Being partially deaf, I have barely noticed a difference, but I think it has become a bit louder. I don't use headphones though, so my opinion may not be worth taking into consideration if the majority of your viewers use them. Lol
I don’t even understand what the issue is. If the player can tank attack rolls then why not just use an enemy or two that can cast spells that require saving throws? This DM really can’t think outside the box for how to create engaging or challenging scenarios
@@Faint366 as someone who's been narrowly escaping tpks for the last 6 sessions, you can create a challenging and engaging game without being an insufferable dickwad
I lost my shit when the DM's girlfriend, upon being handed OP's magic ring, just gives it right back. That's so hilarious I have to believe the story is true.
She gave it to him in the first place because he was the only one not getting any magic items. DM arranged to have him lose it and have it come back to her. She immediately gave it back to him. I dunno what DM was expecting =D
@@dariusdragonvale9809 GM thought his GF would hog the ring rather then share it with someone who is more in need for it then her, proving that she isn't a egoistical asshloe no matter how much he's gonna “redistribute“ it
CC: "If you know anything about D&D," Me: Which I don't. CC: "you know that the DM is on the player's side." Me: Not based on some of the stories you've told me.
The DM SHOULD be on the players’ side. Yes, they’re the one sending enemies after the party and setting up obstacles in the way, but ultimately a good DM is still rooting for the players to succeed.
The DM should be warm, but not soft. Cold, but not cruel. With the wish to give the players an adventure, but the will to slaughter them if it comes to that.
The role of the DM is the head of the TVA in Loki: find the storyline that brings out the best in the heroes. The Chaotic Chaotic’s (Loki) and Lawful Lawful’s (Sylvie) job is to force the DM to rewrite the story or rules around them, destroying the campaign and fun for everybody else in the process.
@@greatazuredragon Not gonna lie, I almost went totem barbarian for my current healer/tank but I felt that zealot barb was a better fit for my character flavor wise.
What I hate most is that OP asked the DM directly, twice, if the character needed to be changed and both times the DM said it was fine. But then immediately tries to kill off the character he said was fine. If you have a problem with a character you should just say so!
@@RStarrzky you know, I could see a potentially really fun game with a party min-maxing and a dm - with the consent and knowledge of the whole table - trying to beat them down without making the encounter overkill. legit could be a fun challenge for everyone
That's how I started playing too. Our DM was one of the leaders responsible for young men even. (We also had some girls and non-church member friends join us too, it was a blast!)
I was not, but I literally played D&D for the first time with my friends in Bible College. I still play with a bunch of old friends from bible College on sunday nights. Several of us work in minstry in some way, I'm about to start working at a Christian School real soon. Love this game so much.
It's like he was trying to make Pathfinder WOTR gameplay look good by validating the tanks (there's no taunt or zone of control with tanks, so they don't have any way to get focused and be useful)
"You done messed up, A-a-ron!" I mean, my best case for this is that the DM wanted to start the campaign with a cool "players captured" scenario. But if that's what you want from session 0, just DESCRIBE what happens, then continue role-play after that. Or if you really must RP it, fudge the rolls. But based on everything else, it sounds like that's not what was happening. The DM was just being a jerk to one guy in particular, which is no bueno.
@@burke615 Fudging the rolls is the cowards way out as a DM. Let the dice tell the story if you're gonna roll. Otherwise just describe what happens as you said.
@@PH03NIX96 If someone wants to personally run things this way, there's no problem, but saying it's "cowardly" to do otherwise and claiming it to be the "right" way to never fudge dice would be overextending. Why let your players have a shit time at level 1 because some oversized frog in a cave crit them and is bound to deal 3 times the wizard's health in a hit when they're super excited to play out and develop their character, for example? The dice can make some really anticlimactic shit sometimes and even take away an entire character sheet in something that was supposed to be, you know, a heroic adventure with heroes that aren't scared of frogs
Because then you’d (rightfully) be called out for your actions, those players would leave, and then they’d tell everyone what you did to make sure no one wants to play with you. And then you’d have no group. DMs like this know deep down that they need players and that they can’t abuse their power too much. They got to be a little more sneaky about it.
There is more legal and elegant methods than ancient red dragon. You can TPK even with goblins, all you need is some brainpower before session to prepare and some fudged rolls. Nobody will know
This, but LegalAssasin has a point, if you throw an instakill boulder, that's bull, but if you throw a really strong Boulder it has the potential to be chalked up to skill issue
Player: "Is my character too powerful?" DM: "Nah, it's fine." Also DM: "I'mma constantly do nothing but try to nerf and/or destroy that turtle." I feel like I've heard this same story in a different skin a thousand times by now. It always ends the same: destroyed friendships.
I was always of the opinion that money, sports and politics are things fit to end even the longest lasting friendships. Seems like I have to add DnD to this list.
"Here are a couple of stories to my left." Stories appear on the right. I open my mouth... then realize that since CritCrab is facing us they are very much on _his_ left. I shut my mouth.
Op's AC isnt even that bad, considering a tempest cleric's ac would be just 1 point lower than the tortle's, with the ability to actually wear better armour later on, a paladin at level 2 could match the AC of the tortle witht he defence fighting style and still dish out decent damage and healing
Dwarf cleric in my PARTY was having ac 20 at 1st lvl, he was damn good in rp and tanking us in fights, and for some reason he play only as Dwarf. Also, nice to have 19ac as monk at 1st lvl tho, but intellect loss IS kinda Hard to live with xD
Forge domain wizard multiclass can push an AC of 27 or 28 I believe when casting shield, combined with shield of faith. This guy wasn't even trying to min-max, he was just playing a character he genuinely liked
@@parazsakharov7877 It could maybe be an issue of how it would fit in! I have a Murloc swashbuckler battlemaster, and I'd like to get in a level of warlock for that hex + hexblade dps, but I've been wracking my head for some time trying to figure out how or why my fella would want to make a deal with a god, since his only interest is paying off his fish debt to his murloc tribe, and he joined the party for that reason.
I kinda had a different take: They're new players so they don't know what a good DM is. This was their first impression: A salty baby of a DM who sought to punish a character because she made a good tank. (In the silliest way too, having mobs focus the *tank* while leaving obviously cursed items to try to screw her over) The DM having no idea what to do with a turtle plowing through his game makes me think he's not as good as implied, just that there wasn't much in the way of expectations. I'm happy it had a wonderful ending for the OP though!
I agree. I wasted a lot of time in bad games because I'd never experienced a good one and assumed that some things were 'just normal' and others were because I wasn't that good.
I disagree with your opinion that this guy is skilled. Sure being a good DM can be what keeps players coming back, but you can also make the statement that as new players, none of them knew better. He is setting a bad president that this is how all D&D games should go, and they could very well just be buying into that mentality. Either way, this is a really terrible situation. Love your content btw! Keep up the great work!
I agree with this, As a new player I stuck around in far too many bad groups, because I just didn't know any better or because I thought that maybe there was a chance it would get better, or even just because I liked the other players enough to deal with a bad DM. It's very very easy to trap new players into bad games.
Exactly, same reason some people stay too long in a toxic first relationship. If you don't know there's better things out there, you stick with what you can get. Especially if the new players have already made up their mind that they're going to enjoy D&D and the game has already run a few sessions, gamblers fallacy hits hard.
Yea I made a mistake of giving one of my PCs way to much AC and he got cocky after awhile so I started using spell casters with saving throws after one combat of that he was humbled and stopped going Rambo every fight and now is careful and thoughtful every time they approach a possible encounter
Yep. For every measure, a counter measure. AC too high? Use AoE spells with saving throws or take damage. Touch attacks (if one is playing Pathfinder/3.5e), hazards. Giving the player the finger just because the DM is too damn dumb to understand the tools at their disposal is not the player's fault, it's the DM's.
@@MelodusDethicus Exactly, if the DM knew anything he would have circumvented the AC with saving throws. He can also grapple him, get him prone, etc. He can literally do anything he wants, increase a monster's stats, fudge a roll if needed. The point is to be as fair as possible, tell a good story, and keep players invested. No idea why he would freak out, I remember grouping with a bladesinger in 5e that had 35AC and still managed to get himself killed constantly.
I dunno about that 'insane DM potential' thing, dude didn't even realise there are ways to kill/challenge players without whacking their AC. It's a Tortle Paladin, throw in some damned Dex saves for Tiamet's sake! His obsession with trying to outdo this one aspect of the character speaks volumes about his pettiness.
Yeah I dont know where that came from. I feel like people consider getting a good group together a miracle, but I have actually had to leave groups because I was in too many.
That's why I loved the AC system from 3.5e. Got a heavily armored paladin? Use a Touch attack spell like Inflict Wounds or Finger of Death. Got a nimble Rogue? Knock him prone, blind him or make yourself invisible.
@@Lobsterwithinternet there are lots of instruments to do that in 5e too, heat metal is a goddamn second level spell and will cook any character with an armor on. That dm was not only petty, but also didn't care to explore actually good ways to make your PC's lives a living hell, beyond "let's bonk the unbonkable"
@@endeav0r_49 True enough. Just prefer how it treats AC. Makes you think more about how you built your AC and makes defeating high AC much more straightforward for both players and DMs. Also felt weird that a dwarf in full plate and a rogue in leather had the same AC and were functionally the same.
The same with using cursed items. A cursed item the GM introduced to decrease AC permanently by 5 would imediatly bring distrust from the group. Specially considering this was the 1st section. I would petition a retcon with the rest of the group, even if this was not my PC. Cursed items are best used for lore, McGuffins, Checkov or to punish risky behavior (and then only as the result of a dice roll)
OP: We got in a fight with the Red Brands at level 1. Me: Wait... did the DM skip the whole deal with Klarg and Hallwinter? They should be level 2 by the Red Brands at least!
Ctitctab: If you know anything about D&D you know the DM is on the player's side. My first DM: I am the DM my goal is to kill you. Why did I stick with this game? I am just that damn stubborn I guess, it was also one of the few places I was not a shy potato. It was weird I go from shy potato to "I am jumping out the window because it sounds fun!"
Yeah my former DM and group always said the player's goal is to fuck over the DM and the DM's goal is to murder the party. I rarely had fun in their games.
@@Arella17 I recall that I tried to run a game and I had dragons fly over the players fighting and one just fell on them and got a TPK. A player argued that because the dragon landed in them they are what killed the dragon. I am quite sure this had a major effect on how I play because of course I said they killed the dragon.
I am a strong, strong advocate of an asterisk to CritCrabs rule here. Games like you describe are absolutely okay. People need to stop shaming them. The only issue is that everyone needs to know, agree, and be into that idea. There are many players and many dms that like more grind house style challenges. One of the best games I've ever ran that my group still fondly talks about was Curse of Strahd, which I purposely ran as trying to make them lose and not finish after everyone agreed that might be fun. Created some of the most insane sessions I've ever had of the party working together to one up whatever nonsense I threw at them. Not every game should be that but it's a wonderful way to play that shouldn't be discounted just because people are assholes and think it's the ONLY way to play ha.
@@jebbush6657 I mean I just can’t agree, perhaps it is a matter of scale because I doubt any player made it to level 7, not even that it was rare it was never. If the guy made Dark Souls nobody would have made it to the halfway point of the game and it would simply never be beat as it was literally impossible to do so. It is odd to me because as the DM you can do whatever you want. Rat can just cast fireball and force cage at will now, you toss one into a volcano and it just walks out climbs on you and burns you to death. Like it is fun to play a game that is hard or even purposely unfair but a game that is not possible is just boring, like not taking a cursed ax is not something you as a DM can be mad about, if you have someone that you keep failing to beat their AC it is your fault as a DM as is rather evident in that you can make an inherently unfair game in the first place.
@@n0etic_f0x who said inherently unfair? All I said was a game where the DM and the players have an antagonistic relationship. I mean, of course it wouldn't be fun if I just had a rat power word kill them all at level 1. So... I don't do that. I play by the rules and so do they and we try and beat each other. That's all I was saying, that people shouldn't shame that style of play simply because you can invent a bunch of worse things it COULD be and then decide that's what it is lol
That DM bit themselves in the ass focusing so much on the cleric. The AC wouldn't matter if they were barely ever attacked. Besides start having enemies that needed saving throws if you really needed to kill this one person
Tittle can either mean: Angry DM causes group to separate do to trying to kill a player character , or Angry DM rips people to shreds while trying to murder someone Let's hope it's the former
Yeah, I thought he was amazingly bad before I read that. But permanently reducing someone's AC by 5 out of spite?? You'd need an MRI to see how far someone has their head stuck up their ass to pull that.
Anyone else thing the two people who lost interest in DnD and the break down of the relationship spawned from that game? If he's "always like that", maybe they just got sick of him. Maybe they didn't say anything but noticed he'd hound the other player and they all thought it was a bad sign, that maybe he'd turn out to be abusive if he'd obsess and spitefully go after one person over something so pointless. And, given he ignored everyone to attack one player, the two who lost interest likely lost trust in DMs or had no DM they trusted so just gave up. They had no reason to be hooked, no good memories to make, just a spiteful DM who ignored them to try kill someone they didn't like. And who'd wanna play after that? I'm not saying it's what happened, but it's interesting to think about.
To add to your theory, one of the two who lost interest had been the one to give OP a magical item. When the DM made OP lose it and then had the same person find it again, she apparently handed it directly back to OP with nothing being said. I feel like that adds credence to your theory because she did that.
Almost definitely. It sounded to me like the dm was single-mindedly hounding the tortle cleric and completely ignored everyone else outside of Giving them loot just to spite the cleric. I'd lose interest too if my first impression was just a slow painful slog where every foe is actively ignoring me killing them just to poke this one guy they can't touch. Let alone that bs trap room where the dm just leaves me thinking I'm about to lose because the dm said so for an hour.
"You start off in a tavern with a group of unruly locals looking to pick a fight with your character." "These NPCs are too high level for you to fight off." Unruly locals... I.E. drunken peasants... too high level... for a party of adventurers... Okay, sure.
What’s the appeal of killing a player? I mean if you tpk the entire party then it means more work for you later right? Rewriting the entire story or absolute worst case scenario you have to make an entire campaign for these new characters.
IDK. Reminds me of that horror story of the DM who wanted to kill all players in a zombie apocalypse game and did everything he could to make them lose, even having them be Level 0 the entire game
the appeal is sticking the headshot of a character to a dm screen and calling it the wall of death and pulling it put at 1 shots with new players and saying this is all the characters I've killed
Killing a PC just to say you did, that's a bad DM. I'm 50-ish games into my first run as DM, and I've killed one PC; the rogue who created a revenant in session 3. It finally caught up them roughly 10 sessions ago; during a battle with a cult, rogue was blindsided by its new unicorn companion. With that, the revenant finally got to rest...... but then the druid revived her. So now they're afraid it's back and even angrier/stronger. (I haven't decided yet, lol) I'd like to think I did it right.
a TPK is seen as a "winning" by these types of people. plain & simple. what i don't get is that why aren't theses people actually playing games that encourage the whole "GM vs player" mindset instead of DnD? i know they exist. or hell, are wargames too complicated for them?
If you think one impossible fight in a session zero is bad. I had a dm who threw 3 impossible fights at our level 1 party in the first session. All with no warning and attacking on sight.
We love to play powerful, unique characters at our table. But 70% of our enjoyment comes from forging our place in the world we have been thrust into. Everybody is able to shine, and we get epic combat from it. If you only play to " win" tabletop, you have missed the point.
I had a game where my rogue stole an engine/heart to a mechanical mount (which was the entire goal of my character as it was integral to his culture) and my D.M. punished me by shooting my arm off to the shoulder and critically wounding my character. That was the last game of three we played... No one wanted to play with a D.M. who punished the party for playing the game.
I slightly disagree with the take new players would be more willing to leave if their DM is bad, new players can't really recognize signs of toxicity and don't really know what a pleasant tabletop experience can be
Speaking as someone whose first experience was with a pretty toxic DM, I definitely noticed. Another player reassured me that this wasn't the norm and I wasn't crazy (DM was big on gaslighting and I was new so it was easy to do). We both got kicked out for reasons neither of us are sure of.
I keep trying to convince my buddy to tell his horror story of the first time he played DnD. With a kill happy DM who thought a near TPK would make a "great story plot point"
Yeah as a dm there nothing more sad and fuckied up hearing players stories of the dm literally targeting one person not in the sense of strategy or game play it's sad
@@Elyseon indeed. Ive been DMing for 3 or 4 years now and have only had a PC die twice. Oddly enough both from the same player. And all from his stupid choices. Likeing running into a burning building to escape guards after he set the house on fire. Spoiler... Didnt end well. The guards were kind enough to put the flames on his body out though. Or the second time... When he made a cleric with con as his dump stat. Then tried to 1v1 a shark folk leader. On the plus side, another player of mine killed one of the shark folk with Tasha's Hideous Laughter in that very same fight.
The first story reminded me of a player is the last adventures league game I was in. He was a Tortle monk who wore a purple mask. He was also an adolescent.
The other strange part is- there is literally a "weapon" in a DM's arsenal to make sure high AC characters don't become too OP in combat compared to the rest of the party... Saving throws. Yes, it completely undercuts the build the player was aiming for, but if you can't hit the character at lower levels (at higher levels it'll become easier), then just throw in a spellcaster or two into the foes your players are facing. Not only could they potentially attack the high AC tank, but also buff the other enemies, and create an actual objective in combat for the more glass cannon-ey characters (like the Rogue or Wizard mentioned in the post). You don't need to kill the tank if you as DM have so much more tools in your arsenal than the players do combined. That being said, if something about a particular player's character doesn't work for you as DM... Talk to the player. Explain to the player what/why you don't like the character, and work _with_ them to make the game work for both of you. When I had a 22 AC character in my party (27 when he cast Shield using a magic item), I discussed with him methods to have him stay his character, but not have me undercut/circumvent his character's whole deal just because I got annoyed at not hitting him. Now his character is technically "easier" to hit, but he actually gets to feel like a tank when those hits get reduced to almost 0 damage because of his AC.
@@Lobsterwithinternet Indeed. My player and I worked together to design a system that effectively made the 5e version of AC to equate to a form of damage reduction (aka your AC -10 is how much damage get reduced, unless it was a Crit hit, or if the attack missed completely). Our new "AC" is something we call an Evasion Score, which is more about how difficult you are to hit rather than how much damage your armour can stop. It has made the higher AC characters "easier" to hit now, in that their AC is now more on par/slightly higher than their non-Monk/Barbarian companions (both for the players and enemies), but the damage reduction actually makes the tanks feel like they're able to, well, tank many more hits than the glass cannons, rather than just "oh the attack missed and does nothing because I couldn't roll to hit your AC". Might actually share this Armour system on the Crit Crab discord server, since it's actually a system I'm proud of, and that'll really help in situations like the first post in this video
"That being said, if something about a particular player's character doesn't work for you as DM... Talk to the player." Heck, even the first time player (our narrator) understood this and tried talking to the DM about it, thinking the DM was just trying to railroad a bit to set up the story and that their build prevented that.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid I mean, it can even apply to anything in life, not just D&D. If something someone did/didn't do is bothering you, talk to them about it, rather than letting it build up resentment inside of you causing you to be vindictive or adversarial to the other person. Yes, the DM might not have been in the greatest of headspaces given the death of a close family member, but even if he just spent a moment admitting/acknowledging this to the OP rather than just try to kill his character for 8 sessions, all of this might have been avoidable
If the d.m. does an impossible dragon attack on the p.c. quaint village it makes sense. But beyond some introduction of a BBEG don't introduce an impossible encounter.
"This is DnD, where creativity is king and hitting things isn't always the answer" Is it tho? Some might argue that the rules of DnD, with their strong focus on numbers and fighting mechanics, incentivize thinking in terms of simply rolling for the most direct solution.
To be fair, rolling dice doesn't always mean stabbing them, tying up the enemy, blocking off their way towards you, and if your dm tries to rp with the enemies you could simply use fear tactics. All of these are still dice rolls; Sleight of Hand with a rope on a presumedly prone or otherwise focused enemy, Athletics or any other skill you can think of to move something to block the path, Intimidation that is possibly aided with magic or other effects to add to your might. It's a simple dice rolling game, but not a game of just hitting big numbers, at least if you don't want to make it one.
I can see where you are coming from and DnD very much suffers from, "If you can't fight, or contribute in a fight or dungeon, you are useless." I mean should a rouge be able to take a highly trained fighter in combat? Probably not but in DnD, everyone is a trained combatant to some degree.
while true, most people find that alot less fun, which is the point of playing a game. While im sure there are people who play mostly for the combat, i dont think thats the majority.
All depends on the DM's style. Right now i'm in a pathfinder campaign that absolutely encourages, if not requires broken AF characters to get through the insane battles the DM pits us against and everyone is having fun. I wouldn't like to play only this type of game but right now it's awesome to kick ass and pull off crazy tricks.
You don't need numbers for roleplay! Kinda the point lol Also why we love 4e cos it introduced extended skill checks as a non&combat alternative for xp
I'll be frank: You tell me what I have to play, when you can't even keep your own PCs around for more than a few levels, I'm gonna take my Player's Handbook and invert your skull with it.
16:27 This is why I don't do well in competitive sports, MMO's or MOBAs. I tend to clash with this type of person. You've got the people who know how to work the rules for their benefit and offer helpful suggestions to supplement the character ideas you have (real-life bards if you will, inspiring all that competence :P), and then you've got these clowns. I don't necessarily hate them, but I have learned to leave games where the focus is more on that than doing interesting stuff. If I wanna play a character with 8 constitution, I bloody well will. And have a blast doing so.
"Whenever there was combat, the enemies would exclusively attack me and nobody else, which ia cool, I'm a tank it's my job." Yup, that sums up all my characters.
Ugh, I had that happen to me too. DM was furious that my elven wizard was *checks notes* ...alive and helping the party defeat the bad guys in the campaign. Yup. So he sends the minions of Nerull after my wizard, except they're not their minions, they're Inevitables: True Lawful beings meant to punish those breaking fundamental laws of the universe or nature. My wizard had broken no such laws and how a Neutral Evil god was commanding these beings was never explained, nor why or how Nerull would care that one elven wizard was pretty good with placing spell effects. Three Inevitables arrive and state that they are immune to magic and that the other players had to let the three Inevitables kill my character or the other PC's would be killed too. In retrospect, I'm not sure what the DM thought a group of fairly high level good aligned PC's would do here. Give up? Hand their friend over for execution? Three constructs show up demanding their comrade's life for no reason and they'd just...let it happen? No, they killed all 3 of them with the power of friendship because of course they did. The DM spent the rest of the campaign trying to kill my wizard with anti-magic and everything else under the sun. Instead, the DM killed all but one of the other PC's and my elf lived. Then the DM got arrested. ...No, not for being a bad DM, it was for trying to have sex with a sheriff's deputy...whom he thought was a 12 year old girl online. Yeah, we don't play with him anymore. But now I'm the DM and my elven wizard is the Archmage of the kingdom my players wander about in.
The weirdest DM "Home rule" I have is that one of my players treats their Mark of Shadow Elf as a Dark Elf. It's more of they were mistaken but I liked the idea so much I never said anything. That same character also just became a quasi-deity of assassins last session. If you're wondering what a quasi-diety is think of it as a step below demigod.
I honestly don't think this DM is all that experienced because if he was he would've known that he could force OP to make saving throws with spellcasters or whatever instead of just attacking his high AC over and over again.
I almost TPKd my group (level 2) this week. They were fighting a dungeon boss. All but one PC went down. I was using a modified Cult Fanatic (+2 to hit and DC on spells) and his assistants, two modified Cultists (double health, Shocking Grasp). I tend to be as brutal and calculating as possible when controlling a somewhat intelligent NPC. Cult Fanatic already has Multiattack, and Spiritual Weapon gave it one more attack. It had Inflict Wounds and more 2nd level spell slots. I'm not going to lie and say that I don't get a rush from making it hard for PCs to win, but I still root for them all the way. When only the PC Wizard remained with low health and finally got a hit in with a dagger but the NPC still had 1 or 2 hit points left, I had the NPC go unconcious anyways. Now, half of the difficulty was players rolling bad and me rolling 20+ constantly for some unexplained reason, but still... Everyone was roaring in triumph as the boss went down seemingly against all odds. What makes it even better is that during summer I had the same boss fight another group of level 1s and they took him down instantly. Funny how dice can be, huh?
Legitimately, the idea of a tortle Tempest cleric who's basically trying to be a reverse engineered Blastoise is such a cool idea that I'm 100% stealing it.
Not aimed at you, CC, but it needs to be said... People... don't say "player" when you mean "character." A DM who kills a character is perhaps a vindictive DM. A DM who kills a player is a murder...
I got a story. One of my good friends wanted to start a dnd group so he invited me and a few others to join. I was new to the whole thing but I figured it would be fun so why not. Me and my twin wernt able to make session zero so we would have our own. We got in a call and decided to be homebrewed demon twins (which being a demon turned out more useful than I thought). We did session zero and everything was fine and I thought this would be fun. Then session one started and one of the players was just insufferable. Wre'll call him Jack. His character apparently had a problem with demons that was never mentioned until now. It was more bullshit cause he was only treating me like shit cause he had an obvious crush on my twin. I don't think she knew tho. When a fight came up and it was his turn he said something along the lines of "my character scoffs as he walks past the demon and heads to the enemy". Not totally horrible but a bit unnecessary because it's not like it had any major effects on the story. We went on and eventually ended the first session. This is where it all goes wrong. Off session we all were talking about the story and how it was pretty cool and stuff. The topic of the kids we found came up and I found out that we went into the dungeon to find those kids. I made a joke of what if we "suprise adopted" the kids. And everyone was actually for having the kids on our team saying that more people the better the team might be. This is when Jack said he wouldn't allow kids to be raised by demons and sense pvp wasn't allowed he would kill the kids. We all started saying how fucked up that was and he tried defending himself saying that it would be a "mercy kill". He later went on to private message the DM if he could be "the most badass and powerful character in the group". My DM obviously said no to that. Two days later the DM messaged everyone asking when we'd all be free for the next game. The conversation after that was not what I thought would happen. We all started messaging and Jack was trying to play the whole "whoa is me thing". I would have tried to make him feel better if he hadn't told my twin that he would sometimes do things like this to see if anyone cared. After that it's kinda hard to believe someone about being sad. Then he started saying how he had a fucked up childhood which sounded totally fake and how his mental conditions were because of it. He might have had those but again I can't really trust someone after they say they fake stuff like this. A few minutes later they started saying how we should all meet in person at my house one day. It was all fine until Jack messaged that he was gonna 9/11 the place. There are many things I let him slide with but that is a direct threat to me and my family which is something I don't take kindly to. I started to go off on him and everyone agreed with me that it was pretty fucked up. He started putting the happy tears and gun emoji constantly. No one was falling for that.. He then left the group and everyone shifted conversation, only for him to join back a few minutes later, say nothing, and leave again, join again, say nothing, leave, ect. Clearly he was only joining back to see if anyone felt sorry for him and when he saw that were wernt he would leave and so on. Eventually the DM told him that if he's going to leave then leave. So he did and we have had a wonderful campaign sense then.
When I did a campaign in high school as a DM, I threw an “impossible” fight against a high level warlock at my party. Referencing the intro of Final Fantasy 2, I was going for a hopeless fight to set the tone but nobody would actually die. Party rolled incredibly well, reduced the warlock beneath the threshold I had written in as a failsafe, and I rewarded them with some extra exp and some strong items. Even if you make your party fight something tough, it is never unbeatable. Always have a contingency plan.
Now that's how you do it! I love when the story has "contingencies" for if the player wins the "impossible fight!" (If your going to make it impossible "IMPOSSIBLE" then give fair warning before hand. Or just take control WITH permission! Don't just give "false hope" or worse, let the players win, then railroad them into the "what happens when you lose" scenario! That's pretty fucking lazy and I'm happy many RPG games I played started to avoid that trap)
You know, I was going to ask the difference between an optimizer and a power gamer…but these stories and Critcrab answered that question for me in this video.
Lost Mines is such a straight forward adventure designed to make it easy for people to feel involved. To fuck that up, by starting the campaign so differently they get into a death match right at the start like... wtf? It's a story for attracting new players, it has in built combat tutorials!
I remember when I played a tortle my ac was so high that I could just stand in the way of even high high level bosses while the party just annihilated them with spells. The dm was always ok with it because they didn’t think about it when they saw my 24 AC. I miss The Turt In Boots every day.(yes I made puss in boots but a turtle. He was my fav role play character ever.)
"I'll teach this dedicated tank a lesson, by having all the enemies focus on him, bwahahaha!" What kind of bar did we walk into, where a bunch of tavern-goes with chairs and bottles are a hopelessly outmatched fight for a party of adventurers with real weapons and armor? Send these guys to Phandelver.
The first story is eeerily similar to my own experience first getting into dnd. Like even down to me taking my bad experience and DMing for a new group. As of today the campaign is just over 2 years old, my party JUST hit level ten last session and we are having session 68(?) ish this Friday. That’s wild. Glad to have solidarity in this though :D
I do think it’s likely the first OP miscalculated AC, but this is definitely not the way to handle it. If the GM thinks it’s unbalanced and wants to lower their AC, whether or not I’m right about the miscalculation, that’s fine; the OP even offered that in advance. But don’t try to do it as a trick ring unless you agree OOC, and don’t target them afterwards like that.
Was a circle of the Shepard tiefling druid for Tomb of Annihilation. On paper, she didn't make much sense, but in practice, all she had to do was throw down her Unicorn totem and cast fire magic after fire magic up close and personal, while the party's healer healed everyone in one go. She also managed to apparently Pass without Trace a frost giant encounter and save a vital NPC with no combat whatsoever. We were doing a gladiator event, and I made the mistake of telling the party that Ritari was going to do PwT to hide us, as all we had to do was survive to 10 rounds. What did I get? 2 triceratopses and 4 archers on Ritari, downing her instantly. We stopped ToA shortly after. I'd love to play her again in that campaign, just to see how my initial plan of a dungeon was gonna go.
there's nothing wrong with being a min-maxer. the problems come around when you decide your way is the only way. DnD may be a collaborative party game but players need to know when to mind their own damn business.
One of my friends wanted to start a campaign and DM for the first time (5E). At session 0 I rolled my stats, and got the perfect rolls for a character I had in the back of my mind for a while now (two 18s, and decent other rolls). I asked the DM if he wouldn't mind I made the character I had in mind and guided him through it. It would be a High Elf level 1 fighter with the mariner fighting style and a feat to raise my int 1 (he let us all start with one feat). The next 2 levels would be multiclassed into Wizard and at Wizard level 2 I would go Blade Singer. I was also going to take mage armor. I made sure to tell him that my AC is going to be well into the 20's, and asked if it would be alright. He agreed to it all. I threw in some flavor for my character that he was a nudist (since I didn't need to wear armor), and used prestidigitation to censor myself. I figured that it could create some funny situations in the game, which the group liked. Fast forward though to the first encounter after I hit level 3 when we fought 14 Kobolds. I was first (with 5 in Dex it was common) and rushed into the group of enemies then activated Blade Song. My AC was at 24 and only 1 Kobold managed to hit me even though they all used their pack tactics (the one that hit me got a crit). We then destroyed them easily with me not taking another hit. The DM was visibly upset so I asked if he wanted me to nerf my character a bit to which he said it's fine. We had one more session to which I did what my character does and never got hit even at the boss he made us fight. After the fight he was very upset and just logged off our discord and Roll20. About 20 minutes later he posted that his game was over.
I won't lie, at first the story gave my Gygaxian DMing vibes: Back in the days of AD&D and 2e it was very much a "DM vs the other players" mentality, and things like Impossible challenges you're supposed to run away from or get stomped were a common occurrence. Modern D&D has evolved to something more in line with cooperative storytelling, which is the PoV Crab is coming from, which IMO is the RIGHT way to do D&D, unless you signed up for the older way. I say all this to explain my reasoning that, at first, it made sense what Aaron was doing in the story: If he'd come from a table with older players (like say his dad before he passed) it makes sense that's his approach to D&D, until I got into 4e that was MY approach to D&D because I had only ever played with my Dad who played 2e. What comes after with the hostile RP, denying treasure, etc. is where I realized "Ok no, this guy's just being a prick." But I hope that the above information about older styles of gaming might help some newer players understand that sometimes D&D is a different game for different people, and what works for one may not work for others, and that open communication about what a game of D&D should and shouldn't be is an important conversation to have.
The MMO mentality is so accurate. As a life long MMO player I was in the power gaming mentality I was dead set on making my characters as powerful as possible. Glad I had friends to play with long enough to learn how much fun RP is. Combat is now second fiddle. Edit: If the DM wants to get around AC use reflex saves. My Warforged Fighter came out of character creation with a 23 AC and was neigh untouchable for the first few floors for DotMM. That was until he had to start making reflex saves because goblins started setting traps for him. Good times.
Aw shucks crab, sir. You flatter me to no end. My campaign has been going for almost a year, weekly or bi-weekly with players I am the first DM for. They're great players too, even if we do have our differences and recently we did argue about some of my decisions. But we just wrapped up a session and it was an amazing time even if almost no dice were rolled. It's like, the best high when you build a world, let them see it and their perspective takes you by surprise but you 100% see where they're coming from. Your world is alive in your head, but it literally comes to life when that happens.
Bro shield of faith is such a great spell. Paired with the forge cleric +1 to AC and the Shield spell, my character literally has 30 Temporary AC and I love it.
honestly I'm impressed sometimes with the enjoyment and pacing some campaigns have! I've been in my first DnD campaign since September 2023 and have gone Level 8, to Level 11, then too 12 thanks to Deck of Many more things DnD will always amaze me in the different paces it works in!
My brother, as a DM, doesn't have fun unless we are constantly on the ropes. He's fine if we are intelligent about certain situations, but gets frustrated if we avoid something he wanted us to encounter and he absolutely doesn't like it if we find a way to trounce an encounter without risk to our actual characters. This is why he doesn't like characters that can summon things or send things to fight in our actual place. I'm not entirely sure, but he's also shown slight aspects of an antagonistic GM, getting actually mad or despondent if we avoid or find all the traps or other hidden dangers (though never actually hostile, just complains at us). He knows what an antag GM is and he swears he isn't one, just that whats the point of danger if we always come out on top (ie. Its fine if we avoid most traps if every now and again we get got by one every now and again, whats the point of monsters/villains if they never get close to dowing one of us or winning at a scheme or two, etc.). I guess thats what you get with power gamers at the table (at least two of us are, with myself and the others dabbling). Its hard to balance against people who delve deep into the mechanics, but I also don't get the mindset of actually wanting your player's characters on the edge of failure or death all the time. To me, not everything the game has to be life and death and we've had actual challenge sent at us by him before, but he just doesn't see it that way.
I've been on the receiving end of a "DM balances for a power gamer but targets the normal one" Cyberpunk Red game. End result was a supposedly innocent but stupidly OP martial artist from an isolated reclaimer settlement in Idaho (balanced only by being an absolute 0 chrome human, so in spite of ignoring all armor he couldn't actuallydo much damage) going untouched while the supposedly jaded tech from the combat zone straining for every quick heal he can find and finishing the session at 3/35 hp. "I stopped targeting him because he could always dodge." -DM.
I've seen all of one video that mentioned tortles at all aside from this one, and even I know that they have CRAZY natural armor. Heck, turtles in _every_ fantasy setting I've come across has them as tanky bastards. It's kinda their whole thing: Birds fly, turtles are tanky. Why get mad at that?
This feels a lot like a situation I am in at the moment. I was avoiding conversation but I think I am going to start a conversation with the DM. If this can be salvaged, good. Otherwise, time to get the fuck out
Yup, it's almost always worth trying to fix issues by talking but otherwise, No D&D is better than bad D&D. Also, provided you're Ok to play online, there are always more games coming up and plenty of places to find them, so often it's more like 'Good D&D later is better than Bad D&D now.'. I'm horribly, and I mean HORRIBLY, bad at actually doing the conversation thing thanks to extreme anxiety but I do try.
I played a monk in Pathfinder once that had an AC of 20 at level 1. Our GM had the same mentality of 'I'm the GM, my job is to kill you.' Our first fight was against a bunch of Roman soldiers armed with swords and crossbows. My monk tanked the hell out of that and smacked a guy with Stunning Fist while keeping our fighter, who was severely low on HP due to a crit) behind me while he healed. We eventually won the fight, and our next fight (it was basically a god's arena to test us) had a guy who transformed into an egg, which hatched into a giant. Our ninja flashed a mirror into the giant's face (a corrupted mirror that he had accidentally created earlier) which corrupted the giant and seeded a wide area around it with Black Tentacles (as the spell). Everyone but the wotch was melee. We killed it eventually, but only after the GM realized he f'ed up with the Black Tentacles spell, since it was doing 1d6+4 to a group of level 1 players. The thing is, that mindset he had is toxic for 1 reason: players CAN'T beat the DM. At any moment, the DM can call 'Rocks fall, everyone dies.' You can't win against the DM unless he lets you. Which is why it isn't supposed to be a competition between players and DM but an exercise in telling a story together. Seth Skorkowsky really opened my eyes to 'How it should be.' I'll be running my first campaign soon and I've been taking so many tips and hints from rpg horror stories and cautionary tales to heart.
Never experienced the entire “new players don’t usually just get hooked on dnd” thing because my DM was really good and had played for a while, while it was his first time DMing it was still one of my favorite sessions. Sadly didn’t turn into a full campaign tho.
If the DM was really that frustrated with the tortle not getting hurt, why didn’t he just throw more saving throw centric encounters at the party? As a DM, I want my players to succeed but I also want to make the adventure challenging to give my players a sense of accomplishment. So if you have a party with really high AC, throw saving throws and AOEs at them. Increase the number of enemies and separate allies so that it’s harder for support characters. Add environmental effects like fire, shifting landscape, or difficult terrain. This DM wasn’t just vindictive and hostile towards his players, he also wasn’t even that that creative!
he also significantly altered lmop. im running it rn and there are so many things he changed that he didn't have to. also, completing it in only 8 sessions is really fast
I’m late to the party but one other way to interpret this is he wasn’t trying to kill the op but was playing directly into their strength but roleplays he’s actually trying to win. The op interprets dm as trying to kill them but dm didn’t use obvious tools to do it. I lean more towards op buying the dm emoting to make the party feel like really winning without dm actually trying to kill them. The cursed items are also a direct test of the character as well as they should reject them based on the backstory but player min maxing could have been tempted to. I actually feel like this was a good choice to present the player.
That first one was anything but a skilled DM. Childish pettiness aside, he was just bad at what he wanted to do. DM has literally endless options to organically destroy any character he wants. He couldn't even do that
so I actually don't think the DM had great potential as you said, I think the GROUP had potential and was looking past the DM chasing the fun. I've been in lots of games where the DM runs combat by character sheet and this fits perfectly. no dm skill, but imagined power and combativeness.
Critcrab: It takes great skill to have players keep coming back to play the campaign Me: *looks at my self criticizing hands* maybe I am a good DM and my players are enjoy my campaign Thanks for the confidence booster, I have a group that keeps coming back and have told me really enjoy my Cthulhu mythos campaign It is my first time ever DMing and I had always thought they were just being nice to me but maybe I’m just being to hard on myself 😵💫
The truth lies in the middle. They enjoy your general style of DMing so much that your tiny quirks don‘t matter. Of course you have flaws, but you make up for those by being open to suggestions and being relaxed during discussion. And that is what matters. If your players mentioned they like the campaign, out of nowhere, then they absolutely mean it. =)
Okay at first I was like "what, 17 AC without a shield at level 1?" Then I realized that's just a racial trait of tortles (though they get no ac from armor)
CritCrab: "The DM should be the players' ally" Me: Yeah, tell that to the DMs that one constantly targeted me because of a girl and other that not only never helped me when I had doubts, but went to the point of mocking my autism and punished my characters, one for abilities being considered "broken" and other for being overqualified for a job.
Yup, adversarial DMs suck and people who think autistic people are acceptable targets for mockery suck even more. I hope you've found a better DM since then.
@@BlueTressym Nah, I had to pull up a Thanos and do it myself. Becoming a DM. I love my players to death and they have a blast playing under me. I'm a DM who values fun over everything else. I'd like to get a shot as a player, but the lack of that many games at roll 20 and work demands are getting on the way.
It should never be DM vs. Player. In all honesty if that was the case, the DM wins. Every time. But that is not the mentality you want to have if you want fun long lasting games.
Halfway through, but I have a story almost exactly like this. The DM was an amazing DM, but for some reason all of my characters always got treated like garbage. After the third character, it was really difficult to not take it personally; especially considering he killed my first character during a session I couldn't make.
@@lamiahunter It's not bad. It just focuses on a different experience. D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder offer a plethora of choices for players but there is largely an illusion of choice because if you want to make a good character there are feats you have to take. It allows a lot of optimization for players but a lot of time number crunching. D&D 5E is focused more on a roleplay experience. There are still some incredibly wacky builds you can do. I am playing with someone who specializes in multiclassing and he made a bardlock that simply cannot get below a 20 on persuasion....at level 3. He also made a melee wizard who soloed a boss.
@@Dragon_Lair I made a Warlock who can't roll below a 19 in perception because I got sick of not being able to see in another game. The funny part about that is that I made this character a drunk (because of the way that being an alcoholic works according to the rules didn't do anything, I talked to my DM about making me roll any sort of skill check or attack roll at disadvantage when my character got wasted) and one of the times she was practically black out drunk, I rolled a 19 and 20 on the two dice I rolled which means I was the only person in our group who could see something (everyone else failed). My character -being drunk- pointed at it and went, "ROOFTOP NINJA!" and confused the hell out of the NPC we were talking to....lol Sorry for ranting as a response to your comment, I just felt that they were connected in that way with the crazy stats and choices
If you're actively trying to kill your PCs and fail, you're not smart enough to be a GM. There's nothing stopping you from surrounding them with a dozen tarasques or insta-gibbing them with the steamroller trap from the Tomb of Horrors.
I think the first story, the DM felt attacked by the OP. Now his response to the situation isn't good, but his father had just died and this was an outlet for him and the possibility of feeling attacked might have illicit the behavior.
Hey crabbos! I've been trying to improve the audio volume/quality. Is this good?
Yes
I haven’t noticed much difference from the latest videos, but it’s good nonetheless.
Looking good here.
It sounds a little echoy at high volumes but you sound a lot more clear and smooth, so it sounds pretty good over all
Being partially deaf, I have barely noticed a difference, but I think it has become a bit louder. I don't use headphones though, so my opinion may not be worth taking into consideration if the majority of your viewers use them. Lol
Note to DMs: If you have an issue with a player's character, *tell them*. Don't give the okay and then be a petty little prick about it.
It seems more than an issue with the player character. He was immediately met with relentless targeting before the issue of absurd AC even came to be.
But what if I wanna be a little degenerate shit?
Yeah, the passive aggressive weirdness was the real problem.
I don’t even understand what the issue is. If the player can tank attack rolls then why not just use an enemy or two that can cast spells that require saving throws? This DM really can’t think outside the box for how to create engaging or challenging scenarios
@@Faint366 as someone who's been narrowly escaping tpks for the last 6 sessions, you can create a challenging and engaging game without being an insufferable dickwad
I lost my shit when the DM's girlfriend, upon being handed OP's magic ring, just gives it right back. That's so hilarious I have to believe the story is true.
She gave it to him in the first place because he was the only one not getting any magic items. DM arranged to have him lose it and have it come back to her. She immediately gave it back to him. I dunno what DM was expecting =D
I would do the same. It belongs to him anyway.
@@Archimonde259 maybe that his GF is just as terrible as himself
@@PancakemonsterFO4 What do you mean?
@@dariusdragonvale9809 GM thought his GF would hog the ring rather then share it with someone who is more in need for it then her, proving that she isn't a egoistical asshloe no matter how much he's gonna “redistribute“ it
CC: "If you know anything about D&D,"
Me: Which I don't.
CC: "you know that the DM is on the player's side."
Me: Not based on some of the stories you've told me.
The DM SHOULD be on the players’ side. Yes, they’re the one sending enemies after the party and setting up obstacles in the way, but ultimately a good DM is still rooting for the players to succeed.
The DM should be warm, but not soft. Cold, but not cruel.
With the wish to give the players an adventure, but the will to slaughter them if it comes to that.
The role of the DM is the head of the TVA in Loki: find the storyline that brings out the best in the heroes.
The Chaotic Chaotic’s (Loki) and Lawful Lawful’s (Sylvie) job is to force the DM to rewrite the story or rules around them, destroying the campaign and fun for everybody else in the process.
@@rhysofsneezingdragon1758 yeah, like Gary Gygax’s style of DMing
@@tommyz6848 we don't need to talk about the Tomb of Horrors
If the first DM got that annoyed by a tortle cleric, imagine if the OP had gone with a half-orc Bear toten batbarian. XD
There would be blood
@@CritCrab Indeed.
DM: "Hah, you are finally dea...! What do you mean you got a racial trait that lets you revive once?!"
@@greatazuredragon Also being able to effectively double your HP in a rage is really strong.
@@ryanstewart5727 the main draw of the bear totem
@@greatazuredragon Not gonna lie, I almost went totem barbarian for my current healer/tank but I felt that zealot barb was a better fit for my character flavor wise.
What I hate most is that OP asked the DM directly, twice, if the character needed to be changed and both times the DM said it was fine. But then immediately tries to kill off the character he said was fine. If you have a problem with a character you should just say so!
He just took it as a challenge I think
@@RStarrzky you know, I could see a potentially really fun game with a party min-maxing and a dm - with the consent and knowledge of the whole table - trying to beat them down without making the encounter overkill. legit could be a fun challenge for everyone
Exactly. Make an overpowered character, don't whinge when th DM tries to nerf it a little for balance.
@@lliamthrumble ? the dm was out right trying to kill him not nerf him and even then it was litt sated the dm said it was fine
@@lliamthrumble Someone failed their perception check.
"My church group wanted to play D&D"
You have no idea how weird it is to hear that sentence if you were around for the Satanic Panic of the 1980s
Right? That threw me for loop there for a minute lol
That's how I started playing too. Our DM was one of the leaders responsible for young men even. (We also had some girls and non-church member friends join us too, it was a blast!)
that opinion is still around but most of the caths i meet (self included) like fantasy stuff and gaming so it's kinda been dying down
Truth.
I was not, but I literally played D&D for the first time with my friends in Bible College. I still play with a bunch of old friends from bible College on sunday nights. Several of us work in minstry in some way, I'm about to start working at a Christian School real soon. Love this game so much.
DM actually made combat easier for the party overall by having all the enemies constantly attack THE TANK.
Yeah what an a hole DM. Attacking the high ac tank head on! Its so unwinable at that point.
@@lliamthrumble ..I can't tell if thats sarcasm or not.
@@akiyamaakeo more of a you problem i think
@@lliamthrumble That is true, but is it not fair that I ask what you meant?
It's like he was trying to make Pathfinder WOTR gameplay look good by validating the tanks (there's no taunt or zone of control with tanks, so they don't have any way to get focused and be useful)
About when Aaron made angry drunks in a bar "Too high level for you", it was doomed.
Yeah. No rolls, “too high” and target one person? I’d be a little PO’d
"You done messed up, A-a-ron!"
I mean, my best case for this is that the DM wanted to start the campaign with a cool "players captured" scenario. But if that's what you want from session 0, just DESCRIBE what happens, then continue role-play after that. Or if you really must RP it, fudge the rolls.
But based on everything else, it sounds like that's not what was happening. The DM was just being a jerk to one guy in particular, which is no bueno.
@@burke615 Fudging the rolls is the cowards way out as a DM.
Let the dice tell the story if you're gonna roll.
Otherwise just describe what happens as you said.
@@PH03NIX96 If someone wants to personally run things this way, there's no problem, but saying it's "cowardly" to do otherwise and claiming it to be the "right" way to never fudge dice would be overextending. Why let your players have a shit time at level 1 because some oversized frog in a cave crit them and is bound to deal 3 times the wizard's health in a hit when they're super excited to play out and develop their character, for example? The dice can make some really anticlimactic shit sometimes and even take away an entire character sheet in something that was supposed to be, you know, a heroic adventure with heroes that aren't scared of frogs
@@luisg.lazzarisdoamaral3016 It you die because the frog crits you at lv 1 then thats what happens. Im not fudging.
I feel especially sad for Emma and Katie in this. They were new but interested and the DM ended up boring them out of it. What a loss of potential.
My name is Katie 😂
@@misaamane6087Your name is Katie 😂
if you wanted to 'win' as a DM, why bother with low level stuff? just give them an ancient red dragon and have it done with
Because then you’d (rightfully) be called out for your actions, those players would leave, and then they’d tell everyone what you did to make sure no one wants to play with you. And then you’d have no group.
DMs like this know deep down that they need players and that they can’t abuse their power too much. They got to be a little more sneaky about it.
Because if they will know what the DM and then can't win properly.
Comets
There is more legal and elegant methods than ancient red dragon. You can TPK even with goblins, all you need is some brainpower before session to prepare and some fudged rolls. Nobody will know
This, but LegalAssasin has a point, if you throw an instakill boulder, that's bull, but if you throw a really strong Boulder it has the potential to be chalked up to skill issue
Player: "Is my character too powerful?"
DM: "Nah, it's fine."
Also DM: "I'mma constantly do nothing but try to nerf and/or destroy that turtle."
I feel like I've heard this same story in a different skin a thousand times by now. It always ends the same: destroyed friendships.
I was always of the opinion that money, sports and politics are things fit to end even the longest lasting friendships. Seems like I have to add DnD to this list.
The player knew damn well he was overpowered but played victim.
We also had a Tortle who was Druid. They would Wild Shape by getting on all 4's and acting like a turtle.
Okay, that is hilarious.
At level 20.....shapechanges to dragon turtle
Ha, that's actually smart.
And can also be played for laughs.
Brilliant
oh look, a turtle!
*stands up*
PERRY THE TORTLE!!
"Here are a couple of stories to my left."
Stories appear on the right.
I open my mouth... then realize that since CritCrab is facing us they are very much on _his_ left.
I shut my mouth.
Lol.
Yeah, I've had those situations in common stuff, and man, it is frustrating since you can't fault either party in the situation.
"No, the other left."
Op's AC isnt even that bad, considering a tempest cleric's ac would be just 1 point lower than the tortle's, with the ability to actually wear better armour later on, a paladin at level 2 could match the AC of the tortle witht he defence fighting style and still dish out decent damage and healing
Dwarf cleric in my PARTY was having ac 20 at 1st lvl, he was damn good in rp and tanking us in fights, and for some reason he play only as Dwarf. Also, nice to have 19ac as monk at 1st lvl tho, but intellect loss IS kinda Hard to live with xD
Forge domain wizard multiclass can push an AC of 27 or 28 I believe when casting shield, combined with shield of faith. This guy wasn't even trying to min-max, he was just playing a character he genuinely liked
@@Nik-nt3io yup, he was exactly forge domain, but nah, he for some reason wont do any multiclasses
@@parazsakharov7877 It could maybe be an issue of how it would fit in! I have a Murloc swashbuckler battlemaster, and I'd like to get in a level of warlock for that hex + hexblade dps, but I've been wracking my head for some time trying to figure out how or why my fella would want to make a deal with a god, since his only interest is paying off his fish debt to his murloc tribe, and he joined the party for that reason.
@@Nik-nt3io oh, sounds reasonable. Btw, May i ask u? Are there any good multiclasses for monk of astral self spec?
I kinda had a different take: They're new players so they don't know what a good DM is. This was their first impression: A salty baby of a DM who sought to punish a character because she made a good tank. (In the silliest way too, having mobs focus the *tank* while leaving obviously cursed items to try to screw her over) The DM having no idea what to do with a turtle plowing through his game makes me think he's not as good as implied, just that there wasn't much in the way of expectations.
I'm happy it had a wonderful ending for the OP though!
I agree. I wasted a lot of time in bad games because I'd never experienced a good one and assumed that some things were 'just normal' and others were because I wasn't that good.
Saying "yeah it's ok" to 21 AC, then trying to nerf it to 5 probably deleted that idea
I disagree with your opinion that this guy is skilled. Sure being a good DM can be what keeps players coming back, but you can also make the statement that as new players, none of them knew better. He is setting a bad president that this is how all D&D games should go, and they could very well just be buying into that mentality. Either way, this is a really terrible situation. Love your content btw! Keep up the great work!
I agree with this, As a new player I stuck around in far too many bad groups, because I just didn't know any better or because I thought that maybe there was a chance it would get better, or even just because I liked the other players enough to deal with a bad DM. It's very very easy to trap new players into bad games.
Exactly, same reason some people stay too long in a toxic first relationship. If you don't know there's better things out there, you stick with what you can get.
Especially if the new players have already made up their mind that they're going to enjoy D&D and the game has already run a few sessions, gamblers fallacy hits hard.
On top of this, the campaign clearly didn't actually last that long. Unless I misread/heard, the campaign lasted 8 sessions. Clearly not a good dm.
Yeah, if this president got kidnapped by ninjas, no bad dudes would want to rescue him.
@@Elyseon No bad enough dudes for that mission
Cursing a PC isn't how you deal with a powerful character. Just throw in some saving throws on occasion to keep them on their toes
Yea I made a mistake of giving one of my PCs way to much AC and he got cocky after awhile so I started using spell casters with saving throws after one combat of that he was humbled and stopped going Rambo every fight and now is careful and thoughtful every time they approach a possible encounter
Yep. For every measure, a counter measure. AC too high? Use AoE spells with saving throws or take damage. Touch attacks (if one is playing Pathfinder/3.5e), hazards. Giving the player the finger just because the DM is too damn dumb to understand the tools at their disposal is not the player's fault, it's the DM's.
@@MelodusDethicus Exactly, if the DM knew anything he would have circumvented the AC with saving throws. He can also grapple him, get him prone, etc. He can literally do anything he wants, increase a monster's stats, fudge a roll if needed. The point is to be as fair as possible, tell a good story, and keep players invested. No idea why he would freak out, I remember grouping with a bladesinger in 5e that had 35AC and still managed to get himself killed constantly.
Yeah what I thought, even if you succeed a saving throw most spells will still damage you just reduced
@@jordanrussell1257 and there's always magic missile for damage that's (almost) guaranteed
I dunno about that 'insane DM potential' thing, dude didn't even realise there are ways to kill/challenge players without whacking their AC. It's a Tortle Paladin, throw in some damned Dex saves for Tiamet's sake! His obsession with trying to outdo this one aspect of the character speaks volumes about his pettiness.
Yeah I dont know where that came from. I feel like people consider getting a good group together a miracle, but I have actually had to leave groups because I was in too many.
That's why I loved the AC system from 3.5e.
Got a heavily armored paladin? Use a Touch attack spell like Inflict Wounds or Finger of Death.
Got a nimble Rogue? Knock him prone, blind him or make yourself invisible.
@@Lobsterwithinternet there are lots of instruments to do that in 5e too, heat metal is a goddamn second level spell and will cook any character with an armor on. That dm was not only petty, but also didn't care to explore actually good ways to make your PC's lives a living hell, beyond "let's bonk the unbonkable"
@@endeav0r_49 True enough.
Just prefer how it treats AC. Makes you think more about how you built your AC and makes defeating high AC much more straightforward for both players and DMs.
Also felt weird that a dwarf in full plate and a rogue in leather had the same AC and were functionally the same.
The same with using cursed items. A cursed item the GM introduced to decrease AC permanently by 5 would imediatly bring distrust from the group. Specially considering this was the 1st section. I would petition a retcon with the rest of the group, even if this was not my PC.
Cursed items are best used for lore, McGuffins, Checkov or to punish risky behavior (and then only as the result of a dice roll)
>Level 1
>Starting equipment
>Basic spells
>21 AC
And this, dear children, is why we love Tortles
Honestly any lvl2 paladin with armor, shield and shield of faith can do that
@@Anegor True, but are they a big turtle? Lol
Turtle power!
Heroes on a Half Shell!
@@AnegorAnswer it, ARE THEY A BIG TURTLE???
OP: We got in a fight with the Red Brands at level 1.
Me: Wait... did the DM skip the whole deal with Klarg and Hallwinter? They should be level 2 by the Red Brands at least!
The players skipped it; OP mentioned they never chased the goblins down.
@@CooperAATE Thank you for the clarification. I apparently missed that portion.
Ctitctab: If you know anything about D&D you know the DM is on the player's side.
My first DM: I am the DM my goal is to kill you.
Why did I stick with this game? I am just that damn stubborn I guess, it was also one of the few places I was not a shy potato. It was weird I go from shy potato to "I am jumping out the window because it sounds fun!"
Yeah my former DM and group always said the player's goal is to fuck over the DM and the DM's goal is to murder the party.
I rarely had fun in their games.
@@Arella17 I recall that I tried to run a game and I had dragons fly over the players fighting and one just fell on them and got a TPK. A player argued that because the dragon landed in them they are what killed the dragon.
I am quite sure this had a major effect on how I play because of course I said they killed the dragon.
I am a strong, strong advocate of an asterisk to CritCrabs rule here. Games like you describe are absolutely okay. People need to stop shaming them. The only issue is that everyone needs to know, agree, and be into that idea. There are many players and many dms that like more grind house style challenges.
One of the best games I've ever ran that my group still fondly talks about was Curse of Strahd, which I purposely ran as trying to make them lose and not finish after everyone agreed that might be fun. Created some of the most insane sessions I've ever had of the party working together to one up whatever nonsense I threw at them.
Not every game should be that but it's a wonderful way to play that shouldn't be discounted just because people are assholes and think it's the ONLY way to play ha.
@@jebbush6657 I mean I just can’t agree, perhaps it is a matter of scale because I doubt any player made it to level 7, not even that it was rare it was never. If the guy made Dark Souls nobody would have made it to the halfway point of the game and it would simply never be beat as it was literally impossible to do so.
It is odd to me because as the DM you can do whatever you want. Rat can just cast fireball and force cage at will now, you toss one into a volcano and it just walks out climbs on you and burns you to death.
Like it is fun to play a game that is hard or even purposely unfair but a game that is not possible is just boring, like not taking a cursed ax is not something you as a DM can be mad about, if you have someone that you keep failing to beat their AC it is your fault as a DM as is rather evident in that you can make an inherently unfair game in the first place.
@@n0etic_f0x who said inherently unfair? All I said was a game where the DM and the players have an antagonistic relationship. I mean, of course it wouldn't be fun if I just had a rat power word kill them all at level 1. So... I don't do that. I play by the rules and so do they and we try and beat each other. That's all I was saying, that people shouldn't shame that style of play simply because you can invent a bunch of worse things it COULD be and then decide that's what it is lol
That DM bit themselves in the ass focusing so much on the cleric. The AC wouldn't matter if they were barely ever attacked. Besides start having enemies that needed saving throws if you really needed to kill this one person
Tittle can either mean:
Angry DM causes group to separate do to trying to kill a player character
, or
Angry DM rips people to shreds while trying to murder someone
Let's hope it's the former
*Title
@@WCRyder nah bro tittle is better
@@nickieBurke I like it better too
"I avoid the cursed ring he tried to give me at lvl 1 which would have permanently reduced my AC by 5"
::breaks out loudspeaker::
📣DICK📣MOOOOOVE📣
Yeah, I thought he was amazingly bad before I read that. But permanently reducing someone's AC by 5 out of spite?? You'd need an MRI to see how far someone has their head stuck up their ass to pull that.
"...and hitting things isn't always the right answer."
Barbarians: **surprised Pikachu face**
Yeah, sometimes you need to grab things to hit other things with them, instead.
Or throwing them. Your capacity for violence is only limited by imagination!
@@jace_straith Punch things at other things to hit...... I don't know how many but more things!
Anyone else thing the two people who lost interest in DnD and the break down of the relationship spawned from that game? If he's "always like that", maybe they just got sick of him. Maybe they didn't say anything but noticed he'd hound the other player and they all thought it was a bad sign, that maybe he'd turn out to be abusive if he'd obsess and spitefully go after one person over something so pointless. And, given he ignored everyone to attack one player, the two who lost interest likely lost trust in DMs or had no DM they trusted so just gave up. They had no reason to be hooked, no good memories to make, just a spiteful DM who ignored them to try kill someone they didn't like. And who'd wanna play after that?
I'm not saying it's what happened, but it's interesting to think about.
To add to your theory, one of the two who lost interest had been the one to give OP a magical item. When the DM made OP lose it and then had the same person find it again, she apparently handed it directly back to OP with nothing being said. I feel like that adds credence to your theory because she did that.
Almost definitely. It sounded to me like the dm was single-mindedly hounding the tortle cleric and completely ignored everyone else outside of Giving them loot just to spite the cleric. I'd lose interest too if my first impression was just a slow painful slog where every foe is actively ignoring me killing them just to poke this one guy they can't touch. Let alone that bs trap room where the dm just leaves me thinking I'm about to lose because the dm said so for an hour.
"You start off in a tavern with a group of unruly locals looking to pick a fight with your character."
"These NPCs are too high level for you to fight off."
Unruly locals... I.E. drunken peasants... too high level... for a party of adventurers... Okay, sure.
She broke up with the DM? Good. If he doesn’t have the emotional maturity to be a DM, then I can’t imagine him being a good lover in a relationship.
What’s the appeal of killing a player? I mean if you tpk the entire party then it means more work for you later right? Rewriting the entire story or absolute worst case scenario you have to make an entire campaign for these new characters.
IDK. Reminds me of that horror story of the DM who wanted to kill all players in a zombie apocalypse game and did everything he could to make them lose, even having them be Level 0 the entire game
the appeal is sticking the headshot of a character to a dm screen and calling it the wall of death and pulling it put at 1 shots with new players and saying this is all the characters I've killed
Control for some people usually those with very little control it makes them feel powerful.
Killing a PC just to say you did, that's a bad DM. I'm 50-ish games into my first run as DM, and I've killed one PC; the rogue who created a revenant in session 3. It finally caught up them roughly 10 sessions ago; during a battle with a cult, rogue was blindsided by its new unicorn companion. With that, the revenant finally got to rest...... but then the druid revived her. So now they're afraid it's back and even angrier/stronger. (I haven't decided yet, lol)
I'd like to think I did it right.
a TPK is seen as a "winning" by these types of people. plain & simple.
what i don't get is that why aren't theses people actually playing games that encourage the whole "GM vs player" mindset instead of DnD? i know they exist. or hell, are wargames too complicated for them?
If you think one impossible fight in a session zero is bad. I had a dm who threw 3 impossible fights at our level 1 party in the first session. All with no warning and attacking on sight.
Cool..? Want a prize?
@@brook2724 yes
I hope you had some words with them and found a better DM if they weren't willing to stop being adversarial.
@@BlueTressym several people left, I was kicked for “stressing the DM out” and then several more left.
We love to play powerful, unique characters at our table. But 70% of our enjoyment comes from forging our place in the world we have been thrust into. Everybody is able to shine, and we get epic combat from it. If you only play to " win" tabletop, you have missed the point.
I had a game where my rogue stole an engine/heart to a mechanical mount (which was the entire goal of my character as it was integral to his culture) and my D.M. punished me by shooting my arm off to the shoulder and critically wounding my character. That was the last game of three we played... No one wanted to play with a D.M. who punished the party for playing the game.
I slightly disagree with the take new players would be more willing to leave if their DM is bad, new players can't really recognize signs of toxicity and don't really know what a pleasant tabletop experience can be
Speaking as someone whose first experience was with a pretty toxic DM, I definitely noticed. Another player reassured me that this wasn't the norm and I wasn't crazy (DM was big on gaslighting and I was new so it was easy to do). We both got kicked out for reasons neither of us are sure of.
I keep trying to convince my buddy to tell his horror story of the first time he played DnD. With a kill happy DM who thought a near TPK would make a "great story plot point"
Yeah as a dm there nothing more sad and fuckied up hearing players stories of the dm literally targeting one person not in the sense of strategy or game play it's sad
@@alexcote9243 i agree. My buddy then joined my game. Thats how met him. The story appalled me. Its a pretty bad story.
Kill happy DMs suck balls.
@@Elyseon indeed. Ive been DMing for 3 or 4 years now and have only had a PC die twice. Oddly enough both from the same player. And all from his stupid choices. Likeing running into a burning building to escape guards after he set the house on fire. Spoiler... Didnt end well. The guards were kind enough to put the flames on his body out though. Or the second time... When he made a cleric with con as his dump stat. Then tried to 1v1 a shark folk leader. On the plus side, another player of mine killed one of the shark folk with Tasha's Hideous Laughter in that very same fight.
The first story reminded me of a player is the last adventures league game I was in. He was a Tortle monk who wore a purple mask. He was also an adolescent.
That's awesome.
Tortle in a half shell
Gods that's just amazing. 10/10
Did he have swords tho? It doesn‘t count if he doesn‘t. ;D
@@ArDeeMee I think he had a bow staff I may have gotten the color of his mask wrong.
A player like Max is easy to fix. "OK, you can bring in a new character, but he'll start at 3 lvls lower than the rest of the party."
The other strange part is- there is literally a "weapon" in a DM's arsenal to make sure high AC characters don't become too OP in combat compared to the rest of the party... Saving throws. Yes, it completely undercuts the build the player was aiming for, but if you can't hit the character at lower levels (at higher levels it'll become easier), then just throw in a spellcaster or two into the foes your players are facing. Not only could they potentially attack the high AC tank, but also buff the other enemies, and create an actual objective in combat for the more glass cannon-ey characters (like the Rogue or Wizard mentioned in the post). You don't need to kill the tank if you as DM have so much more tools in your arsenal than the players do combined.
That being said, if something about a particular player's character doesn't work for you as DM... Talk to the player. Explain to the player what/why you don't like the character, and work _with_ them to make the game work for both of you. When I had a 22 AC character in my party (27 when he cast Shield using a magic item), I discussed with him methods to have him stay his character, but not have me undercut/circumvent his character's whole deal just because I got annoyed at not hitting him. Now his character is technically "easier" to hit, but he actually gets to feel like a tank when those hits get reduced to almost 0 damage because of his AC.
This is why I prefer how 3.5e did AC with Touch/Flatfooted ACs
@@Lobsterwithinternet Indeed. My player and I worked together to design a system that effectively made the 5e version of AC to equate to a form of damage reduction (aka your AC -10 is how much damage get reduced, unless it was a Crit hit, or if the attack missed completely). Our new "AC" is something we call an Evasion Score, which is more about how difficult you are to hit rather than how much damage your armour can stop.
It has made the higher AC characters "easier" to hit now, in that their AC is now more on par/slightly higher than their non-Monk/Barbarian companions (both for the players and enemies), but the damage reduction actually makes the tanks feel like they're able to, well, tank many more hits than the glass cannons, rather than just "oh the attack missed and does nothing because I couldn't roll to hit your AC".
Might actually share this Armour system on the Crit Crab discord server, since it's actually a system I'm proud of, and that'll really help in situations like the first post in this video
"That being said, if something about a particular player's character doesn't work for you as DM... Talk to the player."
Heck, even the first time player (our narrator) understood this and tried talking to the DM about it, thinking the DM was just trying to railroad a bit to set up the story and that their build prevented that.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid I mean, it can even apply to anything in life, not just D&D. If something someone did/didn't do is bothering you, talk to them about it, rather than letting it build up resentment inside of you causing you to be vindictive or adversarial to the other person. Yes, the DM might not have been in the greatest of headspaces given the death of a close family member, but even if he just spent a moment admitting/acknowledging this to the OP rather than just try to kill his character for 8 sessions, all of this might have been avoidable
If the d.m. does an impossible dragon attack on the p.c. quaint village it makes sense. But beyond some introduction of a BBEG don't introduce an impossible encounter.
"This is DnD, where creativity is king and hitting things isn't always the answer"
Is it tho? Some might argue that the rules of DnD, with their strong focus on numbers and fighting mechanics, incentivize thinking in terms of simply rolling for the most direct solution.
To be fair, rolling dice doesn't always mean stabbing them, tying up the enemy, blocking off their way towards you, and if your dm tries to rp with the enemies you could simply use fear tactics. All of these are still dice rolls; Sleight of Hand with a rope on a presumedly prone or otherwise focused enemy, Athletics or any other skill you can think of to move something to block the path, Intimidation that is possibly aided with magic or other effects to add to your might. It's a simple dice rolling game, but not a game of just hitting big numbers, at least if you don't want to make it one.
I can see where you are coming from and DnD very much suffers from, "If you can't fight, or contribute in a fight or dungeon, you are useless." I mean should a rouge be able to take a highly trained fighter in combat? Probably not but in DnD, everyone is a trained combatant to some degree.
while true, most people find that alot less fun, which is the point of playing a game. While im sure there are people who play mostly for the combat, i dont think thats the majority.
All depends on the DM's style. Right now i'm in a pathfinder campaign that absolutely encourages, if not requires broken AF characters to get through the insane battles the DM pits us against and everyone is having fun.
I wouldn't like to play only this type of game but right now it's awesome to kick ass and pull off crazy tricks.
You don't need numbers for roleplay! Kinda the point lol
Also why we love 4e cos it introduced extended skill checks as a non&combat alternative for xp
I'll be frank: You tell me what I have to play, when you can't even keep your own PCs around for more than a few levels, I'm gonna take my Player's Handbook and invert your skull with it.
Oh damn! I only target the characters, not the players. That's just bad sportsmanship
16:27 This is why I don't do well in competitive sports, MMO's or MOBAs. I tend to clash with this type of person. You've got the people who know how to work the rules for their benefit and offer helpful suggestions to supplement the character ideas you have (real-life bards if you will, inspiring all that competence :P), and then you've got these clowns. I don't necessarily hate them, but I have learned to leave games where the focus is more on that than doing interesting stuff. If I wanna play a character with 8 constitution, I bloody well will. And have a blast doing so.
I'm writing a informational essay on dnd and your videos give good pointers on what not to do
"Whenever there was combat, the enemies would exclusively attack me and nobody else, which ia cool, I'm a tank it's my job."
Yup, that sums up all my characters.
I love how the DM attacks the tank, leaving the party support and DPS to do their thing and is like "why am I losing?"
Ugh, I had that happen to me too. DM was furious that my elven wizard was *checks notes* ...alive and helping the party defeat the bad guys in the campaign. Yup. So he sends the minions of Nerull after my wizard, except they're not their minions, they're Inevitables: True Lawful beings meant to punish those breaking fundamental laws of the universe or nature. My wizard had broken no such laws and how a Neutral Evil god was commanding these beings was never explained, nor why or how Nerull would care that one elven wizard was pretty good with placing spell effects. Three Inevitables arrive and state that they are immune to magic and that the other players had to let the three Inevitables kill my character or the other PC's would be killed too. In retrospect, I'm not sure what the DM thought a group of fairly high level good aligned PC's would do here. Give up? Hand their friend over for execution? Three constructs show up demanding their comrade's life for no reason and they'd just...let it happen? No, they killed all 3 of them with the power of friendship because of course they did. The DM spent the rest of the campaign trying to kill my wizard with anti-magic and everything else under the sun. Instead, the DM killed all but one of the other PC's and my elf lived. Then the DM got arrested. ...No, not for being a bad DM, it was for trying to have sex with a sheriff's deputy...whom he thought was a 12 year old girl online. Yeah, we don't play with him anymore. But now I'm the DM and my elven wizard is the Archmage of the kingdom my players wander about in.
The DM is always on the Player's side.... unless you are playing Call of Cthuhlu.
The weirdest DM "Home rule" I have is that one of my players treats their Mark of Shadow Elf as a Dark Elf. It's more of they were mistaken but I liked the idea so much I never said anything. That same character also just became a quasi-deity of assassins last session. If you're wondering what a quasi-diety is think of it as a step below demigod.
I honestly don't think this DM is all that experienced because if he was he would've known that he could force OP to make saving throws with spellcasters or whatever instead of just attacking his high AC over and over again.
I almost TPKd my group (level 2) this week. They were fighting a dungeon boss. All but one PC went down. I was using a modified Cult Fanatic (+2 to hit and DC on spells) and his assistants, two modified Cultists (double health, Shocking Grasp).
I tend to be as brutal and calculating as possible when controlling a somewhat intelligent NPC. Cult Fanatic already has Multiattack, and Spiritual Weapon gave it one more attack. It had Inflict Wounds and more 2nd level spell slots. I'm not going to lie and say that I don't get a rush from making it hard for PCs to win, but I still root for them all the way.
When only the PC Wizard remained with low health and finally got a hit in with a dagger but the NPC still had 1 or 2 hit points left, I had the NPC go unconcious anyways.
Now, half of the difficulty was players rolling bad and me rolling 20+ constantly for some unexplained reason, but still... Everyone was roaring in triumph as the boss went down seemingly against all odds.
What makes it even better is that during summer I had the same boss fight another group of level 1s and they took him down instantly. Funny how dice can be, huh?
Legitimately, the idea of a tortle Tempest cleric who's basically trying to be a reverse engineered Blastoise is such a cool idea that I'm 100% stealing it.
Not aimed at you, CC, but it needs to be said...
People... don't say "player" when you mean "character."
A DM who kills a character is perhaps a vindictive DM.
A DM who kills a player is a murder...
Sounds like Max was so focused on min-maxing, he dumped his own Charisma
I got a story.
One of my good friends wanted to start a dnd group so he invited me and a few others to join. I was new to the whole thing but I figured it would be fun so why not. Me and my twin wernt able to make session zero so we would have our own. We got in a call and decided to be homebrewed demon twins (which being a demon turned out more useful than I thought). We did session zero and everything was fine and I thought this would be fun. Then session one started and one of the players was just insufferable. Wre'll call him Jack. His character apparently had a problem with demons that was never mentioned until now. It was more bullshit cause he was only treating me like shit cause he had an obvious crush on my twin. I don't think she knew tho. When a fight came up and it was his turn he said something along the lines of "my character scoffs as he walks past the demon and heads to the enemy". Not totally horrible but a bit unnecessary because it's not like it had any major effects on the story. We went on and eventually ended the first session.
This is where it all goes wrong. Off session we all were talking about the story and how it was pretty cool and stuff. The topic of the kids we found came up and I found out that we went into the dungeon to find those kids. I made a joke of what if we "suprise adopted" the kids. And everyone was actually for having the kids on our team saying that more people the better the team might be. This is when Jack said he wouldn't allow kids to be raised by demons and sense pvp wasn't allowed he would kill the kids. We all started saying how fucked up that was and he tried defending himself saying that it would be a "mercy kill".
He later went on to private message the DM if he could be "the most badass and powerful character in the group". My DM obviously said no to that. Two days later the DM messaged everyone asking when we'd all be free for the next game. The conversation after that was not what I thought would happen. We all started messaging and Jack was trying to play the whole "whoa is me thing". I would have tried to make him feel better if he hadn't told my twin that he would sometimes do things like this to see if anyone cared. After that it's kinda hard to believe someone about being sad. Then he started saying how he had a fucked up childhood which sounded totally fake and how his mental conditions were because of it. He might have had those but again I can't really trust someone after they say they fake stuff like this.
A few minutes later they started saying how we should all meet in person at my house one day. It was all fine until Jack messaged that he was gonna 9/11 the place. There are many things I let him slide with but that is a direct threat to me and my family which is something I don't take kindly to. I started to go off on him and everyone agreed with me that it was pretty fucked up. He started putting the happy tears and gun emoji constantly. No one was falling for that..
He then left the group and everyone shifted conversation, only for him to join back a few minutes later, say nothing, and leave again, join again, say nothing, leave, ect. Clearly he was only joining back to see if anyone felt sorry for him and when he saw that were wernt he would leave and so on. Eventually the DM told him that if he's going to leave then leave. So he did and we have had a wonderful campaign sense then.
When I did a campaign in high school as a DM, I threw an “impossible” fight against a high level warlock at my party. Referencing the intro of Final Fantasy 2, I was going for a hopeless fight to set the tone but nobody would actually die.
Party rolled incredibly well, reduced the warlock beneath the threshold I had written in as a failsafe, and I rewarded them with some extra exp and some strong items. Even if you make your party fight something tough, it is never unbeatable. Always have a contingency plan.
Now that's how you do it! I love when the story has "contingencies" for if the player wins the "impossible fight!" (If your going to make it impossible "IMPOSSIBLE" then give fair warning before hand. Or just take control WITH permission! Don't just give "false hope" or worse, let the players win, then railroad them into the "what happens when you lose" scenario! That's pretty fucking lazy and I'm happy many RPG games I played started to avoid that trap)
You know, I was going to ask the difference between an optimizer and a power gamer…but these stories and Critcrab answered that question for me in this video.
Lost Mines is such a straight forward adventure designed to make it easy for people to feel involved.
To fuck that up, by starting the campaign so differently they get into a death match right at the start like... wtf?
It's a story for attracting new players, it has in built combat tutorials!
I remember when I played a tortle my ac was so high that I could just stand in the way of even high high level bosses while the party just annihilated them with spells. The dm was always ok with it because they didn’t think about it when they saw my 24 AC. I miss The Turt In Boots every day.(yes I made puss in boots but a turtle. He was my fav role play character ever.)
"I'll teach this dedicated tank a lesson, by having all the enemies focus on him, bwahahaha!"
What kind of bar did we walk into, where a bunch of tavern-goes with chairs and bottles are a hopelessly outmatched fight for a party of adventurers with real weapons and armor? Send these guys to Phandelver.
"far too high level" but can't hit someone at AC 21 ?
The first story is eeerily similar to my own experience first getting into dnd. Like even down to me taking my bad experience and DMing for a new group. As of today the campaign is just over 2 years old, my party JUST hit level ten last session and we are having session 68(?) ish this Friday. That’s wild. Glad to have solidarity in this though :D
I do think it’s likely the first OP miscalculated AC, but this is definitely not the way to handle it. If the GM thinks it’s unbalanced and wants to lower their AC, whether or not I’m right about the miscalculation, that’s fine; the OP even offered that in advance. But don’t try to do it as a trick ring unless you agree OOC, and don’t target them afterwards like that.
Nope, I was wrong. 21 seemed really high for first level, but Shield of Faith, a regular shield, and tortle *can* all stack.
Was a circle of the Shepard tiefling druid for Tomb of Annihilation. On paper, she didn't make much sense, but in practice, all she had to do was throw down her Unicorn totem and cast fire magic after fire magic up close and personal, while the party's healer healed everyone in one go. She also managed to apparently Pass without Trace a frost giant encounter and save a vital NPC with no combat whatsoever. We were doing a gladiator event, and I made the mistake of telling the party that Ritari was going to do PwT to hide us, as all we had to do was survive to 10 rounds.
What did I get? 2 triceratopses and 4 archers on Ritari, downing her instantly. We stopped ToA shortly after. I'd love to play her again in that campaign, just to see how my initial plan of a dungeon was gonna go.
there's nothing wrong with being a min-maxer. the problems come around when you decide your way is the only way. DnD may be a collaborative party game but players need to know when to mind their own damn business.
One of my friends wanted to start a campaign and DM for the first time (5E). At session 0 I rolled my stats, and got the perfect rolls for a character I had in the back of my mind for a while now (two 18s, and decent other rolls). I asked the DM if he wouldn't mind I made the character I had in mind and guided him through it. It would be a High Elf level 1 fighter with the mariner fighting style and a feat to raise my int 1 (he let us all start with one feat). The next 2 levels would be multiclassed into Wizard and at Wizard level 2 I would go Blade Singer. I was also going to take mage armor. I made sure to tell him that my AC is going to be well into the 20's, and asked if it would be alright. He agreed to it all.
I threw in some flavor for my character that he was a nudist (since I didn't need to wear armor), and used prestidigitation to censor myself. I figured that it could create some funny situations in the game, which the group liked. Fast forward though to the first encounter after I hit level 3 when we fought 14 Kobolds. I was first (with 5 in Dex it was common) and rushed into the group of enemies then activated Blade Song. My AC was at 24 and only 1 Kobold managed to hit me even though they all used their pack tactics (the one that hit me got a crit). We then destroyed them easily with me not taking another hit. The DM was visibly upset so I asked if he wanted me to nerf my character a bit to which he said it's fine. We had one more session to which I did what my character does and never got hit even at the boss he made us fight. After the fight he was very upset and just logged off our discord and Roll20. About 20 minutes later he posted that his game was over.
I know that exact axe the DM tried to give the cleric. it's just the Berserker Axe, and it'd never go off if his AC was 21 with his buffs up.
I won't lie, at first the story gave my Gygaxian DMing vibes: Back in the days of AD&D and 2e it was very much a "DM vs the other players" mentality, and things like Impossible challenges you're supposed to run away from or get stomped were a common occurrence.
Modern D&D has evolved to something more in line with cooperative storytelling, which is the PoV Crab is coming from, which IMO is the RIGHT way to do D&D, unless you signed up for the older way.
I say all this to explain my reasoning that, at first, it made sense what Aaron was doing in the story: If he'd come from a table with older players (like say his dad before he passed) it makes sense that's his approach to D&D, until I got into 4e that was MY approach to D&D because I had only ever played with my Dad who played 2e.
What comes after with the hostile RP, denying treasure, etc. is where I realized "Ok no, this guy's just being a prick."
But I hope that the above information about older styles of gaming might help some newer players understand that sometimes D&D is a different game for different people, and what works for one may not work for others, and that open communication about what a game of D&D should and shouldn't be is an important conversation to have.
Shit dude, I had 21 AC starting off with my Paladin in DotMM. It wasn't hard.
The MMO mentality is so accurate. As a life long MMO player I was in the power gaming mentality I was dead set on making my characters as powerful as possible. Glad I had friends to play with long enough to learn how much fun RP is. Combat is now second fiddle.
Edit: If the DM wants to get around AC use reflex saves. My Warforged Fighter came out of character creation with a 23 AC and was neigh untouchable for the first few floors for DotMM. That was until he had to start making reflex saves because goblins started setting traps for him. Good times.
I actually backed Crown of the Oathbreaker on Kickstarter.
You're cool and you should feel cool
@@CritCrab I……DO feel cool! 😎
Aw shucks crab, sir. You flatter me to no end. My campaign has been going for almost a year, weekly or bi-weekly with players I am the first DM for. They're great players too, even if we do have our differences and recently we did argue about some of my decisions. But we just wrapped up a session and it was an amazing time even if almost no dice were rolled. It's like, the best high when you build a world, let them see it and their perspective takes you by surprise but you 100% see where they're coming from. Your world is alive in your head, but it literally comes to life when that happens.
Fun fact: High AC means very little when it actually matters. Proof: 19 AC Forge Domain Cleric level 1.
Wolves downed my ass
Pack tactics is actually fucking amazing and surprising underappreciated by druids the world over.
Bro shield of faith is such a great spell. Paired with the forge cleric +1 to AC and the Shield spell, my character literally has 30 Temporary AC and I love it.
Thanks 4 the hard work
honestly I'm impressed sometimes with the enjoyment and pacing some campaigns have! I've been in my first DnD campaign since September 2023 and have gone Level 8, to Level 11, then too 12 thanks to Deck of Many more things
DnD will always amaze me in the different paces it works in!
My brother, as a DM, doesn't have fun unless we are constantly on the ropes. He's fine if we are intelligent about certain situations, but gets frustrated if we avoid something he wanted us to encounter and he absolutely doesn't like it if we find a way to trounce an encounter without risk to our actual characters. This is why he doesn't like characters that can summon things or send things to fight in our actual place.
I'm not entirely sure, but he's also shown slight aspects of an antagonistic GM, getting actually mad or despondent if we avoid or find all the traps or other hidden dangers (though never actually hostile, just complains at us). He knows what an antag GM is and he swears he isn't one, just that whats the point of danger if we always come out on top (ie. Its fine if we avoid most traps if every now and again we get got by one every now and again, whats the point of monsters/villains if they never get close to dowing one of us or winning at a scheme or two, etc.).
I guess thats what you get with power gamers at the table (at least two of us are, with myself and the others dabbling). Its hard to balance against people who delve deep into the mechanics, but I also don't get the mindset of actually wanting your player's characters on the edge of failure or death all the time. To me, not everything the game has to be life and death and we've had actual challenge sent at us by him before, but he just doesn't see it that way.
Yeah, as a DM, I would love for my characters to get into the mindset at higher levels of using summoned creatures to absorb dangers on their behalf.
I've been on the receiving end of a "DM balances for a power gamer but targets the normal one" Cyberpunk Red game. End result was a supposedly innocent but stupidly OP martial artist from an isolated reclaimer settlement in Idaho (balanced only by being an absolute 0 chrome human, so in spite of ignoring all armor he couldn't actuallydo much damage) going untouched while the supposedly jaded tech from the combat zone straining for every quick heal he can find and finishing the session at 3/35 hp.
"I stopped targeting him because he could always dodge." -DM.
I've seen all of one video that mentioned tortles at all aside from this one, and even I know that they have CRAZY natural armor. Heck, turtles in _every_ fantasy setting I've come across has them as tanky bastards. It's kinda their whole thing: Birds fly, turtles are tanky. Why get mad at that?
This feels a lot like a situation I am in at the moment. I was avoiding conversation but I think I am going to start a conversation with the DM. If this can be salvaged, good. Otherwise, time to get the fuck out
Yup, it's almost always worth trying to fix issues by talking but otherwise, No D&D is better than bad D&D. Also, provided you're Ok to play online, there are always more games coming up and plenty of places to find them, so often it's more like 'Good D&D later is better than Bad D&D now.'. I'm horribly, and I mean HORRIBLY, bad at actually doing the conversation thing thanks to extreme anxiety but I do try.
I played a monk in Pathfinder once that had an AC of 20 at level 1. Our GM had the same mentality of 'I'm the GM, my job is to kill you.' Our first fight was against a bunch of Roman soldiers armed with swords and crossbows. My monk tanked the hell out of that and smacked a guy with Stunning Fist while keeping our fighter, who was severely low on HP due to a crit) behind me while he healed. We eventually won the fight, and our next fight (it was basically a god's arena to test us) had a guy who transformed into an egg, which hatched into a giant. Our ninja flashed a mirror into the giant's face (a corrupted mirror that he had accidentally created earlier) which corrupted the giant and seeded a wide area around it with Black Tentacles (as the spell). Everyone but the wotch was melee. We killed it eventually, but only after the GM realized he f'ed up with the Black Tentacles spell, since it was doing 1d6+4 to a group of level 1 players.
The thing is, that mindset he had is toxic for 1 reason: players CAN'T beat the DM. At any moment, the DM can call 'Rocks fall, everyone dies.' You can't win against the DM unless he lets you. Which is why it isn't supposed to be a competition between players and DM but an exercise in telling a story together. Seth Skorkowsky really opened my eyes to 'How it should be.' I'll be running my first campaign soon and I've been taking so many tips and hints from rpg horror stories and cautionary tales to heart.
Never experienced the entire “new players don’t usually just get hooked on dnd” thing because my DM was really good and had played for a while, while it was his first time DMing it was still one of my favorite sessions. Sadly didn’t turn into a full campaign tho.
If the DM was really that frustrated with the tortle not getting hurt, why didn’t he just throw more saving throw centric encounters at the party? As a DM, I want my players to succeed but I also want to make the adventure challenging to give my players a sense of accomplishment. So if you have a party with really high AC, throw saving throws and AOEs at them. Increase the number of enemies and separate allies so that it’s harder for support characters. Add environmental effects like fire, shifting landscape, or difficult terrain. This DM wasn’t just vindictive and hostile towards his players, he also wasn’t even that that creative!
he also significantly altered lmop. im running it rn and there are so many things he changed that he didn't have to. also, completing it in only 8 sessions is really fast
I’m late to the party but one other way to interpret this is he wasn’t trying to kill the op but was playing directly into their strength but roleplays he’s actually trying to win. The op interprets dm as trying to kill them but dm didn’t use obvious tools to do it. I lean more towards op buying the dm emoting to make the party feel like really winning without dm actually trying to kill them. The cursed items are also a direct test of the character as well as they should reject them based on the backstory but player min maxing could have been tempted to. I actually feel like this was a good choice to present the player.
That first one was anything but a skilled DM. Childish pettiness aside, he was just bad at what he wanted to do. DM has literally endless options to organically destroy any character he wants. He couldn't even do that
so I actually don't think the DM had great potential as you said, I think the GROUP had potential and was looking past the DM chasing the fun.
I've been in lots of games where the DM runs combat by character sheet and this fits perfectly. no dm skill, but imagined power and combativeness.
Critcrab: It takes great skill to have players keep coming back to play the campaign
Me: *looks at my self criticizing hands* maybe I am a good DM and my players are enjoy my campaign
Thanks for the confidence booster, I have a group that keeps coming back and have told me really enjoy my Cthulhu mythos campaign
It is my first time ever DMing and I had always thought they were just being nice to me but maybe I’m just being to hard on myself 😵💫
The truth lies in the middle. They enjoy your general style of DMing so much that your tiny quirks don‘t matter. Of course you have flaws, but you make up for those by being open to suggestions and being relaxed during discussion. And that is what matters. If your players mentioned they like the campaign, out of nowhere, then they absolutely mean it. =)
Okay at first I was like "what, 17 AC without a shield at level 1?" Then I realized that's just a racial trait of tortles (though they get no ac from armor)
I find it so funny that I was recommended this video when it's sponsored by Crown Of The Oathbreaker, and I literally JUST purchased that book today!
CritCrab: "The DM should be the players' ally"
Me: Yeah, tell that to the DMs that one constantly targeted me because of a girl and other that not only never helped me when I had doubts, but went to the point of mocking my autism and punished my characters, one for abilities being considered "broken" and other for being overqualified for a job.
Give us the deets and send it to the crab 🦀
Yup, adversarial DMs suck and people who think autistic people are acceptable targets for mockery suck even more. I hope you've found a better DM since then.
@@chazzwozzio I've already sent one, Is the one where the DM fails to kill the tank (me) despite using an enhanced undead Werewolf.
@@BlueTressym Nah, I had to pull up a Thanos and do it myself. Becoming a DM.
I love my players to death and they have a blast playing under me. I'm a DM who values fun over everything else.
I'd like to get a shot as a player, but the lack of that many games at roll 20 and work demands are getting on the way.
Bless the good mood crab for extra post!
It should never be DM vs. Player. In all honesty if that was the case, the DM wins. Every time. But that is not the mentality you want to have if you want fun long lasting games.
Halfway through, but I have a story almost exactly like this. The DM was an amazing DM, but for some reason all of my characters always got treated like garbage. After the third character, it was really difficult to not take it personally; especially considering he killed my first character during a session I couldn't make.
This got me up at 1am...worth it
In my group, our Max was named Brian. To the point where the running group jab was "Thank you for not being Brian."
Newb dm pit that many fall into. In cases like these spellcasters are your best friend, but don’t target one character.
The first guy ruin his own relationship because he was vindictive and the victim should reach out to the other three to try it gain with that dm
“His ac is too high!!”
Touch attacks and aoe: am i a joke to you?
D&D 5E does not have touch attacks.
@@Dragon_Lair Oh yeah i forgot 5e was bad.
@@lamiahunter It's not bad. It just focuses on a different experience. D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder offer a plethora of choices for players but there is largely an illusion of choice because if you want to make a good character there are feats you have to take.
It allows a lot of optimization for players but a lot of time number crunching.
D&D 5E is focused more on a roleplay experience. There are still some incredibly wacky builds you can do. I am playing with someone who specializes in multiclassing and he made a bardlock that simply cannot get below a 20 on persuasion....at level 3. He also made a melee wizard who soloed a boss.
@@Dragon_Lair I made a Warlock who can't roll below a 19 in perception because I got sick of not being able to see in another game. The funny part about that is that I made this character a drunk (because of the way that being an alcoholic works according to the rules didn't do anything, I talked to my DM about making me roll any sort of skill check or attack roll at disadvantage when my character got wasted) and one of the times she was practically black out drunk, I rolled a 19 and 20 on the two dice I rolled which means I was the only person in our group who could see something (everyone else failed). My character -being drunk- pointed at it and went, "ROOFTOP NINJA!" and confused the hell out of the NPC we were talking to....lol
Sorry for ranting as a response to your comment, I just felt that they were connected in that way with the crazy stats and choices
There isn't anything inherently wrong with being a "Power Gamer/Player", AS LONG AS YOU AREN'T CHEATING OR BEING DISRUPTIVE/DISRESPECTFUL!!!!!
If you're actively trying to kill your PCs and fail, you're not smart enough to be a GM. There's nothing stopping you from surrounding them with a dozen tarasques or insta-gibbing them with the steamroller trap from the Tomb of Horrors.
The Tomb Of Horrors is what you would get if you let Kevin Mcallister from Home Alone design a DND dungeon
I think the first story, the DM felt attacked by the OP. Now his response to the situation isn't good, but his father had just died and this was an outlet for him and the possibility of feeling attacked might have illicit the behavior.