll % for each side to pick the winner or make it a three way brawl. You dont get bogged down if the party decides to waffle about because you have things planned out in the background, and the world evolves around them and can spur them into action without having to put them on rails. If it gets too random you can always have one side or the other try to conscript them to force them into making a choice, but that should be a last resort. If you want you can do all out war with a dangerous front line that moves randomly with regions/cities changing hands. Bonus points if theres no black and white, but both sides are some shade of gray. If one side or the other wins too much and it becomes too easy or hard this isnt a bad thing, just an opportunity to either have things go suddenly horribly wrong, or to be saved at the last moment even though it looks like all is lost by ditching the random outcomes until things even out. The party gets to help shape events, and everyone gets to see a story unfold that not even the dm really knows how it will turn out.
My tiefling paladin is a moron. I don't know how many times I've said "guys I'm sorry for this but she is stupid" before my character does something stupid that normally results in her almost dying or at least starting a fight that could have been avoided. The good thing is normally she only ends up hurting herself so it's all in good fun
I mean, fair. As long as it isn't too much of a hassle for yhe other party members. So far my CN Warlock hasn't done anything to harm the party, just nearly gotten himself killed by spur of the moment decisions.
@@WinterPains my two most resent things were pulling out a javelin that was impaled in my stomach and almost dying Then next campaign I ran right at the BBEG who was holding someone hostage (I was trying free the hostage) and almost got myself kidnapped
@@jennydorrance1884 Lmao, yeah, thats fair. Damian accidentally hit the Demogorgon and nearly got drowned by its hypnotic gaze. Then when it forced us to fight in a dream, I fired at it, on purpose this time, and got bitchslapped into the ground. I also potentially lost us our travel (Out of the Abyss, so having to travel around a lake) guide and boat by choosing to hang out with an NPC.
My goblin bard accidentally while interrogating a member of an organization called the black hand in the dukes dungeon told about how they were gonna kill the duke (who was evil) a bit to loudly while trying to get them talk somehow cause they weren't being very cooperative (probably cause the party was the one who got them locked up haha) anyway the duke hears fight ensues and we all just barely make it out with our lives by making a deal to do some work for the duke it was fun and I think was also an interesting character moment cause honestly Kaerum is a bit of a loudmouth
See, what you're doing can be a lot of fun at the table when done right. My cousin is your standard moronic barbarian and does get us in trouble sometimes. But we agreed at the beginning that he's in my character's employ as a bodyguard, so my character knows how to distract him when he gets that glint in his eye of a particularly stupid idea. It makes for a fun table dynamic. Sometimes he gets by her though. Once while he had watch, he opened one of the crates we were supposed to be blindly transporting cause he was convinced it had something amazing in it. He broke the crate in doing so. We spent the whole voyage trying to figure out how to repair the crate of black market drugs so that our employers wouldn't kill us when we arrived in port. He doesn't get to take watch alone anymore lol. Like yeah it was a hassle and stressful enough that I was thinking about it outside of game trying to solve the problem. But it was certainly interesting, and it made the mission feel more real.
That last one hit different. I was in a similar relationship once, and although it didn't include literal rape like this story did, the in-game stuff was almost identical to what I went through, and I was often left feeling dejected and useless, and there was sometimes physical violence as well. My abuser would always shrug it off, saying things like "it's normal for friends to rough house" and act like I was a bad friend for getting upset about it. Oh yeah, by the way... we weren't actually in a "romantic" relationship. On the surface, we were just friends and room mates, but the more I think about that time, the more I realize that it really was an abusive relationship in all but name. I did eventually move out, and a couple of years later, said "friend" literally begged me to start an actual relationship with them. Now, in the time between, we kept up with eac hother, and I would hear frequently about all the "progress" said friend had made. But that night, while they were begging me to start dating them, they straight up told me that "he never felt like anything was wrong." which immediately told me that I had been a fool to trust them at all. I told them that they could spend the night (it was late and there had been drinking) but I would be sleeping on the couch in another room, and I wanted them gone by morning. I honestly wasn't even mad at them by this point. I felt sorry for them. They were just a mewling, pathetic bag of bones with no idea how to love anybody but themselves.
I'm glad you didn't start a relationship with them after the crap they've pulled. You got it right, this would not have been good for any of you; I hope this person isn't even part of your life now.
"It's normal for friends to roughhouse"? No it's not. It's normal for playful banter, or even sometimes physical altercation, but _only_ if both people are okay with it. The moment they called you a bad friend for disliking it was the moment I would have just walked out. If someone doesn't respect me and my feelings, they don't deserve to be a friend. Good on you for eventually getting out of it, doomed to failure from the start.
Yooo it's so weird our story got on there (the first one) small update, Monk apologised but none of us want him back because we know it just won't work and he agrees
@@Nerketur i can't rlly be friends with him anymore as it relates to some trauma I have so it's more of a mental health thing but yakno it is what it is
for the absolute horror of the last story, I got to say I like that our Crab overlord approaches it with seriousness and understanding is heartwarming to me. All too often such stories are taken lightly or worse, made into a joke. This kind of thing is not okay and CritCrab very clearly and unequivocally takes a stand against it. And I very much appreciate that.
Thank you so much for the warnings about the last story, the pause to say "this is not ok" and treating such a horrific story with the seriousness it deserved. I also really understand your difficulty with actually reading out the details. That's a very heavy thing to talk about. I'm glad the OP had friend for moral support and they both escaped such a toxic person.
When we get into situations where it's "what my character would do" it's normally more like "why would you sneak up on the twitchy wizard who responds to being startled using firebolt?" Why yes, I did get hit with a firebolt in the face, why do you ask? And the last story is just...no.
Yea. It also works perfectly when you get Mind controlled or have an effect that turns you evil. The ultimate time to "It's what my character would do". My character once in the dream realm read a book. Mein Kamph and turned Nazi and started to try and get everyone else to read the book. They didn't ofc because they where smarter than that. But I love when I can play my mind control myself. Also let's me stop it from getting to self destructive in ways I don't want that the DM might have pushed it :P
Fun. I got bitch slapped by the demigorgon because my warlock knew that betraying the party at that moment would be a bad decision when he already wasn't on good terms with the barbarian of the party, who was less than 10 feet away. So he shot eldritch blast at the prince of demons.
The line for "It's what my character would do!" lays between it actually being how your character would act as you've made their personality and nature in order to play them consistently, and it being something you want to do that's going to be a dick move and blaming your character for it while expecting little to no consequence. For example, if you're playing a recovering kleptomaniac who has fallen to their greed and is trying to steal something, even though they know it's wrong and getting caught will get them and their comrades into trouble, reminding your party members of this beforehand (or better yet, demonstratng it in-game) so they have chance to try and stop you shows that you're trying to be true to your character; whereas doing it out of the blue without any good reason other than "It'S wHaT mY cHaRaCtEr WoUlD dO!!1!" since you've never made it part of their personality until now, then get upset that you got caught and are now being sent to prison, it's just being the Chaotic Stupid-alligned That Guy at that point.
Story 1- Monk was an idiot- OP and friends dodged a bullet there. Story 2- No harm no foul here but it looks like everyone realized that maybe it's not really all that fun to play an evil party. Story 3- DM has a lot of rage and anger that they were obviously tying to deal with by using- and I do mean use- OP. DM needs help IRL and out but I doubt that they ever got it as I'm sure they see nothing wrong with their actions.
Somehow Story 3 was red flag after red flag. If somebody's defense to the suggestion of you abusing them is "your ex was worse", that doesn't mean that they're justified in treating somebody like shit.
As someone who's been in the same situation as OP from 3 was in, it doesn't necessarily need to be anger and rage that fuel it. There doesn't need to be any reason for it, they just *do* it. There's no valid enough excuse in the world for what they did.
i once ragequit a campaign, but it was because i made it clear to the dm "i want to make a tanky character, dont care about damage or spellcasting or utility, just make me hard to kill" and while leaving the tavern i get literally oneshot by a sneak attack from an "unseen figure", instant death.
These are the types of DM that I actively reprimand when I see them. If you don’t like what the players are doing, talk to them. If they persist in their way, then run with it.
That could just be luck of the dice. Characters with sneak attack can stack up stupid amounts of damage in the right situation. If you were level 1 then a good sneak attack is probably enough. If you were high level though the DM is lame.
@@hunterirey920 Consider the following, though. It was as soon as he left the tavern... immediately after creating the character... during session 1. Why would you ever put in an enemy in session 1 that can kill the players without a chance to respond?
@@hunterirey920 I think the "leaving the tavern" was literally the beginning of the campaign (stereotypical meet in tavern scene). So in summary, start, meet party, maybe get quest, die to bs reasons.
@@hunterirey920 Ok but this is a case where DM discretion comes into it, if you accidentally crit a player to death with a sneak attack from an enemy that was overlevelled for the party right after leaving the tavern they start in you say "An arrow whizzes by your head".
I see how having adult-fun-time until one or both pass out can be a kink, but it's only a good kink if both sides are actually into it what went down in that last story wasn't kinky or hot at all, that was OP being used like a tool and being abused people have a right to say no or stop having adult-fun-time when they've had enough, what OP went through was just icky
Reminds me of my childhood. Consent can be hard to get from a six year old. Of course Dad swore it was my idea. At six. Thirty-one years later and it, and the eleven years following it, still bother me. Still, I'm alive and he's not. I'm a broken lunatic, but I'm alive. Sorry. Just needed to vent a bit. After my Dad and my abusive-asshole-pseudo-friend-with-benefits in my teens, consent is a huge thing for me. Sorry. Venting again. But I'm alive.
@@RhiannonSmudge Thank you. I've had therapy. I am diagnosed with severe clinical depression, PTSD with psychosis, and paranoid schizophrenia. I'm also on the spectrum. But with (tons of) medication as well as therapy and more recently ECT I am doing better than I have in years. It's still a challenge but there's hope. And I'm alive. I have survived all the things life has thrown at me like severe ongoing abuse or a brain tumor and I intend to keep surviving whatever it tosses my way. I don't quit. I didn't know how. Again, thank you for caring. Tiny reminders that people care are huge for those like me.
“He would do unspeakable things to him until he loses consciousness” *Jazz music stops* “I didn’t know how to handle this because she was also doing this to me in real life” *J A Z Z M U S I C S T O P S* (God please don’t ever do this)
That first story warmed my heart. Monk displayed some red flags, was given a fair chance, and blew it. The OP's group response was the textbook definition of "we don't start trouble, we finish it instead." _[chef's kiss]_ :3
There's a distinct irony to the thumbnail being of a character who never gives up and never treats people poorly, on a video about a guy being mean to people and then ragequitting
Asta reminds me a lot of Naruto - both characters had an ultimate goal that they striving for (Asta to become the Wizard King, and Naruto to become the Hokage (which he eventually accomplished)). and neither have given up their goals.
When used properly and in an understandable way, "It is what my character would do." can lead to some GLORIOUS moments. For the most part, my friends group understands this, and it is how we have had some truly epic and/or heart wrenching moments in our games.
I'm gonna say it,"That's what my character would do" is completely valid and should be held up with more legitimacy. I had a Rouge get mad irl when a Paladin told the city guard that he stole from the city. It's dumb to act in a way where you would rather a character behave in a way that's different from what they've done in the past to benefit you or the story.
I agree. I think the hate for that sentence comes from many worse players using it to excuse doing dumb shit that is probably not even in character to begin with. But take a character I play. If you try to do something against her people she will fight you. Be that player or an encounter that really should not be had. If you have a character you are roleplaying in this Roleplaying game. It should not be taboo to roleplay them. But you also should not make a character who's entire thing is stealing from everyone including party members and then excuse it with "It's what my character would do". Because at that point you have just made a character that only exists to go against the party. Had one of those as well in a game I played in.
When CC paused the first time in the third story, I was already waving that big red flag. Thank you for pointing it out CritCrab, as it can be an easily missed thing. The person is nice, cute, and it's flattering that they're trying that hard to get your attention. Haven't had it happen to me, but I can see how it could work on me
If I ever make a bard, I'm making him a Eunuch. I'm so tired of this rubbish "if you're a bard, you've got to be a constantly randy freak who'll give it to literally anyone and anything".
My bard *acts* like a debonair charmer, different girl every night, but he's actually never been intimate with anyone until very recently because of a trauma that ended with his best friend dead, someone he loved terrified of him, exiled from his family and his face half-coveree in scars.
In my current party, along side other characters there is also Paladin, a Warlock, a Bard, and myself as a Sorcerer. We each usually are the ones to talk and start flirtations, either as distractions or genuine interests, but my character is the only one who takes it further to try to get in bed with anyone, but regardless of how romantic it can sound up to that point, he always gets shy asking for "it" since he knows he's a freak but doesn't want to come across as one.
Bards are _supposed_ to be wandering seekers of knowledge and lore who use music and poetry to make the legends they find easy to remember and recite as a reference to the real world tradition of oral storytelling. RL Bards (and Druids) were sacrosanct in Celtic Europe, even the most powerful Gallic or Brythonic king listened to their advice and feared pissing them off. In a culture with no written language, anyone capable of memorizing and reciting every part of history that mattered at the drop of a hat was a certified badass whose status in society was unquestionable. It’s that _ffffffffffucking_ Charisma stat requirement; it’s the reason Bards are seen as charming, attractive idiots whose purpose in life is to fuck everyone and everything they meet.
"Broke the straw on the camel's back." *A few more of my favorite sayings down below* "You can drink water to a horse but you can't make it lead." "Birding one kill with two stones." "Black calling the pot the kettle." "You can catch more flies with honey but you catch more honies being fly."
Eh, since this was during Revan and Malak's time, the "rule of 2" didn't really exist. The general concept or idea of it was being formed with Revan, but was not in practice until the Sith were nearly wiped out and Bane saw that all the in-fighting between Sith is what made them weak enough to be nearly destroyed completely.
Yeah. I'll update you guys on what's been going on in the next video or two. It's been a wild month. Good news is things are getting back to normal so I'm gonna be uploading more frequently from here out! 🦀🦀🦀
I’ve never been a dnd player, I don’t know how I came across your channel but I absolutely love the content you provide. You not only read these dnd horror stories but provide the audience with a voice of reason in between, I appreciate the work you put into these videos
Hey CritCrab I know you are probably not going to see this but I love your videos and just started building my 1st campaign and seeing that you are also a DM I only have that much more respect for you than I did before, now knowing now just how hard this is. Coming from a genuine fan I really hope you keep uploading quality content in the future!
In my experience "it's what my character would do" is only a problem when used to try to avoid the consequences of your actions. In one example I was playing in a game of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, my character being a black dragonborn and dragon sorcerer, had managed to convince a small group of kobolds that they were better following my orders than the dragon cult. But the barbarian wasn't happy with the fight ending, so she decided to keep killing the kobolds and was upset when my character first gave a warning to stop, and then fought back when she continued attacking my kobolds. The barbarian was upset "I'm just doing what my character would do" so I responded "and so am I".
I really like how when you do these multi story videos that you don’t put that little cut in the progress bar other channels would. Keeps the story invested.
On the topic of "its what my character would do" i have had to say this twice. Both in the same game, in the same session. I was playing a true neutral paladin of tyr. He had a little sister npc who he loved more than anything as she is the only family he has left. He will break his oath and murder anyone who brings harm to her. Well a few sessions into the campaign guess who we see sotting in a room unconscious surrounded by undead. I told the other players "sorry about this, but it is what he would do" (they said it was fine) and he kicked down the door and started killkng the undead without care for his or the partys well being. Soon the undead fled and in bursts a deamon hog, we kill it thanks to cheese on harolds part (ball barings + oil for the win) but then comes down a wizard girl harold has history with (harld is outspoken and blunt and she is sarcastic and rude. So they were destined to be enemys or friends. No in between) seeing her following in behind the demon hog harold assumed the worst. Threatened her to tell them why she is here, she is dodging the question. He has had enough and points his cross bow at her head, she doesnt back down. Luckily the part was able to defuse the situation. But yah, threatening a wizard girl and putting the party in a worse position for combat were the two times i have said "its what my character would do"
Tbh it’s what my character would do is always justified in my playgroups, I’ve never had an issue with it… although I’ve heard horror story’s of murder hobos etc
oh good gawd O_o That kast stry is just horrific. I don't know who this person is but I'm so sorry they went through all of that. Ugghh why are some people THAT horrible
That last story fucking gutted me. Holy fucking shit. That hurt deep- I’ve been in campaigns that forced my character to be in situations. I’m lucky I didn’t get it out of game. I’m glad they got out and have a better area now
After reading all of these "Real Housewifes" drama sessions people have I am so glad I have a group that can get together, laugh at our fumbles, and battle (or befriend) some interesting monsters.
I get around the “it’s what my character would do” situations, by announcing almost OOC that “due to the party’s history, they can tell I’m about to do (something stupid)” but literally a stern look would shut it down. Because sometimes, doing stupid stuff is great for the party, but sometimes the party could get sick of it. So this gives you the chance to RP the destructive parts of your character while giving the party a chance to NOT actually suffer the effects.
It shouldn't be seen as toxic to Roleplay a stupid character doing something stupid. I find the glares from the party to be the toxic part of that. I am truly against metagaming like that, because it removes player agency. I've had issues with toxic Tacticians before, so I personally will never let the party dictate what my character does OOC.
The PSA timeout on the last story is absolutely true. Nothing to do with DnD, but at the start of this year a friend we now call "It" booted me out in below zero weather and tried to take all of my worldly possessions for herself or destroy them because she was rejected multiple times (politely) and when she realized I wasn't going to sleep with her (after hitting on me in front of my girlfriend on a call once even), she became hostile. Never EVER tolerate someone who can't take no for an answer, gender or orientation doesn't matter. If they lay off and you develop a relationship naturally later then that can be cool. But the point stands in all things. Never bother with someone that presses you and if you have that feeling back out, be it a game or a personal relationship.
The thing people should think about when creating a character is to make sure that it has the least possible chances to do actions in the Party's demerit. For example : say that your character got some hatred towards Tiefling. If you go to a tiefling antagonist that act like a jerk, people will understand that you may act without care even if it may be problematic for your group. If said Tiefling is an ally, anything more than being suspicious, especially making said person an antagonist, goes against the party's goal.
1st story reminds me of my own session 1 in my friends campaign where I play a somewhat brutish cleric. I was excited to get into the action, but the first turn of first combat was a skeleton critting on me and leaving me at 1 hp. It was more funny than frustrating, and he's been in his fair share of harm's way dragging the other party members out of bad situations since, but he's appreciated, which I appreciate. Sorry to 3rd OP as well. No one should have to endure 2 awful relationships in a row like that. I'm glad they're doing better.
I love that you always call out the really bad stuff when you see it and tell people not to ignore that kind of thing. I have a lot of respect for our crab overlord. Also, the way you say worldanvil is really cute for some reason. world an vil hehe
“It’s what my character would do” can be really taboo because of how it’s used by people who are trolling and being a jerk for no good reason. But it’s also a really valid reason when you’ve fleshed out your character and have personality traits that would lead them to a decision. Before I’m about to do a story changing decision, I often list a majority of the main issues going through my character’s mind, key things that happened in the past, and then make the decision where other players would know every reason. With the sith and sith lore, they’ve practically killed one another from infighting and for greater power and betrayal was met with death or you would be at risk of being betrayed again. But at least they were able to come to a good conclusion.
I wanted to stick until the end but I couldn't, so....I want to thank you, both for being so respectful and calm about such situations, even though I got a panic attack halfway through that story I watched other videos of you since your voice is very soothing and welcoming...thank you once again Edit: I'm terrible at english, so I apologize profusely
I actually got yelled at for fighting with my party because they wanted to set fire to a giant spider den where we didn’t know if anyone was alive in it. Me being a good cleric I wasn’t gonna risk killing innocent people. They were super pissed I wasn’t metagaming even we the dm confirmed no one was in there but it not like our characters know or could confirm that without going in
I’m happy I started playing dnd a few months ago. Kinda trapped in the first village but the next session should be the last one in the village. It’s a part of me a new player, another new player, an experienced player and dm who was playing, and a new dm. It’s been a learning experience the first two sessions but we eventually found our ground and really started to get the story going.
I recommend you a build i made, it has a maximum of 56 CA, and the enemies have costant disvantage to attack you, and you can use specular image, oh and you have the "lucky" feat, so we can say they have to make five natural twenties in a row
Telling my partner that their reddit post got put in the video to the crab army the excitement in their voice has made my day :D Glory to the crab army
I hope your partner isn't the op from the third story! If they are, tell them they are incredibly scoping for surfing and getting out, and I'm glad they're in a better space both irl and in gaming.
When one butts heads with the DM, know when to back down, or be hardheaded enough to deal with the headache that one gets afterwards, or know when either one can be done safely. Case in point - the DM who lead the group I was in had 20 years of experience, and my interaction after 2 months with the group - Mind you, Artificial DM showed the story in his "My D&D Character becomes the BBEG | RPG Glory Stories" video, at about 10 minutes in, so I'll summarize it here. Basically, at the time, the DM had 20 years of experience playing tabletop games (D&D3.5 onwards), and I had 2 months. It was D&D5e, and it was late October/early November. We had an argument over the existence of the Celestial Warlock - I thought it to be Official, and he thought it was homebrewed/third-party (which he had a rule against). He basically told me to prove it was Official. I didn't have the books - couldn't prove it. Then I went to the library, and found Xanathar's Guide to Everything - page 54 has the Celestial Warlock. Next session, I showed it to him - dude did the Thousand Yard Stare one sees in shell-shocked soldiers in war movies. A player sitting across from him, looked at me and said "I think you broke him." It took him a minute to recover - he gave me a look of shock, awe, and respect. He got his own copy of that book soon after. (To be fair, he only had the Core Trio prior to this, and most others used their extra books only for spells, if they even had them.) After this, we expanded things to non-core races and subclasses. Sadly, 2020 being what it was, and with him moving, haven't played with him for a year. Still, we text each other every so often. Told him about Ravenloft and showed him all the books I've gotten (all published hardcovered adventures, campaign settings, and rule supplemental material as of today - August 22, 2021). He was impressed. He also had hopes that I'd become a DM myself. Might happen.
The last story got me. In 2020, I was in a horribly abusive relationship, full of SA and abuse, and she used similar excuses (though she's cis, and I'm nb, which she wouldn't respect)
That first story reminded me of an interaction I had a year ago. Someone I'd met from a previous community (I didn't know them in the community, but we came from the same one) started telling me about a DnD-esque RP group he and a few of his friends participated in. It was a private sci-fi community and I thought it sounded interesting, so he invited me out to view a session and see how things are done. The very first session I attended, his character made a decision that put him in view of a bunch of sharpshooters and he was all by himself (player choice, not random rolls or anything), so of course everything started targeting him... and he was pissed off about this. He started raging and ranting about how it was bullshit that he was being taken out of the session so early on, meanwhile I'm sitting here like 'dude, these are the consequences of your actions'. I didn't say that out loud since he was already pissed off and my commentary would only fuel his rage, but the day after it happened when he was apologizing to *me* of all people, I told him it made me not want to participate if I needed to see more of that. He said it wouldn't happen again and I thought that was the end of it. A few more situations like that, as well as some decisions he made from an administrative level, made me just stop coming to their sessions. These games are supposed to be fun... so when people rage about something, it's so uncool for the people around you who are trying to enjoy themselves.
On the ‘Thats what my character would do’ thing, I believe that it’s something a player would have to earn in a way. Someone who’s been with the group for a long time and we’ve already forged a bond of trust, that sort of thing. I can remember one time where I used it in a CoC game. Really long story short, we were investigating a painter who possibly had some information for us and my character (who had seen this guy in a vision painting a portrait of his missing lover) immediately asks him about the painting he saw. The painter mentioned it could be in his locked cabinet but didn’t want to give them the key out of fear. So I try to intimidate him, didn’t roll high enough, and attempted to ‘push’ the roll by pulling out my gun. Well, one gunshot to the gut later (it was on accident I promise) I had the key and the group questioned why I shot this man. I reasoned that my character had been searching for his lover for at least two years with no lead, here was his lead, and he was remorseful that he shot the dude but he was getting into that cabinet so help him god! Anyway, I had a great track record with the group and it was technically an NPC so it was allowed. If I were shooting another player I imagine it would kick up way more of a fuss but at that point just talk to the other player. Come to an agreement beforehand and start throwing dice!
"Its what my character would do" is the line of reasoning one should follow to prevent themselves from metagaming, but sadly is misused to try and justify out of character actions or behaviors. If it fits the character there shouldn't be a need to explain it. Don't be afraid to ask yourself what your character would do, it can strengthen the rp and help reduce the temptation to use player knowledge your pc doesn't have.
I felt the third story. Only friend i had in high school basically forced me to do "favors" for him in order to be friends with him. Me being frim a broken home, thought all of that was natural. When i learned it wasn't i was so hurt
The reason “It’s what my character would do” usually falls flat is because it highlights the issue of why the player would create a character who would do that in the first place. Also crit, are you aware that your UA-cam avatar resembles the Pokémon Voltorb?
I think part of that is how well you know the person IRL. If you know the person is usually one way and they make a character that's the opposite of how they are in real life it's understandable because they probably wanted to see how it feels to be someone else. If you know the person is actually a jerk irl then they're probably using their character as an excuse to be a jerk without real consequences. It gets tricky when you don't really know the person well enough to know their motivation.
I had a player like the first story once. he wasn't so happy when i countered him with "My table, my rules." and thats all i said to him when he tried to rules lawyer.
I had a player who was constantly looking up stats for monsters and so I would buff them ever so slightly just to see him get frustrated that it's "not what it says in the book."
I just found your channel and I cannot get over how adorable your name is and the fact that you’re just a crab with a crown!Adorable avatar and awesome channel keep it up!
I play a satyr bard in a campaign with some friends. It really is fantastic getting to play a capricious character and have the others accept it as, "Well, he IS a satyr." Little things, like jumping out a broken window another party member had been thrown out of because it looked fun, and leaving a silver and a friendly note for a sleeping goblin guard we had to sneak past
Not sure if these stories are just rare exceptions or if I am just extremely lucky, but I played and GMed from Jr. High through college and after with at least 5-6 different groups of players, we played AD&D, Traveller, Champions, Shadowrun, and even the spoofy Paranoia. Never did we ever have issues like this. There were some players that didn’t like each other in real life, but even those tensions played out with hilarious in-game “whoopsie”s, and everyone, even those who didn’t really get along, knew it was a game and laughed it off because usually the in game results of the whoopsies were hilarious and were never fatal to the characters on the receiving end. I can’t imagine continuing to play with groups like in these stories where they are not fun and there is such toxic behavior…
I play with two groups, one being mostly newish players and the other has more experienced players. The group with more experience usually have a bit of an open discussion out of game about things that characters would and wouldn’t do. Since it’s an Eberron game and taking my warforged monk for example, I did pull out of a fight since it was against child soldiers situation. I had to go in real life so I did say that due to his time in war, he never liked going against child soldiers as it did not end well and he was truly trying to change his ways. It’s a nice way of saying “it’s what my character would do” but in a way where it didn’t harm people or ruin the whole moment as it was an in character ptsd thing and it wasn’t a dramatic issue. There was also a good reason why he wouldn’t want to harm them to begin with so everyone was fine
First Story: First mistake "session zero went bad but we thought it'd get better". The purpose of the session zero is to ensure that it weeds out the problem players. Second Story: Yeah it happens sometimes. It's just super shocking when it does happen. Third Story: Seeing those red flags are terrifying... but I am super glad the new DM gave closure to the OP. And cheers to the friend for helping in the OP's time of need.
Funnily enough, the rule the supposed know-it-all failed to familiarize themselves with was Rule 0. The GM is the final arbiter of the game and they can change or make up things as they see fit.
That second story hit way too close to home with some eerily similar details. Makes me compelled to send in my storytime. I'm SO glad OP got out of that situation Fuckin yiiikes
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° Glad it ended whiny & bad for that "Monk"-player
° Glad it ended *_immersive_* for the Sith player
° Last story was just wierd. ( °_°)
Thanks for Lord Critcrab showing me I was never in the worst player-groups (in other games - never played D&D).
No
Honesty I have used it. Its really good for organization and you don't need to pay much to try enough to see if it works.
@@redoover I like these stories. You can always watch another channel.
@@redoover Start your own channel. Not being a wise guy. Its not hard to do the animation, the voice is just a mic from bestbuy, and the stories are free on reddit. You could set yourself up for less then $100. Be the change you want to see. I'm not going to because I don't feel a need to change what's going on with these channels.
Sith are purpose built for infighting, betrayal and revenge. Dunno how Chubs thought he could survive betraying his friends is beyond me.
He was either ignorant to how the sith operate (incredibly unlikely) or he was betting on his friends metagaming a little bit and let him walk because he is a player character. They did not.
Probably just a heat of the moment thing that slipped his mind, hence why after the fact he acknowledged it was stupid on their part.
Reminds me of the look of shock on Count Dooku's face in ep3. The man was a first-rate duelist and incredibly powerful in the force, but terrible in actual sith lore.
Yeah, that's why you need to have a session 0 to talk stuff like this out. Among other things (like how to handle sex scenes and how much graphic gore is acceptable) you should always talk about how far PvP is allowed to go.
In one of my current campaigns none of the PCs would probably start PvP but if it comes to it we are agreed that lethal is fair game.
Well, he was allied with the 3 Masters of them, honestly I don't know how he lost...
"It's what my character would do" shouldn't be for being a jerk to other people. "It's what my character would do" is for moments like when my prideful bard drank an unknown potion because the bottle called him a coward. I as a player knew it was a trap that would have consequences, but I knew that my bard wouldn't let an inanimate object call him a coward and get away with it
Same.
We had a warlock that was murderhoboing and that resulted in him being hunted by revenants.
My assassin had recently had an alignment change (CN to LN) and had pledged himself to ensuring the survival of the party ranger.
Having revenants hunting us was definitely going to get the ranger killed. I couldn't kill the revenants, so I killed the warlock in his sleep.
I legitimately hated doing it, and after 6 months, I still feel bad about it, but I genuinely couldn't see any other way to solve the problem quickly
Same.
Well there are thin lines and such where things can be crossed and done that still make sense but if your characters gonna do a jerk thing it ruins the surprise a bit but you gotta tell the person or people you're gonna do it to
All well and good, but they were playing dark siders. The constant betrayals and civil wars among the Sith were the reason for the Rule of Two. Chub's betrayal of the party and Beans' reaction to it make for an excellent Sith-centered SW story.
Working as intended.
“The dice fell heavy and swift like tungsten rods from orbit.”
I gotta say, there aren’t enough references to kinetic bombardment in the world…. Well played to OP… well played
I didn't notice until you pointed that out
DOKAWs amirite
Rods from God, baby
Project THOR
Still an A tier CoD campaign
See, that Sith situation is exactly why Darth Bane killed them all off and established the Rule of Two.
I made this exact same point in another thread.
Man, the first and last one were some big yikes stories, the last one being some pretty heavy stuff, but I’m glad OP was able to get some closure at the end of it.
"yikes" stories?
@@cthulhupthagn5771 Eh, I could’ve described it a bit better, but basically these stories show how some situations with players can get incredibly disturbing fast. Therefore I had called them ‘yikes stories’, since that would be the appropriate reaction. Thankfully haven’t been in such situations before, although through crit-crab I hear about them.
@@cthulhupthagn5771 1½1²q we×
@@heyhellyco fafaasi
@@cthulhupthagn5771 aaysidsswq
Here’s a plot everyone is free to steal. First, you need to make a stereotypical DMPC ( I know, CRINGE. ) Run that character as expected, medieval equivalent of a superhero, always swooping in to save the day in spectacular fashion. Here’s the twist, though. Run an evil campaign. Let the players get away with expected shenanigans. But, every time they come close to accomplishing something truly, monumentally evil, Hero Guy shows up. He thwarts their plot, rescues the oppressed, and completely misses their involvement in whatever he just stopped. If their involvement is too obvious to ignore, he treats them as unwitting pawns he just rescued, refusing to believe that they could possibly be the source of the evil plots. This is because of his history. Hero Guy was once a typical adventurer. Over the course of a long campaign, his party kept finding that every evil plot had connections to a single BBEG. But, they never got to confront him. Hero Guy slowly became obsessed. Now, every evil he encounters, in his mind, is directly connected to that BBEG. The kicker? BBEG retired over a decade ago. I hope others have as much fun with this as I did. 🤠👍
thanks pal
That is gold. No. Platinum.
I had an NPC like that, but in reality he was actually the BBEG, the whole campaign revolved around them finding these items in time to prevent the portal of hell from opening up and allowing an army of demons to walk through. What the players did not know is the items they were gathering were actually what was going to open the portal. (The NPC had brainwashed another NPC to give the quest, and the NPC was helping the party on said quest)
Anyway they find the final piece he no longer plays the hero as he kicked them down and grabs the item to open a portal. He opens the portal and we go from one thing to a full 180 on theme as the demons escape through the portal and overrun the world. It is pretty fun when your NPCs are all villains, cockling at the party's misfortune.
Pandemic hit so campaign got shut down, but was fun while it lasted.
I never got why some groups have trouble with evil campaigns. Its just playing the other side. Replace BBEG with BBGG, you have the same choice of evil in control trying to stop good from liberating, or good in control trying to stop evil from wreaking havoc. Throw in whatever twists you want, x guy is really good/evil/lying or whatever, they still work no matter the side applied to. My personal favorite is running a neutral campaign, though that does take a lot more pre-planning. You take your normal plot hooks, mcguffins, encounters, dungeons and so forth, but you build npc forces for both sides, have a BBEG and a BBGG and put everything on a timeline, with a branch for either outcome at each plot point. The party is able to join either side, play them against each other, be double agents or eff about doing random crap. No matter what their choice you are already prepared for them to raid, defend, or infiltrate all your major locations. The kicker is when something comes up on the secret timeline, if the party isnt involved you simulate the battle between sessions. Theres many videogames that can do this for you for extra fun and surprise. If the party is involved, they replace the force on whatever side they have chosen, and if they are still undecided you have them come upon the battle, if they dont interfere just roll % for each side to pick the winner or make it a three way brawl. You dont get bogged down if the party decides to waffle about because you have things planned out in the background, and the world evolves around them and can spur them into action without having to put them on rails. If it gets too random you can always have one side or the other try to conscript them to force them into making a choice, but that should be a last resort. If you want you can do all out war with a dangerous front line that moves randomly with regions/cities changing hands. Bonus points if theres no black and white, but both sides are some shade of gray. If one side or the other wins too much and it becomes too easy or hard this isnt a bad thing, just an opportunity to either have things go suddenly horribly wrong, or to be saved at the last moment even though it looks like all is lost by ditching the random outcomes until things even out. The party gets to help shape events, and everyone gets to see a story unfold that not even the dm really knows how it will turn out.
That would get old really quickly for your party unless you let them brutally butcher him.
My tiefling paladin is a moron. I don't know how many times I've said "guys I'm sorry for this but she is stupid" before my character does something stupid that normally results in her almost dying or at least starting a fight that could have been avoided. The good thing is normally she only ends up hurting herself so it's all in good fun
I mean, fair. As long as it isn't too much of a hassle for yhe other party members.
So far my CN Warlock hasn't done anything to harm the party, just nearly gotten himself killed by spur of the moment decisions.
@@WinterPains my two most resent things were pulling out a javelin that was impaled in my stomach and almost dying
Then next campaign I ran right at the BBEG who was holding someone hostage (I was trying free the hostage) and almost got myself kidnapped
@@jennydorrance1884 Lmao, yeah, thats fair.
Damian accidentally hit the Demogorgon and nearly got drowned by its hypnotic gaze. Then when it forced us to fight in a dream, I fired at it, on purpose this time, and got bitchslapped into the ground.
I also potentially lost us our travel (Out of the Abyss, so having to travel around a lake) guide and boat by choosing to hang out with an NPC.
My goblin bard accidentally while interrogating a member of an organization called the black hand in the dukes dungeon told about how they were gonna kill the duke (who was evil) a bit to loudly while trying to get them talk somehow cause they weren't being very cooperative (probably cause the party was the one who got them locked up haha) anyway the duke hears fight ensues and we all just barely make it out with our lives by making a deal to do some work for the duke it was fun and I think was also an interesting character moment cause honestly Kaerum is a bit of a loudmouth
See, what you're doing can be a lot of fun at the table when done right. My cousin is your standard moronic barbarian and does get us in trouble sometimes. But we agreed at the beginning that he's in my character's employ as a bodyguard, so my character knows how to distract him when he gets that glint in his eye of a particularly stupid idea. It makes for a fun table dynamic. Sometimes he gets by her though. Once while he had watch, he opened one of the crates we were supposed to be blindly transporting cause he was convinced it had something amazing in it. He broke the crate in doing so. We spent the whole voyage trying to figure out how to repair the crate of black market drugs so that our employers wouldn't kill us when we arrived in port. He doesn't get to take watch alone anymore lol. Like yeah it was a hassle and stressful enough that I was thinking about it outside of game trying to solve the problem. But it was certainly interesting, and it made the mission feel more real.
That last one hit different. I was in a similar relationship once, and although it didn't include literal rape like this story did, the in-game stuff was almost identical to what I went through, and I was often left feeling dejected and useless, and there was sometimes physical violence as well. My abuser would always shrug it off, saying things like "it's normal for friends to rough house" and act like I was a bad friend for getting upset about it. Oh yeah, by the way... we weren't actually in a "romantic" relationship. On the surface, we were just friends and room mates, but the more I think about that time, the more I realize that it really was an abusive relationship in all but name.
I did eventually move out, and a couple of years later, said "friend" literally begged me to start an actual relationship with them. Now, in the time between, we kept up with eac hother, and I would hear frequently about all the "progress" said friend had made. But that night, while they were begging me to start dating them, they straight up told me that "he never felt like anything was wrong." which immediately told me that I had been a fool to trust them at all. I told them that they could spend the night (it was late and there had been drinking) but I would be sleeping on the couch in another room, and I wanted them gone by morning.
I honestly wasn't even mad at them by this point. I felt sorry for them. They were just a mewling, pathetic bag of bones with no idea how to love anybody but themselves.
I'm glad you didn't start a relationship with them after the crap they've pulled. You got it right, this would not have been good for any of you; I hope this person isn't even part of your life now.
A friendship is a relationship too just a platonic one also god damn that sucks and I'm glad you didn't let them back into your life for too long
"It's normal for friends to roughhouse"?
No it's not.
It's normal for playful banter, or even sometimes physical altercation, but _only_ if both people are okay with it. The moment they called you a bad friend for disliking it was the moment I would have just walked out. If someone doesn't respect me and my feelings, they don't deserve to be a friend.
Good on you for eventually getting out of it, doomed to failure from the start.
Yooo it's so weird our story got on there (the first one) small update, Monk apologised but none of us want him back because we know it just won't work and he agrees
Glad he apologized.
But yeah, if that's going to be how he acts, you can still be friends, but DnD is kind of just... off the table entirely.
@@Nerketur i can't rlly be friends with him anymore as it relates to some trauma I have so it's more of a mental health thing but yakno it is what it is
I find it somewhat humorous that a monk was played by the least chill person at the table.
@@actualteddybear891 haha true
@@creative_cloud024 You still have fun with the rest of the group though?
for the absolute horror of the last story, I got to say I like that our Crab overlord approaches it with seriousness and understanding is heartwarming to me. All too often such stories are taken lightly or worse, made into a joke. This kind of thing is not okay and CritCrab very clearly and unequivocally takes a stand against it. And I very much appreciate that.
Thank you so much for the warnings about the last story, the pause to say "this is not ok" and treating such a horrific story with the seriousness it deserved. I also really understand your difficulty with actually reading out the details. That's a very heavy thing to talk about. I'm glad the OP had friend for moral support and they both escaped such a toxic person.
When we get into situations where it's "what my character would do" it's normally more like "why would you sneak up on the twitchy wizard who responds to being startled using firebolt?"
Why yes, I did get hit with a firebolt in the face, why do you ask?
And the last story is just...no.
Yea. It also works perfectly when you get Mind controlled or have an effect that turns you evil. The ultimate time to "It's what my character would do". My character once in the dream realm read a book. Mein Kamph and turned Nazi and started to try and get everyone else to read the book. They didn't ofc because they where smarter than that. But I love when I can play my mind control myself. Also let's me stop it from getting to self destructive in ways I don't want that the DM might have pushed it :P
Fun. I got bitch slapped by the demigorgon because my warlock knew that betraying the party at that moment would be a bad decision when he already wasn't on good terms with the barbarian of the party, who was less than 10 feet away.
So he shot eldritch blast at the prince of demons.
The line for "It's what my character would do!" lays between it actually being how your character would act as you've made their personality and nature in order to play them consistently, and it being something you want to do that's going to be a dick move and blaming your character for it while expecting little to no consequence.
For example, if you're playing a recovering kleptomaniac who has fallen to their greed and is trying to steal something, even though they know it's wrong and getting caught will get them and their comrades into trouble, reminding your party members of this beforehand (or better yet, demonstratng it in-game) so they have chance to try and stop you shows that you're trying to be true to your character; whereas doing it out of the blue without any good reason other than "It'S wHaT mY cHaRaCtEr WoUlD dO!!1!" since you've never made it part of their personality until now, then get upset that you got caught and are now being sent to prison, it's just being the Chaotic Stupid-alligned That Guy at that point.
Story 1- Monk was an idiot- OP and friends dodged a bullet there.
Story 2- No harm no foul here but it looks like everyone realized that maybe it's not really all that fun to play an evil party.
Story 3- DM has a lot of rage and anger that they were obviously tying to deal with by using- and I do mean use- OP. DM needs help IRL and out but I doubt that they ever got it as I'm sure they see nothing wrong with their actions.
Somehow Story 3 was red flag after red flag. If somebody's defense to the suggestion of you abusing them is "your ex was worse", that doesn't mean that they're justified in treating somebody like shit.
As someone who's been in the same situation as OP from 3 was in, it doesn't necessarily need to be anger and rage that fuel it. There doesn't need to be any reason for it, they just *do* it. There's no valid enough excuse in the world for what they did.
If you want to do an evil party, you gotta take notes from a Mob Movie. Being professional criminals helps reigns in the party, organizes them, etc.
Nah, the story 3 DM does not deserve a redemption arc.
i once ragequit a campaign, but it was because i made it clear to the dm "i want to make a tanky character, dont care about damage or spellcasting or utility, just make me hard to kill" and while leaving the tavern i get literally oneshot by a sneak attack from an "unseen figure", instant death.
These are the types of DM that I actively reprimand when I see them. If you don’t like what the players are doing, talk to them. If they persist in their way, then run with it.
That could just be luck of the dice. Characters with sneak attack can stack up stupid amounts of damage in the right situation. If you were level 1 then a good sneak attack is probably enough. If you were high level though the DM is lame.
@@hunterirey920 Consider the following, though. It was as soon as he left the tavern... immediately after creating the character... during session 1. Why would you ever put in an enemy in session 1 that can kill the players without a chance to respond?
@@hunterirey920 I think the "leaving the tavern" was literally the beginning of the campaign (stereotypical meet in tavern scene). So in summary, start, meet party, maybe get quest, die to bs reasons.
@@hunterirey920 Ok but this is a case where DM discretion comes into it, if you accidentally crit a player to death with a sneak attack from an enemy that was overlevelled for the party right after leaving the tavern they start in you say "An arrow whizzes by your head".
That last story.... Oh geez, can we just go beyond Horror and give this a YIKES rating instead?
I see how having adult-fun-time until one or both pass out can be a kink, but it's only a good kink if both sides are actually into it
what went down in that last story wasn't kinky or hot at all, that was OP being used like a tool and being abused
people have a right to say no or stop having adult-fun-time when they've had enough, what OP went through was just icky
Consent is key, and it can't be forced like at the start of the story.
Reminds me of my childhood. Consent can be hard to get from a six year old. Of course Dad swore it was my idea. At six. Thirty-one years later and it, and the eleven years following it, still bother me. Still, I'm alive and he's not. I'm a broken lunatic, but I'm alive.
Sorry. Just needed to vent a bit. After my Dad and my abusive-asshole-pseudo-friend-with-benefits in my teens, consent is a huge thing for me. Sorry. Venting again.
But I'm alive.
@@cody-adricharper5848 Therapy. NOW. o_o
(that is if you haven't gotten any yet and if you are able to afford it)
@@RhiannonSmudge Thank you. I've had therapy. I am diagnosed with severe clinical depression, PTSD with psychosis, and paranoid schizophrenia. I'm also on the spectrum. But with (tons of) medication as well as therapy and more recently ECT I am doing better than I have in years. It's still a challenge but there's hope. And I'm alive. I have survived all the things life has thrown at me like severe ongoing abuse or a brain tumor and I intend to keep surviving whatever it tosses my way. I don't quit. I didn't know how.
Again, thank you for caring. Tiny reminders that people care are huge for those like me.
@@cody-adricharper5848 Hey, good for you. Keep on chugging along, things will get easier with time
“He would do unspeakable things to him until he loses consciousness”
*Jazz music stops*
“I didn’t know how to handle this because she was also doing this to me in real life”
*J A Z Z M U S I C S T O P S*
(God please don’t ever do this)
(The Bard does not like this)
It went from "ₒₕ" to "𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙃 𝙉𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊
"
@@jackmack4181 **NOBODY LIKED THAT**
Hol up I haven't gotten that far yet
that went from like 30 to 200 real quick
That first story warmed my heart. Monk displayed some red flags, was given a fair chance, and blew it. The OP's group response was the textbook definition of "we don't start trouble, we finish it instead." _[chef's kiss]_ :3
Nothing better then coming home after a long day at work for dinner and see critcrab uploaded 🦀 🦀
:D
Amen to that :3 long live our favorate crab :3
*than*
Being an adult and knowing the difference between then and than is sweet, too.
There's a distinct irony to the thumbnail being of a character who never gives up and never treats people poorly, on a video about a guy being mean to people and then ragequitting
To be fair, they're also both loud and obnoxious (at least at first, in the case of Asta, can't entirely speak on him from later in the story).
Asta reminds me a lot of Naruto - both characters had an ultimate goal that they striving for (Asta to become the Wizard King, and Naruto to become the Hokage (which he eventually accomplished)). and neither have given up their goals.
You mean... almost every anime protag ever?
@@josephmatthews7698no
@@josephmatthews7698no
"If you enjoyed this video"
Well I did not, but that's kind of why I'm here, isn't it?
Finally. I've had a hankering for some crab.
Time for crab
🦀🕙
When used properly and in an understandable way, "It is what my character would do." can lead to some GLORIOUS moments. For the most part, my friends group understands this, and it is how we have had some truly epic and/or heart wrenching moments in our games.
2nd story - if the betrayal had succeeded, would Chubs have let his friends' characters live?
That last one didn't just begin with a Red Flag, it flew off the shores bearing a Crimson Sail.
I'm gonna say it,"That's what my character would do" is completely valid and should be held up with more legitimacy. I had a Rouge get mad irl when a Paladin told the city guard that he stole from the city. It's dumb to act in a way where you would rather a character behave in a way that's different from what they've done in the past to benefit you or the story.
I agree. I think the hate for that sentence comes from many worse players using it to excuse doing dumb shit that is probably not even in character to begin with.
But take a character I play. If you try to do something against her people she will fight you. Be that player or an encounter that really should not be had.
If you have a character you are roleplaying in this Roleplaying game. It should not be taboo to roleplay them. But you also should not make a character who's entire thing is stealing from everyone including party members and then excuse it with "It's what my character would do". Because at that point you have just made a character that only exists to go against the party. Had one of those as well in a game I played in.
@@redholm exactly! And if it's that bad for the character to have a specific trait, the GM/DM should say something about it in the zero session
@@martherapper3200 Yea. If the GM spots a trait that will be nothing but negative for the party they should nip that in the bud Session zero.
Rogue.
Lol, experienced player raging for being attacked by a goblin? I'm literally laughing here.
I heard it as a first time player but know it all because they read the books. But still a goblin, yikes.
When CC paused the first time in the third story, I was already waving that big red flag. Thank you for pointing it out CritCrab, as it can be an easily missed thing. The person is nice, cute, and it's flattering that they're trying that hard to get your attention. Haven't had it happen to me, but I can see how it could work on me
If I ever make a bard, I'm making him a Eunuch.
I'm so tired of this rubbish "if you're a bard, you've got to be a constantly randy freak who'll give it to literally anyone and anything".
I mean.... to be fair.... a lot of musicians IRL /are/ freaks...
@@nyxx5357 Hey, I'm musician and, well... carry on.
My bard *acts* like a debonair charmer, different girl every night, but he's actually never been intimate with anyone until very recently because of a trauma that ended with his best friend dead, someone he loved terrified of him, exiled from his family and his face half-coveree in scars.
In my current party, along side other characters there is also Paladin, a Warlock, a Bard, and myself as a Sorcerer. We each usually are the ones to talk and start flirtations, either as distractions or genuine interests, but my character is the only one who takes it further to try to get in bed with anyone, but regardless of how romantic it can sound up to that point, he always gets shy asking for "it" since he knows he's a freak but doesn't want to come across as one.
Bards are _supposed_ to be wandering seekers of knowledge and lore who use music and poetry to make the legends they find easy to remember and recite as a reference to the real world tradition of oral storytelling. RL Bards (and Druids) were sacrosanct in Celtic Europe, even the most powerful Gallic or Brythonic king listened to their advice and feared pissing them off. In a culture with no written language, anyone capable of memorizing and reciting every part of history that mattered at the drop of a hat was a certified badass whose status in society was unquestionable.
It’s that _ffffffffffucking_ Charisma stat requirement; it’s the reason Bards are seen as charming, attractive idiots whose purpose in life is to fuck everyone and everything they meet.
"Broke the straw on the camel's back."
*A few more of my favorite sayings down below*
"You can drink water to a horse but you can't make it lead."
"Birding one kill with two stones."
"Black calling the pot the kettle."
"You can catch more flies with honey but you catch more honies being fly."
Ironically, the Sith thing reminds me of the fact that there will always be 2 :)
(a failed betrail of the 3rd would have been great writing)
Eh, since this was during Revan and Malak's time, the "rule of 2" didn't really exist. The general concept or idea of it was being formed with Revan, but was not in practice until the Sith were nearly wiped out and Bane saw that all the in-fighting between Sith is what made them weak enough to be nearly destroyed completely.
Oh good, your alive, was worried actually.
You doing ok?
Yeah. I'll update you guys on what's been going on in the next video or two. It's been a wild month.
Good news is things are getting back to normal so I'm gonna be uploading more frequently from here out! 🦀🦀🦀
@@CritCrab I figured Something was going down, It's not like you to disappear.
I hope everything Goes well for you, Take your time, And stay cool
Oh my god, the group tamed a wolf in that cave in that module! That's literally what happened when our group played that part aswell xD
Good ole Ripper.
I’ve never been a dnd player, I don’t know how I came across your channel but I absolutely love the content you provide. You not only read these dnd horror stories but provide the audience with a voice of reason in between, I appreciate the work you put into these videos
Hey CritCrab I know you are probably not going to see this but I love your videos and just started building my 1st campaign and seeing that you are also a DM I only have that much more respect for you than I did before, now knowing now just how hard this is. Coming from a genuine fan I really hope you keep uploading quality content in the future!
In my experience "it's what my character would do" is only a problem when used to try to avoid the consequences of your actions. In one example I was playing in a game of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, my character being a black dragonborn and dragon sorcerer, had managed to convince a small group of kobolds that they were better following my orders than the dragon cult. But the barbarian wasn't happy with the fight ending, so she decided to keep killing the kobolds and was upset when my character first gave a warning to stop, and then fought back when she continued attacking my kobolds. The barbarian was upset "I'm just doing what my character would do" so I responded "and so am I".
I really like how when you do these multi story videos that you don’t put that little cut in the progress bar other channels would. Keeps the story invested.
On the topic of "its what my character would do" i have had to say this twice. Both in the same game, in the same session. I was playing a true neutral paladin of tyr. He had a little sister npc who he loved more than anything as she is the only family he has left. He will break his oath and murder anyone who brings harm to her. Well a few sessions into the campaign guess who we see sotting in a room unconscious surrounded by undead. I told the other players "sorry about this, but it is what he would do" (they said it was fine) and he kicked down the door and started killkng the undead without care for his or the partys well being. Soon the undead fled and in bursts a deamon hog, we kill it thanks to cheese on harolds part (ball barings + oil for the win) but then comes down a wizard girl harold has history with (harld is outspoken and blunt and she is sarcastic and rude. So they were destined to be enemys or friends. No in between) seeing her following in behind the demon hog harold assumed the worst. Threatened her to tell them why she is here, she is dodging the question. He has had enough and points his cross bow at her head, she doesnt back down. Luckily the part was able to defuse the situation. But yah, threatening a wizard girl and putting the party in a worse position for combat were the two times i have said "its what my character would do"
Player: turns against the party
Party: turns against the player in response
Player: surprised Pikachu face
Tbh it’s what my character would do is always justified in my playgroups, I’ve never had an issue with it… although I’ve heard horror story’s of murder hobos etc
oh good gawd O_o That kast stry is just horrific. I don't know who this person is but I'm so sorry they went through all of that. Ugghh why are some people THAT horrible
"...broke the straw on the camel's back..." What!? Lol
That last story fucking gutted me. Holy fucking shit. That hurt deep- I’ve been in campaigns that forced my character to be in situations. I’m lucky I didn’t get it out of game. I’m glad they got out and have a better area now
After reading all of these "Real Housewifes" drama sessions people have I am so glad I have a group that can get together, laugh at our fumbles, and battle (or befriend) some interesting monsters.
"But we're a party! Mercy!"
"There is no mercy."
Forgiveness is not the way of the Sith.
I get around the “it’s what my character would do” situations, by announcing almost OOC that “due to the party’s history, they can tell I’m about to do (something stupid)” but literally a stern look would shut it down. Because sometimes, doing stupid stuff is great for the party, but sometimes the party could get sick of it.
So this gives you the chance to RP the destructive parts of your character while giving the party a chance to NOT actually suffer the effects.
It shouldn't be seen as toxic to Roleplay a stupid character doing something stupid. I find the glares from the party to be the toxic part of that. I am truly against metagaming like that, because it removes player agency. I've had issues with toxic Tacticians before, so I personally will never let the party dictate what my character does OOC.
It depends on context. I would argue infighting is the whole point of playing Sith.
The PSA timeout on the last story is absolutely true. Nothing to do with DnD, but at the start of this year a friend we now call "It" booted me out in below zero weather and tried to take all of my worldly possessions for herself or destroy them because she was rejected multiple times (politely) and when she realized I wasn't going to sleep with her (after hitting on me in front of my girlfriend on a call once even), she became hostile. Never EVER tolerate someone who can't take no for an answer, gender or orientation doesn't matter. If they lay off and you develop a relationship naturally later then that can be cool. But the point stands in all things. Never bother with someone that presses you and if you have that feeling back out, be it a game or a personal relationship.
The thing people should think about when creating a character is to make sure that it has the least possible chances to do actions in the Party's demerit.
For example : say that your character got some hatred towards Tiefling.
If you go to a tiefling antagonist that act like a jerk, people will understand that you may act without care even if it may be problematic for your group.
If said Tiefling is an ally, anything more than being suspicious, especially making said person an antagonist, goes against the party's goal.
I'm living for the melodrama of the Star Wars campaign story. So fun to hear.
1st story reminds me of my own session 1 in my friends campaign where I play a somewhat brutish cleric. I was excited to get into the action, but the first turn of first combat was a skeleton critting on me and leaving me at 1 hp. It was more funny than frustrating, and he's been in his fair share of harm's way dragging the other party members out of bad situations since, but he's appreciated, which I appreciate.
Sorry to 3rd OP as well. No one should have to endure 2 awful relationships in a row like that. I'm glad they're doing better.
Seeing the Crab Lord post in this dark time for me gives me utter happiness
I love that you always call out the really bad stuff when you see it and tell people not to ignore that kind of thing. I have a lot of respect for our crab overlord.
Also, the way you say worldanvil is really cute for some reason. world an vil hehe
Kind of triggered the second OP misspelled “Malak” into “Malick”.
“It’s what my character would do” can be really taboo because of how it’s used by people who are trolling and being a jerk for no good reason. But it’s also a really valid reason when you’ve fleshed out your character and have personality traits that would lead them to a decision. Before I’m about to do a story changing decision, I often list a majority of the main issues going through my character’s mind, key things that happened in the past, and then make the decision where other players would know every reason.
With the sith and sith lore, they’ve practically killed one another from infighting and for greater power and betrayal was met with death or you would be at risk of being betrayed again. But at least they were able to come to a good conclusion.
I wanted to stick until the end but I couldn't, so....I want to thank you, both for being so respectful and calm about such situations, even though I got a panic attack halfway through that story I watched other videos of you since your voice is very soothing and welcoming...thank you once again
Edit: I'm terrible at english, so I apologize profusely
I actually got yelled at for fighting with my party because they wanted to set fire to a giant spider den where we didn’t know if anyone was alive in it. Me being a good cleric I wasn’t gonna risk killing innocent people. They were super pissed I wasn’t metagaming even we the dm confirmed no one was in there but it not like our characters know or could confirm that without going in
Personally, I'd have made the same call as you.
@@BlueTressym thank you
I’m happy I started playing dnd a few months ago. Kinda trapped in the first village but the next session should be the last one in the village. It’s a part of me a new player, another new player, an experienced player and dm who was playing, and a new dm. It’s been a learning experience the first two sessions but we eventually found our ground and really started to get the story going.
I recommend you a build i made, it has a maximum of 56 CA, and the enemies have costant disvantage to attack you, and you can use specular image, oh and you have the "lucky" feat, so we can say they have to make five natural twenties in a row
Telling my partner that their reddit post got put in the video to the crab army the excitement in their voice has made my day :D
Glory to the crab army
I hope your partner isn't the op from the third story! If they are, tell them they are incredibly scoping for surfing and getting out, and I'm glad they're in a better space both irl and in gaming.
@@lindafreeman7030 first one but damn that 3rd one was rough hope they're alright
The part about DM pausing a game to DO THINGS with a player seems surreal and bizzare. I cannot imagine something like this happening irl.
When one butts heads with the DM, know when to back down, or be hardheaded enough to deal with the headache that one gets afterwards, or know when either one can be done safely.
Case in point - the DM who lead the group I was in had 20 years of experience, and my interaction after 2 months with the group - Mind you, Artificial DM showed the story in his "My D&D Character becomes the BBEG | RPG Glory Stories" video, at about 10 minutes in, so I'll summarize it here.
Basically, at the time, the DM had 20 years of experience playing tabletop games (D&D3.5 onwards), and I had 2 months. It was D&D5e, and it was late October/early November. We had an argument over the existence of the Celestial Warlock - I thought it to be Official, and he thought it was homebrewed/third-party (which he had a rule against). He basically told me to prove it was Official. I didn't have the books - couldn't prove it.
Then I went to the library, and found Xanathar's Guide to Everything - page 54 has the Celestial Warlock.
Next session, I showed it to him - dude did the Thousand Yard Stare one sees in shell-shocked soldiers in war movies. A player sitting across from him, looked at me and said "I think you broke him." It took him a minute to recover - he gave me a look of shock, awe, and respect. He got his own copy of that book soon after. (To be fair, he only had the Core Trio prior to this, and most others used their extra books only for spells, if they even had them.)
After this, we expanded things to non-core races and subclasses. Sadly, 2020 being what it was, and with him moving, haven't played with him for a year. Still, we text each other every so often. Told him about Ravenloft and showed him all the books I've gotten (all published hardcovered adventures, campaign settings, and rule supplemental material as of today - August 22, 2021). He was impressed. He also had hopes that I'd become a DM myself. Might happen.
I just woke up. Had horrible nightmares all night. But at least I opened up youtube and saw a new CC video. Morning saved.
Legit. That last story made me so uncomfortable I couldn't finish watching the video, my condolences for the person who had to go through that.
The last story got me. In 2020, I was in a horribly abusive relationship, full of SA and abuse, and she used similar excuses (though she's cis, and I'm nb, which she wouldn't respect)
That first story reminded me of an interaction I had a year ago. Someone I'd met from a previous community (I didn't know them in the community, but we came from the same one) started telling me about a DnD-esque RP group he and a few of his friends participated in. It was a private sci-fi community and I thought it sounded interesting, so he invited me out to view a session and see how things are done.
The very first session I attended, his character made a decision that put him in view of a bunch of sharpshooters and he was all by himself (player choice, not random rolls or anything), so of course everything started targeting him... and he was pissed off about this. He started raging and ranting about how it was bullshit that he was being taken out of the session so early on, meanwhile I'm sitting here like 'dude, these are the consequences of your actions'. I didn't say that out loud since he was already pissed off and my commentary would only fuel his rage, but the day after it happened when he was apologizing to *me* of all people, I told him it made me not want to participate if I needed to see more of that. He said it wouldn't happen again and I thought that was the end of it.
A few more situations like that, as well as some decisions he made from an administrative level, made me just stop coming to their sessions.
These games are supposed to be fun... so when people rage about something, it's so uncool for the people around you who are trying to enjoy themselves.
that first story sounds like a guy who doesn't understand this isn't a video game lol.
On the ‘Thats what my character would do’ thing, I believe that it’s something a player would have to earn in a way. Someone who’s been with the group for a long time and we’ve already forged a bond of trust, that sort of thing. I can remember one time where I used it in a CoC game. Really long story short, we were investigating a painter who possibly had some information for us and my character (who had seen this guy in a vision painting a portrait of his missing lover) immediately asks him about the painting he saw. The painter mentioned it could be in his locked cabinet but didn’t want to give them the key out of fear. So I try to intimidate him, didn’t roll high enough, and attempted to ‘push’ the roll by pulling out my gun. Well, one gunshot to the gut later (it was on accident I promise) I had the key and the group questioned why I shot this man. I reasoned that my character had been searching for his lover for at least two years with no lead, here was his lead, and he was remorseful that he shot the dude but he was getting into that cabinet so help him god!
Anyway, I had a great track record with the group and it was technically an NPC so it was allowed. If I were shooting another player I imagine it would kick up way more of a fuss but at that point just talk to the other player. Come to an agreement beforehand and start throwing dice!
I know a pos just like the last one, my absolute god. One of my best friends had to deal with that horrid person forever thank god shes free now.
"He's one of those Minecraft ragequit videos.."
Me currently playing Minecraft while listening to the stories: "Huh.." ;)
The “sith killing betrayed lover” thing is exactly what happened between Anakin and Padme
"Its what my character would do" is the line of reasoning one should follow to prevent themselves from metagaming, but sadly is misused to try and justify out of character actions or behaviors. If it fits the character there shouldn't be a need to explain it. Don't be afraid to ask yourself what your character would do, it can strengthen the rp and help reduce the temptation to use player knowledge your pc doesn't have.
Jesus H. CritCrab, that last story is utter nightmare fuel.
I felt the third story. Only friend i had in high school basically forced me to do "favors" for him in order to be friends with him. Me being frim a broken home, thought all of that was natural. When i learned it wasn't i was so hurt
love the 'tungsten rod from orbit' bit. great reference
That star wars one, both of them were in character. I get being upset about losing a character but I'm glad they stayed friends
I wish i had your quote about "its just what my character would do" Ive dealt with some crazy jackasses and it is a perfect summation.
Rule #1 DM has final say, sit down and shut up, monk.
Really good Star Wars story. Was hearing John Williams in my head. Even during the real life argument.
The reason “It’s what my character would do” usually falls flat is because it highlights the issue of why the player would create a character who would do that in the first place.
Also crit, are you aware that your UA-cam avatar resembles the Pokémon Voltorb?
I think part of that is how well you know the person IRL. If you know the person is usually one way and they make a character that's the opposite of how they are in real life it's understandable because they probably wanted to see how it feels to be someone else. If you know the person is actually a jerk irl then they're probably using their character as an excuse to be a jerk without real consequences. It gets tricky when you don't really know the person well enough to know their motivation.
That Star Wars one sounds pretty cool, actually. Like, the campaign. I know it’s a little off topic, but I wanna try it
World Anvil is pretty great, the free version is totally usable and super helpful! Thanks for letting me know!
My in game headcanon is "The Monk" Exploded when he was hit like the Gambler in Jade Empire
That last one made me cry in both sorrow and rage.
I didn't realize D&D was coming back so much!
Man that molly chick....what a fucking champ/hero. May Bahamut bless her rolls with constant crit successes
I had a player like the first story once. he wasn't so happy when i countered him with "My table, my rules." and thats all i said to him when he tried to rules lawyer.
I had a player who was constantly looking up stats for monsters and so I would buff them ever so slightly just to see him get frustrated that it's "not what it says in the book."
At the third story, I literally waved my arms around and yelled, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"
"Who is Will Robinson?"
-"... The future is no fun."
"It's really not."
me hearing Kotor storylines listening to this while replaying * pacha meme*.
weird universe alignment
I just found your channel and I cannot get over how adorable your name is and the fact that you’re just a crab with a crown!Adorable avatar and awesome channel keep it up!
I play a satyr bard in a campaign with some friends. It really is fantastic getting to play a capricious character and have the others accept it as, "Well, he IS a satyr." Little things, like jumping out a broken window another party member had been thrown out of because it looked fun, and leaving a silver and a friendly note for a sleeping goblin guard we had to sneak past
Not sure if these stories are just rare exceptions or if I am just extremely lucky, but I played and GMed from Jr. High through college and after with at least 5-6 different groups of players, we played AD&D, Traveller, Champions, Shadowrun, and even the spoofy Paranoia. Never did we ever have issues like this. There were some players that didn’t like each other in real life, but even those tensions played out with hilarious in-game “whoopsie”s, and everyone, even those who didn’t really get along, knew it was a game and laughed it off because usually the in game results of the whoopsies were hilarious and were never fatal to the characters on the receiving end. I can’t imagine continuing to play with groups like in these stories where they are not fun and there is such toxic behavior…
New CritCrab video on my day off? I'm blessed.
I play with two groups, one being mostly newish players and the other has more experienced players. The group with more experience usually have a bit of an open discussion out of game about things that characters would and wouldn’t do. Since it’s an Eberron game and taking my warforged monk for example, I did pull out of a fight since it was against child soldiers situation. I had to go in real life so I did say that due to his time in war, he never liked going against child soldiers as it did not end well and he was truly trying to change his ways. It’s a nice way of saying “it’s what my character would do” but in a way where it didn’t harm people or ruin the whole moment as it was an in character ptsd thing and it wasn’t a dramatic issue. There was also a good reason why he wouldn’t want to harm them to begin with so everyone was fine
I jumped on my phone as soon as I got notified. Gonna be good
honestly in regards of the star wars campaign that sounds pretty awesome and i would like to try that idea
First Story: First mistake "session zero went bad but we thought it'd get better". The purpose of the session zero is to ensure that it weeds out the problem players. Second Story: Yeah it happens sometimes. It's just super shocking when it does happen. Third Story: Seeing those red flags are terrifying... but I am super glad the new DM gave closure to the OP. And cheers to the friend for helping in the OP's time of need.
Funnily enough, the rule the supposed know-it-all failed to familiarize themselves with was Rule 0.
The GM is the final arbiter of the game and they can change or make up things as they see fit.
That second story hit way too close to home with some eerily similar details.
Makes me compelled to send in my storytime. I'm SO glad OP got out of that situation
Fuckin yiiikes