DM Forces Character Death to Start a Railroaded Zombie Apocalypse - RPG Horror Stories
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 жов 2024
- Character death is something that can shift the entire adventure and has been a part of D&D for a long time. Here's a DM who used a character
RPG Horror Stories is a series where I (Crispy) read through stories from the subreddit r/rpghorrorstories and give advice on how to avoid the issues that lead to such stories in the first place.
Music:
Giorgio Di Campo
freesoundmusic.eu
I hate those DMs... That lie, misslead and direct players to death. ESPECIALLY new players.. Becuase they devolve into munchkins that can't trust anybody and will be pain to deal with, will consume a lot of time to set them back into right mindset.
Inteligent result of 9 when the lower DC is 10. The DM wanted to screw the OP.
Aside from the DM telling the OP to inject the potion the other big no, no was the player rolling a 20 and still failing. If the player can’t succeed then why was the DM getting them to roll at all?
It's to lie about there being a chance so they can blame the player. They wanted to Abuse OP so they were going to railroa OP into taking whatever decision the DM wanted then continuously blame the player for the consequences.
DM "Hey do this."
Player "Okay."
DM "Hahaha idiot, that killed you."
i feel like the GM could have made a DMPC for 'patient zero', asked the human player to have this person as a relationship to exsplain why they were working together/trusting them, then could build a really idotic but stealthy person to set up the turn and reveal
This sounds great!
OR, the DM could have worked with one of the players, before session 0, and said, "Look, I need someone to die right off. How would you like to be the one who does it, and then you can create a character to join the party afterwards?" Then, the player is prepared, and ready to have a dramatic death.
But having a dmpc do it doesnt give him his powertrip and allow him to give that "satisfying" gotcha moment as he gets to call someone else an idiot for listening to him! You gotta think in the mind someone who would do this. They get off on humiliating players for things out of their power.
How disrespectful. If that person was my friend I might even have re-evaluated my friendship with that DM.
...might? You're too soft.
I would have burned all bridges leading to any of these tailfeathers.
The "You didn't have to listen to me" is what cements it. The DM messages you with an instruction... it is not phrased as a suggestion but "Do This". It's the DM talking, and generally a DM instruction is not considered optional. The player only got told it was 'optional' after the fact. It's highly misleading at the most generous interpretation.
I would still refuse. "It's my character and it makes zero sense for him to inject a vial of unknown liquid. You create the world, that is your role. I play my character, that is my role. Unless I'm being disruptive or something, you don't get to tell me how to do my job."
"You didn't have to be an asshole, but here we are."
It's called gaslighting...
For me it was "nat 20 fails" why am I even rolling, why did you have me roll multiple times for a scripted event.
The player was still an idiot for not at least asking why. They didn't have to do it to begin with.
Mocking someone because they trusted you when you lied to their face? Dick move. Screw the players too for laughing at OP along with the DM. Any one of them could have been the DM's victim too, you know. I hope the DM got them too, just to show them how the shoe fits on the other foot.
I've been here! I played a vampire before in 4e after my DM forcibly turned my other character into an angel, and made it abundantly clear that being an angel literally made my character the bitch slave for every god of any alignment and constantly mocked him.
When I played a vampire, there was one moment where I had to drink blood, but the wizard had killed the enemy prisoner I was going to drink from, so I drank some of their blood instead, five days or so later in-game because we were travelling on a boat, some civilians show up to our ship on a little dingy and we let them on board, immediately they start screaming and jumping back into the sea, all of them instantly drowning the moment they hit the water (my character was chaotic good and protected civilians with his life)
The reason? "they got on the ship and immediately saw a vampire with blood all over his face, obviously they'd flee" I explain that was 5 days ago and how the hell do two needle-like fangs cause blood go get all over my face and in my hair? and the DM says "you never said you wiped your mouth, you can't take it back now, that's metagaming and retconning".
So that was good >_>
After five days, even if you hadn't wiped your mouth, the blood would have worn away by then, or else, if you hadn't wiped or washed, you'd be covered in OTHER grime.
That DM was dumb.
Why the flock would you keep playing with a DM that has already screwed you over before?
The proper response to such a DM is to say, "You didn't say you were an asshole, you just do asshole things."
It is important that there be a relationship of trust between the players and the DM. Abusing that trust because you can't be honest about what kind of game you want to run is a great way to make sure no one wants to play with you again.
As a DM, I have only one question:
Why this 'patient zero' had to be a PC? I'd have used an NPC instead. Preferably one that the party at least somewhat cared about. How about a plot-hook to resurrect said NPC and finding a cure for the zombie-plague while struggling to survive during the apocaliptic setting? This HAD potential! What a waste...
But than he couldn't bully someone.
Yeah, actually, they did ask about the rune and wipe their mouth. That's what " What type of rune" or "EVERY aspect" means. It was all part of the railroad. Even if they had been specifically said "what type of magic rune" or "I wipe my mouth" he'd have done some stupid bs to continue the railroad
Yup. all to say "gotcha!"
First of all: why couldn't this "mandatory" human be an NPC? Secondly (and more importantly) what reason did the party have to be traveling with Patient Zero anyways?! And isn't the entire point of a zombie survival plot being to skillfully hide your infection? (It's a crappy trope but it exists for a reason.)
This honestly sounds like a fun campaign ruined by the DM randomly deciding to bully the one player playing the "minority" race. I bet the only reason he "needed" a human is because only humans can be turned into a zombie (another idea that completely defeats the zombie apocalypse trope.)
Because some npc being injected isnt humiliating for someone. If you notice the pattern in the story, he's an a-hole who loves just "um, actually"ing players to shove them down his railroad while also painting them as idiots for getting pushed down the railroad. He tricked OP into injecting the syringe by preying on the trust that comes with the OOC communication, then calls him an idiot for listing.
The mandatory human was a PC because the DM wanted to abuse the player.
I feel like the simple solution here would have been to take a player aside and say 'Hey, I'm going to have you make two characters. One is going to die in the start and the other is going to be the real party member who joins up later." We do that, all the time in my groups?? It's not hard. If the DM needs a player to be a secret plot device for a second just work together??? You don't have to tell them *everything* but a little "please go along with this for me." generally works out and It's usually fun for the player who gets to be in on the schemes in the background for a bit until the big reveal and that way the player still have agency and they don't spend time making and getting attached to a character that *will* die no matter what they do.
awful.
Now THAT makes so much sense and sounds pretty cool. I wouldn't mind at all building up a character for the express purpose of them turning into an NPC, an enemy, or even just dying if that's what the DM needs. It doesn't hurt to ask, and if everyone said no then why not make a DMPC to play that roll?
It also makes you wonder, The DM wanted a human character who was already considered a slave class in the start of the story to be the impetus for a zombie survival patient zero plot so did he already have plans but was going to be the fallout if it was discovered that a human was responsible for it because I’m pretty sure that would’ve made humans even more despised that is of course provided of course the DM was competent.
The DM's competency is highly subjective.
So happy that the story ends with him just leaving-- everything about this was sketchy and mean. If you want to have a player be a plot device you MUST okay it with them first, and no means no. As many have said before, using an NPC for this is better, just tie the NPC to their backstories and the first game, the launch your apocalypse in a later session.
The dm wasnt concerned with player happiness. He just wanted to screw with them, not make a satisfying narrative. Remember the rune? He first tells them it was "a magical one" and only after OP was downed by the syringe reveals it's a "rune of summoning," before telling them they didnt ask. Then the final straw was the stupid "you didnt wipe your mouth." One thing is just a crappy moment, but this is a pattern.
I literally had the exact situation happen to me in a 5e campaign run by a family friend of my friend. My character was bitten by a zombie in one session, but the cleric and druid treated her wounds with some spells and a healing kit. No big deal. Nothing happened. We play several sessions from here and all is fine. Then I have to miss a session for family reasons and the DM decided "what if we said the zombie thing was still going on" even though several days passed in-campaign and nothing happened to her and I was also not there to do anything about it. He had the other players rolling con checks for my character while I was gone and couldn't do anything about the condition, eventually turning her into a whole zombie spreading a zombie virus around a Dungeon she was locked in (again, happened when I was not there to make decisions for my character). I mentioned to my friend after I found all that out that I was upset because he didn't ask me if I was okay with him having other players puppet mine while I was unable to make it, no less him choosing who was going to do it, and him essentially killing my character during my absence. I think she must have talked to him because the next session, he was like "she's not *dead*, she's just a carrier for the zombie virus now!". I ended up leaving that group when the DM decided he thought I was attractive and started having enemies and NPCs attempt to assault mine in a bizarre attempt at flirting
This DM was very manipulative. However, a game could work out with a "zombie" as part of the party. First the DM and the players must agree to it and maybe pick one player to be the victim. In 5e the new Unearthed arcana has a zombie-like build. So, as long as it was agreed to and done with a bit more care, the party could still work with a zombie.
Again... it must be agreed to ahead of time.
I. E. “DM?” “I Breath”
@5:26 leave block and never talk to any of them save the wizard again
Hear me out. There should have been an NPC who injected themselves with it instead, maybe a bad guy mad scientist, who freaked out, and tried to use it to trick the party into thinking they were dead, so they would pursue him and his experiments, only to find that it completely backfired, and the party watches as the mad scientist suddenly comes back to life screaming in agony, as they transform into a zombie, then make it easy for the players to escape, while watching the mad scientist spread his disease.
And that's just off the top of my head!
You know what depresses me?
I don't recall a single time when an abuse-type horror story was written by someone who wasn't the victim of the abuse.
It's almost as if the witnesses to such just don't care about others.
theres a few in here not many because for it to get to abuse the others have to either be complacent or oblivious
One of the saddest parts of this story is the DM probably believes they’re intelligent for the “plot twist”!
There has to be a special kind of person who says a nat 20 fails.
That natural 20 smells of some real bad BS right there!
If I wanted to kick off a zombie apocalypse like this, I think I'd use a dmpc. Looks like one of the few times it could work
Did these guys not have a Session 0 or the DM at least said "Hey guys, I want this to be a zombie survival game and one of the plot points involves someone in a temple you'll be at kick-starting the apocalypse". This is just borderline manipulative and relentless targeting against OP. IDK why the other players didn't confront DM about the ordeal when OP revealed DM told him in a PM to drink the poisoned liquid and just kept bullying OP.
Yeah it should be an unspoken rule for DMs to not kill the character of any new players unless they do something outstandingly stupid.
player literally ask about the type of rune, player actively says is being sneaky. DM arguments were just absurd, he think is a smart dude, but the reality, he isn't not, even in the slightest XD
Or he was knowingly gaslighting them
@@BlazingKhioneus is another posibility yes
The other players sound just as bad. OP told them he was just following DM's instruction. Not only did they not question DM on this, they continued to tease him about it. They also wasted no time in killing off his reanimated character.
I hate fake rolls, at best we're retconning at worst I'm antagonizing until one of us leaves the game.
Roll for whatever
Me: is it even possible, I know you like to make nat 20s fail
I hate how the player died on a nat 20. That just strikes me as the DM being incredibly petty. They really wanted to bump that player off. Why bother even making them roll, there was no roll that could've saved them.
If you need a character to die for a plot point, you make them an NPC
Trinston was here...
Railroading is dumb. More so when it comes to something like this.
New DND player here, but how can you fail a save when you roll a nat 20? I though a nat 20 automatically succeeded
what kinda mook dm "tells" their players to do anything other than roll dice?
they tell you what they're doing, not vice versa.
Why the heck would you continue in that campaign after the dm killed your char for fun and mocked you for it?
Man I'll never understand why people ignore such galactic red flags.
I think the OP was just naive, they thought the person was their friend and believed they could trust them. I think a lot of people both in and out of games can relate to that on some levels!
@@360entertainment2 eh I guess. People just have different levels of BS tolerance