If you're up to the challenge of writing a story worse than this one, post it on r/critcrab or emailing me directly at critcrabsubmissions@gmail. We'll be back next week. 🦀 Edit: Minor editing mistake at 17:50 💀⚰
Do you take older submissions? Or just more recent ones? I wrote a really good one some months ago (which unfortunately had to come from a couple really awful games)
LN Warforged with 3 intelligence. LE Drow wizard who easily manipulated him. The DM gave us an escort mission to take a giant explosive crystal from A to B. We had a sample of the crystal in hand. The two of us abandoned the mission, went to our previous boss, and blew up the floor under him while he sat at his desk wondering why we were back so soon. The rest of the party thought it was hilarious. The DM did not. High school was neato.
By “write up a new story,” do you mean actually create a completely fictional D&D horror story or do you mean submitting a story that actually happened to the submitter?
Creating an entire homebrew campaign for the sole purpose of removing any negative debuffs on his previous character would almost be admirable if it didn't involve subjecting actual players to this nightmare.
This is actually a really fun idea. I even know what I would do. I would have an NPC that gets turned into a lycanthrope or something, they are a powerful hero but people fear that change and being slain. The hero had not attacked the town and often protected it, it had been over a year and they went to uncurse this hero. Neat! Okay, so what can the hero not do? Well, he is a werewolf so let's just make it travel 30 days lest he transforms and makes the bad happen. The heroes had to transport him, they had to... IDK collect wolfbane to make the wolf not wolf and travel with them and they eventually get to the end and drop him in the dungeon on transform day. The BBEG burst out of the tower avoiding Wolf Boy. The party fights BBEG. They win wolf man comes out as a wolf but is still able to act rationally. Boom now the party has a powerful NPC that people are wary of because... well he is permanently a werewolf. There you go. Easy story.
If I were DM in the next game I'd let him bring that character into the campaign just so I can immediately strike him down with a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky.
The fact that they went with "Erm achually the ants are smart and avoid the traps" instead of something like "One of the ants gets killed by the traps but the remaining ones walk over its carcass, thus avoiding the remaining traps and forcing you to still fight most of the group" shows a lack of imagination from the DM (along with the other obvious issues pointed out in the video)
@basedeltazero714 Maybe not, but there were losses of bodily autonomy (forcible wearing of rings that cannot be removed) and non-consent to multiple situations the PCs found themselves in (Periwinkle's everything, the forced relocations, etc...)
I love that the first half of the campaign is just the party getting beaten unconscious and dragged away to different locations by various parties. It's like a campaign based off a Kenshi playthrough.
😂 only time I have my players dragged off after a beating is if the people that are fighting are Not invested in killing them for some reason. Perhaps the person that won is simply a wanderer looking for an equal and they refuse to kill something that cannot meet that threshold. Or maybe they were hired out and they reaaaaally know their boss is evil.
King: You shall be the next rightfull heir of the kingdom Narrator: Nah no thanks King: Rightfullheirsayswhat Narrator: What? King: Congrats you are now king *dies* Truly a roleplaying masterpiece this DM has a bright future
Next the main god of this whatever the plane is descends and points to you and says, MY TIME HAS COME, and you will be my heir! No, no, stop arguing, you are now the main god!
There's an episode of The South's Park where a character is annoyed at the main characters for always getting involved in these huge adventures, only to get swept up into some huge adventure himself. At every single step, he actively refuses to participate in the "call to action" but the world itself keeps forcing him onward at every inane step until, in his attempt to just walk away at the very end, he steps onto some chosen spot and becomes the avatar of salvation that defeats an evil gerbil or whatever. This honestly feels like the tabletop equivalent of that episode.
Mmm, I know what episode you are talking about commentor... and to clarify it wasn't an ordinary episodes but rather a multiparter episode by the name of Pandemic (no relation to Covid)
The fact that he continued to play D&D by himself really just demonstrates he wanted to write fanfic. Either that or he was trying to convince them to come back in a "Look how much fun I'm having! I bet you'd have fun, too, if you came back!"
I will say though there are solo supplements and they can be pretty fun if you roll with the bad. I used it to give some backstory to npcs once and it worked well enough honestly.
Honestly, railroading can be good sometimes. I had games where the players do not know what they are doing and take forever to make a decision. Just a little push into a direction can make all the difference.
@@puffer_frog Truly the nuanced take about railroading: the difference between providing a lightly directed storyline that guides the natural chaos of players (including OOC talks about what is or isn't prepared) and providing literally no other choice and even punishing player creativity. Even Hitman games are lightly railroaded, even if you don't realize, simply because you are given goals in every mission. Failing the mission is also an option, and there are many ways to fail, but not EVERY action will lead to failure or victory, and the game doesn't proceed if you choose to be stubborn.
@@puffer_frog that's not railroading. railroading is giving them no choices or making their choices have no impact so they are forced onto a very specific path no matter what.
The fact he continued to play by himself... Just go jack off at that point, you're the fucking DM, why do you even bother making yourself the eternal hero in your own story that you have full control over, I can't imagine any scenario where that is even remotely close to a fun way to spend your afternoons.
This is like if it were a squash and stretch cartoon and they were pushed in front of an oncoming train which pushed them to each location. Idk if that analogy makes sense but it’s what I pictured.
You know, back in the day there were a lot of webcomics out there that depicted some cartoonishly dysfunctional D&D campaigns. This really has that same energy.
1. Make the ants too strong to beat at level 3 2. Make them too smart for traps without any rolls, thus eliminating the possibility of leveling the playing field 3. Punish the players for not being strong enough to beat the overpowered ants by making sure they can't get stronger... I wouldn't have continued past this point without some satisfactory answers; keyword: satisfactory
Yea at that point as a DM you gotta be prepared for a player to pull you aside and shout "WHAT THE FUCK BRO?!" and if thats a problem....dont ask for tens or hundreds of hours of someone elses life. Had the same issue recently, honestly I would not be surprised if this was the same exact DM, well that or its a CR fanboy, or worse; the "I made a homebrew" guy that copy shit 1:1 off plebbit and presents everything as their own creations
You sound like a super fun person to play dnd with... please never ask a friend who hasn't dmed before to dm for you. Because you'll quit day one since they don't dm like mm
The constant abruptness, the hilariously/horrifyingly awful flow of the story, the ass pulls at every corner, good god. Thank you for bearing through that for such an enthralling video
Yeah I'm a little confused how this is the worse dm story he has on here . The ones with those topics you mentioned. I would think those would top this one as the worst dm horror story.
@@tubbersmatlock2732 perhaps its like... people being evil assholes is something i van comprehend. Person being so utterly out of touch? I struggle to imagine kind of thing.
Don't spare the feelings of people like this. Tell them upfront that what they are doing sucks and you are leaving and tell them why. If they respond with anything other than "i understand and I'm sorry," get them out of your group, and if he doesn't take the boot with grace, out of your LIFE!
Given that the DM continued to narrate the story to himself after all 2 players left, I have my doubts that any kind of critique could penetrate that density...
This. Like, just be honest. I know it’s harder to do when you’re younger, but it’s painful to just indulge people like this. I only guess they’re younger because I did this when I was young. Believe me, it feels good when you get older and learn to just say no.
Reminds me of the insect jars in Skyrim. Everything tells you “these are important things, they’re highly detailed and spread across the map” only to be a remnant of abandoned content. Only here the abandoned content never existed beyond a vague idea.
Given that the devil immediately sent his prisoners back, I'm surprised the PC didn't go 'cool, keeping the ring now'. Like, they had literally no reason to fulfill the quest anymore. And idk, a ring of curse dispelling sounds mighty helpful
Evil DM: the ring also has regeneration in it. So the severed finger with the ring regenerates a whole body and your character's body without the ring dies of bloodloss.
@@psevdhome I wouldn't put it past him. Though, this particular DM didn't seem so much evil as just stupid. Either way, I'm sure there would have been some outcome that basically amounted to "no; we still do what I want".
this is one of those bizarre stories where the dm actually doesnt do anything morally bad, non-consensual, bigoted or downright criminal BUT the sheer incompetency of his dungeon mastering turns him into the BBEG of all of dnd
Having them fight op insects, die, and wake up with the enemy gone, and having this repeat over and over is really funny to me for some reason. Definition of insanity and all that.
@vastowen i think we find it funny because it’s not like the players are foolish and keep attempting a combat encounter they should know they won’t be victorious in. The DM inexplicably insists that they fight these things, but then also makes absolutely sure that the PCs cannot ever defeat the enemies, just so that the stoker wizard can bail them out (the appearance of a stoner character would make me leave immediately, speaking as a stoner. I at least hope the writer of this story was just telling us that the wizard was the equivalent of a stoner and that the DM didn’t just insert weed into his world for the sole purpose of a character being a stoner)
Players: I just want to DO anything myself. I am not accepting your quest. DM: No. You are being railroaded. Here is another magic ring that forces you to participate.
DM: "You cannot remove the ring unless you find some magical bullshit I'll probably never let you get or encounter." Me: "I cut off my finger that the ring is on."
More like: "The ring jumps to a different finger on your hand." "Then I cut off that finger" "The ring jumps again" "I cut off all my fingers" "It turns into a magical c0ckring, jumps THRU your clothes and onto your dick. ....also, some giant moths appear and down you. You lay there bleeding, but don't die. You wake up 3 hours later, with the moths gone. But they have eaten your pants."
The start of this video sounded eerily familiar and I was the dm for a homebrew campaign. I was literally doing the Frank Castle "no no no" meme inside of my head because I thought I was the bad dm.
The one thing that really got to me was the “while you were talking, this irreversible happened”. It is a sheer and blatant refusal of “yes, and” in a way that doesn’t just not let the players play, but punishes them for playing
I absolutely hate the "goofy wizard" archetype. I once played in a game where the DM revealed that all of the fighting and questing that our party had done in our first five sessions had all just been an illusion that a powerful wizard had cast on our party for no reason other than as a prank. I promptly left that game that same night.
Could be done really well. In a previous group we had a game where we entered a tower to stop the big bad after being brought by a god of destiny for the sole purpose of preventing the big bad from creating a rift that'd destabilise the universe as we were the only party in the multi verse that could succeed. It was really hard, and we lost the whole part in the second session. At which point the DM just repeated the line about the god having brought us to the world to stop the villain, transporting us to the tower entrance. We were confused, and he explained what we'd missed. He was a god of destiny and we were destined to succeed, so any failure must really be just a single part of a wider fate. We loved it because our failure wasn't just washed away, it was a part of the challenge that we had to figure out each floor and what made our characters the only ones that could win.
It... actually kinda reminds me of my first DnD campaign. At lvl4 my barb had 23 AC and a battleaxe that hit 2d8 one-handed. The problem was the opposite though - the DM was mad that we steamrolled his encounters, so he threw harder and harder enemies at us - we were fighting a young red dragon at lvl3 at some point. Also we as a players were constantly reminding the DM his own lore because he was just spewing bullshit which differed from session to session. Then he tasked us to kill a god (lvl 4 party, yes), almost wiped us out by throwing TEN ARCTIC WOLVES (medium-sized for some reason, but full damage on ice breath) at us as a random encounter on the way, and when we finally came to the god-killing place it was all done in a cutscene without any input from us players. Next session was a oneshot because one of the players was missing, we spent 2.5 hours fighting an entire village of shapeshifters at lvl 1, and when the big boss rolled in blocking the exit we obviously died. So GM just goes "you wake up in a field, it was all a dream". At that point I just said "stop. get out" and thrown him out of my house (we played at my place). Never seen him again after that. That was a horrendous experience, but it started me on dnd and I started DMing myself with the thought "damn, I can do better". It was more then 5 years ago and I still DM, my players enjoy it, soo... All good that ends good?
damn 😭 that's actually gotta feel horrible to be such a shit DM that you're asked to leave. DM makes worst one shot campaign ever, asked to leave regular meet up.
There’s got to be a middle ground between the players in the video never standing up for themselves and your “stop get out” Like very simple “Hey man. It’s not fun when you do it like that. Here’s why (explanation) and now that you know please do better or I’ll have to take over as DM”
Literally just write a book at this point. Hell, find a single player rpg if you need a game mechanic that badly. Why involve other people at all if their input so clearly DOESN'T. MATTER.
This is one of those "Why are the other players even here at this point: just write a short story." Still, as incompetent as the DM is, I don't think this really comes anywhere close to approaching the worst we've seen. There are too many creeps, 'phobes and people who will assault players (sexually or otherwise) for this to really be "the worst."
I do think he meant worst in relation to DM-related things, but I do agree with you, if someone's being racist, creepy, sexist, assaults someone, ect. That is worse than just being bad at DM-ing
Ists and phobes in TTRPG are the same as ists and phobes outside of TTRPG and thus extremely uninteresting to read about. When I come to read an RPG horror story, it stands to reason I'd rather read about how RPGs can go wrong and not that intolerant people exist.
There is being a bad human (which the “we don’t speak to him for unrelated reasons” part suggests does apply to this man) and being a terrible storyteller and combat planner. I was about to say he at least didn’t fall into the “favoring a player” trap (…I wasn’t counting his DMPC…) but then remembered the ultimate carriage scene. He rolled critical failures on every skill necessary to play the class of DM, but within the limits of the story didn’t fail the “if aliens had to rate humanity by watching a few individual humans, would this guy have them ready to befriend us, ignore us, or build a highway where Earth used to be” test
Having the players quit only to keep playing the game by himself and messaging the former players about his DMPC's "progress" has to be one of the most pathetically sad things I've ever heard.
Oddly enough i actually gleaned a fun idea from this story. It started back at the fire ants avoiding the traps. So, the idea that i basically workshopped over the course of the video is a quest (or possibly even campaign) that involves hyper intelligent giant ants. Attacking in swarms but always retreating when too many of them start to die or get injured, but with each attack they learn and adapt to the player's tactics. For instance, if the party uses a lot of fire spells the ants may attack covered in some kind of viscous ooze that negates fire damage for a couple hits or if the party is composed mainly of melee fighters the ants may start showing up covered in a crude rock armor that gives them resistance to non-magical attacks. I think it still needs some work but i bet i could have fun with it.
I have a mountain encounter coming up in Borovia. Genuinely, thank you for this idea of you don't mind me using it. One thing that's felt restricting a bit in Borovia is it's very people centered meaning I can't really use the weirder or more interesting creatures without them standing way out (I have been using monsters from 1e here and there, obviously stat tooled for 5e). Sorry for the rant lol, everyone I talk to about the game are my players so things get bottled up lol
Even better: have them show up entirely unrelated to the actual story, like "OMG, it's the random ants again." with them slowly adapting to the PC's combat style. Then, plot twist, the PCs find out they're actually super important to the plot of whatever quest it is they're doing, and now they have to plan to fight an uber-ant-swarm that's a hard counter to whatever way they've been fighting. Allow particularly perceptive characters to recognise the ants' adaptation, and plan accordingly...
this is a player that has such a main character complex that it bleeds into everything they do. as a dm, they had to "win" every fight and control every conversation. ngl, many of the choices they made, like not telling the rogue everyone was in similar attire just to get them arrested with 0 reason so they could end up where the dm wanted, are traits of a first time dm and only bad dms continue to do them, which they did. as a player, they were the best, fastest, strongest, smartest, ect. as op stated toward the end, it really seems like all they wanted to do was write a story and had no clue how to translate that story into a playable dnd campaign. i honestly think the story could have been awesome and one the players would tell with reverence, not regret
@@supernovavortex3069 Can't post the link, but if you google "I Rolled a Zero", the first result is the blog where all of the entries of that story are collected. The story includes the most needlessly complex gaming system this side of FATAL, players completely stripped of agency, a DM who feels the need to drop rocks on them at any turn to remind them they don't matter, a game setting where the DM's self-insert became an omnipotent multiverse god before the game even began, and a giant mutant being taken down by exploding cheese bombs.
@@supernovavortex3069 I keep trying to tell you how to get there but my comments keep getting deleted. You can Google those terms and you should find it.
People only get like this after an entire life of no one ever telling them their idea sucks, or that they're bad at something. They survive on pity and honestly have no idea that they're awful because no one ever told them. This is why sometimes you have to tell people they suck
This entire thing sounds like the DM loving his character from CoS and wanting to give him a way to remain powerful but get rid of all of the detriments that came from the Amber Temple power-ups in a way that's canon to the character's backstory. That way, he can use the character in the future, and when anyone calls him out for being overpowered, he can just say, "No, me and Roy and OP played a campaign where they went on a quest and removed all my curses, so it's fine." Like, that straight-up feels like what this is, an excuse for the DM to keep his character overpowered and give anyone that questions it a backstory reason for how it happened. He probably has a write-up for how he escaped Barovia, and was chained up and sealed after killing a billion knights of the dwarven kingdom or whatever. With that ending... Yeah. That's exactly what it was. But even worse, because it wasn't even to use the character in other people's games. Just his own weird story to make his character The Coolest Guy Ever. So bizarre.
I'm at 4:39. Theres still 28 minutes left. HOW. You wake up to a dude shitting on a branch outside your window. Like. I'd probably stay the rest of the sesh but i almost certainly would not be back for the next one
My tipping point was the DMPC... cause of course this DM does it and also makes it RETCON his previous charater. Here's the thing you don't do with DMPCs. "Take away agency from your party" DMPCs should ONLY be inserted if they are part of the story or help enrich the story. Or are NPC they are traveling with. Heck I did this in my campaign and my party learned that "yes this DMPC is very powerful in magic" but also "Yes, they cant solve every problem" and "Yes, that amazing magic they hold came with a HIGH COST, making this DMPC laughably easy to kill and steal the powers from.. wich the chaotic players were wanting to try." So how did the party act on this? Didn't kill them, since someone asked me: "Can you kidnap my charater for a cool rescue arc?" I was like sure.. but you wouldn't be able to play.. so insted.. I'll let you play the DMPC while being kidnapped. They agreed and enjoyed their time having to be careful with this glass cannon of a DMPC. They saw why I kept this DMPC around... since two party members tend to cause minor conflicts within the party. (Wich I been stamping out heavily out of session). But the player used the wish spell to solve a puzzle that made two of our party members have abit of a fight. Currently... this campaign is still going on and I decided that two party members wanted to have a training to use my DMPC to give them a place to train fast so they don't feel like they might miss the story sequences. (They got a possible lead on the current big bad evil guy and want to confront him but also train up on some powers they aquired) So I used the DMPC to do just that... DMPC's cost? They won't be able to gain any training or levels in this period of time (thus under leveled) and is essentially unable to cast anything for the time of the training thus NO POWERFUL SPELLS at all to help the party. Now the party can only infer knowledge from the DMPC but anything else? Discover it on your own! And that in my opinion.. is what a powerful DMPC is. A mentor in this case. Or in this case an ancient being who has ancient knowledge but no current day knowledge and thus travels with the party to find out what happened during it's imprisonment.
Funny story about how my current DMPC got into position: they are/were planned to be the big bad, since they are bonded with a phantom of the former husband of the goddess of death who's trying to manipulate him and others into destroying everything in a bid to "free her". My original plan had been for him to help the party conduct a ritual for which they had to use a powerful artefact, only for him to steal the artefact. They end up catching him, but not before he gets the artefact to his confederate who does escape. No worries, I planned for this, they'll turn him over to the local guards of his hometown, they'll start out on their quest to recover the lost artefact, he'll eventually escape on his own and continue his plans and...wait, what do you mean you're not going to turn him into the guards? So, yeah, my DMPC is technically the player's prisoner.
Spot on! A DMPC isn’t a nuke activated by a button but instead a tool that can be used by players if they are smart enough to use it. Ex. The party in the last campaign I ran loved recruiting the low level employees of the people they fought against. They (party) ran a pub and would use that as a guise to poach enemy goons. It was a tag team effort by the bard and paladin of the group. They would distract and poach anyone they would while the more combat members fought those they couldn’t poach. One of the npcs they managed to poach was a minor baddie’s daughter. She was a okay ranger but where she really came into play (after becoming my a dmpc) is as a connection to nobility. She was able to get the party into rooms where they could manipulate the nobility of the city. She wasn’t particularly strong but her connections were incredibly useful. At the end of the campaign they party had to sneak into a gala being thrown at a museum. They couldn’t walk in since they were working class and didn’t have invitations. Since the gala was for nobility they asked me if the DMPC would have an invite. I liked the idea so I rolled for it with advantage. DMPC had a invite. But it was only for her and a plus one - so that the players couldn’t just wander into the party on the DMPC’s dime. They ended coming up with a plan where the DMPC and a PC would use the invitation, while the high charisma PC’s attempted to convince other attendees of the gala to allow them to be their plus ones, and while the high stealth PC’s got into position to sneak into the building with DMPC’s help. My players enjoyed making the plan and having agency of how they got into the party. They didn’t have to sneak in, they could use charisma or DMPC’s invitation. It made it more fun for them when the DMPC was a tool in a bigger plan than the plan themself.
There are too many resources on how to be a good DM out there for players to have to deal with this. You don't have to know the rules inside out, or spend hours writing a homebrew world. All you have to do is make sure your players are having fun. That's it. That's all it takes to be a good DM. Much love CritCrab. Good story, even though it's rage-inducing.
Kinda like that, but with a few additions: 1. What was supposed to be one-shot, on which 5 people agreed, turned into an open-world campaign. Just like that. There was a first-time player that agreed for one-shot just to understand what the game is. 2. The DM had a 90 MINUTE MONOLOGUE talking to himself, describing and "role-playing" some kind of a hall where other "heroes" were. The description was that the PC's weren't supposed to be main heroes - they were "another" heroes and they couldn't do a thing for 90 minutes. They were basically viewers, not players. 3. Combat. I'd like to say there were none, but there was. It was a stomp by PC's because... 4. He gave each PC some fucked up artifact, that raised their main stats to 24 or 26 as if it was BoGS on top of highly disbalanced features that I don't even care to remember. 5. Seeing as PC's stomping his brewed cool monsters, he went with "alright, Ill show you THIS" route. You're a warlock with a familiar? Nope, you can't summon him. Oh, are you a paladin? It's unfortunate that this random guy has IMMUNITY TO RADIANT DAMAGE. 6. Do I have to tell about railroaded plot, where PC's had a fucking astral leviathan at their disposal that was controlled by DM and did the job when PC's couldn't? 7. Adding a technologies as if in Mass Effect. Fortunately I didn't participated in any of this and was just a viewer but yeah. That was terrible at best. Not long after guy left the group for other reasons.
The DM just sounds like an F-list troll. Trolls on that shitty RP site will dedicate an inordinate amount of time to wasting yours with lies and "mistakes" to crush the spirit of socially awkward nerds.
As a campaign dm he is absolutely terrible, personality wise he is actually very decent compared to many featured before...at least he didn't scream, harass, blackmail or assault anyone...that's a positive...
"We aren't friend with him anymore for unrelated reasons" Undoubtedly true, but some of those reasons would've definitely been brought out theough his DMing, like not listening to his friends, need for control, stubbornness to always be right, etc. (all seem to point to narcissism tbh)
I have a horror story. I've been playing PBTA for years with friends and was always struggling to find a system we can like, as well as one I can find for conventions. Everytime I'd play with them, I'd have one player whose whole mentality was "Bored now, I'll figure out the rules later. Don't bother reading them out loud." "No backstory? No character? That's ok, I'll roll for random traits and work with those." The other? "Randem, LOLZ" or "ACTHULLY" (Whenever we'd do something with a canon. Turns out they were wrong.) The last is fine, I was able to work with them. As some of you know, PBTA can be very unforgiving early on and very roleplay heavy. Some games didn't have the rolls they wanted and they really didn't get the "work together" thing. And seemed surprised the mechanics were built around that. (Maybe they should've let me read the rules). So, I honestly tried to work with them. Tried to make a game they'd enjoy. I admit I went through a few systems, looking for something I can work with at a convention and some just didn't work. So I get a message the other day from the "Bored now" person, saying they made it clear they never wanted to play with me again, because I'd "jump systems whenever I couldn't control the game." Uhhh, no you just got mad because you never read the rules, didn't want me to read them and the rolls didn't work for them. I was feeling really awful about it. But, I just got back from a convention where I had 6 groups at least who were very happy with my GMing style, understood the game, etc. Some even wanted pictures with me to remember the good time. It still hurts that a friend would tell me something messed up like that. But I'm trying my best to move past it.
i am aware of what just happened. the "DM" of that story was angry and upset that his character got all those cool powers and he wasn't able to enjoy any of them because they had a cost to them... so he wrote the whole campaign, once his two "patsies" agreed to let him DM, with the intention of turning the tables on the "people that wronged him" this was not a campaign we just witnessed, this was -revenge-. it reeks of it. this child, Upset by the removal of agency of his character that was the consequences of his own actions made the new campaign that was designed to return his agency -AND- fuck over Roy and OP's characters in "similar ways" it's not really "bad DMmanship" it's simply a tantrum disguised as a D&D campaign. that went on for 8 sessions too long. the moment i would have left, and mark me as callous if you want to, but the moment i would have left is when they are "surrounded" by the poison thorn vines which were clearly meant to fuck over at least one of the players... and did not because the players were at least smart enough to not tempt fate like someone who accepted all the boons in a strahd campaign -at once- Sorry for the rant like nature of my comment, TLDR: the DM was throwing a tantrum, not DMing a D&D game.
Not even 5 minutes in, and I'm already convinced that Periwinkle is a self insert character. If this story were fake, and this DM weren't real, I would curse the one who wrote it instead. Because it would be the exact polar opposite of Tenacious D's Tribute.
15:30 around this point is when I tell the DM, "Shut up a second. Rocks fall, my character dies, his soul is unwilling to be resurrected. Bye." And walk out
I think we can learn a lot from it. It's the DM equivalent of a 90's staff training video where people who are obviously not actors read lines flatly at camera. Yes, Deborah, I will not swear at customers, or steal produce. Thanks. Now I might be negating my own point there but I think anyone who is a rookie DM should expose themselves to these stories, not just as a synopsis of what to avoid, but to gain insight into what annoys players. It can be hard to engage in feedback and knowing a little bit about what ticks off the group ahead of time is very useful.
There was so much random bullshit in the dm's story that was only there to justify not letting his players do something. This lesson didn't need this level of torment, but one thing to learn is this. Don't DM if you can't handle your players trying, and sometimes succeeding, to outsmart you. That's what they're supposed to do.
It is like with the gold rush, not going is preferable over trying to find gold, with little hope of success. But however the odds may seem (whatever behavior someone else has already brought to the table, with an extrodinary show of stubbornness in sight of an honest attempt to talk things out) the fantasy of getting to play good DnD seems to be worth all the trouble and keeps you trying to play instead of doing the smart thing.
Yeah this DM was just terrible, and I’m willing to bet money that his “hand crafted” world was just in fact some random story, world, or something he heavily “borrowed” or just flat out stole from that he think his dank wizard would fit in between this “game” was in fact just an excuse to write fanfiction. And when it comes to the players, the story makes it pretty clear the DM is very used to being a power gamer, thus is why he constantly kept giving the players overpowered stuff early on but still giving them impossible challenges, because he’s not actually used to any “normal” playstyle. And with that bit of the king forcing OPs character to be the next king was maybe the DM either again just trying to force his overpowers fantasy into his players, or they were trying to “bribe” them into staying to see their Dank wizard do cool stuff. Honestly I feel like this is a rare case where the players probably should have screamed at the DMs face telling him how bullshit and garbage his “game” was being its so blatantly obvious they need that reality check. I’m kinda afraid that maybe the only thing the dm took from this is that he can do whatever he wants in a dnd game as long as he’s DM due to the lack of repercussions or complaints thanks to the players biting their tongues, and for all we know, he could be trying to find people to play another “game” with him.
This line from Macbeth just came to mind... Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
You’re SO RIGHT about how satisfying it is to watch the cogs in your players’ heads turn! I’m running my first campaign as a DM for a few of my friends, and they just entered their first dungeon at level 3. (I’m running a more RP/story-heavy campaign, which all my players are totally on board with. They’ve had encounters before, but this is the first area of concentrated monsters they’ve encountered.) My players started session today at the beginning of a fight, then got a random chance encounter after that fight was done. My players haven’t long rested since they got to the dungeon, and when given a chance at downtime, only chose to short rest, leaving them underprepared for the boss character. One of my players managed to tame a curious young plesiosaur that would’ve been the last encounter before the boss, but they’re still down spell slots and health. I describe the area as having a cart with a hitch, but no horse, which gives my Druid the legitimately bright idea to wild shape into a horse and have her party members hitch her to the cart. Our Ranger is able to hook her up, and everybody gets into the cart, riding away to safety out of the dungeon. Did I plan that? No. Did it stomp on some information I wanted to impart on my players? Yes. Was it cool as hell? ABSOLUTELY! I have been completely prepared for EVERY scenario up until this. My players managed to stump me, and it was awesome!
I was literally just today thinking of how much I've been missing your videos! 😍 While I may be something of a 420 girl, the stoner wizard has to be the stupidest NPC I've encountered in these stories.
I watched a Den of the drake vid with a story similar to this one. Which makes me get whats happening here. This is one of those DMs that is just telling (improving) a "story". Not for the players, but for him self. And slapping a dnd tag so he can rope these 2 poor guys into his "hilareous" story.
Here's my guess of what happened: Spoiler alert, don't progress unless you have watched the video. -This guy got too attached to his character -He wanted all the power but none of the afflictions -He devised what is essentially a fanfic to give a reason for his character to have the curses removed -The fanfic was created with three goals in mind: 1) uncurse his cool, awesome, powerful character (his perspective) 2) subvert expectations (with all the subtlety of the Game of Thrones ending) 3) "Ooh, look at these cool monsters, I'll take these" (with no balancing considered) -He makes the players play through this fanfic -None of the monsters are balanced for the encounters, player level/numbers aren't considered; he just liked the way the monsters looked and crammed them all in. -The only parts of the "story" that were planned out were plot points. Nothing in between, the traveling, the landscape, the tunnels, or anything else was planned. -As a story, it had to play out only one way and no alternatives were planned, forcing the players down the railroad. -As the players initial reactions weren't looking good, he sped up the process to hit the plot points faster -He relished in getting to his favorite plot points: the reveal of his almighty character (presumably leveled from Curse of Strahd and fully booned out) and the final traitorous brother (honorable mentions for the rebels not being the actual kidnappers). -He also wanted to play his powerful character through the campaign and be the typical DMPC that everyone hates. -He genuinely thought the story was good despite being nothing more than an alpha-stage, bare bones storyboard played as a full game by actual people subjected to the experience. Does that sound about right?
Been trying to create challenging encounters myself lately, with the hopes that the players will start to use their heads and be smart. Instead, the players insist on being dumb about everything, then bitch at me when i kill the party. I'm screaming because i try my best to be lenient and give players chances, but i can only do so much if players ignore mechanics. How many times can a person smash their head against a wall and get mad at the wall before they realize their approach might be wrong?
I'll go through a checklist in situations like this: - Are you telegraphing the enemies enough? Make sure the players know what's coming up narratively. - Are your players aware of certain mechanics that are relevant, like called shots and such? If not, structure some fights that deliberately point it out. The Cyclops have an injured eye, the leg of a monster is wounded and it hops about, etc. - Are you describing the environment in such a way where players can figure out some creative ploy to use? Remember that players see the world less clearly than you do, so if there is an important detail, describe it a few times, spaced out well of course. - When players come up with some ploys, don't put TOO many dice rolls in the way. In fact, the first one or two times, just let them have it. They need to have positive reinforcement that creative problem solving will work and not just "I hack the beast with my sword and pray to god that it works" Best of luck!
If it helps, this did give me a possible idea for an NPC. Make that powerful wizard who is stuck with a bunch of curses and gone mad, and the PCs manage to 'fix' them... but only for like five minutes a day or something. Add the fact that using their magic drains the time they have sane faster, and this Wizard can only do so much to help the PCs. Would want to sit down and figure out the actual math, have some caveats that the Wizard can't just Wish away the problem with the time they have sane and other things.
In my opinion it feels like everyone is jumping at the throat of what is probably a new dm trying to keep the strings of his poorly woven world together. Although big reactions are good for content I think this DM should be given the benefit of the doubt.
I think the worst part about this is, aside from immature joke characters, this DM actually created an interesting campaign world and story. So much wasted potential because he wouldn't let the players participate in his story.
I feel like the DM wanted to do a funny, humor-focused campaign but once he realized that wasn't going to happen, he rushed them to the end of the story. Just threw all the major twists at the players rapid fire without wanting to change anything.
I want to point out that, yes. This DM was having a blast the entire time, as he was completely lost to the fantasy inside his own head. When the first campaign ended, he jumped to be able to DM his own campaign and by the end he was glowing with pride at what he put the players through. He even continued the story after they quit. I mean, he made intricate maps and put a ton of effort into this--and it went all according to plan. Sorry to make this nightmare worse for you CritCrab, but this guy wrote his self-insert-marysue-fanfic while he played the entire first campaign. He was having a blast the whole time and is probably still having a blast with all of his char's exploits even now. This guys absolutely believes he did a superb job. He probably feels he completely dwarfed the previous campaign with his legendary story. This guy was thinking FINALLY I GET MY MOMENT! I am sad to say, that I have encountered people like this in my life occasionally. They do exist, despite all reason and logic.
With regards the the first giant ant fight: I think the DM’s biggest mistake in that encounter was telling the players afterwards they were “supposed to win and level up.” That’s the time to keep your cards close to the chest. The players were probably feeling good they have survived, revealing what was “supposed to happen” only deflates the player’s spirits. Having a beat in your game when the PCs retreat from a formidable foe is fantastic for building tension in the story and it’s rare that happens organically in D&D.
So, if this happened to me, just half the time, I would ignore the DM, and whatever DM's saying, doesn't happen. Oh, he's gonna arrest me for something he didn't tell me. I'm just gonna pretend I wasn't arrested. I wonder around the bazzar, do I hear anything?
Critcrab, I'm gonna stop for a moment after the DMPC reveal and reaction to give this guy an infinitesimal amount of credit for having an idea and then immediately charge enough interest to bury our solar system in solidified debt by asking you why you don't think reversing the ending for his PC wasn't the whole point of the campaign in the first place.
If you're up to the challenge of writing a story worse than this one, post it on r/critcrab or emailing me directly at critcrabsubmissions@gmail. We'll be back next week. 🦀
Edit: Minor editing mistake at 17:50 💀⚰
Do you take older submissions? Or just more recent ones? I wrote a really good one some months ago (which unfortunately had to come from a couple really awful games)
LN Warforged with 3 intelligence. LE Drow wizard who easily manipulated him.
The DM gave us an escort mission to take a giant explosive crystal from A to B. We had a sample of the crystal in hand. The two of us abandoned the mission, went to our previous boss, and blew up the floor under him while he sat at his desk wondering why we were back so soon.
The rest of the party thought it was hilarious. The DM did not.
High school was neato.
By “write up a new story,” do you mean actually create a completely fictional D&D horror story or do you mean submitting a story that actually happened to the submitter?
@@luigiboi4244 Pretty sure he means actual story, lol. It's not like there's not enough of them out there.
I was curious about that editing mistake... the go to black and silence was still funny though.
Creating an entire homebrew campaign for the sole purpose of removing any negative debuffs on his previous character would almost be admirable if it didn't involve subjecting actual players to this nightmare.
This is actually a really fun idea. I even know what I would do. I would have an NPC that gets turned into a lycanthrope or something, they are a powerful hero but people fear that change and being slain.
The hero had not attacked the town and often protected it, it had been over a year and they went to uncurse this hero. Neat! Okay, so what can the hero not do? Well, he is a werewolf so let's just make it travel 30 days lest he transforms and makes the bad happen.
The heroes had to transport him, they had to... IDK collect wolfbane to make the wolf not wolf and travel with them and they eventually get to the end and drop him in the dungeon on transform day. The BBEG burst out of the tower avoiding Wolf Boy. The party fights BBEG. They win wolf man comes out as a wolf but is still able to act rationally.
Boom now the party has a powerful NPC that people are wary of because... well he is permanently a werewolf. There you go. Easy story.
@@n0etic_f0x Thats realy good. Nice low level villain, more anti hero, becoming an ally
If I were DM in the next game I'd let him bring that character into the campaign just so I can immediately strike him down with a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky.
yea like story wise on a meta and narrative level would be really cool
...but they had to deal with this DM which is a debuff on its own
So why the fuck were there giant ants again?
-Players spend time setting up a trap to help fight giant fire ants
-The fire ants bypass the trap and wreck the party
-"You were supposed to win!"
"Then hand us a flamethrower you wanker!"
if I was one of the players I would've snapped back with "then make it so we can win! don't have them bypass our traps or dang near one shot us!"
The fact that they went with "Erm achually the ants are smart and avoid the traps" instead of something like "One of the ants gets killed by the traps but the remaining ones walk over its carcass, thus avoiding the remaining traps and forcing you to still fight most of the group" shows a lack of imagination from the DM (along with the other obvious issues pointed out in the video)
@@keeganlafferty1395 ya but then it would be rigged take all the fun out of it
@@iforgot-fg2rk are you suggesting it wasn't already rigged?
Me during the story: “At least there wasn’t rape”
The bar is low, isn't it ?
I mean, there wasn't PHYSICAL rape, granted....
@@aikotitilai3820 If there is a bar, it's in hell
There was, however, actual sexual assault?
@basedeltazero714 Maybe not, but there were losses of bodily autonomy (forcible wearing of rings that cannot be removed) and non-consent to multiple situations the PCs found themselves in (Periwinkle's everything, the forced relocations, etc...)
I love that the first half of the campaign is just the party getting beaten unconscious and dragged away to different locations by various parties. It's like a campaign based off a Kenshi playthrough.
Lmao, perfect comparison
At least in Kenshi my skills go up, and I can choose who gets to kick my ass next~
@@003dylan, plus you actually have a chance to get to the level of a god after long enough.
@@unfortunateimperial6019 I wish I had enough patience to do that in Kenshi, but I always get worn out on the micromanaging
😂 only time I have my players dragged off after a beating is if the people that are fighting are Not invested in killing them for some reason. Perhaps the person that won is simply a wanderer looking for an equal and they refuse to kill something that cannot meet that threshold.
Or maybe they were hired out and they reaaaaally know their boss is evil.
King: You shall be the next rightfull heir of the kingdom
Narrator: Nah no thanks
King: Rightfullheirsayswhat
Narrator: What?
King: Congrats you are now king *dies*
Truly a roleplaying masterpiece this DM has a bright future
Next the main god of this whatever the plane is descends and points to you and says, MY TIME HAS COME, and you will be my heir! No, no, stop arguing, you are now the main god!
This comment hit so hard I need to make someone else king now
There's an episode of The South's Park where a character is annoyed at the main characters for always getting involved in these huge adventures, only to get swept up into some huge adventure himself. At every single step, he actively refuses to participate in the "call to action" but the world itself keeps forcing him onward at every inane step until, in his attempt to just walk away at the very end, he steps onto some chosen spot and becomes the avatar of salvation that defeats an evil gerbil or whatever.
This honestly feels like the tabletop equivalent of that episode.
What’s it called?
@@wolfherojohnson2766 I have no clue. It's not like South Park episodes flash their episode name at the start of each one.
Yeah the episode that also parodies Cloverfield right
@@wolfherojohnson2766 Pandemic and Pandemic 2: The Startling
Mmm, I know what episode you are talking about commentor... and to clarify it wasn't an ordinary episodes but rather a multiparter episode by the name of Pandemic (no relation to Covid)
The fact that he continued to play D&D by himself really just demonstrates he wanted to write fanfic. Either that or he was trying to convince them to come back in a "Look how much fun I'm having! I bet you'd have fun, too, if you came back!"
Just regular delusion at play
Yeah legit, at that point, just write a story about your overpowered hero OC like a normal person
I will say though there are solo supplements and they can be pretty fun if you roll with the bad. I used it to give some backstory to npcs once and it worked well enough honestly.
@@gerald216 I would be fine playing with one player, but I definitely do not see the appeal of being a DM for my own game.
@@miles3101 It's closer to a creative writing exercise where you let the dice drive the plot.
My god, the London Underground has less railroading than this.
LMAO!... fr dude.
Honestly, railroading can be good sometimes. I had games where the players do not know what they are doing and take forever to make a decision. Just a little push into a direction can make all the difference.
@@puffer_frog Truly the nuanced take about railroading: the difference between providing a lightly directed storyline that guides the natural chaos of players (including OOC talks about what is or isn't prepared) and providing literally no other choice and even punishing player creativity.
Even Hitman games are lightly railroaded, even if you don't realize, simply because you are given goals in every mission. Failing the mission is also an option, and there are many ways to fail, but not EVERY action will lead to failure or victory, and the game doesn't proceed if you choose to be stubborn.
@@puffer_frogThat's not railroading though
@@puffer_frog that's not railroading. railroading is giving them no choices or making their choices have no impact so they are forced onto a very specific path no matter what.
It's not even railroading when your players are not on the train.
The fact he continued to play by himself... Just go jack off at that point, you're the fucking DM, why do you even bother making yourself the eternal hero in your own story that you have full control over, I can't imagine any scenario where that is even remotely close to a fun way to spend your afternoons.
That was their mistake. They got on the train session 1 then the doors were all shut and couldn't be undone without "some powerful magic"
This is like if it were a squash and stretch cartoon and they were pushed in front of an oncoming train which pushed them to each location.
Idk if that analogy makes sense but it’s what I pictured.
You know, back in the day there were a lot of webcomics out there that depicted some cartoonishly dysfunctional D&D campaigns. This really has that same energy.
Goodness gracious YES. I read a few of those and got similar vibes except this is an interactive story
Where can i find those?
I recommend Darths & Droids. It’s a retelling of Star Wars but in DnD and almost no relation to actual Star Wars.
This campaign is just a neverending series of fetch quests being interrupted with more fetch quests
sidequests: the movie (movie since you can't really call it a game without player input)
@@phoenix402 it is technically still a game though so i would say it's more
sidequests: the cutscene
Another Settlement needs your help
The ride never ends
'Fetch Quest' implies that something happens in between fetchings.
1. Make the ants too strong to beat at level 3
2. Make them too smart for traps without any rolls, thus eliminating the possibility of leveling the playing field
3. Punish the players for not being strong enough to beat the overpowered ants by making sure they can't get stronger...
I wouldn't have continued past this point without some satisfactory answers; keyword: satisfactory
Yea at that point as a DM you gotta be prepared for a player to pull you aside and shout "WHAT THE FUCK BRO?!" and if thats a problem....dont ask for tens or hundreds of hours of someone elses life.
Had the same issue recently, honestly I would not be surprised if this was the same exact DM, well that or its a CR fanboy, or worse; the "I made a homebrew" guy that copy shit 1:1 off plebbit and presents everything as their own creations
exactly, as bad as the DM is, the players are to blame too for continuing to play.
@@danzai agreed. We have to have personal responsibility in the things we choose to do. At least, to some degree 💯
You sound like a super fun person to play dnd with... please never ask a friend who hasn't dmed before to dm for you. Because you'll quit day one since they don't dm like mm
@@SunBane67 if you like the DnD from this story, your opinion is invalid 👍
The constant abruptness, the hilariously/horrifyingly awful flow of the story, the ass pulls at every corner, good god. Thank you for bearing through that for such an enthralling video
I mean... There was no forced pregnancy so it's definitely not the worst horror story I've heard on here
Yeah I'm a little confused how this is the worse dm story he has on here . The ones with those topics you mentioned. I would think those would top this one as the worst dm horror story.
@@tubbersmatlock2732 perhaps its like... people being evil assholes is something i van comprehend. Person being so utterly out of touch? I struggle to imagine kind of thing.
Don't spare the feelings of people like this. Tell them upfront that what they are doing sucks and you are leaving and tell them why. If they respond with anything other than "i understand and I'm sorry," get them out of your group, and if he doesn't take the boot with grace, out of your LIFE!
That's always easier to type than it is to do, unfortunately.
Given that the DM continued to narrate the story to himself after all 2 players left, I have my doubts that any kind of critique could penetrate that density...
@@WarmLusamine It's easy to do as well.
This. Like, just be honest. I know it’s harder to do when you’re younger, but it’s painful to just indulge people like this. I only guess they’re younger because I did this when I was young. Believe me, it feels good when you get older and learn to just say no.
Yeah, it's interesting how playing dnd with people will show their true intentions as a friend
4:20 this had me laughing so hard I choked on my own spit.
"This is a vital piece of equipment"
*It was never used again*
I like how this OP writes 😂
Reminds me of the insect jars in Skyrim. Everything tells you “these are important things, they’re highly detailed and spread across the map” only to be a remnant of abandoned content. Only here the abandoned content never existed beyond a vague idea.
I was really expecting
"I remove the ring"
"You can't."
"I wasn't talking about the ring..." *severs finger*
I get the same idea.
What? Yes you were. You said "I remove the ring." You were talking about the ring. Work on your setups.
Given that the devil immediately sent his prisoners back, I'm surprised the PC didn't go 'cool, keeping the ring now'. Like, they had literally no reason to fulfill the quest anymore. And idk, a ring of curse dispelling sounds mighty helpful
Evil DM: the ring also has regeneration in it. So the severed finger with the ring regenerates a whole body and your character's body without the ring dies of bloodloss.
@@psevdhome I wouldn't put it past him.
Though, this particular DM didn't seem so much evil as just stupid.
Either way, I'm sure there would have been some outcome that basically amounted to "no; we still do what I want".
tbh, The classic the airship story still holds up as one of the very worst to this day
Yeah, I honestly don't think a story can be called the "worst" unless it has weird sex stuff. I blame Critcrab for that belief.
@@daviddaugherty2816 Only if you don't count public dwarven scat thing.
@@harkonen1000000 I mean, he also rubbed one out, if that's not "weird sex stuff," I'd hate to know what is?
I'd agree, the airship DM seemed more actively narcissistic and manipulative. This DM is just...sad and stupid :/
@@Just1Twitch with ZERO storying telling ability holy shit
It was so bad that even the ending was an unplanned twist.
“Okay… so he’s the king now?”
“No, you are.”
“WHAT?”
"The DM was so sorry that you were beaten up by the ants in your very first combat that he wanted to boost your morale."
this is one of those bizarre stories where the dm actually doesnt do anything morally bad, non-consensual, bigoted or downright criminal BUT the sheer incompetency of his dungeon mastering turns him into the BBEG of all of dnd
I have some bad DM stories but the big issue is none of them last long enough to compete. we always just refused to play anymore
Having them fight op insects, die, and wake up with the enemy gone, and having this repeat over and over is really funny to me for some reason. Definition of insanity and all that.
@vastowen i think we find it funny because it’s not like the players are foolish and keep attempting a combat encounter they should know they won’t be victorious in. The DM inexplicably insists that they fight these things, but then also makes absolutely sure that the PCs cannot ever defeat the enemies, just so that the stoker wizard can bail them out (the appearance of a stoner character would make me leave immediately, speaking as a stoner. I at least hope the writer of this story was just telling us that the wizard was the equivalent of a stoner and that the DM didn’t just insert weed into his world for the sole purpose of a character being a stoner)
Rubbing one out in the corner in front of them seems pretty criminal to me, but Im not an expert.
@@kennethpeters7915one minute in. HE WHATS?
Players: I just want to DO anything myself. I am not accepting your quest.
DM: No. You are being railroaded. Here is another magic ring that forces you to participate.
DM: "You cannot remove the ring unless you find some magical bullshit I'll probably never let you get or encounter."
Me: "I cut off my finger that the ring is on."
Cue Dm: You find that the ring also makes your fingers much denser making it not possible to be cut
DM: "uhh no cause erm aktually the ring makes you instantly regenerate limbs and have adamantium bones"
@@tehawesomedane ring of the wolverine
DM: the ring will attached and heal your finger completely because of an ancient magic. also, you are now immortal, and can't be killed by any mean.
More like:
"The ring jumps to a different finger on your hand."
"Then I cut off that finger"
"The ring jumps again"
"I cut off all my fingers"
"It turns into a magical c0ckring, jumps THRU your clothes and onto your dick.
....also, some giant moths appear and down you. You lay there bleeding, but don't die. You wake up 3 hours later, with the moths gone. But they have eaten your pants."
The start of this video sounded eerily familiar and I was the dm for a homebrew campaign. I was literally doing the Frank Castle "no no no" meme inside of my head because I thought I was the bad dm.
it'd be hilarious if it was the Astarion version :P
@@teddychu1177no, not really
@@colynrobinson212 **"No No NO!"s in Astarion"**
The one thing that really got to me was the “while you were talking, this irreversible happened”. It is a sheer and blatant refusal of “yes, and” in a way that doesn’t just not let the players play, but punishes them for playing
Who needs "yes, and..." When we have, "nope, this..."
No, but! is the better Yes, and! No, you lost to the ants, so you don't get the fight against the fifteen foot devil, but you are the King now!
I absolutely hate the "goofy wizard" archetype. I once played in a game where the DM revealed that all of the fighting and questing that our party had done in our first five sessions had all just been an illusion that a powerful wizard had cast on our party for no reason other than as a prank. I promptly left that game that same night.
I wouldn't mind that
Kinda like Final Fantasy VII
@@FirstnameLastname-bp2pgin what way?
Could be done really well.
In a previous group we had a game where we entered a tower to stop the big bad after being brought by a god of destiny for the sole purpose of preventing the big bad from creating a rift that'd destabilise the universe as we were the only party in the multi verse that could succeed.
It was really hard, and we lost the whole part in the second session.
At which point the DM just repeated the line about the god having brought us to the world to stop the villain, transporting us to the tower entrance.
We were confused, and he explained what we'd missed. He was a god of destiny and we were destined to succeed, so any failure must really be just a single part of a wider fate.
We loved it because our failure wasn't just washed away, it was a part of the challenge that we had to figure out each floor and what made our characters the only ones that could win.
A lot of Cloud’s accomplishments during that game were just in his imagination.
This adventure sounds like it was DMed by a 7 year old who is making stuff up on the spot
This is the type of campaign that creates characters like One Punch Man
It... actually kinda reminds me of my first DnD campaign.
At lvl4 my barb had 23 AC and a battleaxe that hit 2d8 one-handed.
The problem was the opposite though - the DM was mad that we steamrolled his encounters, so he threw harder and harder enemies at us - we were fighting a young red dragon at lvl3 at some point. Also we as a players were constantly reminding the DM his own lore because he was just spewing bullshit which differed from session to session.
Then he tasked us to kill a god (lvl 4 party, yes), almost wiped us out by throwing TEN ARCTIC WOLVES (medium-sized for some reason, but full damage on ice breath) at us as a random encounter on the way, and when we finally came to the god-killing place it was all done in a cutscene without any input from us players.
Next session was a oneshot because one of the players was missing, we spent 2.5 hours fighting an entire village of shapeshifters at lvl 1, and when the big boss rolled in blocking the exit we obviously died. So GM just goes "you wake up in a field, it was all a dream". At that point I just said "stop. get out" and thrown him out of my house (we played at my place). Never seen him again after that.
That was a horrendous experience, but it started me on dnd and I started DMing myself with the thought "damn, I can do better". It was more then 5 years ago and I still DM, my players enjoy it, soo... All good that ends good?
rough start, good ending
Was your DM at the time actually aware of rules? Was this their first time DMing? Did you know them outside of D&D?
damn 😭 that's actually gotta feel horrible to be such a shit DM that you're asked to leave.
DM makes worst one shot campaign ever, asked to leave regular meet up.
There’s got to be a middle ground between the players in the video never standing up for themselves and your “stop get out”
Like very simple “Hey man. It’s not fun when you do it like that. Here’s why (explanation) and now that you know please do better or I’ll have to take over as DM”
The one lesson might be "say you're not having fun if you're not having fun" but that's just because it got worse
That and stand up for yourself. Didn’t sound like the players really called the DM out.
@@natman2939I think it was because they were longtime irl friends, so maybe they didn’t want to hurt his feelings or smth
@@gamergang2686that’s just enabling a dickhead. Ppl need to be checked sometimes
Literally just write a book at this point. Hell, find a single player rpg if you need a game mechanic that badly. Why involve other people at all if their input so clearly DOESN'T. MATTER.
This guy wouldn't be writing a compelling narrative, and readers wouldn't finish his book.
This dm is gonna go nuts when he discovers LitRPG
@@Jacobstxyeah I guess by making it a dnd game he’s forcing at least two people to hear his story lol
Because you can't MAKE someone read your story, I guess.
5:41 - The idea of giant ants invading dwarf tunnels is actually such a cool concept.
After the second stupid magic ring, you can bet I would be voluntarily joining Frodo Baggins in the nine finger club.
The most unbelievable thing that happened in this story is that they finished a curse of strahd campaign
This is one of those "Why are the other players even here at this point: just write a short story."
Still, as incompetent as the DM is, I don't think this really comes anywhere close to approaching the worst we've seen. There are too many creeps, 'phobes and people who will assault players (sexually or otherwise) for this to really be "the worst."
I do think he meant worst in relation to DM-related things, but I do agree with you, if someone's being racist, creepy, sexist, assaults someone, ect. That is worse than just being bad at
DM-ing
Ists and phobes in TTRPG are the same as ists and phobes outside of TTRPG and thus extremely uninteresting to read about.
When I come to read an RPG horror story, it stands to reason I'd rather read about how RPGs can go wrong and not that intolerant people exist.
nahhh fam dm ain't a real guy 😅 its a fake story
There is being a bad human (which the “we don’t speak to him for unrelated reasons” part suggests does apply to this man) and being a terrible storyteller and combat planner. I was about to say he at least didn’t fall into the “favoring a player” trap (…I wasn’t counting his DMPC…) but then remembered the ultimate carriage scene. He rolled critical failures on every skill necessary to play the class of DM, but within the limits of the story didn’t fail the “if aliens had to rate humanity by watching a few individual humans, would this guy have them ready to befriend us, ignore us, or build a highway where Earth used to be” test
@@StudentSwope can you elaborate? Or do you just find it suspicious?
Having the players quit only to keep playing the game by himself and messaging the former players about his DMPC's "progress" has to be one of the most pathetically sad things I've ever heard.
That just makes it clear that the PC experience was irrelevant to the GM. He sounds like their reactions flew right over his head.
Oddly enough i actually gleaned a fun idea from this story. It started back at the fire ants avoiding the traps. So, the idea that i basically workshopped over the course of the video is a quest (or possibly even campaign) that involves hyper intelligent giant ants. Attacking in swarms but always retreating when too many of them start to die or get injured, but with each attack they learn and adapt to the player's tactics. For instance, if the party uses a lot of fire spells the ants may attack covered in some kind of viscous ooze that negates fire damage for a couple hits or if the party is composed mainly of melee fighters the ants may start showing up covered in a crude rock armor that gives them resistance to non-magical attacks. I think it still needs some work but i bet i could have fun with it.
I have a mountain encounter coming up in Borovia. Genuinely, thank you for this idea of you don't mind me using it.
One thing that's felt restricting a bit in Borovia is it's very people centered meaning I can't really use the weirder or more interesting creatures without them standing way out (I have been using monsters from 1e here and there, obviously stat tooled for 5e). Sorry for the rant lol, everyone I talk to about the game are my players so things get bottled up lol
@@DestinyKiller go for it. Like i said, i think there's fun to be had with the idea.
thank you zim, i will be stealing this now
@@clericofchaos1 I'll try to remember when we get there to come back and tell you guys how it went. Let us know too bailou, please?
Even better: have them show up entirely unrelated to the actual story, like "OMG, it's the random ants again." with them slowly adapting to the PC's combat style. Then, plot twist, the PCs find out they're actually super important to the plot of whatever quest it is they're doing, and now they have to plan to fight an uber-ant-swarm that's a hard counter to whatever way they've been fighting. Allow particularly perceptive characters to recognise the ants' adaptation, and plan accordingly...
this is a player that has such a main character complex that it bleeds into everything they do. as a dm, they had to "win" every fight and control every conversation. ngl, many of the choices they made, like not telling the rogue everyone was in similar attire just to get them arrested with 0 reason so they could end up where the dm wanted, are traits of a first time dm and only bad dms continue to do them, which they did. as a player, they were the best, fastest, strongest, smartest, ect. as op stated toward the end, it really seems like all they wanted to do was write a story and had no clue how to translate that story into a playable dnd campaign. i honestly think the story could have been awesome and one the players would tell with reverence, not regret
The worst DM on the Internet will always be Marty from the SUE Files to me, and no rpghorrorstory will ever top that.
Where is this story?
@@supernovavortex3069 Can't post the link, but if you google "I Rolled a Zero", the first result is the blog where all of the entries of that story are collected.
The story includes the most needlessly complex gaming system this side of FATAL, players completely stripped of agency, a DM who feels the need to drop rocks on them at any turn to remind them they don't matter, a game setting where the DM's self-insert became an omnipotent multiverse god before the game even began, and a giant mutant being taken down by exploding cheese bombs.
@@supernovavortex3069 My comment keeps getting deleted, but google "I Rolled a Zero" and you should find the story
@@supernovavortex3069 I keep trying to tell you how to get there but my comments keep getting deleted.
You can Google those terms and you should find it.
@@supernovavortex3069 I can't answer you because apparently I'm getting shadowbanned or my comments deleted.
Been wondering where Crit Crab has been, and the video opens up with him melting down. I couldn't be happier
How does CC melting down be a good thing?
@@teddychu1177 i just missed him
People only get like this after an entire life of no one ever telling them their idea sucks, or that they're bad at something. They survive on pity and honestly have no idea that they're awful because no one ever told them. This is why sometimes you have to tell people they suck
Even without being told you suck people still figure out that they suck on their ownsome.
There's simply no excuse.
*Imposter Syndrome Intensifies*
Pure Panic, Pure Power Tripping, Pure Wanting Spot Light, and Pure Book Writer Mentality. All these powers combined and we get this DM
This entire thing sounds like the DM loving his character from CoS and wanting to give him a way to remain powerful but get rid of all of the detriments that came from the Amber Temple power-ups in a way that's canon to the character's backstory. That way, he can use the character in the future, and when anyone calls him out for being overpowered, he can just say, "No, me and Roy and OP played a campaign where they went on a quest and removed all my curses, so it's fine." Like, that straight-up feels like what this is, an excuse for the DM to keep his character overpowered and give anyone that questions it a backstory reason for how it happened. He probably has a write-up for how he escaped Barovia, and was chained up and sealed after killing a billion knights of the dwarven kingdom or whatever.
With that ending... Yeah. That's exactly what it was. But even worse, because it wasn't even to use the character in other people's games. Just his own weird story to make his character The Coolest Guy Ever. So bizarre.
A wild crit crab! A super rare spawn, catch it before it gets away!
"Congrats you're now the king" **immediately dies**
Isn't this what Elisabeth did the first time she met Charles? Or no? I'm not sure. This is how such things always go.
I'm at 4:39. Theres still 28 minutes left. HOW. You wake up to a dude shitting on a branch outside your window. Like. I'd probably stay the rest of the sesh but i almost certainly would not be back for the next one
My tipping point was the DMPC... cause of course this DM does it and also makes it RETCON his previous charater.
Here's the thing you don't do with DMPCs. "Take away agency from your party"
DMPCs should ONLY be inserted if they are part of the story or help enrich the story. Or are NPC they are traveling with.
Heck I did this in my campaign and my party learned that "yes this DMPC is very powerful in magic" but also "Yes, they cant solve every problem" and "Yes, that amazing magic they hold came with a HIGH COST, making this DMPC laughably easy to kill and steal the powers from.. wich the chaotic players were wanting to try."
So how did the party act on this? Didn't kill them, since someone asked me: "Can you kidnap my charater for a cool rescue arc?" I was like sure.. but you wouldn't be able to play.. so insted.. I'll let you play the DMPC while being kidnapped. They agreed and enjoyed their time having to be careful with this glass cannon of a DMPC.
They saw why I kept this DMPC around... since two party members tend to cause minor conflicts within the party. (Wich I been stamping out heavily out of session). But the player used the wish spell to solve a puzzle that made two of our party members have abit of a fight.
Currently... this campaign is still going on and I decided that two party members wanted to have a training to use my DMPC to give them a place to train fast so they don't feel like they might miss the story sequences. (They got a possible lead on the current big bad evil guy and want to confront him but also train up on some powers they aquired)
So I used the DMPC to do just that... DMPC's cost? They won't be able to gain any training or levels in this period of time (thus under leveled) and is essentially unable to cast anything for the time of the training thus NO POWERFUL SPELLS at all to help the party.
Now the party can only infer knowledge from the DMPC but anything else? Discover it on your own!
And that in my opinion.. is what a powerful DMPC is. A mentor in this case. Or in this case an ancient being who has ancient knowledge but no current day knowledge and thus travels with the party to find out what happened during it's imprisonment.
Funny story about how my current DMPC got into position: they are/were planned to be the big bad, since they are bonded with a phantom of the former husband of the goddess of death who's trying to manipulate him and others into destroying everything in a bid to "free her". My original plan had been for him to help the party conduct a ritual for which they had to use a powerful artefact, only for him to steal the artefact. They end up catching him, but not before he gets the artefact to his confederate who does escape. No worries, I planned for this, they'll turn him over to the local guards of his hometown, they'll start out on their quest to recover the lost artefact, he'll eventually escape on his own and continue his plans and...wait, what do you mean you're not going to turn him into the guards? So, yeah, my DMPC is technically the player's prisoner.
Spot on! A DMPC isn’t a nuke activated by a button but instead a tool that can be used by players if they are smart enough to use it.
Ex. The party in the last campaign I ran loved recruiting the low level employees of the people they fought against. They (party) ran a pub and would use that as a guise to poach enemy goons. It was a tag team effort by the bard and paladin of the group. They would distract and poach anyone they would while the more combat members fought those they couldn’t poach. One of the npcs they managed to poach was a minor baddie’s daughter. She was a okay ranger but where she really came into play (after becoming my a dmpc) is as a connection to nobility. She was able to get the party into rooms where they could manipulate the nobility of the city. She wasn’t particularly strong but her connections were incredibly useful.
At the end of the campaign they party had to sneak into a gala being thrown at a museum. They couldn’t walk in since they were working class and didn’t have invitations.
Since the gala was for nobility they asked me if the DMPC would have an invite. I liked the idea so I rolled for it with advantage. DMPC had a invite. But it was only for her and a plus one - so that the players couldn’t just wander into the party on the DMPC’s dime. They ended coming up with a plan where the DMPC and a PC would use the invitation, while the high charisma PC’s attempted to convince other attendees of the gala to allow them to be their plus ones, and while the high stealth PC’s got into position to sneak into the building with DMPC’s help.
My players enjoyed making the plan and having agency of how they got into the party. They didn’t have to sneak in, they could use charisma or DMPC’s invitation. It made it more fun for them when the DMPC was a tool in a bigger plan than the plan themself.
Just clicked the video. Fingers crossed that its not me...
Edit: Finished the video. It wasn't me.
Good for you, hopefully you got inspired!
I think this is the first story to actually break our crab king, and based on some of the past stories, that's really saying something.
There are too many resources on how to be a good DM out there for players to have to deal with this.
You don't have to know the rules inside out, or spend hours writing a homebrew world. All you have to do is make sure your players are having fun. That's it. That's all it takes to be a good DM.
Much love CritCrab. Good story, even though it's rage-inducing.
The totally genuine f bomb was the sign that this will keep him up at night 💀😭
27:56 Bet. Though it might take a few more years as I'm still in a campaign with this DM.
"I would just be crab"
for some reason that had me laughing out loud
My family is being held hostage and I'm been held captive by a very angry crab please send help.
Is it a crab or a lobster?
The answer could save your family.
is that a Dark Kraken space marine?
@@detaexpunged9859 it is:)
Kinda like that, but with a few additions:
1. What was supposed to be one-shot, on which 5 people agreed, turned into an open-world campaign. Just like that. There was a first-time player that agreed for one-shot just to understand what the game is.
2. The DM had a 90 MINUTE MONOLOGUE talking to himself, describing and "role-playing" some kind of a hall where other "heroes" were. The description was that the PC's weren't supposed to be main heroes - they were "another" heroes and they couldn't do a thing for 90 minutes. They were basically viewers, not players.
3. Combat. I'd like to say there were none, but there was. It was a stomp by PC's because...
4. He gave each PC some fucked up artifact, that raised their main stats to 24 or 26 as if it was BoGS on top of highly disbalanced features that I don't even care to remember.
5. Seeing as PC's stomping his brewed cool monsters, he went with "alright, Ill show you THIS" route. You're a warlock with a familiar? Nope, you can't summon him. Oh, are you a paladin? It's unfortunate that this random guy has IMMUNITY TO RADIANT DAMAGE.
6. Do I have to tell about railroaded plot, where PC's had a fucking astral leviathan at their disposal that was controlled by DM and did the job when PC's couldn't?
7. Adding a technologies as if in Mass Effect.
Fortunately I didn't participated in any of this and was just a viewer but yeah. That was terrible at best. Not long after guy left the group for other reasons.
The DM just sounds like an F-list troll. Trolls on that shitty RP site will dedicate an inordinate amount of time to wasting yours with lies and "mistakes" to crush the spirit of socially awkward nerds.
Gonna be honest, seeing F-list be mentioned here hit me like a flashbang.
F-list jumpscare
I just tabbed out of f-list to watch this. It is a jumpscare to see it mentioned here, of all places. Bet you can guess what room I came from.
@@Corymbia HA! Horny!
DM: The magic ring appears on your hand.
Me: I cut my hand off. F@ck you. F@ck your world. Write a damn book.
The ring has made your skin adamantine. You break your axe instead. What do you do?
As a campaign dm he is absolutely terrible, personality wise he is actually very decent compared to many featured before...at least he didn't scream, harass, blackmail or assault anyone...that's a positive...
"We aren't friend with him anymore for unrelated reasons" Undoubtedly true, but some of those reasons would've definitely been brought out theough his DMing, like not listening to his friends, need for control, stubbornness to always be right, etc. (all seem to point to narcissism tbh)
I have a horror story. I've been playing PBTA for years with friends and was always struggling to find a system we can like, as well as one I can find for conventions.
Everytime I'd play with them, I'd have one player whose whole mentality was "Bored now, I'll figure out the rules later. Don't bother reading them out loud." "No backstory? No character? That's ok, I'll roll for random traits and work with those."
The other? "Randem, LOLZ" or "ACTHULLY" (Whenever we'd do something with a canon. Turns out they were wrong.)
The last is fine, I was able to work with them.
As some of you know, PBTA can be very unforgiving early on and very roleplay heavy. Some games didn't have the rolls they wanted and they really didn't get the "work together" thing. And seemed surprised the mechanics were built around that. (Maybe they should've let me read the rules). So, I honestly tried to work with them. Tried to make a game they'd enjoy. I admit I went through a few systems, looking for something I can work with at a convention and some just didn't work.
So I get a message the other day from the "Bored now" person, saying they made it clear they never wanted to play with me again, because I'd "jump systems whenever I couldn't control the game." Uhhh, no you just got mad because you never read the rules, didn't want me to read them and the rolls didn't work for them.
I was feeling really awful about it. But, I just got back from a convention where I had 6 groups at least who were very happy with my GMing style, understood the game, etc. Some even wanted pictures with me to remember the good time.
It still hurts that a friend would tell me something messed up like that. But I'm trying my best to move past it.
i am aware of what just happened. the "DM" of that story was angry and upset that his character got all those cool powers and he wasn't able to enjoy any of them because they had a cost to them... so he wrote the whole campaign, once his two "patsies" agreed to let him DM, with the intention of turning the tables on the "people that wronged him" this was not a campaign we just witnessed, this was -revenge-. it reeks of it. this child, Upset by the removal of agency of his character that was the consequences of his own actions made the new campaign that was designed to return his agency -AND- fuck over Roy and OP's characters in "similar ways" it's not really "bad DMmanship" it's simply a tantrum disguised as a D&D campaign. that went on for 8 sessions too long. the moment i would have left, and mark me as callous if you want to, but the moment i would have left is when they are "surrounded" by the poison thorn vines which were clearly meant to fuck over at least one of the players... and did not because the players were at least smart enough to not tempt fate like someone who accepted all the boons in a strahd campaign -at once-
Sorry for the rant like nature of my comment,
TLDR: the DM was throwing a tantrum, not DMing a D&D game.
So it's petty revenge because he couldn't have a cool over powered character without drawbacks?
That's incredibly lame
That's what I got out of it, too. Unlike you, I may have stayed until the OP ants. That would be my "I'm leaving" red flag
Not even 5 minutes in, and I'm already convinced that Periwinkle is a self insert character.
If this story were fake, and this DM weren't real, I would curse the one who wrote it instead. Because it would be the exact polar opposite of Tenacious D's Tribute.
15:30 around this point is when I tell the DM, "Shut up a second. Rocks fall, my character dies, his soul is unwilling to be resurrected. Bye." And walk out
This player definitely was never a dm before and clearly DID NOT intend to make his players do things he probably thought thats how its supposed to go
I think we can learn a lot from it. It's the DM equivalent of a 90's staff training video where people who are obviously not actors read lines flatly at camera. Yes, Deborah, I will not swear at customers, or steal produce. Thanks.
Now I might be negating my own point there but I think anyone who is a rookie DM should expose themselves to these stories, not just as a synopsis of what to avoid, but to gain insight into what annoys players. It can be hard to engage in feedback and knowing a little bit about what ticks off the group ahead of time is very useful.
There was so much random bullshit in the dm's story that was only there to justify not letting his players do something.
This lesson didn't need this level of torment, but one thing to learn is this.
Don't DM if you can't handle your players trying, and sometimes succeeding, to outsmart you. That's what they're supposed to do.
It makes sense the dm kept playing by himself as he was basically playing by himself the whole time anyway
Poor CC taking psychic damage reading this.
A story so bad that it spawns its own series on a youtube channel. That's wild.
bad d&d is worse than no d&d
True true
It is like with the gold rush, not going is preferable over trying to find gold, with little hope of success.
But however the odds may seem (whatever behavior someone else has already brought to the table, with an extrodinary show of stubbornness in sight of an honest attempt to talk things out) the fantasy of getting to play good DnD seems to be worth all the trouble and keeps you trying to play instead of doing the smart thing.
I would agree but I've watched enough horror stories from this channel to feel that's definitely not true in some cases
Abso-flipping-nope.
King: “My favorite campaign was two characters”
Back of my Brain: “Your Whaley-ness…”
CritCrab actually took physic damage irl he almost hit 0 hp
Yeah this DM was just terrible, and I’m willing to bet money that his “hand crafted” world was just in fact some random story, world, or something he heavily “borrowed” or just flat out stole from that he think his dank wizard would fit in between this “game” was in fact just an excuse to write fanfiction.
And when it comes to the players, the story makes it pretty clear the DM is very used to being a power gamer, thus is why he constantly kept giving the players overpowered stuff early on but still giving them impossible challenges, because he’s not actually used to any “normal” playstyle.
And with that bit of the king forcing OPs character to be the next king was maybe the DM either again just trying to force his overpowers fantasy into his players, or they were trying to “bribe” them into staying to see their Dank wizard do cool stuff.
Honestly I feel like this is a rare case where the players probably should have screamed at the DMs face telling him how bullshit and garbage his “game” was being its so blatantly obvious they need that reality check.
I’m kinda afraid that maybe the only thing the dm took from this is that he can do whatever he wants in a dnd game as long as he’s DM due to the lack of repercussions or complaints thanks to the players biting their tongues, and for all we know, he could be trying to find people to play another “game” with him.
This line from Macbeth just came to mind...
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Love that quote, one of the most nihilistic quotes in all of literature.
@@rulebritannia8438 It's also super self-ironic.
@@tarvoc746 That it is
11:45 "the DM's stoner wizard character" tells me all I need to know
5:00 um what 😧
Like I love a good sex/toilet/crude joke as much as the next person but there has to be some amount of tact for it to even be remotely funny
Funny how I saw this comment as soon as I heard that cause that’s crazy
You’re SO RIGHT about how satisfying it is to watch the cogs in your players’ heads turn! I’m running my first campaign as a DM for a few of my friends, and they just entered their first dungeon at level 3. (I’m running a more RP/story-heavy campaign, which all my players are totally on board with. They’ve had encounters before, but this is the first area of concentrated monsters they’ve encountered.) My players started session today at the beginning of a fight, then got a random chance encounter after that fight was done. My players haven’t long rested since they got to the dungeon, and when given a chance at downtime, only chose to short rest, leaving them underprepared for the boss character. One of my players managed to tame a curious young plesiosaur that would’ve been the last encounter before the boss, but they’re still down spell slots and health.
I describe the area as having a cart with a hitch, but no horse, which gives my Druid the legitimately bright idea to wild shape into a horse and have her party members hitch her to the cart. Our Ranger is able to hook her up, and everybody gets into the cart, riding away to safety out of the dungeon.
Did I plan that? No. Did it stomp on some information I wanted to impart on my players? Yes. Was it cool as hell? ABSOLUTELY!
I have been completely prepared for EVERY scenario up until this. My players managed to stump me, and it was awesome!
...this is an insult to all other 'just write a book' DMs...
I’m sorry, I find your frustration very entertaining. Made my day.
This sounds like the plot to a video game the AVGN would review
"I found the worst DM on the planet."
Me: "please allow me to introduce myself."
I use these vidoes as guides on how to be a good dnd player so i can be prepared for the day i actually play (they're also super fun to watch)
No need to put off playing! Get you a group and have some fun.
@@azrealle9474 The only reason i haven't yet is because it's surprisingly hard to find a group especially in public because my area is so small
@@azrealle9474 Im definitely going to join some groups when i have time (probably when i get into Uni)
These videos just make my group continue to tighten and gatekeep our table.
@@azrealle9474 The opening sentence to many of these accounts, that is.
"You are without a doubt the worst DM i've ever heard of."
"But you HAVE heard of me."
I thought this was going to be something morally horrendous, this was just the most hilariously braindead campaign I’ve ever seen
I was literally just today thinking of how much I've been missing your videos! 😍
While I may be something of a 420 girl, the stoner wizard has to be the stupidest NPC I've encountered in these stories.
12:16 bro seems like he watched a handful of anime, some serious and some full on brainrot, then combined them
Bad anime at that
I watched a Den of the drake vid with a story similar to this one. Which makes me get whats happening here. This is one of those DMs that is just telling (improving) a "story". Not for the players, but for him self. And slapping a dnd tag so he can rope these 2 poor guys into his "hilareous" story.
Here's my guess of what happened:
Spoiler alert, don't progress unless you have watched the video.
-This guy got too attached to his character
-He wanted all the power but none of the afflictions
-He devised what is essentially a fanfic to give a reason for his character to have the curses removed
-The fanfic was created with three goals in mind:
1) uncurse his cool, awesome, powerful character (his perspective)
2) subvert expectations (with all the subtlety of the Game of Thrones ending)
3) "Ooh, look at these cool monsters, I'll take these" (with no balancing considered)
-He makes the players play through this fanfic
-None of the monsters are balanced for the encounters, player level/numbers aren't considered; he just liked the way the monsters looked and crammed them all in.
-The only parts of the "story" that were planned out were plot points. Nothing in between, the traveling, the landscape, the tunnels, or anything else was planned.
-As a story, it had to play out only one way and no alternatives were planned, forcing the players down the railroad.
-As the players initial reactions weren't looking good, he sped up the process to hit the plot points faster
-He relished in getting to his favorite plot points: the reveal of his almighty character (presumably leveled from Curse of Strahd and fully booned out) and the final traitorous brother (honorable mentions for the rebels not being the actual kidnappers).
-He also wanted to play his powerful character through the campaign and be the typical DMPC that everyone hates.
-He genuinely thought the story was good despite being nothing more than an alpha-stage, bare bones storyboard played as a full game by actual people subjected to the experience.
Does that sound about right?
Been trying to create challenging encounters myself lately, with the hopes that the players will start to use their heads and be smart. Instead, the players insist on being dumb about everything, then bitch at me when i kill the party. I'm screaming because i try my best to be lenient and give players chances, but i can only do so much if players ignore mechanics.
How many times can a person smash their head against a wall and get mad at the wall before they realize their approach might be wrong?
Just let them roll some dice against some ez enemies and ramp up the complexity
I'll go through a checklist in situations like this:
- Are you telegraphing the enemies enough? Make sure the players know what's coming up narratively.
- Are your players aware of certain mechanics that are relevant, like called shots and such? If not, structure some fights that deliberately point it out. The Cyclops have an injured eye, the leg of a monster is wounded and it hops about, etc.
- Are you describing the environment in such a way where players can figure out some creative ploy to use? Remember that players see the world less clearly than you do, so if there is an important detail, describe it a few times, spaced out well of course.
- When players come up with some ploys, don't put TOO many dice rolls in the way. In fact, the first one or two times, just let them have it. They need to have positive reinforcement that creative problem solving will work and not just "I hack the beast with my sword and pray to god that it works"
Best of luck!
The DMs job is for the players to have fun. If that's what your players think is fun, either work with it, or find new players.
If it helps, this did give me a possible idea for an NPC. Make that powerful wizard who is stuck with a bunch of curses and gone mad, and the PCs manage to 'fix' them... but only for like five minutes a day or something. Add the fact that using their magic drains the time they have sane faster, and this Wizard can only do so much to help the PCs. Would want to sit down and figure out the actual math, have some caveats that the Wizard can't just Wish away the problem with the time they have sane and other things.
In my opinion it feels like everyone is jumping at the throat of what is probably a new dm trying to keep the strings of his poorly woven world together. Although big reactions are good for content I think this DM should be given the benefit of the doubt.
I think the worst part about this is, aside from immature joke characters, this DM actually created an interesting campaign world and story. So much wasted potential because he wouldn't let the players participate in his story.
Last time I was this early we were talking about some crazy chick with fox-cat ears
Lmao same
I feel like the DM wanted to do a funny, humor-focused campaign but once he realized that wasn't going to happen, he rushed them to the end of the story.
Just threw all the major twists at the players rapid fire without wanting to change anything.
I want to point out that, yes. This DM was having a blast the entire time, as he was completely lost to the fantasy inside his own head. When the first campaign ended, he jumped to be able to DM his own campaign and by the end he was glowing with pride at what he put the players through. He even continued the story after they quit. I mean, he made intricate maps and put a ton of effort into this--and it went all according to plan.
Sorry to make this nightmare worse for you CritCrab, but this guy wrote his self-insert-marysue-fanfic while he played the entire first campaign. He was having a blast the whole time and is probably still having a blast with all of his char's exploits even now. This guys absolutely believes he did a superb job. He probably feels he completely dwarfed the previous campaign with his legendary story. This guy was thinking FINALLY I GET MY MOMENT!
I am sad to say, that I have encountered people like this in my life occasionally. They do exist, despite all reason and logic.
Literal fashion police, that’s a new one
9:00 stoner wizard 😂😂
Lol
The weed wizard 🧙♂️
With regards the the first giant ant fight: I think the DM’s biggest mistake in that encounter was telling the players afterwards they were “supposed to win and level up.” That’s the time to keep your cards close to the chest. The players were probably feeling good they have survived, revealing what was “supposed to happen” only deflates the player’s spirits. Having a beat in your game when the PCs retreat from a formidable foe is fantastic for building tension in the story and it’s rare that happens organically in D&D.
23:57 Im fully convinced he just wanted to make his friends read his fanfic, and this was somehow the least intrusive way in his mind.
So, if this happened to me, just half the time, I would ignore the DM, and whatever DM's saying, doesn't happen. Oh, he's gonna arrest me for something he didn't tell me. I'm just gonna pretend I wasn't arrested. I wonder around the bazzar, do I hear anything?
Critcrab, I'm gonna stop for a moment after the DMPC reveal and reaction to give this guy an infinitesimal amount of credit for having an idea and then immediately charge enough interest to bury our solar system in solidified debt by asking you why you don't think reversing the ending for his PC wasn't the whole point of the campaign in the first place.