I don't cheat in D&D, but as a DM I HAVE fudged some rolls to adjust the difficulty of a fight mid battle before. I don't want to accidentally wipe out the players due to rng, or have an important fight be too easy.
Hey there CritCrab. This video really hits home. I've delt with all of this. I had a Main-Character/Critic damage the one game i ran so badly, i was was forced to boot him from the game. He had the mother of all meltdowns. Too bad. You ruin someone's game, you get what you deserve......
The key with a dmpc is to treat them like an actual side character. They’re not part of every scene, they’re not part of every conversation, they offer their help and support, but never take the spotlight away from the players.
I recently introduced a DMPC to a party, a character from some old games I played him in. He's a level 6 Celestial Warlock, while the party was level 3. He was in the "Family Guy Death Pose" and they had to revive him, and his main gimmck is giving the team pebbles with Magic Stone if they don't have ranged weapons, and being a ritual monkey for Identify, Detect Magic and other ritual stuff the party doesn't have (Party being a Paladin, a Monk and a Rogue).
I made a Dmpc with my friends in a ravnica campaign. Originally he was a peasant, but after getting his home raided by antagonistic rakdos and his village's children was kidnapped with many dead. For context he is a kraul (a quadrapedal bug person that can do bug things) This Kraul bug man had nothing to lose to join the party and wanted the raiders to have their heads removed. One of the party members were genuinely concerned about whether or not it would be wise to have a peasant join the assault (he cared because both the peasant and player came from the same faction: Golgari) because he was... kinda weak. So i found a homebrew class that made him slowly into an adventurer as the party advanced into the undercity, tracking down the raiders and leveling him up to become a fighter (everyone in the group were either half-casters or full casters and i thought it would be nice to give them someone to smash some skulls with). He became tactful because he knew that confronting the enemy head on failed miserably for him (he tried but got his bug ass handed to him). An example was when the party was crossing a narrow bridge in the undercity, they came across a small band of angry gruul warriors. The fight was a bit difficult because the gruul have the power to rage and last fight drained the party's spell slots. The Kraul Dmpc decided to walk underneath the bridge. A few rounds later and positioning for a good spot, the Dmpc lunged over the bridge while dragging down on of the warriors down the bridge. There were no safety railing soooo... Splat. Ever since that moment, my party know him as the "mover", where he shoves people off bridges. This happened two more times in separate sessions (not back to back). Spleet. Fweeesh! (it was a bridge over lava) Also he did get his revenge, but decided to remain with the party after they helped him and healed him with magic, making him regard them as friends. I made sure that at any point of the game, he would not outshine the rest of the party, and only get moments of glory where the party would recognize his worth and not be cannon-fodder. Moral of the story for other dms: think SMART, not grant godly boons or meta-gaming knowledge and make him very VERY mortal and relatable so the party would give a damn about to care for.
I am running a DMPC in a Pathfinder 2e game. The party is new to TTRPG's and to the system, so he's kind of tutorializing some things as he travels with them and showing them the kinds of supportive actions they can take in combat. I make sure that aside from being a source of extra knowledge, he never solves any problems for the players.
I'm currently running a DMPC that is a mute (no one knows if he's actually mute or just never talks for some other reason) ex mafia lord now turned into cleric that is just there because there's only players and now healer.
my DMPC in my current campaign is a non magical healer and mostly there for emotional support when the pcs need it. Just a support Character who avoids conflict.
I've had the sheer fun to have a GM who was both an MC and cheater (he loved to lie and gaslight the players. And every NPC he shoved down our throats had to be part of every conversation)
As a DM, my biggest fault is forgetting that D&D Beyond resets every encounter to Self (DM) Roll as DM, but as a player it defaults to Everyone. So I constantly get called out because I'm calling out rolls the players can't see.
Sounds a lot like the owner of a Pokemon west march server I was in. He had to make every plotline revolve around him and bent the rules to his favor. Seriously, in what universe should Grassy Terrain be unlimited?
These stories always make me SO grateful for the group I play with. We're a bunch of "forever DMs" who banded together to take turns running campaigns for each other, so we all know how to a) make a DM's life much easier, and b) screw with a DM in fun and appropriate ways that make for a great experience for everybody involved. We all know how to be a "main character" while still allowing everybody else opportunities to shine, we cheat "creatively" to make for better story beats while maintaining game integrity, and we all know the rules of the game well and how to break them in spirit while keeping the letter of the law intact. It's honestly the best gaming experience I've had in years of playing and DMing.
I unintentionally created a "Main Character" as my Rogue. Tabaxi Swasbuckler with a Charlatan background. Spent the campaign getting signatures, parchment, copies of signet rings, etc. while setting up con-jobs and travelling with the party. Basically... if there was coin to be had, or made, or equipment swiped/swindled, I was making sure my character squeezed people for every copper. It usually included me using other party members as patsies or unwilling participants, while most all of us were crying with laughter. Best character ever.
@@Dakarn lol I’ve got a character in one of my campaigns like that. She’s basically running an MLM scheme recruiting people to sell her own brand of “organic healing potions” which are basically a mildly addictive substance derived from snake venom (she’s a yuan-ti) that technically does make you feel better, but that’s only because it makes you feel slightly worse before it wears off. :p. She’s got a network of sellers in the city she lives in who all have networks of sellers of their own, etc. etc. Basically, she’s Herbalife.
Oh! Weirdly enough I never watched CR. But heard a lot of that problem. Can you tell me what is the deal here? Is Matt really really good, so no one can compare, or is he doing some weird stuff?
@@PTHYTQV Critical Role has blown up in popularity to the point where people think that Matt Mercer's style is just the default that everyone should do, which isn't at all realistic. It's like getting all of your romantic knowledge and experience from romcoms, then getting upset when things don't turn out in exactly that way.
@@PTHYTQV Honestly even Matt is vocally against the Matt Mercer effect. He runs his games specific to make it fun for his own group and would love every group to also be tailored to their own fun. Plus comparing new dm trying to have fun to professional voice actor whose been playing since he was a kid is just silly.
I think DMs tend to be very generous about letting you reroll very bad stats. My personal rule, though, is that if I roll too many GOOD stats, I'll artificially lower one that makes sense for that character. I enjoy a nice balanced character.
In my games we always used 1 of 2 ways to determine stats. Either Point Buy, where you can freely spend 75 points on your stats up to 18 for each stat, or the great communal roll. Each player rolls stats and whe make a big list with all the rolled values, then we assign them as a group so noone gets all the good stats and all the characters are balanced out. This always led to good character stats ans prevented a single character from becoming overpowered.
I used to have the main character issues. The dm talked to me about it and now whenever I play, I actively try to get other players to be in the spotlight. (By playing barbs so they hype people up). I find it much more fun and it helped me be a better dm when I do
I was so looking for a new video and, as always, you didn't disappoint. Also, I just wanted to say thank you for what you said in your live stream about me as it really meant a lot to me :3
"You should be more like Matt Mercer" You mean the professional voice actor with probably hundreds of voice acting credits to his name and years of experience in that profession even before he started doing Critical Role? That Matt Mercer?
We had a cheater at our table once - you know the kind, the one who scoops up the die before anyone can see it and then calls a number that is conveniently higher than 17. Our DM got our table a giant d20, which everyone used. It was slightly slower, but that d20 hated everyone equally. I managed to roll three successive crit fails in a row with that monster.
@@Red_Devil_2011 that's rough, you've literally described my monk in one game. She got knocked out so often it was just a running joke, she obviously talked a big game but when the fights happened she was knocked out because she couldn't hit the broad side of the barn. It was a shock when she finally managed to crit and kill a boss.
In the same boat, though our group plays online with our rolls made public (the dm also chooses to, despite knowing that he can hide his, out of a sense of fairness), so I've had a few characters lost because they were smote by RNGesus. Otherwise, the one thing that I build them towards tends to fail.
"They have been dealt with, now lets us continue the tale... of me..." Ok, A lightning strike hits your character dealing one billion radiant damage. Have a nice day :)
"These people watch too much Cinemasins and now have to take issue with every single infraction" I feel like this is applicable for just Cinemasins fans in general
I...regretfully admit that I suffered a little bit of Main Character Syndrome when I first started playing. I'd never watched anyone play before, I never played games with others before (growing up no one wanted to play games I liked and I wasn't interested in what they liked) so I never learned how to function in a group-setting, and being asocial I sometimes genuinely don't know how to talk to people without talking about stuff *I* like. Thankfully, after a while when I realized it's not about ME but EVERYONE, I learned how to be in a group, and it become more engrossing and enjoyable. It's painful to think back on but I'm glad I became a better player.
That's a lighthearted deconstruction with some pretty dark undertones, exploring life in a Darwinist society. It's like BNHA's hero system, but lowkey dark asf. It explores themes such as corruption and intrigue with the existence of characters like the Fubuki and her mafia, Sweet Mask, Bofoi and PPP in the HA, and Garou's whole schtick. The fights are very cool, but in my opinion, it's more like a Slice Of Life with your typical Shonen Battle elements, with a bit of societal critique added in. i dunno tho, i'm just some dude who can't even speak english that well(2nd language, also what's a verb again?)
Player: why aren't you like Matt Mercer Me: Because I haven't had over 5 years of voce acting experience as a main character in a triple a game and have access to elaborate props, designs and play maps. Additionally, I lack his level of funding. While we're on the topic however, Liam O'Brien is a way better player than you, why can't you be like him? Now that that's out of the way, can I continue with my poorly rendered Irish accent that sounds suspiciously Scottish?
I do use physical Dice sometimes for my online games, but I use my roommates as witnesses. They're very honest gamers and will let our group know what I actually roll.
I once legitimately had all 18 in lvl 1. Dm rolled our stats for us in the first session. I was playing a warforged rogue. Later arcane trickster rogue. And the only out of game/ homebrew had was the fact that the warforged I played was a human cyborg. Which meant I looked like a human but all my organs bones etc were warforged based and I had the warforged stat block. It was a fun campaign, especially because we had a berserker barbarian gnome with maxed str dex and con while his wis and I t were at 6 and 8 while charisma was at a whooping 17, which made his speeches incredible good but he was stupid as a brick
Its always funny to hear about the main character's red flag because my group usually will unofficially assign a main character after a couple sessions to feel out the dynamic. Thankfully its never been abused(yet!)
My players have done this in my most recent campaign as well. I accidentally gave my party an island, and I'm not the kind of DM that walks things backwards to take things away from the party, so I had them sign a contract with the local government for use of the island. Naturally the rest of the party looked towards the wizard to do the paperwork, and she was all too happy to. Now she technically owns the island, and was almost unanimously elected its leader. But despite this, each party member has their own ongoing plot, and they let each other have the spotlight.
6:21 I'm glad you put that little marker there. I roll physical dice because a lot of the times the bot we use in our campaign either glitches out and will roll the same number or with D&D beyond the rolls take a while.
Had a game essentially fall apart over powergamer+ critic types. It was SR, which is a dumptruck of worms, not a mere can. I still remember the last time we played. My uncle had died, I was already going to be making a strenuous trip for some other reason, and it fell apart over matrix searches and if they were just good roll = find guy. I asked if tracking was a skill, because while I was playing an amnesiac and learning skills as they came up, it sounds good to do. The search gave us at least a direction to go, and my character had just recovered memories of the area, so I thought "Oh, this is a good time to put this new thing I learned into action! Our GM is so clever, he gave me a skill and then a few sessions later I have the opportunity to try it!" I wasn't so much shot down as ignored because the argument with the GM was just too fucking tasty, I guess. After I was shut down and people just kept arguing, I dissociated for a bit before I realized I was doing so, and simply said, "My uncle is dead, I'm making a 17 hour drive tomorrow, I don't have time to sit and listen to my friends fight over a game that's supposed to be for fun. Bye, guys." And that was my first and last SR campaign.
My dm back in the day had a pc with such severe anxiety that he wouldn't commit to making any decisions. He'd occasionally offer some fairly paranoid input in a cool way that might help us make a decision, or obscure things even more. Turned out to be a really fun character to have around, and was not overpowered or railroading, or giving too much information. And it gave our DM a way to roleplay in the world he'd created. I was consistently impressed with how he managed to keep that game fun, immersive, and fair. We didn't get to finish that campaign due to life circumstances changing, but we played it for quite a while and very few problems came up.
I love playing online for D&D, it's how both of the campaigns I'm in are being played. It helps that both games are having all player dice rolls being done in a place everyone else can see them. It makes it so the players who roll high stats don't have to be looked at twice with scrutiny because it's right there to look at and see. The open rolls also means that everyone gets the solid moment to laugh when the person who rolled an overall 90 still drops the ball in something they should be good in. It's me, I'm the 90 overall Rogue who rolled a 2 on my first stealth check in the session zero and put me and our Bard into a fight with three kobolds that nearly killed me.
"you're not like Matt Mercer at all." "and you're not like sam, travis, laura, marisha, ashley, liam, or taliesin. you're not even worth being compared to orion."
On the butting in, I think we've all had moments where we weren't paying attention or simply forgot where we were, but making a havit of that is the part that crosses the line. As for cheaters, my group is online and we've run it so that only the DM can use their physical dice on most rolls, however I personally still use the online dice roller on occasion. However, someone found a way to cheat even in that sustem we had by "losing their character sheet" multiple times. We kept a copy of it after a while, and when the new one didn't match up twice, we figured it was time to kick them. Thankfully that's the only cheater our group has had.
6:26 I can admit I cheated in a Vampire The Masquerade oneshot to prevent a TPK, or what I thought was going to be an imminent TPK. Instead of rolling a low firearms check, I fudged one of the dice to give me 2x success instead of failing the check. I nearly decapitated the main-antagonist in 2 turns. In the end we managed to get away with a total of 4hp on the whole party. I think my "expert marksmanship" (which wasnt even enough to kill the oneshot bbeg) may have saved the remains of our party.
As someone who often thinks about cheating (I've only ever actually done it a couple times, and only in minor, one-off ways), I'm most compelled to possibly cheat when I don't fully trust the DM. If I know the DM won't punish me for a bad roll, then I'll declare my bad rolls with a laugh, but if I know they're the type of DM to pile on punishments for a 1 or to make everyone reroute for 20 minutes if no one manages to open the door, then I'll be more compelled to possibly cheat, not for power, but just to avoid the unfun consequences that I don't want to deal with. So, if you have someone who's cheating on dice rolls, maybe ask them why instead of just coming to them with accusations. Maybe they'd be more comfortable being honest if you removed critical fumbles/failures or if you improved the group flow past challenges so that a failed group challenge leads to a fun alternate challenge rather than an annoying slog. Maybe the player feels like they don't contribute enough to the team and wants to stop feeling incompetent, or maybe they feel like they've been having bad luck and they're not getting support (such as bardic inspiration or the bless spell or the help action) from teammates that might mitigate those bad rolls and turn them into successes. Of course, someone could just be greedy, but if they're generally a good player except for the occasional cheating, then try asking them what's wrong. It might be as simple as adjusting the rules to make randomness easier to cope with or manipulate in a positive direction or letting the player adjust their character build so that their stats are high enough to have successes more often.
precisely this. it's why i always make nat 1s humorous at the very least, most of the time their weapons get stuck or they fall on their butts. it's important to, y'know, actually have fun
Due to my anxiety, depression and overall dear of dissapointment I get the temptation to fudge rolls. When I fail a roll I feel like im screwing up so im tempted a lot to cheat. HOWEVER the way ttrpgs work with failed rolls has actually helped me let go of that fear a bit, failure is not the end and while the temptation is still there I've learned to cope with the fear and resist
I'm so tempted to put some of my wild stories on here to see if CritCrab enjoys them, unfortunately I'm still friends with the DM and he watches these videos
I just got a character idea from this video. A dude who is played like an anime protagonist, but the world treats him like an NPC despite following the main group. He constantly spins his misfortune into it being character development to reach his full potential. And in combat he has a special ability if an enemy is below half health to roll a performance check to perform and anime monologue. If the enemy rolls a lower wisdom saving throw the anime man can perform a monologue and attack with crit.
I had a cheater in my team - we called him Lucky V, since his rolls, done in the open and in plain sight of everyone, almost always rolled ridiculously high. Turns out that "lucky" had a trick - his lucky dice were loaded. ALL of them. Well, almost... two of those were old and you couldn't read their faces no matter how much you tried. He was also a ridiculous munchkin... his characters were tricked so much that they were barely functional. Basically, he didn't want to play, he wanted to WIN.
We unfortunately never got to finish our campaign, but I found someone to DM for me and my roommates as we were all first timers. We had an absolute blast. We had a human fighter, a dark elf rogue, and a half orc Barbarian. We didn't have anyone to heal or anything like that, so the DM made a DMPC to help out with healing, and he was a big tired quiet turtle man cleric. He would just hide in his shell when combat wasn't happening, so it was a wonderful way to have help while not hindering our story. The correct way to have a DMPC. Sad it couldn't continue, it was some of the best fun I'd had in a long time.
There is also the rare bizarro world variant of the Main Character I call "The Road Crew" i.e A player who wants to upsell other peoples stories but throws an absolute spastic fit if you throw the spotlight on them as if they had a light vulnerability. This can be amusing for some groups, who practice a form of bear baiting by giving leadership and responsibility to this player in order to watch them flop around like an eel frying on a hot pan. This rarely ends well for anybody.
On the topic of DMPCs, a good DMPC has at least one of four things, and ideally, a combination of all four: 1) They are a support the party can call upon, and don't even have to be present most of the time. Maybe the party has a magic item that can talk to them, but they can't be physically present, so they can give advice and scry from where they are, but can't actually help themselves. Or perhaps they're on their own adventures, and so even though they CAN try to be there physically, they can only be there for a few minutes because of xyz story thing. That last one also could be used for a hook later on, having them show up and introduce an urgent quest, like a forced march to defend a city several days away from an orc warband that the npc just barely escaped from. 2) Make their skillset niche. Incredibly niche. If they're a wizard, maybe make them only have non-combat spells. Maybe they are an archeologist whose entire career is only focused on ancient gnome engineering. Maybe their a skilled fighter, but they have a strict code that limits what conflicts they're willing to get involved with. Maybe they're a wanted fugitive and can't show up in public. Give them an achilles heel that prevents them from being a "solve the problem" button in the narritive, while still being useful, and most importantly, only useful sometimes. 3) Know how much help they actually NEED to give, and have the players have to ask for help. Don't solve the problem for the players, but instead give them a new tool in their toolbox. Having them ask for specific help also means that solving the problem is on the players, while still opening new avenues to explore. 4) Make them narritively tied to or relient on the party in some small way. Not like in a "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" way, but in more of a business agreement way. The party and the npcs should have a symbiotic relationship to one another, which should (hopefully) drive up player investment.
Once i had a rule-lawyer in my game that criticised everything i did wrong and complained that i was slow at reading the stat block for my monsters, and complained that i used the feet system or that instead of saying the distance i would say "Ok your range is 5 spaces from him" instead of meters (i was raised playing monopoly).
I had a person when I was a first time DM, who was a meta gamer (constantly looking up monster stat blocks), critic (constantly complained about my story because they was an "actual author"), constantly would compare my DMing skill to Matt Mercer, and only cared about their backstory questline (he would zone out, listen to music or Twitch, or sulk when they couldn't force the party to follow their plot thread for the 9000th time). I eventually just stopped the campaign. I still DM other games and this person is still part of the friend group, its just become an unspoken rule that I will not DM for this player.
The whole dmpc thing is the whole reason I'm kinda nervous to ever try dming as I've been a player all my time in D&D and I don't wanna fall into the trap of making an op NPC that just dwarfs my players
don't let that stop you! trust your players to tell you if you're doing something wrong. it's a great experience. and now you already know what to look out for.
@Jess I'm prob gonna wait to dm tho as I currently just don't feel confident in my abilities rn especially since I'm relatively new to dnd as a whole due to having a past group be full of power gamers that didn't even try to actually help me learn how to play
@@Nghting oh shit im so sorry to hear that's your first experience with it. yeah ofc take your time with it learn the game maybe get a new group. i hope you have better experiences with it
One solution I've considered (but did not use) doing with one (now-reformed) critic at my table was to sarcastically offer "Oh you know what? You're right, you're sooo much smarter than me! Here, you run the campaign since you clearly know better than me." One of two results I feel would happen. He'd either 1). shut up and knock it off realizing he needs to take what he gets as a player or 2). Calls the bluff and I'm are no longer a forever DM. A win win in my opinion.
My very first sessions's DM NPC was a goblin, and we were at a Labyrinth(in the 1986 movie style) and DM did a banging job at voice-acting. We decided to keep it as a comedy relief sidekick. As a DM you can have npc-s and they can be a great tool to use to make the story more fun. The main issue is with the Mary sue main characters. Those are boring.
In our current campaign, we have 5 players. None of us chose to be a healer. So the dm made a cleric. He didnt take the spotlight, but he acted as a guide for the party so it made sense. Problem is cleric is possibly dead after a few sessions. Now we are teleported to a new location far from our home town. So we’ll see what happens in our upcoming session.
One of the biggest warning signs for main character syndrome is the multi paged, overly complicated backstory for the level 1 character. If you're level 1, you're barely better than a commoner, you shouldn't be a former general/assassin/god with decades of experience
as a DM myself I usually deal with these typer of players in these way: 1. Mary sues, I tell them the universe doesn't revolve around them and if they don't get it...well they want to be the protagonist so I make sure I target them; cheaters: if I catch someone cheating the first time I warn them, second time they get targeted, third time they get booted; Edgelord, they are not accepted; weebs or any player who tries to sneak an anime character, they are not accepeted. Furries: I make sure that in my world they are beast-people. They adapt? cool. They insist? they get booted. Critical role fan: 1st comment they get booted.
I had to cheat once to save my hide from getting a horrific CON debuff of 4 points after dying for the second time. The first death was thought on all ends excluding the dms to be bs, so we quietly changed it back. Whadya know, turns out it was useful in the end.
What sucks is when you get yourself a "main character" and they aren't as obviously grating as the example, and it takes months or years for you and your players to realize why your players aren't happy and why you dread what should be fun hobby game times
I'm new to Dming and the most I'd do for DMPC are gonna be just Easter eggs for my players, like I'm running Waterdeep dragon heist and in the opening scene I'm gonna have my 3 favorite characters sitting at a table talking to Matt Mercer lol
Gonna be live again here on UA-cam later today. Gonna do some work, play some games, and chill.
Try to catch it this time. It's usual late at night here but i'll try 🦀❤️
I don't cheat in D&D, but as a DM I HAVE fudged some rolls to adjust the difficulty of a fight mid battle before. I don't want to accidentally wipe out the players due to rng, or have an important fight be too easy.
Can we just appreciate that all of the "good" players are Steve?
Hey there CritCrab. This video really hits home. I've delt with all of this. I had a Main-Character/Critic damage the one game i ran so badly, i was was forced to boot him from the game. He had the mother of all meltdowns. Too bad. You ruin someone's game, you get what you deserve......
You expected a normal player... BUT IT WAS ME DIO!
And he was joined by someone who wanted Jotaro to DM.
The key with a dmpc is to treat them like an actual side character. They’re not part of every scene, they’re not part of every conversation, they offer their help and support, but never take the spotlight away from the players.
I recently introduced a DMPC to a party, a character from some old games I played him in. He's a level 6 Celestial Warlock, while the party was level 3. He was in the "Family Guy Death Pose" and they had to revive him, and his main gimmck is giving the team pebbles with Magic Stone if they don't have ranged weapons, and being a ritual monkey for Identify, Detect Magic and other ritual stuff the party doesn't have (Party being a Paladin, a Monk and a Rogue).
I made a Dmpc with my friends in a ravnica campaign. Originally he was a peasant, but after getting his home raided by antagonistic rakdos and his village's children was kidnapped with many dead. For context he is a kraul (a quadrapedal bug person that can do bug things)
This Kraul bug man had nothing to lose to join the party and wanted the raiders to have their heads removed. One of the party members were genuinely concerned about whether or not it would be wise to have a peasant join the assault (he cared because both the peasant and player came from the same faction: Golgari) because he was... kinda weak. So i found a homebrew class that made him slowly into an adventurer as the party advanced into the undercity, tracking down the raiders and leveling him up to become a fighter (everyone in the group were either half-casters or full casters and i thought it would be nice to give them someone to smash some skulls with).
He became tactful because he knew that confronting the enemy head on failed miserably for him (he tried but got his bug ass handed to him). An example was when the party was crossing a narrow bridge in the undercity, they came across a small band of angry gruul warriors. The fight was a bit difficult because the gruul have the power to rage and last fight drained the party's spell slots. The Kraul Dmpc decided to walk underneath the bridge. A few rounds later and positioning for a good spot, the Dmpc lunged over the bridge while dragging down on of the warriors down the bridge. There were no safety railing soooo...
Splat.
Ever since that moment, my party know him as the "mover", where he shoves people off bridges. This happened two more times in separate sessions (not back to back).
Spleet.
Fweeesh! (it was a bridge over lava)
Also he did get his revenge, but decided to remain with the party after they helped him and healed him with magic, making him regard them as friends.
I made sure that at any point of the game, he would not outshine the rest of the party, and only get moments of glory where the party would recognize his worth and not be cannon-fodder. Moral of the story for other dms: think SMART, not grant godly boons or meta-gaming knowledge and make him very VERY mortal and relatable so the party would give a damn about to care for.
I am running a DMPC in a Pathfinder 2e game. The party is new to TTRPG's and to the system, so he's kind of tutorializing some things as he travels with them and showing them the kinds of supportive actions they can take in combat. I make sure that aside from being a source of extra knowledge, he never solves any problems for the players.
I'm currently running a DMPC that is a mute (no one knows if he's actually mute or just never talks for some other reason) ex mafia lord now turned into cleric that is just there because there's only players and now healer.
my DMPC in my current campaign is a non magical healer and mostly there for emotional support when the pcs need it. Just a support Character who avoids conflict.
I've had the sheer fun to have a GM who was both an MC and cheater (he loved to lie and gaslight the players. And every NPC he shoved down our throats had to be part of every conversation)
Sounds like a blast and I'm totally not being sarcastic
As a DM, my biggest fault is forgetting that D&D Beyond resets every encounter to Self (DM) Roll as DM, but as a player it defaults to Everyone. So I constantly get called out because I'm calling out rolls the players can't see.
ah the classic "One man D&D sesh." Contrary to it's name this type of session usually has 4-6 other humans playing a single NPC each.
Sounds a lot like the owner of a Pokemon west march server I was in. He had to make every plotline revolve around him and bent the rules to his favor. Seriously, in what universe should Grassy Terrain be unlimited?
Gaslight Gatekeep Gamemaster
These stories always make me SO grateful for the group I play with. We're a bunch of "forever DMs" who banded together to take turns running campaigns for each other, so we all know how to a) make a DM's life much easier, and b) screw with a DM in fun and appropriate ways that make for a great experience for everybody involved. We all know how to be a "main character" while still allowing everybody else opportunities to shine, we cheat "creatively" to make for better story beats while maintaining game integrity, and we all know the rules of the game well and how to break them in spirit while keeping the letter of the law intact. It's honestly the best gaming experience I've had in years of playing and DMing.
I unintentionally created a "Main Character" as my Rogue. Tabaxi Swasbuckler with a Charlatan background. Spent the campaign getting signatures, parchment, copies of signet rings, etc. while setting up con-jobs and travelling with the party. Basically... if there was coin to be had, or made, or equipment swiped/swindled, I was making sure my character squeezed people for every copper. It usually included me using other party members as patsies or unwilling participants, while most all of us were crying with laughter.
Best character ever.
@@Dakarn lol I’ve got a character in one of my campaigns like that. She’s basically running an MLM scheme recruiting people to sell her own brand of “organic healing potions” which are basically a mildly addictive substance derived from snake venom (she’s a yuan-ti) that technically does make you feel better, but that’s only because it makes you feel slightly worse before it wears off. :p. She’s got a network of sellers in the city she lives in who all have networks of sellers of their own, etc. etc. Basically, she’s Herbalife.
@@Dakarn that's not even a "bad" main character that's honestly a really dope idea
As a DM I can confirm that when people compare my DMing to Matt mercer or the story to CR I also have a winter soldier moment
Oh! Weirdly enough I never watched CR. But heard a lot of that problem. Can you tell me what is the deal here? Is Matt really really good, so no one can compare, or is he doing some weird stuff?
@@PTHYTQV Critical Role has blown up in popularity to the point where people think that Matt Mercer's style is just the default that everyone should do, which isn't at all realistic. It's like getting all of your romantic knowledge and experience from romcoms, then getting upset when things don't turn out in exactly that way.
@@TheMrMojoRisin67 and the production budget is huge when most games' budget is for snacks and new dice
@@PTHYTQV Honestly even Matt is vocally against the Matt Mercer effect.
He runs his games specific to make it fun for his own group and would love every group to also be tailored to their own fun.
Plus comparing new dm trying to have fun to professional voice actor whose been playing since he was a kid is just silly.
I love your new series and editing style! Its very refreshing to hear your “glossary” for dnd and rpghorrorstory terms
I think DMs tend to be very generous about letting you reroll very bad stats. My personal rule, though, is that if I roll too many GOOD stats, I'll artificially lower one that makes sense for that character.
I enjoy a nice balanced character.
I am glad I am not the only one who does that!
In my games we always used 1 of 2 ways to determine stats.
Either Point Buy, where you can freely spend 75 points on your stats up to 18 for each stat, or the great communal roll.
Each player rolls stats and whe make a big list with all the rolled values, then we assign them as a group so noone gets all the good stats and all the characters are balanced out.
This always led to good character stats ans prevented a single character from becoming overpowered.
When GM said "Deal?" and the other played said deal, I swear I saw a subtitle in my mind that says "Dio!" instead.
I used to have the main character issues. The dm talked to me about it and now whenever I play, I actively try to get other players to be in the spotlight. (By playing barbs so they hype people up). I find it much more fun and it helped me be a better dm when I do
By playing barbarians? Your typo made me imagine a friendly bard named Barbs. ^u^
@@Red_Devil_2011 yeah sorry I usually just say Barbs for barbarian
@@chainsawman10 wait, actually playing a Barbarian hype-man? That's dope
I was so looking for a new video and, as always, you didn't disappoint. Also, I just wanted to say thank you for what you said in your live stream about me as it really meant a lot to me :3
"You should be more like Matt Mercer"
You mean the professional voice actor with probably hundreds of voice acting credits to his name and years of experience in that profession even before he started doing Critical Role? That Matt Mercer?
We had a cheater at our table once - you know the kind, the one who scoops up the die before anyone can see it and then calls a number that is conveniently higher than 17.
Our DM got our table a giant d20, which everyone used. It was slightly slower, but that d20 hated everyone equally. I managed to roll three successive crit fails in a row with that monster.
The only thing I cheat on is I fudge my rolls OCCASIONALLY. Because I roll
@@Red_Devil_2011 that's rough, you've literally described my monk in one game. She got knocked out so often it was just a running joke, she obviously talked a big game but when the fights happened she was knocked out because she couldn't hit the broad side of the barn.
It was a shock when she finally managed to crit and kill a boss.
In the same boat, though our group plays online with our rolls made public (the dm also chooses to, despite knowing that he can hide his, out of a sense of fairness), so I've had a few characters lost because they were smote by RNGesus. Otherwise, the one thing that I build them towards tends to fail.
"You should be more like mat mercer"
Is now my vicious mockery phrase
"They have been dealt with, now lets us continue the tale... of me..."
Ok, A lightning strike hits your character dealing one billion radiant damage. Have a nice day :)
"Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies."
"These people watch too much Cinemasins and now have to take issue with every single infraction" I feel like this is applicable for just Cinemasins fans in general
Hard, true, right.
I...regretfully admit that I suffered a little bit of Main Character Syndrome when I first started playing. I'd never watched anyone play before, I never played games with others before (growing up no one wanted to play games I liked and I wasn't interested in what they liked) so I never learned how to function in a group-setting, and being asocial I sometimes genuinely don't know how to talk to people without talking about stuff *I* like. Thankfully, after a while when I realized it's not about ME but EVERYONE, I learned how to be in a group, and it become more engrossing and enjoyable. It's painful to think back on but I'm glad I became a better player.
I like the idea that the DM is always 2 seconds away from spontaneously crying. 😂
Loving the new editing style, really suits the channel
Keep up the awesome work King Crab!
"Nobody likes a story where a dude succeeds at literally everything without breaking a sweat" Except One Punch Man
To be fair, he can't succeed at finding someone that can challenge him.
I'm not sure if I'm joking or not...
That's a lighthearted deconstruction with some pretty dark undertones, exploring life in a Darwinist society. It's like BNHA's hero system, but lowkey dark asf. It explores themes such as corruption and intrigue with the existence of characters like the Fubuki and her mafia, Sweet Mask, Bofoi and PPP in the HA, and Garou's whole schtick. The fights are very cool, but in my opinion, it's more like a Slice Of Life with your typical Shonen Battle elements, with a bit of societal critique added in.
i dunno tho, i'm just some dude who can't even speak english that well(2nd language, also what's a verb again?)
Player: why aren't you like Matt Mercer
Me: Because I haven't had over 5 years of voce acting experience as a main character in a triple a game and have access to elaborate props, designs and play maps. Additionally, I lack his level of funding. While we're on the topic however, Liam O'Brien is a way better player than you, why can't you be like him? Now that that's out of the way, can I continue with my poorly rendered Irish accent that sounds suspiciously Scottish?
I do use physical Dice sometimes for my online games, but I use my roommates as witnesses. They're very honest gamers and will let our group know what I actually roll.
I once legitimately had all 18 in lvl 1.
Dm rolled our stats for us in the first session.
I was playing a warforged rogue. Later arcane trickster rogue.
And the only out of game/ homebrew had was the fact that the warforged I played was a human cyborg. Which meant I looked like a human but all my organs bones etc were warforged based and I had the warforged stat block.
It was a fun campaign, especially because we had a berserker barbarian gnome with maxed str dex and con while his wis and I t were at 6 and 8 while charisma was at a whooping 17, which made his speeches incredible good but he was stupid as a brick
4:05 the existence of Superman argues otherwise.
Its always funny to hear about the main character's red flag because my group usually will unofficially assign a main character after a couple sessions to feel out the dynamic. Thankfully its never been abused(yet!)
My players have done this in my most recent campaign as well. I accidentally gave my party an island, and I'm not the kind of DM that walks things backwards to take things away from the party, so I had them sign a contract with the local government for use of the island. Naturally the rest of the party looked towards the wizard to do the paperwork, and she was all too happy to. Now she technically owns the island, and was almost unanimously elected its leader. But despite this, each party member has their own ongoing plot, and they let each other have the spotlight.
This was gold, crab. Congratulations on diversifying your content.
6:21 I'm glad you put that little marker there. I roll physical dice because a lot of the times the bot we use in our campaign either glitches out and will roll the same number or with D&D beyond the rolls take a while.
Had a game essentially fall apart over powergamer+ critic types. It was SR, which is a dumptruck of worms, not a mere can.
I still remember the last time we played. My uncle had died, I was already going to be making a strenuous trip for some other reason, and it fell apart over matrix searches and if they were just good roll = find guy. I asked if tracking was a skill, because while I was playing an amnesiac and learning skills as they came up, it sounds good to do. The search gave us at least a direction to go, and my character had just recovered memories of the area, so I thought "Oh, this is a good time to put this new thing I learned into action! Our GM is so clever, he gave me a skill and then a few sessions later I have the opportunity to try it!" I wasn't so much shot down as ignored because the argument with the GM was just too fucking tasty, I guess.
After I was shut down and people just kept arguing, I dissociated for a bit before I realized I was doing so, and simply said, "My uncle is dead, I'm making a 17 hour drive tomorrow, I don't have time to sit and listen to my friends fight over a game that's supposed to be for fun. Bye, guys."
And that was my first and last SR campaign.
Oi, that's rough. Sorry for your loss.
"Nobody like the story of the guy who literally succeeds at everything without busting a sweat. It's boring."
The entire Isekai genre "What?"
Love the level of editing and video work that goes into these latest videoes. Keep up the great work
I really like this format. Keep it up. I'm sure you'll only get better and better from here. Kudos to this funny and engaging video.
"you should be more like matt mercer"
My general answer to this :
"who's matt mercer?"
love the new editing style and humor lol
My dm back in the day had a pc with such severe anxiety that he wouldn't commit to making any decisions. He'd occasionally offer some fairly paranoid input in a cool way that might help us make a decision, or obscure things even more. Turned out to be a really fun character to have around, and was not overpowered or railroading, or giving too much information. And it gave our DM a way to roleplay in the world he'd created.
I was consistently impressed with how he managed to keep that game fun, immersive, and fair. We didn't get to finish that campaign due to life circumstances changing, but we played it for quite a while and very few problems came up.
I love playing online for D&D, it's how both of the campaigns I'm in are being played. It helps that both games are having all player dice rolls being done in a place everyone else can see them. It makes it so the players who roll high stats don't have to be looked at twice with scrutiny because it's right there to look at and see.
The open rolls also means that everyone gets the solid moment to laugh when the person who rolled an overall 90 still drops the ball in something they should be good in. It's me, I'm the 90 overall Rogue who rolled a 2 on my first stealth check in the session zero and put me and our Bard into a fight with three kobolds that nearly killed me.
"you're not like Matt Mercer at all."
"and you're not like sam, travis, laura, marisha, ashley, liam, or taliesin. you're not even worth being compared to orion."
Oof. That's the kinda comeback that breaks spirits.
Brian gang, rise up and appreciate this editing!
Editing was A++ very funny. Like this format
this is a two way street, if someone wants the dm to act like matt mercer, then they need to act like one of matt's players.
Has the crab always had an idle animation? Great video as always!
2:04 Oh look, a visual representation of the price of BitConnect.
I love your new editing style
1:49 Damn this new DIO mod for NV is wild.
On the butting in, I think we've all had moments where we weren't paying attention or simply forgot where we were, but making a havit of that is the part that crosses the line.
As for cheaters, my group is online and we've run it so that only the DM can use their physical dice on most rolls, however I personally still use the online dice roller on occasion. However, someone found a way to cheat even in that sustem we had by "losing their character sheet" multiple times. We kept a copy of it after a while, and when the new one didn't match up twice, we figured it was time to kick them. Thankfully that's the only cheater our group has had.
6:26 I can admit I cheated in a Vampire The Masquerade oneshot to prevent a TPK, or what I thought was going to be an imminent TPK. Instead of rolling a low firearms check, I fudged one of the dice to give me 2x success instead of failing the check. I nearly decapitated the main-antagonist in 2 turns.
In the end we managed to get away with a total of 4hp on the whole party. I think my "expert marksmanship" (which wasnt even enough to kill the oneshot bbeg) may have saved the remains of our party.
"Oh? You're approaching me?"
"I can't turn your narcissism into content without getting any closer."
This was a great video crab king, I know you put a lot of effort into it and I appreciate it!
I find it funny that the DM character in your skits just busts down crying after realizing the cheater is cheating
As someone who often thinks about cheating (I've only ever actually done it a couple times, and only in minor, one-off ways), I'm most compelled to possibly cheat when I don't fully trust the DM. If I know the DM won't punish me for a bad roll, then I'll declare my bad rolls with a laugh, but if I know they're the type of DM to pile on punishments for a 1 or to make everyone reroute for 20 minutes if no one manages to open the door, then I'll be more compelled to possibly cheat, not for power, but just to avoid the unfun consequences that I don't want to deal with. So, if you have someone who's cheating on dice rolls, maybe ask them why instead of just coming to them with accusations. Maybe they'd be more comfortable being honest if you removed critical fumbles/failures or if you improved the group flow past challenges so that a failed group challenge leads to a fun alternate challenge rather than an annoying slog. Maybe the player feels like they don't contribute enough to the team and wants to stop feeling incompetent, or maybe they feel like they've been having bad luck and they're not getting support (such as bardic inspiration or the bless spell or the help action) from teammates that might mitigate those bad rolls and turn them into successes. Of course, someone could just be greedy, but if they're generally a good player except for the occasional cheating, then try asking them what's wrong. It might be as simple as adjusting the rules to make randomness easier to cope with or manipulate in a positive direction or letting the player adjust their character build so that their stats are high enough to have successes more often.
precisely this. it's why i always make nat 1s humorous at the very least, most of the time their weapons get stuck or they fall on their butts. it's important to, y'know, actually have fun
Main character types should just stick to writing self insert fanfictions, honestly
Due to my anxiety, depression and overall dear of dissapointment I get the temptation to fudge rolls. When I fail a roll I feel like im screwing up so im tempted a lot to cheat. HOWEVER the way ttrpgs work with failed rolls has actually helped me let go of that fear a bit, failure is not the end and while the temptation is still there I've learned to cope with the fear and resist
I love how we immediately see the "and rule" in the solution segment for the problem player. greatest method Ive seen to this day.
This is prob one of my favorite videos from you!
Was really nice to get to see your personality shine in this more than you just readi g the stories
Loving the content man, keep up the good work!
I'm so tempted to put some of my wild stories on here to see if CritCrab enjoys them, unfortunately I'm still friends with the DM and he watches these videos
10:49 Using a dishonest handshake.
I just got a character idea from this video.
A dude who is played like an anime protagonist, but the world treats him like an NPC despite following the main group. He constantly spins his misfortune into it being character development to reach his full potential. And in combat he has a special ability if an enemy is below half health to roll a performance check to perform and anime monologue. If the enemy rolls a lower wisdom saving throw the anime man can perform a monologue and attack with crit.
Genuinely awesome and funny content! Happy to see your work crit!
The courier and Mr. House wojak killed me since I was watching this while playing New Vegas.
One of the DM’s in my server has a oneshot where your D&D characters go to comicon to fight Matt Mercer
He calls it Matthew the Merciless
1:37 me talking to Mr House about my payment (he doesn't know that I'm killing him later)
I had a cheater in my team - we called him Lucky V, since his rolls, done in the open and in plain sight of everyone, almost always rolled ridiculously high. Turns out that "lucky" had a trick - his lucky dice were loaded. ALL of them. Well, almost... two of those were old and you couldn't read their faces no matter how much you tried. He was also a ridiculous munchkin... his characters were tricked so much that they were barely functional. Basically, he didn't want to play, he wanted to WIN.
I like the improvement in editing
There are 2 types of DM story tellers.
The actor: matt mercer
The narrator: morgan freeman
DIO would definitely have MC syndrome in a party lol
Absolutely loving the more edited content. Editing just as much as commentary can carry a lot of personality
"you should be more like Mercer!"
"Aaaand the enemy attacks you first. Oh look they even got a crit!"
I was not expecting to see the “BRUH I WAS PLAYING WARZONE ON STREAM LAST NIGHT” emoji face babyman guy in a DND video but here we are
As a pc, I try and stay out of the way of other players when they have a moment to shine. It just feels awkward if I consider butting in.
True, on the best way you would look like Fred Jones, at worst you will be look as Chloe Carmichael
I love the editing on this one a lot CritCrab
We unfortunately never got to finish our campaign, but I found someone to DM for me and my roommates as we were all first timers. We had an absolute blast. We had a human fighter, a dark elf rogue, and a half orc Barbarian. We didn't have anyone to heal or anything like that, so the DM made a DMPC to help out with healing, and he was a big tired quiet turtle man cleric. He would just hide in his shell when combat wasn't happening, so it was a wonderful way to have help while not hindering our story. The correct way to have a DMPC. Sad it couldn't continue, it was some of the best fun I'd had in a long time.
"Oh? You're approaching me?" "I can't annoy the shit out of you without getting closer."
There is also the rare bizarro world variant of the Main Character I call "The Road Crew" i.e A player who wants to upsell other peoples stories but throws an absolute spastic fit if you throw the spotlight on them as if they had a light vulnerability. This can be amusing for some groups, who practice a form of bear baiting by giving leadership and responsibility to this player in order to watch them flop around like an eel frying on a hot pan. This rarely ends well for anybody.
I tend to make characters like that when I play with people new to D&D to push them more into RP early.
"He draws his sword and lets you take a look. 'What are you buying, stranger?'"
On the topic of DMPCs, a good DMPC has at least one of four things, and ideally, a combination of all four:
1) They are a support the party can call upon, and don't even have to be present most of the time. Maybe the party has a magic item that can talk to them, but they can't be physically present, so they can give advice and scry from where they are, but can't actually help themselves. Or perhaps they're on their own adventures, and so even though they CAN try to be there physically, they can only be there for a few minutes because of xyz story thing. That last one also could be used for a hook later on, having them show up and introduce an urgent quest, like a forced march to defend a city several days away from an orc warband that the npc just barely escaped from.
2) Make their skillset niche. Incredibly niche. If they're a wizard, maybe make them only have non-combat spells. Maybe they are an archeologist whose entire career is only focused on ancient gnome engineering. Maybe their a skilled fighter, but they have a strict code that limits what conflicts they're willing to get involved with. Maybe they're a wanted fugitive and can't show up in public. Give them an achilles heel that prevents them from being a "solve the problem" button in the narritive, while still being useful, and most importantly, only useful sometimes.
3) Know how much help they actually NEED to give, and have the players have to ask for help. Don't solve the problem for the players, but instead give them a new tool in their toolbox. Having them ask for specific help also means that solving the problem is on the players, while still opening new avenues to explore.
4) Make them narritively tied to or relient on the party in some small way. Not like in a "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" way, but in more of a business agreement way. The party and the npcs should have a symbiotic relationship to one another, which should (hopefully) drive up player investment.
Oh, man, while the others are bad, the "Critic" is probably the most infuriating type of player.
It's in a critic's nature to be awful.
one time i rolled 20's 4 times in a row and my party members and dm say me roll them. we were all surprised and in awe lol
Once i had a rule-lawyer in my game that criticised everything i did wrong and complained that i was slow at reading the stat block for my monsters, and complained that i used the feet system or that instead of saying the distance i would say "Ok your range is 5 spaces from him" instead of meters (i was raised playing monopoly).
Your editing of the wojacks was hilarious.
I had a person when I was a first time DM, who was a meta gamer (constantly looking up monster stat blocks), critic (constantly complained about my story because they was an "actual author"), constantly would compare my DMing skill to Matt Mercer, and only cared about their backstory questline (he would zone out, listen to music or Twitch, or sulk when they couldn't force the party to follow their plot thread for the 9000th time). I eventually just stopped the campaign. I still DM other games and this person is still part of the friend group, its just become an unspoken rule that I will not DM for this player.
The whole dmpc thing is the whole reason I'm kinda nervous to ever try dming as I've been a player all my time in D&D and I don't wanna fall into the trap of making an op NPC that just dwarfs my players
don't let that stop you! trust your players to tell you if you're doing something wrong. it's a great experience. and now you already know what to look out for.
@Jess I'm prob gonna wait to dm tho as I currently just don't feel confident in my abilities rn especially since I'm relatively new to dnd as a whole due to having a past group be full of power gamers that didn't even try to actually help me learn how to play
@@Nghting oh shit im so sorry to hear that's your first experience with it. yeah ofc take your time with it learn the game maybe get a new group. i hope you have better experiences with it
@Jess oh no I started out as a player I haven't technically died yet sorry of the misunderstanding
@@Nghting no no no it's fine i understood
Enjoyed everything about this, and the parallel scene takes for comparison and humor.
Great work crab!
wow, this new content is a breath of fresh air i never knew i needed! very good stuff, love the editing
great work on the added animations looks great!
Your sense of humor with sound effects, memes, clips, etc is so funny to me!
One solution I've considered (but did not use) doing with one (now-reformed) critic at my table was to sarcastically offer "Oh you know what? You're right, you're sooo much smarter than me! Here, you run the campaign since you clearly know better than me." One of two results I feel would happen. He'd either 1). shut up and knock it off realizing he needs to take what he gets as a player or 2). Calls the bluff and I'm are no longer a forever DM. A win win in my opinion.
dang it's crazy to see how much you've progressed
My very first sessions's DM NPC was a goblin, and we were at a Labyrinth(in the 1986 movie style) and DM did a banging job at voice-acting.
We decided to keep it as a comedy relief sidekick.
As a DM you can have npc-s and they can be a great tool to use to make the story more fun.
The main issue is with the Mary sue main characters. Those are boring.
absolutely loved the editing on this!
In our current campaign, we have 5 players. None of us chose to be a healer. So the dm made a cleric. He didnt take the spotlight, but he acted as a guide for the party so it made sense.
Problem is cleric is possibly dead after a few sessions. Now we are teleported to a new location far from our home town.
So we’ll see what happens in our upcoming session.
One of the biggest warning signs for main character syndrome is the multi paged, overly complicated backstory for the level 1 character. If you're level 1, you're barely better than a commoner, you shouldn't be a former general/assassin/god with decades of experience
as a DM myself I usually deal with these typer of players in these way: 1. Mary sues, I tell them the universe doesn't revolve around them and if they don't get it...well they want to be the protagonist so I make sure I target them; cheaters: if I catch someone cheating the first time I warn them, second time they get targeted, third time they get booted; Edgelord, they are not accepted; weebs or any player who tries to sneak an anime character, they are not accepeted. Furries: I make sure that in my world they are beast-people. They adapt? cool. They insist? they get booted. Critical role fan: 1st comment they get booted.
I like how the main character is actually dressed up as a main antagonist, because that's what they truly are.
I had to cheat once to save my hide from getting a horrific CON debuff of 4 points after dying for the second time. The first death was thought on all ends excluding the dms to be bs, so we quietly changed it back. Whadya know, turns out it was useful in the end.
"Now let us continue the tale ... of me."
Oh crud.
That Started to get real scary there with the Matt Mercer part. 😳
What sucks is when you get yourself a "main character" and they aren't as obviously grating as the example, and it takes months or years for you and your players to realize why your players aren't happy and why you dread what should be fun hobby game times
omg I love this new video style with the wojacks
keep this, this is gold
Welcome back, Your Crabliness! Thank you for all the work that you do putting these together.
I'm new to Dming and the most I'd do for DMPC are gonna be just Easter eggs for my players, like I'm running Waterdeep dragon heist and in the opening scene I'm gonna have my 3 favorite characters sitting at a table talking to Matt Mercer lol