This is the only question that matters: Were your players having fun? What anyone else did is irrelevant so long as the people sitting at your table enjoyed themselves.
Yeah, if the other table's players were fighting and in deadlocks because they didn't wanna help each other his table was probably way more enjoyable cause it didn't have that.
Well i just deleted my comment, because you already made the important point. And from his narration i think the answer is yes, so everything is just peachy.
Not just the players but the DM should have fun as well! And to the others, even if another playstyle would have meant "more fun" at the end, if everybody enjoyed what they played at the end of the day, screw the "ifs" you don´t need them. I had to learn this as well, and still struggling with it from time to time, but when at the end all players are eager for the next session, everything was just right =)
Ben got so many points because he cultivated a positive friendly table vibe which made the players want to play for the game itself, not just for points, so in the end it added up.
Yep he had players willing to move forward through the material which would natural expose them to earning more points than tables who were getting deadlocked to search every inch for possible points.
This is also my firm suspicion. I don't always care for Ben's stories, but they do give a clear impression of "silly stuff is okay" so people naturally want to make suggestions to add to that silliness, and allow other people's suggestions so the silliness can happen. Now throw that on top of Ben's tendency to keep the story moving, and what you probably get is as long as SOME sort of semi-valid suggestion is made, the story KEEPS MOVING. Other DMs were probably much more restrictive about what solutions they were expecting and players were getting frustrated with figuring out a "valid" solution.
"We're in a bar" "Yes" "And we have to get a lich out" "Yes" "And in this underground continent thing, mystical creatures and stuff hang out in bars like regular people" "Yes" "So the lich is being a dick to other patrons and we are the bouncers?"
Probably also, I get the feeling with how Ben was trying to go slow, it might be he's a rather efficient DM. Players should know how to work together and try to think outside the box. But a good DM should be able to figure out how to nudge someone to an answer or give some good alternatives, which I think Ben does. On top of that if you keep good notes then I'm sure battles run a bit more smoothly to where it gets reduced to just basic subtraction, and all he has to do after that is come up with story.
Tries to lose by focusing on role playing. Wins by an outstanding margin because role playing was both fun and efficient. [Insert unlucky brian meme here] Sounds like a great DM to me. ;)
@@King_Nex What do you think a good GM looks like? Smart, strong, well spoken? Dumb, weak, unspoken? Please do tell me what a good GM looks like to you. A slave to some pre-existing archetype, a slave to the players, a slave to the game? Or just someone who wants to play the game?
"Wouldn't you get bored just talking to characters, in character for hours?" *Looking at my weekly table who haven't seen combat in about 8 sessions* Haha.... yeeeaaahhhh.....
i mean if they CHOOSE to do so its fine. my group is a bit paradoxical when it comes to this... they quite frequently complain about not having a good fight /some action in a while but then keep choosing to do things that obviusly dont require (much) fighting...
@@drizzt7dourden7 oh yeah it is all voluntary, our DM love RP and we eat it up and reciprocate. We have been running the same game for almost 3 years now and just broke lvl12
My weekly campaign has at least 2 encounters in each session and DM does not let us rest in between. Also, he comes up with the weirdest shit to fight. Last week one had a mini boss with a shape-shifting Yorkie/Ghost Wolf companion that likes biting ankles.
@@NovaGirl8 yea but there are just some situations where it doesnt make sense to have randomencounters (of the violent kind). like if they go shoping in a fairly secure city. or relax at their homebase hopeing that one of the PCs wife dies from the illness that the assasine they hired to kill her infected her with... forgetting that they have a fairly powerfull caster with healing capabilities there... (its a long story...) at least now they decided that after all the shoping and talking they will go back to fighting and commiting warcrimes with their friends in the crazy elven cult... i wish i was joking. they found a crazy elven cult and instead of trying to stop them from murdering all the humans and "tainted elves" (aka those who interacted with humans) the party decided to join them. they already helped them raize one of the largest tradecitys in the area... and partook in the slaughter, pillage, rape and plunder that followed... yes the campain went down a VERY dark path without me planing for it... but hey if my players decide they want to be the badguys i wont stop them...
DM: Take 10D20 psychic, acid, force, fire, earth, water, and necrotic damage Player: oh good I was worried poison might come next DM: Oh right there's other damage types I can use, take 10D20 Poison, radiant....
Gonna be honest, it really seems like the reason your team won was because they didn’t get tilted. You were having fun and your team had high morale, so they worked together well and worked efficiently, while other tables died off to fracturing in the team. One of the greatest lessons from team video games: the team that tilts first loses.
Could be a chicken and egg thing. Maybe the best teams don't get worked up in the first place and just perform better because they have better players and can afford to take things slow. And the poorer teams get hung up on basic information because they just don't have the experience or quality to help them get ahead.
The thing that can really slow a game is when 2 players disagree on something. They can spend a literal hour debating "should we go down the right path or the left path". In my games our party usually puts it to a vote, if there's still a tie then we roll a D20 and one side calls "High or Low" . That way we don't spend a lot of time arguing and get on with the game
6:15 Recently got the Mad Mage book and NO JOKE, Halaster has a gym in his tower where he has a bunch of flesh golems as workout buddies. The crazy old guy believes in healthy life style.
*Lets get kraken* " You hear cackling, an elder god must have heard that joke then a small black cloud appears appears over the player's head, then a netherrealm portal opens in that cloud, and a jesters hat falls out of it, landing straight on top of the player's head"
I can very much relate, I think it's intrinsic to being a DM that given this game has so many different and varied ways to play it that you're always wondering if you're "Doing it right". I swear sometimes being a DM is like an impostor syndrome simulator.
In answer to your question Ben, it sounds like your players engaged with the story because you were more interested in *having fun* than scoring points. I'd bet that your competitor tables were too busy taking it seriously. If nothing else, my online gaming experience has taught me that when you're focusing all your efforts on winning, it stops being fun - and that quickly frays on the team's morale. The sheer number of times that I've been part of a losing team, purely because one of us (yes, I am guilty of this too) cared too much about winning, and made it hell for everybody else. *Shudders.* So yes, the fact that you won is entirely your fault for being a good GM. Good job Ben. You really screwed up at... screwing up. Good job. *eyes narrow*
Just to add to this point, when the party knows that there is a competition going on, they are going to waste time trying to figure out the optimal solution in every encounter, so that their table can get the points.
Yeah. I'm in a couple different groups, so I see different dynamics going on, and the one group that makes me want to tear my hair out has players who spend so much time figuring out the optimal strategy that we measure our progress per session through a dungeon in feet. I'm not even exaggerating. There was one session where we made it 15 feet in four hours. Other groups I've been in are way less optimal and screw up constantly, putting themselves in danger, but they actually, you know, make progress. And to be fair, the other end of the spectrum is frustrating too. When your players give so little of a shit about tactics that they try to treat the game like WoW, just running up and trying to out-DPS the enemy with no thought to positioning, you spend half the fight just trying to distract the enemy away from your downed party members so the cleric can get them up off the ground.
Trik Stari so competition is a bad thing? What about other non-video-game sports that you see everywhere? Huh!? Baseball? Football (both kinds)? Wrestling? Are those sports bad for the entertainment industry? ESports and sports are one and the same, whether or not there's a screen involved. It's a competition. A test of skill and strategy. Plus, it's entertaining to watch for many, just as it's fun to watch independent UA-camrs play other PvP games, whether competitively or just for gags. eSports is NOT bad for the gaming industry. In fact, eSports is actually very GOOD for the industry, considering the amount of money and people drawn in. And it's not just about focusing on the fun over the competitiveness, anyway. It's about putting the fun INTO the competition. Some people actually find enjoyment from serious competition against others. Ever think about that?
@@javierpatag3609 As a LICH, being an immortal, unkillable, undead; that's gotta be a pretty bad low, just getting picked up and tossed the it of the tavern like that.
"Time flies when you're having fun." From what it sounds like, your group was having fun. This is a good thing. Trying to guage 'MOST FUN' by the inverse of points scored sounds just straight bone-headed to me.
@@Drago-957 you definitely should. The shenanigans you'll get up to will make for amazing stories. There was so much that Ben couldn't even fit into this video about that epic that would make for a great story. Another friend who was at the table mentioned in the comments here how we killed the dragon. My halflng sorcerer, who was an absolute coward in these early levels, used Thunder Step to teleport out of Acid Breath range and killed the dragon in the process. (That was also the last time I RP'd him as a coward.)
@@Drago-957 It definitely went to my Sorcerer's head. It also helps that he's at the level range where he feels immensely powerful, and it would take a Meteor Swarm to ruin his day.
Totally different adventure, but the fighter in one of my campaigns literally did the exact same thing. Well, not exactly the same, because he used a shield bash, but there was definitely a lich who took a ride down almost to stories worth of stairs. At which point we hauled ass out of there before he recovered. lol
Grappling is really good. Most creatures aren't proficient in Athletic's or Acrobatics so a character proficient in Athletic's has a natural advantage over most creatures when it comes to grappling them. I actually trivialized a fight on a boat when my Fighter/ Barbarian multi-class just went around in a Rage grappling the enemies and yeeting them off the boat.
@@curtthekid402 our Goliath barbarian had tavern brawler. I put fly on him and flew into the ship. When we got close I enlarged him to Superman punch through the hull and he broke his arm, so no more greataxe. Instead he runs up to the crewmen, punches one, grabs him and beats another crewman with him. Rinse and repeat until they're all dead. Edit: btw tavern brawler states improv weapons need not be restricted to d4s, up to gm discretion what die for what item. I forget what value the crew had but it still wasn't a lot.
*Ben:* Let's go slow and methodical; nobody wants to be "the winner" in a semi-competitive meeting in a non-competitive game. *Also Ben:* Let's hurry up through this scene, nobody wants to role play _too much_ .
True sometimes. I mean, do you really want to roleplay every single time your character takes a shit? "Roll a d-20 to see if you're constipated, if not a 1 then roll a d-6 for the texture."
on the "in a non competitive game" comment. This harkens back to the early days of DnD when there were, in fact, DnD tournaments with goals groups had to complete for points. It's a style of play I don't agree with and I think is best left in the past. That being said, I'm also not a fan of Adventurer's League in general.
As one of the players at this table (I think!), we had the most amazing time. I think all of us were focused on having fun over winning, and we still managed to score super high. That tells me this module was built right and you DM'd it well. Plus, our portrait turned out amazeballs thanks to us having a talented artist at the table.
"Potion of Ale-Breathing" I going to ask my DM right now if I can have one. My family are brewers, so it might not be too much of a stretch to have one on-hand for emergency repairs in the vats.
The ale-breathing potion is clearly the true prize here. So many uses: -Can easily dive in huge vats of ale (or drown someone else in one). -Can continuously consume ale without needing to stop for air (might useful bar trick). -Auto win any ale-drinking contests (the characters didn’t get drunk in the adventure, so the potion must nullify alcohol). -Um... I’m sure there’s more.
@@ThomasSimkins Wouldn't the consuming vast amounts of ale bring on huge repurcussions after the potion wore off? Going from sober to suddenly having your internal organs break down under the strain of poisoning yourself could be a very bad thing.
A water breathing potion allows you to breathe in ocean water, yet when it wares off characters don’t suddenly become extremely dehydrated from increased salt-levels in their blood stream (even if they didn’t ‘drink’ the ocean, it would still diffuse through the lungs). So, I don’t see why an ale- breathing potion wouldn’t nullify alcohol in a similar manner.
I collect stupid items. I have a magic butter knife. It is like a regular butter knife but it does magical damage. We have an Alchemist book with a potion recipe in it that turns people into a troll. And I totally brought the magical carpet that tried to strangle me (tied in a roll with a rope)
@@Cheshiregrinn91 One of my PCs is kinda like that. He has a diamond war pickaxe, a granite straw hat that points to "interesting things" when he throws it on the ground, and a rickshaw powered with a fusion reactor.
I do even worse. In Pathfinder's Skull & Shackles adventure path (we be pirates arr), we're five chapters in and I, as captain, haven't sold a single jewel, gem, piece of jewelry, or miscellaneous treasure for the whole game. I had to print out 10 inventory sheets just to hold my treasure horde. I'm half convinced my halfling rogue pirate captain is going to spontaneously turn into a dragon at the end of this
lol. Some of my absolute favorite items to pick up are "stupid items." Magical returning soap that's cursed to wash your mouth out every time you curse? *slips it into pocket* Random statue of an elven monk? *Kept for... reasons. Smirk* Pewter drinking mug? *MINE!*
this reminds me of a silly scene in a book: two Sea Elves had been captured. their friend, a female Drow, was trying to come up with a way to get them out of the village and back into the sea. she conjured up two BEER elementals who walked to the sea with them inside! and they also got VERY drunk!
It sounds like your players were just really cooperative and "yes and"-ed with your style really well. Sounds like a blessing to both GM and Player alike.
Honestly the PC’s face when they said the Kraken pun is exactly the face I mad when I heard it and will be henceforth stealing this pun for future sessions
i feel like you went at this at the right angle ben, you started by saying you'd rather not compete and just play as you normally do, and that's how good games are played, when you're having fun it can seem like things are going fast but in reality its going just right... i assume after you were done you asked your players how they thought things went, what they would have wanted changed or anything like that and they probably had no complaints... in which case, you did good, competition or not!
I think the important thing is your table had fun. It's like that "the only reason you should check your neighbor's bowl is to see if he has enough" kinda thing.
@@MortalReaver Really? If the stomach easily absorbs alcohol before it even hits the intestines, then why wouldn't one absorb it even moreso through the thousands of air-to-blood-vessel Oxygen-transfer membrane sacs in the lungs?
I love the fact that there is consistently one person who makes puns. Hes just always ready with a pun. Hes by far my favorite outside of Ben, because the DM is always my favorite simply because you can do so much.
I ran a game with an extended stay in the Fey realm with a pair of satyr dudebro's as guides. Chad and Brody Brohoof (or was it Dudehoof, I'm not sure any more). They only wore shirts so they could have popped collars.
I want this now, the backstory writes itself. Tavern owner used to be an adventurer and got into a drinking contest with a beholder. This eventually leads to it passing out and having an ale filled dream producing the first and only Beerholder. The owner quickly struck a deal with the Beerholder to save it's life from it's creator and settled down in a bustling town he liked to be co-owners of a thriving tavern. The Beerholder's 4 tentacles each produce a different type of booze reflective of the quality that the Beholder had before passing out.
I read through the Last Orders At The Yawning Portal Tavern. The reason why your group got so many points is because you took your time due to how easy it is to miss clues, especially if you are rushing/not thinking hard about situations.
Pace definitely matters. I get so frustrated playing with my brother. Where an 8 hour session turns into only 2 goblins slain and all the time spent in miniscule combat details. We're here to tell a story together. This isn't dragon Ball Z. You don't need 3 hours of air time to do one attack.
I think it was a rare combination of the GM and group's playstyle matching. If you have a quick DM and players that focus on objectives and creative ideas it flows so much faster than if people want to waste time with table talk or pointless side journeys.
Honestly if you and your table had fun who cares how long it took. I did a one of with my buddy Chris for his first time DMing and He did amazing. I havent payed that much attention to detail in a long time. He did an awesome job. Before we knew it it was 3am and we started at 6p. We all had a blast.
"The game was actually semi-competitive..." It was at this point I just paused stared blankly into space and uttered as confused as possible: WHY? Competitive DnD is the most antithetical thing I've ever heard. Literally heard of it once before when someone was applying to be president of the current gaming club I'm in in an email. The dude clearly had never even heard of DnD before given how he talked about it. Unless it's supposed to be some kind of tournament-esque arc, I don't see how it even works. The one time we did anything like it was for a charity event across multiple clubs, but it wasn't so much directly competitive as it was: "Let's see who can reach the end of the scenario fastest so we can hype up the charity even more and also see who effects who else in the world by going through them first and leaving stuff behind for the others to find!"
To me, competitive DnD or competitive "roleplaying" is something like this idea I had of a "Deathnote Campaign" where you have one group of players as the detectives and police trying to bring the other group of "Kiras" to justice. And the Kiras "win" by figuring out the police group's names and basically systematically killing them. The only problem I had ran into this idea was more about information. you would either have to have multiple GMs going on at the same time and sharing information between them about how close the teams are to each other or one GM doing to 2 groups on different days. It was just too ambitious to me because of how asymetrical it is as well as the fact that the Kira group technically dont have to answer to anyone and can do things kinda their own way while the police officers almost have to do most of the campaign together as a team. Still, I thought it would have been a neat and fun idea to do it all the same.
ThatPedanticCommenter Back in the good old days of 1st edition Gygax and gang used to run annual competitive dungeons at conventions. Some of the most iconic dungeon modules like Tomoachan were written specifically for these events. Of course back then the game was much more hardcore with less of the ‘everybody wins’ storytelling aspect that they’ve gone with for 5th edition. I got curious and decided to give it a go, but with no 5th edition competitive dungeons available I had to write my own (I think I slightly overdid it), and changed some of the rules of the game to tweak balance (ahem, goodberry). I ran it for multiple groups, all competing for as much gold as possible before time ran out and the place flooded. I found that it actually helped smooth out some of the game’s flaws like the pointlessness of gold, and provided the opportunity for the DM to be truly impartial with no chance for the players to complain >:). That said some of my more casual groups didn’t really enjoy it, but for veteran players like myself I think that competitive D&D brings a totally unique experience that has been under-utilised in 5e. Also if anyone’s interested I might post the dungeon on DM’s guild but the formatting of my 50k word google doc to a readable pdf is kinda daunting
of course! you never know when that might be useful. when you need it and you don't have it, you're all gonna be like "man, i wish we took that guy more seriously. . ."
As a dm, this whole last rant at the end hits you. A good DM to me has 1 job above all others, make sure the players are having fun. Definitely the hardest part of the game. And I would think about that too.... did we have fun or did we go to fast? To me it is clear your team enjoyed themselves, and we may never know if the table with one point had MORE fun, but we know for certain your table had a good time. I would loose sleep over this.
"Who has fun talking to NPCs for hours" People who enjoy that? Like my Wednesday-Campaign is that for 90% of the time. And we enjoy it. But its not for everyone. So yes the answer is that: It varies from table to table.
I know! In one of our gaming sessions, we wasted the whole night on one game session where the characters hung around town for a day shopping, busking in the streets (well, the bard, anyway), picking pockets, forging equipment, etc. And dammit, it was a lot of fun just to see what our characters did in their off hours for once. I rather enjoyed teaching orphans how to pick locks because it helps explain how you got your theives guild a few levels down the road. =)
@@jamesanthony8438 That is very cool^^ Shopping is actually one thing my group doesn't like to do much. Adopting orphans to raise them into their schemes though.. oh yes.
@@Chaosgiver I am sorry :( I understand how that can suck. I tried to gm for a group that was more.. dungeon grinder orientated and it was just was no fun for me. If you ever have interest in online gaming and are okay with the a semi-european time zone.. My last group is full, but I could probably gm a oneshot or something of that nature :)
My guess is because you actually *weren't* treating it like a contest and intentionally trying to go slow, as a by product you ended up creating a rather chill atmosphere over the table that made it so the PCs didn't second guess themselves and mainly went with the first obvious option. From what you described of the other tables, it sounds like they were taking competitiveness of the session seriously, which probably resulted in a lot of back and forth bickering between PCs over the 'optimal' way of handling things that likely ate up a lot of time. Take it from me: when you introduce competitiveness or try to make a plot point super serious, the PCs WILL eat up time bickering. Source; spending two hours of my life watching a group debate if they should or shouldn't head towards a town.
Serious? Not serious? Chill? Let talk three hour to know if we take this weird guy potion, after intimidate him to know the effects! Or let's discut three hours of «what can we do with rope? Did torch really necessary? COME ON, this bird CAN TALK!» That's how my two players play. And gave me idea. Because they just say no to the main quest. Underground kingdom exploration is apparently way better XD
In my 30 years of life, I have never played or even seen in person a game of D&D played. Only recently have I become infatuated with the idea. Since my schedule is completely booked right now, I'm settling for watching videos like the ones you create. I love how free and funny the stories can turn out. I appreciate you making these videos. It allows me to live through a D&D player. Lol
It was good and here is the reason why: Your table worked together and did stuff. A lot of people are unfocused or just do other things like browsing reddit/9gag while in combat bc they are bored. The reason for that is they aren't invested in the game. And no these are not the passiv people who watch the story unfold itself bc they want to watch every little detail of the story. And while they don't want to shine they want to progress and so help the main characters.
Our table usually has the opposite problem tbh, a few of the players tend to check out during roleplaying sections, and only really come active during combat, it got so bad, that my characters usually turn a bit passive in the roleplay scenes so I can help push the other characters to roleplay and contribute in the scenes. I usually have a bit less fun when I do this, but its way more of an interesting time than the alternative where 2 or 3 people out of the 5 handle all of the roleplay scenarios while the rest of the 5-6 people we have fiddle with their phones, play minecraft or risk falling asleep.
"Don't like it when players get stuck for too long..." That reminded me of a game where my entire part got stuck for 15 minutes rolling dice trying to pull a lever...to....start...the...dungeon.... because as a rouge, I had the highest STR in the party with a 10... We ended up picking up one of the gnomes and using him as a battering ram to hit the lever.
Why make roles for things that don't have consequences??? "So what did you guys do tonight?" "We failed to pull a lever" lame no fun night. Now if the group is being chased and has to open it before the chaser gets there it makes sense... succeed and progress or fail and have a consequence
Every players and every DM are different. Working together and being attentive to each other is what makes the best games. As long as the people leaving your table have a smile on their face and are exited then you did a good job. Speed is relative.
You say you're a fast GM, but you know the balance of when people are falling asleep. That makes you STAND OUT as a GM :) Keep it lively Ben! Probably the best/kindest GM i've seen
Funny you say that because in my current campaign we had to fight a beholder in it's lair and our Barbarian struck the final blow. immediately like 100 slaves came out of their hidey holes to worship the barbarian as their new supreme overlord. His first rule? learn how to make beer and get to producing. So now we have a beer-holder's lair. Which produces massive amounts of beer.
I appreciate your personal reflection at the end. Everyone has enjoyment at their own pace. Some people like to go quick, some people like to go slow. And as the GM It’s difficult to balance players enjoyment with keeping the game going. This is one of my weakest areas. As the GM, I’ll get so entrenched in the story, I’ll lose sight of my players enjoyment. I appreciate your insight, and I want to encourage you that it’s possible your table had as much fun as the table with only one victory point, because for them, their enjoyment could’ve been equal to your table, just at a different pace. For the players you had, I think you did a great job, whether you won or not.
Yup that's a weird feeling. Teacher to my group : "Okay, 14 on 20" Me : "Could be better I guess" Teacher again : "Yup but you're also the best group" Me : "... what ? Guess there's no competition"
Heh, had a similar experience at my first ever philosophy exam in 12th grade equivalent. Teacher - The class average for this exam is 8/20. Very good job. Class - _Nervous chuckling_ Teacher - No, really, most classes' first mark is closer to 6. You've done really well for a first exam!
My history teacher used to have a thing on his tests where if the top scorer missed any points than everyone got +(however many points) on their test. There was one test where another student and I got 100% and the third highest was 87% which sort of pissed people off.
Ben, your voice is perfect for story telling! I so enjoy all of your videos! As an old shut in fella, I often find myself replaying your video shows throughout the day, especially the Straud adventure. So much fun. Thank you so very much for the endless hours of entertainment you have provided me ... just thought you should know.
I ran two groups through a shared campaign setting. One team consistently flew through content every week so quickly that I had to stop sessions early. Their RP consisted mostly of one-liners. They also took NPCs at face value. The other team fought with each other a lot and treated every NPC interaction like it was a criminal interrogation. It was crazy slow. Group dynamics means everything in D&D.
oh, this reminds me o a scene in the book series "magnus chase and the gods of asgard", where the hero and his friends got into a bowling match, and the other team cheated by casting some sort of space-stretching spell, so that, in a sense, the pins in the hero's lane were MILES away... Magnus responded by LOBBING a ball into the other team's lane and making a large hole in it, so they couldn't score EITHER.
Puffin: Competition is laaamee Me: yeah, for sure. People should just have fun with DnD Puffin: I'm gonna make sure my table falls behind and doesn't win some stupid prize Me: Oh he's gonna regret that.... BUT WHAT WAAASSS THE PRIZE?!
I played the same module at an event, and my low lvl (1-4) tier 1 table won in kind of the same way. By just having fun and trying to help out everyone at our table completing their own personal missions (which didn't give any points) we somehow ended up gathering the most points. The prize was and in game prize of your party being recognized as the biggest heroes of saving Durnan and having a portrait hung over the fireplace in Durnans tavern The Yawning Portal.
I think the fact that the group helped you keep track of stuff showed that they were a very organized group and probably meshed well with you and enjoyed the game and that's why they got through so much content.
being able to notice when half the table is bored and moving the scene along is your greatest attribute in aiding the experience in a "interactive reactive narrative." "Reading a Room" is something I've noticed that people can struggle on when they are focused on there character and the DM is focused on the environment.
I've played and run many, many AL adventures in the last few years, and I've learned that one of the most important skills for a DM, especially but not exclusively for organized play, is to keep the pace moving and manage time effectively. When the game drags on, such as when the party is stuck on a situation or puzzle, or when they're wasting a ton of time on meaningless conversations that don't move the story forward, that can be really frustrating for the players. It really helps to have a DM who knows how to keep the game moving, giving hints when the players are stuck and speeding the narrative up when the party is getting side-tracked. I have played a few games where the DM ran things too quickly and it wasn't entirely satisfying, but I've had way more games where the DM dragged things on for too long and I just wanted to take out my phone and do something else. And if a DM is fast but bad, at least it's over quickly. But if the DM is slow and bad, it is just excruciating. Trust me, scoring that many points absolutely reflects well on your part, and from previous experience, I find it highly unlikely that the players at the 1 point table enjoyed it much.
I like how this started out as the craziest most random D&D adventure ever. I believe in my heart, that some people think it's always that silly and nonsensical btw. I like how it ENDED with a truly honest and thoughtful commentary about whether he was successful in how he ran the table, and comparing it to others that did it differently. Self-evaluation is always a good thing. Even if you are actually a Barbarian, and not a Monk.... xD
Fun description of the session. And your animation and descriptions on things like "Let's get cracking," "We're from the meadows," and the dance competition were hilarious and made me laugh out loud. Thank you! :)
It doesn’t matter what pace you play at as long as most everyone leaves the table happy, which it kinda sounds like that happened. So good job man. Don’t think too hard on it or you’ll just get unnecessary headaches.
I can't stand it when the game runs at a snails pace. I also cant stand a race. To me, the pace should reflect the situation. A chase should run fast, standard combat should be steady. Not to fast, not to slow. RP should be fluid and natural. But that's me.
Nah, it makes sense. One of my friends whose been DM'ing for 10 years said that a certain rhythm has to be maintained. Slow in moments where it counts such as gathering clues or fighting while making things move quickly such as chases or being pursued. It's a game, but it's also a story. And a story isn't fun when it feels so slow that you haven't done anything amazing or become disinterested if it's persistently too fast.
Honestly, it sounds like you did a fantastic job. I've run an AL Epic before which was also tongue and cheek, and none of the encounters were all that deep, so getting to experience more of them makes for a more fun experience for the players. I would be elated if I ever got to play at one of your AL tables.
Of all your stories, this is my favorite. If a campaign is relaxed and moving along, and the players interact constructively, it creates the best experience and the best game. This shows that it can be quantified.
An easy measure of value for leisure time: Did you reach the end of you time feeling "well, that wasn't worth it"? If not then congrats you had, at worst, an okay night. If you later decided to mention the event, to anyone at all, in a positive light then you had a good time. If you feel the "need" to tell someone about what happened you're now in the area between good and great. But don't try to measure your fun against someone else's. Some people love roll playing a dumb interaction to its utter end and others need to be rolling dice. Do you man.
I just wanted to tell you that I'm so grateful for your channel because you were honestly the whole reason that I got into dnd. I've made many new friends and I've even started to dm for my group. Thank you so much for your entertaining videos and keep up the good work.
As said, watch the Q&A panel, long story short it was basically him saying "Find a name for the group or I'm going to have you called the turtle molesters" In short, kind of the Chadwick Strongpants situation only he actually did it.
Kinda surprised he was that set on having a group name. I don't think I've ever played in a game where we did, in my current one whenever we're talking about the group collectively we just call them "those chucklefu...riends" or "our pack of idiots"
"we won and didn't actually tell anyone we actually won even more by not telling every one of our every success" but he is telling us, so let's keep it secret, alright?
it doesn't matter if you feel like you need to doubt yourself, because your videos are really thoughtful and theres nothing better than a really thoughtful video about something you're genuinely interested in!
A convention for DMs making a whole meta-DM thing with multiple adventuring parties coming together in some kind of wild adventure ARMY?! Now THAT is ambitious.
This is the only question that matters: Were your players having fun?
What anyone else did is irrelevant so long as the people sitting at your table enjoyed themselves.
I think that's fair but I think he's just worried that his players would have had more fun if they went slower
Yeah, if the other table's players were fighting and in deadlocks because they didn't wanna help each other his table was probably way more enjoyable cause it didn't have that.
Well i just deleted my comment, because you already made the important point. And from his narration i think the answer is yes, so everything is just peachy.
@@christophercrafteWhat they don't know, can't hurt them
Not just the players but the DM should have fun as well!
And to the others, even if another playstyle would have meant "more fun" at the end, if everybody enjoyed what they played at the end of the day, screw the "ifs" you don´t need them.
I had to learn this as well, and still struggling with it from time to time, but when at the end all players are eager for the next session, everything was just right =)
Player: "Lets get Kraken"
Ben: That's a brave statement from someone within fire-ball distance.
Somber Knight now I want to see Ben GM the fight between Jocat and Zee Bashaw
Good point, but not sure of the effectiveness of fireball when you're literally swimming in beer.
@@willhaug3816 well, it's flammable
The first kraken we see I am using this line
Didnt get it. Please explain kraken moment.
Ben got so many points because he cultivated a positive friendly table vibe which made the players want to play for the game itself, not just for points, so in the end it added up.
Was gonna say something like this but you said it much better
Yep he had players willing to move forward through the material which would natural expose them to earning more points than tables who were getting deadlocked to search every inch for possible points.
This is also my firm suspicion. I don't always care for Ben's stories, but they do give a clear impression of "silly stuff is okay" so people naturally want to make suggestions to add to that silliness, and allow other people's suggestions so the silliness can happen.
Now throw that on top of Ben's tendency to keep the story moving, and what you probably get is as long as SOME sort of semi-valid suggestion is made, the story KEEPS MOVING. Other DMs were probably much more restrictive about what solutions they were expecting and players were getting frustrated with figuring out a "valid" solution.
"We're in a bar" "Yes"
"And we have to get a lich out" "Yes"
"And in this underground continent thing, mystical creatures and stuff hang out in bars like regular people" "Yes"
"So the lich is being a dick to other patrons and we are the bouncers?"
Probably also, I get the feeling with how Ben was trying to go slow, it might be he's a rather efficient DM.
Players should know how to work together and try to think outside the box. But a good DM should be able to figure out how to nudge someone to an answer or give some good alternatives, which I think Ben does. On top of that if you keep good notes then I'm sure battles run a bit more smoothly to where it gets reduced to just basic subtraction, and all he has to do after that is come up with story.
This is the living embodiment of “Task failed successfully”
He's such a failure he failed at failing.
No the final battle of the original mournblade campaign was tasked failed successfully
@@Thatguy-fw9ld I WAAAAARNED YOOOOOOU!
Suffering from success.
He was actively attempting to fail, so task failed unseccessfully.
Good old Ben: even when he deliberately tries to lose, he fails.
Is it bad that I saw that coming from space? Maybe I've read too much TV Tropes...
Tries to lose by focusing on role playing. Wins by an outstanding margin because role playing was both fun and efficient. [Insert unlucky brian meme here]
Sounds like a great DM to me. ;)
@@QuixoteBadger You must be new to this channel if you think he is a good gm. Usually, he is woefully incompetent.
@@King_Nex What do you think a good GM looks like? Smart, strong, well spoken? Dumb, weak, unspoken? Please do tell me what a good GM looks like to you. A slave to some pre-existing archetype, a slave to the players, a slave to the game? Or just someone who wants to play the game?
@@King_Nex Insert clod reference here..
I’m so disappointed the monster wasn’t called an
ale-boleth
I love you and want you to bear my children
You're dead to us Metaphorically
No there should of been a demon so we could have an ALEkalith
Same.
When I saw it, I was waiting for him to call it that, but nooooo... Just has to a Kraken, and not even in a rum pit either.
Me: Fine women and ale, you can't do better than this.
Puffin Forest: Ale mermaids.
Me: Ok, you won, this time.
mermaid: as normally illustrated, a self-defeating concept.
I mean is it just me or is the concept inherently disgusting cause I mean where does everything in that tank shit aside from the god damn ale?
@@awesomechainsaw (⋆❛ ہ ❛⋆)⊃―━━☆⌒.*･ﾟ✲ Maaaagic
@@awesomechainsaw you have a point.
@@Eddie42023 They cast Purify Food and Water.
"Wouldn't you get bored just talking to characters, in character for hours?"
*Looking at my weekly table who haven't seen combat in about 8 sessions*
Haha.... yeeeaaahhhh.....
i mean if they CHOOSE to do so its fine.
my group is a bit paradoxical when it comes to this...
they quite frequently complain about not having a good fight /some action in a while but then keep choosing to do things that obviusly dont require (much) fighting...
@@drizzt7dourden7 oh yeah it is all voluntary, our DM love RP and we eat it up and reciprocate. We have been running the same game for almost 3 years now and just broke lvl12
My weekly campaign has at least 2 encounters in each session and DM does not let us rest in between. Also, he comes up with the weirdest shit to fight. Last week one had a mini boss with a shape-shifting Yorkie/Ghost Wolf companion that likes biting ankles.
@@NovaGirl8
yea but there are just some situations where it doesnt make sense to have randomencounters (of the violent kind).
like if they go shoping in a fairly secure city.
or relax at their homebase hopeing that one of the PCs wife dies from the illness that the assasine they hired to kill her infected her with... forgetting that they have a fairly powerfull caster with healing capabilities there... (its a long story...)
at least now they decided that after all the shoping and talking they will go back to fighting and commiting warcrimes with their friends in the crazy elven cult...
i wish i was joking.
they found a crazy elven cult and instead of trying to stop them from murdering all the humans and "tainted elves" (aka those who interacted with humans) the party decided to join them.
they already helped them raize one of the largest tradecitys in the area... and partook in the slaughter, pillage, rape and plunder that followed...
yes the campain went down a VERY dark path without me planing for it...
but hey if my players decide they want to be the badguys i wont stop them...
So you guys just chit chat in character?
"Lets get Kracken!" "you can hear the laughing of a mad god, take 1D6 Psychic damage"
Tasha's hideous laughter can be cast with a pun lol
DM: Take 10D20 psychic, acid, force, fire, earth, water, and necrotic damage
Player: oh good I was worried poison might come next
DM: Oh right there's other damage types I can use, take 10D20 Poison, radiant....
“Bazinga“
Spoooooky reverb*
@@thegeneralissimo470 Welcome to the book nook boys
...I liked that
Dragons in D&D: *exist*
Puffin: "Ok, these gotta be adorable."
Have you ever seen a lizard they are adorable
Adorably drawn because Ben couldn't be bothered to draw it anatomically well.
Gonna be honest, it really seems like the reason your team won was because they didn’t get tilted. You were having fun and your team had high morale, so they worked together well and worked efficiently, while other tables died off to fracturing in the team.
One of the greatest lessons from team video games: the team that tilts first loses.
Could be a chicken and egg thing.
Maybe the best teams don't get worked up in the first place and just perform better because they have better players and can afford to take things slow.
And the poorer teams get hung up on basic information because they just don't have the experience or quality to help them get ahead.
The thing that can really slow a game is when 2 players disagree on something. They can spend a literal hour debating "should we go down the right path or the left path". In my games our party usually puts it to a vote, if there's still a tie then we roll a D20 and one side calls "High or Low" . That way we don't spend a lot of time arguing and get on with the game
So... you're saying my beer is literally filled with people and animals? People and animals that piss and poop in it? In the beer everybody drinks?
They are drunk so they don't care, also yeast does that anyway
Beer basically IS piss.
Thats Guiness man. The only non vegan beer
@@secretclerk Lol
I mean few hundred kilos of poop in a ginormous ale container.
6:15 Recently got the Mad Mage book and NO JOKE, Halaster has a gym in his tower where he has a bunch of flesh golems as workout buddies. The crazy old guy believes in healthy life style.
"Woah look at those swole bros, they are totally built!"
"Yes, indeed they are."
*Lets get kraken*
" You hear cackling, an elder god must have heard that joke then a small black cloud appears appears over the player's head, then a netherrealm portal opens in that cloud, and a jesters hat falls out of it, landing straight on top of the player's head"
"You gain one level of Warlock with the Great Old One patron, at the cost of one random level you already have."
I can very much relate, I think it's intrinsic to being a DM that given this game has so many different and varied ways to play it that you're always wondering if you're "Doing it right". I swear sometimes being a DM is like an impostor syndrome simulator.
I'd say if you are having fun, you are doing it right :)
AMOGUS
Simulator? No. It's just imposter syndrome. You get imposter syndrome more often from being a DM than black lung from coal mining
(Even though you made this 2 years ago) But I agree with you so much, I’m a new dm and I swear I’m always feeling like I’m not doing it right
In answer to your question Ben, it sounds like your players engaged with the story because you were more interested in *having fun* than scoring points.
I'd bet that your competitor tables were too busy taking it seriously. If nothing else, my online gaming experience has taught me that when you're focusing all your efforts on winning, it stops being fun - and that quickly frays on the team's morale. The sheer number of times that I've been part of a losing team, purely because one of us (yes, I am guilty of this too) cared too much about winning, and made it hell for everybody else. *Shudders.*
So yes, the fact that you won is entirely your fault for being a good GM. Good job Ben. You really screwed up at... screwing up. Good job. *eyes narrow*
Just to add to this point, when the party knows that there is a competition going on, they are going to waste time trying to figure out the optimal solution in every encounter, so that their table can get the points.
Exactly, That been my experience too. Value fun and you'll have a good time.
Yeah. I'm in a couple different groups, so I see different dynamics going on, and the one group that makes me want to tear my hair out has players who spend so much time figuring out the optimal strategy that we measure our progress per session through a dungeon in feet. I'm not even exaggerating. There was one session where we made it 15 feet in four hours.
Other groups I've been in are way less optimal and screw up constantly, putting themselves in danger, but they actually, you know, make progress. And to be fair, the other end of the spectrum is frustrating too. When your players give so little of a shit about tactics that they try to treat the game like WoW, just running up and trying to out-DPS the enemy with no thought to positioning, you spend half the fight just trying to distract the enemy away from your downed party members so the cleric can get them up off the ground.
Congratulations, you have just described why Esports are a terrible thing for the gaming industry as a whole, thank you.
Trik Stari so competition is a bad thing? What about other non-video-game sports that you see everywhere? Huh!? Baseball? Football (both kinds)? Wrestling? Are those sports bad for the entertainment industry?
ESports and sports are one and the same, whether or not there's a screen involved. It's a competition. A test of skill and strategy. Plus, it's entertaining to watch for many, just as it's fun to watch independent UA-camrs play other PvP games, whether competitively or just for gags. eSports is NOT bad for the gaming industry. In fact, eSports is actually very GOOD for the industry, considering the amount of money and people drawn in.
And it's not just about focusing on the fun over the competitiveness, anyway. It's about putting the fun INTO the competition. Some people actually find enjoyment from serious competition against others. Ever think about that?
"The players picked up a litch and tossed him out of the pub" ... ok that just sounds funny, and totally what I'd allow my players to do lol
Try adding some plane traveling devices into that, trust me :D
They literally just acted as bouncers at kicked him out xD
@@davidlevy2884 It makes sense, because they were tasked to throw someone out. They were HIRED to be the tavern's bouncers.
And the lich was too embarrassed about being bounced out of a bar to try to come back.
@@javierpatag3609 As a LICH, being an immortal, unkillable, undead; that's gotta be a pretty bad low, just getting picked up and tossed the it of the tavern like that.
"Time flies when you're having fun." From what it sounds like, your group was having fun. This is a good thing. Trying to guage 'MOST FUN' by the inverse of points scored sounds just straight bone-headed to me.
We did, in fact, greatly enjoy ourselves.
@@Drago-957 I was.
@@Drago-957 you definitely should. The shenanigans you'll get up to will make for amazing stories. There was so much that Ben couldn't even fit into this video about that epic that would make for a great story. Another friend who was at the table mentioned in the comments here how we killed the dragon. My halflng sorcerer, who was an absolute coward in these early levels, used Thunder Step to teleport out of Acid Breath range and killed the dragon in the process. (That was also the last time I RP'd him as a coward.)
@@Drago-957 It definitely went to my Sorcerer's head. It also helps that he's at the level range where he feels immensely powerful, and it would take a Meteor Swarm to ruin his day.
"Ale Kraken".
Should have called it the "Aleboleth". Such a missed opportunity.
Because krakens are not aboleths
Because you can't "get aleboleth". ;)
I know, right? This much of an oversight makes me sick. As if I was coming down with some sort of an ALE-ment!!!
It should have been a Beerholder
Booze Ooze: basically a giant living Jell-O shot.
"You need to get rid of lich"
*picks up and throws lich from a stairs*
.
.
.
Damn...I need to try this!
Totally different adventure, but the fighter in one of my campaigns literally did the exact same thing. Well, not exactly the same, because he used a shield bash, but there was definitely a lich who took a ride down almost to stories worth of stairs. At which point we hauled ass out of there before he recovered. lol
@@y2a1979 Our group pushed a werebear down from a cliff once. Were-creatures are not immune to gravity it seems.
Grappling is really good. Most creatures aren't proficient in Athletic's or Acrobatics so a character proficient in Athletic's has a natural advantage over most creatures when it comes to grappling them. I actually trivialized a fight on a boat when my Fighter/ Barbarian multi-class just went around in a Rage grappling the enemies and yeeting them off the boat.
@@curtthekid402 our Goliath barbarian had tavern brawler. I put fly on him and flew into the ship. When we got close I enlarged him to Superman punch through the hull and he broke his arm, so no more greataxe. Instead he runs up to the crewmen, punches one, grabs him and beats another crewman with him. Rinse and repeat until they're all dead.
Edit: btw tavern brawler states improv weapons need not be restricted to d4s, up to gm discretion what die for what item. I forget what value the crew had but it still wasn't a lot.
Better summon some elementals to do it, then. Their touch paralyzes... _permanently._
Puffin Forest: I going to lose ON PURPOSE just to prove my point
*Proceeds to win*
Puffin Forest: just. AS. *PLANNED*
plot twist Puffin is a herald of tzeentch, lord of change and chaos
All according to plan.
@@lukedeakin7124 *keikaku
@@ZeroCanalX keikaku means plan
*Ben:* Let's go slow and methodical; nobody wants to be "the winner" in a semi-competitive meeting in a non-competitive game.
*Also Ben:* Let's hurry up through this scene, nobody wants to role play _too much_ .
True sometimes. I mean, do you really want to roleplay every single time your character takes a shit?
"Roll a d-20 to see if you're constipated, if not a 1 then roll a d-6 for the texture."
on the "in a non competitive game" comment. This harkens back to the early days of DnD when there were, in fact, DnD tournaments with goals groups had to complete for points. It's a style of play I don't agree with and I think is best left in the past. That being said, I'm also not a fan of Adventurer's League in general.
@@GreebleClown do I roll for the smell?
@@EvilPaladin11 roll an acrobatics check to avoid slipping in his vomit and excrement.
Well it's supposed to be a busy tavern, theres a lot to do
As one of the players at this table (I think!), we had the most amazing time. I think all of us were focused on having fun over winning, and we still managed to score super high. That tells me this module was built right and you DM'd it well.
Plus, our portrait turned out amazeballs thanks to us having a talented artist at the table.
Did you ever use the potion of ale breathing again?
@@legendofzeldarules44 when would you not use it
What was the prize?
@@kingdonut8272 It was an in-game portrait at the Yawning Portal. I still reference it when DMing my home games.
I think it’s really fun that someone who might have actually been a part of this story found this video
EVERYONE WILL QUICKLY BECCOME *SOBER!*
*horror*
OH NOOOO!
*Panicked Screaming*
That’s why the party worked so quickly. They had the biggest motivation
"Potion of Ale-Breathing"
I going to ask my DM right now if I can have one. My family are brewers, so it might not be too much of a stretch to have one on-hand for emergency repairs in the vats.
One of my characters also owns a brewery, I might also have to convince my DM that I can have one
When he made that "let's get crackin" pun, I could literally hear crickets outside my house.
It's almost as if the crickets heard the joke.
I laughed I need to be shot
It's an awful pun, but I fully intend to use it if I encounter a Kraken once I actually get to play.
@@EwanKlinkhamerX3Emerald Send him to the pun-itentiary!
Time for scp-504
crickets have a very fine sense of humor. So they only heared laughing when everyone else didn't get the joke.
"Lets get Kraken"
In his defence, i thought that was quite good.
Better than what I thought up.
"Let's get down to boozeness."
In ben's defense, he thought it good enough for the video ;)
@@IrvingIV to control the world!
Let's get kraken.... The bes so far I've seen in this channel... Lol I'm going to laugh for days!
Citrakite did they send AA’s, when I asked, for drunks!
"You're dead to us Metaphorically" - Puffin Sep 30 2019
Best nerd burn ever.
Theme from Titanic plays in the background.
That is a brave statement from someone within fire-ball distance.
"I'd hate to be at the table that won" plot twist: his table won.
Edit: oh wow, they actuarly did.
Chechoff's gun. He wouldn't have said it in a snarky tone if it wasn't relevant later.
@@megadeathx What about those ale-breathing potions, though?
The ale-breathing potion is clearly the true prize here. So many uses:
-Can easily dive in huge vats of ale (or drown someone else in one).
-Can continuously consume ale without needing to stop for air (might useful bar trick).
-Auto win any ale-drinking contests (the characters didn’t get drunk in the adventure, so the potion must nullify alcohol).
-Um... I’m sure there’s more.
@@ThomasSimkins Wouldn't the consuming vast amounts of ale bring on huge repurcussions after the potion wore off?
Going from sober to suddenly having your internal organs break down under the strain of poisoning yourself could be a very bad thing.
A water breathing potion allows you to breathe in ocean water, yet when it wares off characters don’t suddenly become extremely dehydrated from increased salt-levels in their blood stream (even if they didn’t ‘drink’ the ocean, it would still diffuse through the lungs). So, I don’t see why an ale- breathing potion wouldn’t nullify alcohol in a similar manner.
"DON'T WRITE THAT ON YOUR SHEETS." **facepalm**
Me. All the damn time whenever I GM a game with any kind of stupid item.
I collect stupid items. I have a magic butter knife. It is like a regular butter knife but it does magical damage. We have an Alchemist book with a potion recipe in it that turns people into a troll. And I totally brought the magical carpet that tried to strangle me (tied in a roll with a rope)
@@Cheshiregrinn91 One of my PCs is kinda like that. He has a diamond war pickaxe, a granite straw hat that points to "interesting things" when he throws it on the ground, and a rickshaw powered with a fusion reactor.
@@Cheshiregrinn91 I suppose a rug of smothering is still, technically, a magic carpet.
I do even worse. In Pathfinder's Skull & Shackles adventure path (we be pirates arr), we're five chapters in and I, as captain, haven't sold a single jewel, gem, piece of jewelry, or miscellaneous treasure for the whole game. I had to print out 10 inventory sheets just to hold my treasure horde. I'm half convinced my halfling rogue pirate captain is going to spontaneously turn into a dragon at the end of this
lol. Some of my absolute favorite items to pick up are "stupid items." Magical returning soap that's cursed to wash your mouth out every time you curse? *slips it into pocket* Random statue of an elven monk? *Kept for... reasons. Smirk* Pewter drinking mug? *MINE!*
2 videos later
Ben: *Posts video of a D&D story where potion of ale-breathing was a major plot point*
I'm still waiting on it.
this reminds me of a silly scene in a book:
two Sea Elves had been captured.
their friend, a female Drow, was trying to come up with a way to get them out of the village and back into the sea.
she conjured up two BEER elementals who walked to the sea with them inside!
and they also got VERY drunk!
It sounds like your players were just really cooperative and "yes and"-ed with your style really well. Sounds like a blessing to both GM and Player alike.
Head DM: Ben, you won!
Ben: OH NO DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG?!
Haha this was my first thought
Honestly the PC’s face when they said the Kraken pun is exactly the face I mad when I heard it and will be henceforth stealing this pun for future sessions
“ you’re dead to us metaphorically...”
Ben such a good DM that even when he doesn’t try he still wins the competition.
i feel like you went at this at the right angle ben, you started by saying you'd rather not compete and just play as you normally do, and that's how good games are played, when you're having fun it can seem like things are going fast but in reality its going just right... i assume after you were done you asked your players how they thought things went, what they would have wanted changed or anything like that and they probably had no complaints... in which case, you did good, competition or not!
3:55
I will forever love that face.
When you know you're hilarious and that everyone should be laughing even though they're not.
I came back to this video specifically to make that face a custom emoji for my Discord server.
"Jeez, I would hate to be the table that won."
Sometimes, foreshadowing is relatively obvious.
I think the important thing is your table had fun. It's like that "the only reason you should check your neighbor's bowl is to see if he has enough" kinda thing.
So, you're basically saying that you gave a LICH the bartender's toss?
That's hilarious! XD
"we have to unclog the pipe, or everyone will become Sober!"
*Wails of distress echo through the land*
Can't get a hangover if you never sober up.
@@insignificantgnat9334 2000 iq
How drunk would you get by BREATHING straight alcohol, though!?
@@exumbra1399 I am going to be party pooper and say you wouldn't.
@@MortalReaver Really? If the stomach easily absorbs alcohol before it even hits the intestines, then why wouldn't one absorb it even moreso through the thousands of air-to-blood-vessel Oxygen-transfer membrane sacs in the lungs?
"who hadd the power to get jiggy with it"
and you killed the player in spirit for saying "let's get Kraken."
You ran into the producers problem. You worked so hard on making every indivdual thing go wrong, you did the whole thing right.
I love the fact that there is consistently one person who makes puns. Hes just always ready with a pun. Hes by far my favorite outside of Ben, because the DM is always my favorite simply because you can do so much.
"We're from the meadows! You wanna go!?"
I am so stealing this concept for my next game!
Fey gang war?
Forest fey represent!
Another funny thing is that Las Vegas basically means The Meadows.
Also, to quote DavvyChappy: Fuck Fey.
God the autocorrect
@@germangamer7377 yes, that is the Oda mon...
I ran a game with an extended stay in the Fey realm with a pair of satyr dudebro's as guides. Chad and Brody Brohoof (or was it Dudehoof, I'm not sure any more). They only wore shirts so they could have popped collars.
I was hoping for a beerholder when I saw the tentacle shadow.
I for one was hoping for an ale-boleth.
Oh my God I did a test campaign where I had a tavern owned by a beholder and I DIDNT THINK OF THIS PUN
I want this now, the backstory writes itself. Tavern owner used to be an adventurer and got into a drinking contest with a beholder. This eventually leads to it passing out and having an ale filled dream producing the first and only Beerholder. The owner quickly struck a deal with the Beerholder to save it's life from it's creator and settled down in a bustling town he liked to be co-owners of a thriving tavern. The Beerholder's 4 tentacles each produce a different type of booze reflective of the quality that the Beholder had before passing out.
Beer treme monster wow.
Cocktailatrice.
Should have been an Ale-boleth instead of booze kraken IMO
Or a vampire named Count Vodkula. Nah, thats MEADiocre, I should have RUMmaged around my head for a better pun first. No use in WINEing.
@@shino4242 Your puns physically hurt me
*voice in the distance*
I waaaarrrned you!
@@shino4242 Damn and i even read those puns in Abserd's voice xd Good one man
I read through the Last Orders At The Yawning Portal Tavern. The reason why your group got so many points is because you took your time due to how easy it is to miss clues, especially if you are rushing/not thinking hard about situations.
and because they threw the lich down the stairs
Pace definitely matters. I get so frustrated playing with my brother. Where an 8 hour session turns into only 2 goblins slain and all the time spent in miniscule combat details.
We're here to tell a story together. This isn't dragon Ball Z. You don't need 3 hours of air time to do one attack.
how many super saiyans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
just one, but it will take them 9 episodes to do it
introducing: The elderly frail Wizard "Palister - Black Cloak"
Puffin Forest: draws him with a blue Robe
Me: o.O U MADMAN!!!
*Halaster blackcloak enters the spotlight.... wearing blue cloak?* "Oh come on!"
If the blue is dark enough I could be black
I mean, Betty White didn’t always wear white.
Open subscriptions and there’s a 16 second old puffin forest video. Today’s a good day
I think it was a rare combination of the GM and group's playstyle matching. If you have a quick DM and players that focus on objectives and creative ideas it flows so much faster than if people want to waste time with table talk or pointless side journeys.
"Let's get Kraken" is no worse than me saying "Let's get this thing rolling" at the beginning of each session.
That kraken pun had me kraken up, I was tentickled pink, I was drowning in laughter, I'll be laughing all beak, davy jones will find me castaway!
you're dead to us METAPHORICALLY
Honestly if you and your table had fun who cares how long it took. I did a one of with my buddy Chris for his first time DMing and He did amazing. I havent payed that much attention to detail in a long time. He did an awesome job. Before we knew it it was 3am and we started at 6p. We all had a blast.
"The game was actually semi-competitive..."
It was at this point I just paused stared blankly into space and uttered as confused as possible: WHY?
Competitive DnD is the most antithetical thing I've ever heard. Literally heard of it once before when someone was applying to be president of the current gaming club I'm in in an email. The dude clearly had never even heard of DnD before given how he talked about it. Unless it's supposed to be some kind of tournament-esque arc, I don't see how it even works. The one time we did anything like it was for a charity event across multiple clubs, but it wasn't so much directly competitive as it was: "Let's see who can reach the end of the scenario fastest so we can hype up the charity even more and also see who effects who else in the world by going through them first and leaving stuff behind for the others to find!"
To me, competitive DnD or competitive "roleplaying" is something like this idea I had of a "Deathnote Campaign" where you have one group of players as the detectives and police trying to bring the other group of "Kiras" to justice. And the Kiras "win" by figuring out the police group's names and basically systematically killing them. The only problem I had ran into this idea was more about information. you would either have to have multiple GMs going on at the same time and sharing information between them about how close the teams are to each other or one GM doing to 2 groups on different days. It was just too ambitious to me because of how asymetrical it is as well as the fact that the Kira group technically dont have to answer to anyone and can do things kinda their own way while the police officers almost have to do most of the campaign together as a team. Still, I thought it would have been a neat and fun idea to do it all the same.
@@lordxmugen That sounds like a great idea for a game, if only very ambitious. I wonder if you could make it work on a smaller scale or something.
Competitive D&D is almost as old as the game itself. Tomb of Horrors was a tournament module.
@@malcolmcampbell2370 Yeah, but that was just a raw dungeon crawl to see who could get the furthest, no roleplaying or anything like that.
ThatPedanticCommenter Back in the good old days of 1st edition Gygax and gang used to run annual competitive dungeons at conventions. Some of the most iconic dungeon modules like Tomoachan were written specifically for these events. Of course back then the game was much more hardcore with less of the ‘everybody wins’ storytelling aspect that they’ve gone with for 5th edition. I got curious and decided to give it a go, but with no 5th edition competitive dungeons available I had to write my own (I think I slightly overdid it), and changed some of the rules of the game to tweak balance (ahem, goodberry). I ran it for multiple groups, all competing for as much gold as possible before time ran out and the place flooded. I found that it actually helped smooth out some of the game’s flaws like the pointlessness of gold, and provided the opportunity for the DM to be truly impartial with no chance for the players to complain >:). That said some of my more casual groups didn’t really enjoy it, but for veteran players like myself I think that competitive D&D brings a totally unique experience that has been under-utilised in 5e.
Also if anyone’s interested I might post the dungeon on DM’s guild but the formatting of my 50k word google doc to a readable pdf is kinda daunting
OoooooOoOoOoOOOooh hello there! It is I Abserd again! I'm still waiting to be at leasti in one scene of a video, because I can fight the evil!
Hahaha yeah I agree!
Not him again...
@@helenaierza9118 I know Abserd is right, join me and make me appear!
So are SOooo Absurd, abserd.
@@DigiladePadres Problem evil guy?
you telling me that there was an alchemist that actually took the time to make a potion of ale breathing?
of course! you never know when that might be useful. when you need it and you don't have it, you're all gonna be like "man, i wish we took that guy more seriously. . ."
As a dm, this whole last rant at the end hits you. A good DM to me has 1 job above all others, make sure the players are having fun.
Definitely the hardest part of the game. And I would think about that too.... did we have fun or did we go to fast?
To me it is clear your team enjoyed themselves, and we may never know if the table with one point had MORE fun, but we know for certain your table had a good time. I would loose sleep over this.
"Who has fun talking to NPCs for hours"
People who enjoy that? Like my Wednesday-Campaign is that for 90% of the time. And we enjoy it.
But its not for everyone. So yes the answer is that: It varies from table to table.
I know! In one of our gaming sessions, we wasted the whole night on one game session where the characters hung around town for a day shopping, busking in the streets (well, the bard, anyway), picking pockets, forging equipment, etc. And dammit, it was a lot of fun just to see what our characters did in their off hours for once. I rather enjoyed teaching orphans how to pick locks because it helps explain how you got your theives guild a few levels down the road. =)
I want to go to your games. My players hate when we have too much talking, but roleplay is my forte.
My group tends to make single session plans into 3 sessions by RPing too much, we love it, our DM is confused :D
@@jamesanthony8438 That is very cool^^ Shopping is actually one thing my group doesn't like to do much.
Adopting orphans to raise them into their schemes though.. oh yes.
@@Chaosgiver I am sorry :( I understand how that can suck. I tried to gm for a group that was more.. dungeon grinder orientated and it was just was no fun for me.
If you ever have interest in online gaming and are okay with the a semi-european time zone.. My last group is full, but I could probably gm a oneshot or something of that nature :)
My guess is because you actually *weren't* treating it like a contest and intentionally trying to go slow, as a by product you ended up creating a rather chill atmosphere over the table that made it so the PCs didn't second guess themselves and mainly went with the first obvious option.
From what you described of the other tables, it sounds like they were taking competitiveness of the session seriously, which probably resulted in a lot of back and forth bickering between PCs over the 'optimal' way of handling things that likely ate up a lot of time.
Take it from me: when you introduce competitiveness or try to make a plot point super serious, the PCs WILL eat up time bickering. Source; spending two hours of my life watching a group debate if they should or shouldn't head towards a town.
Serious? Not serious? Chill? Let talk three hour to know if we take this weird guy potion, after intimidate him to know the effects!
Or let's discut three hours of «what can we do with rope? Did torch really necessary? COME ON, this bird CAN TALK!»
That's how my two players play. And gave me idea. Because they just say no to the main quest. Underground kingdom exploration is apparently way better XD
this would explain the time that i had a party that were in a forest for so long, i had to summon raptors to get them moving...
In my 30 years of life, I have never played or even seen in person a game of D&D played. Only recently have I become infatuated with the idea. Since my schedule is completely booked right now, I'm settling for watching videos like the ones you create. I love how free and funny the stories can turn out. I appreciate you making these videos. It allows me to live through a D&D player. Lol
4:55 "Disrespecting my homesuckle" gets me every time.
I like how a solid portion of this is Puffin having an existential crisis.
The end was just puffin having a midlife chrisis
It was good and here is the reason why: Your table worked together and did stuff. A lot of people are unfocused or just do other things like browsing reddit/9gag while in combat bc they are bored. The reason for that is they aren't invested in the game.
And no these are not the passiv people who watch the story unfold itself bc they want to watch every little detail of the story. And while they don't want to shine they want to progress and so help the main characters.
Our table usually has the opposite problem tbh, a few of the players tend to check out during roleplaying sections, and only really come active during combat, it got so bad, that my characters usually turn a bit passive in the roleplay scenes so I can help push the other characters to roleplay and contribute in the scenes. I usually have a bit less fun when I do this, but its way more of an interesting time than the alternative where 2 or 3 people out of the 5 handle all of the roleplay scenarios while the rest of the 5-6 people we have fiddle with their phones, play minecraft or risk falling asleep.
"Don't like it when players get stuck for too long..."
That reminded me of a game where my entire part got stuck for 15 minutes rolling dice trying to pull a lever...to....start...the...dungeon.... because as a rouge, I had the highest STR in the party with a 10... We ended up picking up one of the gnomes and using him as a battering ram to hit the lever.
Current campaign I am the DM for if the barbarian misses the session combined strength modifier for party is a negative number
Why make roles for things that don't have consequences??? "So what did you guys do tonight?" "We failed to pull a lever" lame no fun night.
Now if the group is being chased and has to open it before the chaser gets there it makes sense... succeed and progress or fail and have a consequence
Every players and every DM are different. Working together and being attentive to each other is what makes the best games. As long as the people leaving your table have a smile on their face and are exited then you did a good job. Speed is relative.
You say you're a fast GM, but you know the balance of when people are falling asleep. That makes you STAND OUT as a GM :) Keep it lively Ben! Probably the best/kindest GM i've seen
They really missed out on having the party fight a beer-holder
I thought it would be an Aleboleth.
Funny you say that because in my current campaign we had to fight a beholder in it's lair and our Barbarian struck the final blow. immediately like 100 slaves came out of their hidey holes to worship the barbarian as their new supreme overlord. His first rule? learn how to make beer and get to producing. So now we have a beer-holder's lair. Which produces massive amounts of beer.
@@Cheshiregrinn91 true facts about beholders
I appreciate your personal reflection at the end. Everyone has enjoyment at their own pace. Some people like to go quick, some people like to go slow. And as the GM It’s difficult to balance players enjoyment with keeping the game going. This is one of my weakest areas. As the GM, I’ll get so entrenched in the story, I’ll lose sight of my players enjoyment.
I appreciate your insight, and I want to encourage you that it’s possible your table had as much fun as the table with only one victory point, because for them, their enjoyment could’ve been equal to your table, just at a different pace. For the players you had, I think you did a great job, whether you won or not.
Yup that's a weird feeling.
Teacher to my group : "Okay, 14 on 20"
Me : "Could be better I guess"
Teacher again : "Yup but you're also the best group"
Me : "... what ? Guess there's no competition"
Heh, had a similar experience at my first ever philosophy exam in 12th grade equivalent.
Teacher - The class average for this exam is 8/20. Very good job.
Class - _Nervous chuckling_
Teacher - No, really, most classes' first mark is closer to 6. You've done really well for a first exam!
My history teacher used to have a thing on his tests where if the top scorer missed any points than everyone got +(however many points) on their test. There was one test where another student and I got 100% and the third highest was 87% which sort of pissed people off.
Ben, your voice is perfect for story telling! I so enjoy all of your videos! As an old shut in fella, I often find myself replaying your video shows throughout the day, especially the Straud adventure. So much fun. Thank you so very much for the endless hours of entertainment you have provided me ... just thought you should know.
I ran two groups through a shared campaign setting. One team consistently flew through content every week so quickly that I had to stop sessions early. Their RP consisted mostly of one-liners. They also took NPCs at face value. The other team fought with each other a lot and treated every NPC interaction like it was a criminal interrogation. It was crazy slow. Group dynamics means everything in D&D.
I always suspected professional bowlers were evil villains in disguise🤔
oh, this reminds me o a scene in the book series "magnus chase and the gods of asgard", where the hero and his friends got into a bowling match, and the other team cheated by casting some sort of space-stretching spell, so that, in a sense, the pins in the hero's lane were MILES away...
Magnus responded by LOBBING a ball into the other team's lane and making a large hole in it, so they couldn't score EITHER.
Genuinely snorted aloud at the ‘Kraken’ pun.
I paused and giggled like an idiot for several seconds.
Puffin: Competition is laaamee
Me: yeah, for sure. People should just have fun with DnD
Puffin: I'm gonna make sure my table falls behind and doesn't win some stupid prize
Me: Oh he's gonna regret that....
BUT WHAT WAAASSS THE PRIZE?!
@Sebastian Tully I thought so, but wasn't entirely sure. Thought maybe it was a miniature or a handbook maybe. Thx for clearing it up.
Competition is So lame - unless I'm Winning ! 😉😎
I played the same module at an event, and my low lvl (1-4) tier 1 table won in kind of the same way. By just having fun and trying to help out everyone at our table completing their own personal missions (which didn't give any points) we somehow ended up gathering the most points.
The prize was and in game prize of your party being recognized as the biggest heroes of saving Durnan and having a portrait hung over the fireplace in Durnans tavern The Yawning Portal.
Juan Cortez Muro STOP!
@@JimBobJoeB0b Report him
I think the fact that the group helped you keep track of stuff showed that they were a very organized group and probably meshed well with you and enjoyed the game and that's why they got through so much content.
being able to notice when half the table is bored and moving the scene along is your greatest attribute in aiding the experience in a "interactive reactive narrative." "Reading a Room" is something I've noticed that people can struggle on when they are focused on there character and the DM is focused on the environment.
Gotta admit.... the "Let's get Krak-en" pun wasn't too bad...
I've played and run many, many AL adventures in the last few years, and I've learned that one of the most important skills for a DM, especially but not exclusively for organized play, is to keep the pace moving and manage time effectively. When the game drags on, such as when the party is stuck on a situation or puzzle, or when they're wasting a ton of time on meaningless conversations that don't move the story forward, that can be really frustrating for the players. It really helps to have a DM who knows how to keep the game moving, giving hints when the players are stuck and speeding the narrative up when the party is getting side-tracked.
I have played a few games where the DM ran things too quickly and it wasn't entirely satisfying, but I've had way more games where the DM dragged things on for too long and I just wanted to take out my phone and do something else. And if a DM is fast but bad, at least it's over quickly. But if the DM is slow and bad, it is just excruciating. Trust me, scoring that many points absolutely reflects well on your part, and from previous experience, I find it highly unlikely that the players at the 1 point table enjoyed it much.
I like how this started out as the craziest most random D&D adventure ever. I believe in my heart, that some people think it's always that silly and nonsensical btw.
I like how it ENDED with a truly honest and thoughtful commentary about whether he was successful in how he ran the table, and comparing it to others that did it differently.
Self-evaluation is always a good thing. Even if you are actually a Barbarian, and not a Monk....
xD
Fun description of the session. And your animation and descriptions on things like "Let's get cracking," "We're from the meadows," and the dance competition were hilarious and made me laugh out loud. Thank you! :)
It doesn’t matter what pace you play at as long as most everyone leaves the table happy, which it kinda sounds like that happened. So good job man. Don’t think too hard on it or you’ll just get unnecessary headaches.
It is rare when youtube actually makes me laugh out loud at work, but "Let's get Kraken." made me lose it.
I can't stand it when the game runs at a snails pace. I also cant stand a race. To me, the pace should reflect the situation. A chase should run fast, standard combat should be steady. Not to fast, not to slow. RP should be fluid and natural. But that's me.
Nah, it makes sense. One of my friends whose been DM'ing for 10 years said that a certain rhythm has to be maintained. Slow in moments where it counts such as gathering clues or fighting while making things move quickly such as chases or being pursued.
It's a game, but it's also a story. And a story isn't fun when it feels so slow that you haven't done anything amazing or become disinterested if it's persistently too fast.
You had me at "Let's....get Kracken". You've earned yourself a lifelong sub, my friend.
Honestly, it sounds like you did a fantastic job. I've run an AL Epic before which was also tongue and cheek, and none of the encounters were all that deep, so getting to experience more of them makes for a more fun experience for the players. I would be elated if I ever got to play at one of your AL tables.
Of all your stories, this is my favorite. If a campaign is relaxed and moving along, and the players interact constructively, it creates the best experience and the best game. This shows that it can be quantified.
When they dived into the ale i thought they were going to encounter an "ale-boleth"
An easy measure of value for leisure time: Did you reach the end of you time feeling "well, that wasn't worth it"? If not then congrats you had, at worst, an okay night. If you later decided to mention the event, to anyone at all, in a positive light then you had a good time. If you feel the "need" to tell someone about what happened you're now in the area between good and great. But don't try to measure your fun against someone else's. Some people love roll playing a dumb interaction to its utter end and others need to be rolling dice. Do you man.
I actually laughed really hard at the "lets get kraken" joke.
My group is doing a pirate campaign soon. I will use this joke.
You're dead to us metaphorically
I loved his facial expression as it is exactly the same one that I would use
Same here to joke was so bad it went full circle
Phew, it wasn't just me then... though I did laugh at the fall out from the joke too. Maybe that makes me a Meta-DadJoker?
I just wanted to tell you that I'm so grateful for your channel because you were honestly the whole reason that I got into dnd. I've made many new friends and I've even started to dm for my group. Thank you so much for your entertaining videos and keep up the good work.
That booze vat and potion of ale breathing is something I have to use for my up coming 2e campaign. Like come on that's pretty baller.
I never thought an offical D&D game would get this wiers and i love it. Gives me an idea for a one shot.
WE NEED THE STORY OF THE TURTLE “FRIENDS”!!!!!!!!
Watch the Q&A panel.
As said, watch the Q&A panel, long story short it was basically him saying "Find a name for the group or I'm going to have you called the turtle molesters"
In short, kind of the Chadwick Strongpants situation only he actually did it.
I have to say not what I was expecting.....I’m honestly slightly disappointed and yet at the same time also a touch relieved
Kinda surprised he was that set on having a group name. I don't think I've ever played in a game where we did, in my current one whenever we're talking about the group collectively we just call them "those chucklefu...riends" or "our pack of idiots"
"we won and didn't actually tell anyone we actually won even more by not telling every one of our every success" but he is telling us, so let's keep it secret, alright?
it doesn't matter if you feel like you need to doubt yourself, because your videos are really thoughtful and theres nothing better than a really thoughtful video about something you're genuinely interested in!
A convention for DMs making a whole meta-DM thing with multiple adventuring parties coming together in some kind of wild adventure ARMY?! Now THAT is ambitious.