as a GM I fudged some rolls in a session 1 that would have been crits to squishy characters, or would make sure no one went down in a single hit. I only fudge early rolls to avoid early TPKs and frustrated mages that are bleeding out instantly due to bad luck.
I really like Last Arc. Haven’t got much of an opportunity to play much but I like the system. I like how there are many mundane weapons that have different properties. It’s also neat how multiclassing is very doable without much consequence. Really great system and I love the art for the orcs
@@Spellweaver5 They can grow out of it in a murder hobo group where no one is affected If it can't be helped at the very least don't let them be a GM, you know, the only position where they can 100% mess up every other player
DM: Alright. It's time for a challenging game for you all. This will be very difficult. Players: *has a brain* DM: No you aren't allowed to use that! It would make the game too easy.
ScootTheGrayWolf, when it comes to making a difficult game, I’d start adding in Morse code, Culper’s code, and other cryptographic messages. They’d be struggling to figure out who the villain was because they can’t translate what they want to translate.
Oh yeah, combat. They’ll be very coordinated groups, where there’s always one a good ways away to run over watch, able to identify the biggest field threats, and contact their squad to direct them like they’re an actually competent, challenging military group.
It's also worth mentioning that the DM's role isn't to make the game difficult. It's to tell a fun and interesting story. Often, limitations do make games interesting and some people consider difficulty fun, but when those limitations are artificial like the guy in this story, even the most hardcore nail-eating survival game players and optimizing wargamers would find them just annoying. This dude really seems to have fallen into the thought-trap of thinking D&D is DM vs. players. Pretty sure the DMG says that it isn't on like the first page after the table of contents. Then again, with his clearly lacking writing ability, I wouldn't put much stock in his reading ability.
it is even worst, they have the AI of the oblivion guards. I was playing oblivion once, a thief npc stole something guards went after them attacking npc, hit another npc and all the other npc in the area got flagged for battle and my character just walks up on this mass chaos wondering wtf happen.
"He said he was trying to capture the feeling of an open world game." "It was basically one key city with lots of walking from point A to point B." Me: WOW IT'S SO ACCURATE
I would've just told the DM that's stupid and he needs to rethink his approach to battles. Especially once it got to the point where the DM insisted the paladins attack the warlock, I would've completely refused to allow combat to progress until they attacked the actual reasonable targets, who were attacking them. If the DM wants to ruin a battle encounter with BS metagaming, then so will I. He could have, for example, had a secret ally of the paladins ambush the party a bit later in the fight as a way of organically increasing the difficulty without letting the players know. You know, ad-libbing. Probably not the best solution, admittedly, since I just came up with it on the spot, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than "This happens because I said so". Ad-libbing, I hear, is a pretty important skill as a DM.
That’s the best option, though I’d have said “that’s not how D&D works” first. There’s little to no reason to outright ignore dice rolls, even if you are a DM.
@@annabella1650 As a DM I ignore some of my rolls. But this is always in the favor of the players. "Oh no I rolled a crit, that will probably kill the rogue... let's say they rolled an 18" (the players dont know I do this)
@@GiantProcrastiNation At the same time, it kinda decreases the tension if the players always succeed. I mean I get that it sucks to have your character die but fudging rolls ultimately just takes away from an epic fight.
Aaron Stoner always succeeding is more fun than constant failure. If you make a crit or two not happen then that’s ok. There’s still a lot of tension from the many other dice rolls across the combat. Just don’t make every roll irrelevant.
Characters who have literally sworn an oath to a god to protect the innocent at all costs: "Oh snap, we're being attacked from behind. Better kill this innocent person in front of us."
@@bobbobson110 i know this is old but how murdering a completely unrelated person that is in your side (because thats what the paladins believed) would be better safe than sorry by that logic i should murder everione because better safe than sorry
An easy out would be to have one of them call out for backup, and a few low-end goons show up to pad out the fight. Even weak stuff can be dangerous if it has you surrounded. Never punish the players for your own GM mistake, but feel free to alter the paradigm to keep it interesting (and compensate accordingly with a later mini mercy)
@@Sneakysneaky88 never a bad idea to swarm the party if the encounter is going too well. I've had a few combats where the enemy rolled so many nat 1s I wish they would have called for backup.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory One of the things I tend to do in RPGs is stray from just straight dice-rolling. Perhaps that's not usual for D&D, but as an example, if a player in a sci-fi setting says "I shoot at the enemy" then they just get flat dice, but if another player says "I brace myself against the broken window and fire" they get a slight bonus to cover/accuracy even if not strictly in the rules. I used to play a sci-fi game with tons of betrayal and PvP called "Paranoia", and when fights broke out that people would run as "I shoot at the other guy!" "Now I shoot back!", I called that the 'laser tango'. It was boring. In the case of a fantasy setting, if the team gets a bunch of lucky crits that turns a fight too easy, and having low-end goons help out isn't an option, you could try something different. The crits cause some collateral damage, or cause the enemies to die in a particularly nasty fashion that is easier for other enemies to notice (blood trails, structural damage, etc). Improvisation is the strongest thing a DM/GM can ever have. But I'm not gonna lie, being a good storyteller AND a good improviser is hard to do. Balancing all things and making nothing but good judgement calls as the god of the story is tricky as all hell. No narrator needs to be perfect, just fair enough to create fun without punishing the players, etc.
@@Sneakysneaky88 You might want to check out Exalted, you get bonuses for doing "Stunts" which are basically describing your combat turn in a great way, and the system is loose with exact positioning to allow dancing about in combat being theatrical as opposed to "I stab"
It's not even that, he seems to think ANY fight that gives the heroes a fighting chance is "too easy", and thus ignored the players attempt at getting a fighting chance, and even ignored his own failed rolls to bullshit his way into making sure a player is mrotally wounded, and even metagamed by having the paladins target the warlock 'because he had the lowest health' despite that not bieng something they'd know and still doesn't explain why they'd attakc him over the people ACTUALLY TRYING TO ATTACK THEM.
DM: Alright, I've got a challenge for you guys. It'll be difficult, but if you can do it you'll get some great loot. Player: *Already has a brain* DM: Hey where'd you get that?! You aren't supposed to be intelligent until level 8!
The worst feeling you can get as a player is when you come up with something creative and even roll a crit for it but the dm says it doesn’t even matter and railroads you into being the weakest party member because only the mechanical aspects of gameplay for classes are explored
Yeah. And in this Story, it was even worse. I would have had a little bit of understanding for that inexperienced GM if he had been clumsily trying to railroad the group into losing the fight and getting captured or into letting the paladins get away from this encounter because he had this awesome story twist in mind and prepared that could not happen if the players win right now (still this wouldn't justify to openly cheat, but it would at least be somewhat understandable). In this story, the DM apparently didn't even have a solid reason why he begrudged the PCs an easy win, he cheated just to make the fight more "challenging". This doesn't even make sense from the moronic bord gamer perspective that seemed to be the only one that player knew, treating the characters like mere chess pieces instead of logically acting characters. It isn't a challenge when the DM cheats whenever he feels like it, at that point he could just as well announce how the encounter will play out without making any rolls.
@@chrisrudolf9839 that reminds me a little bit of one time when I wanted to literally FLAVOR something an ability ALREADY let me do, adn the DM didn't let me. this was in 4e so we had actual like...abilities as attacks. I was a kobold rogue and I think the encounter ability was called like...acrobatic lunge or something? basically you can move six squares to the enemy, stab, then move six away without taking an opp attack. I happened to be standing on a bookshelf above the enemy. I asked if, for the sake of it being cool, I could flip off the bookcase, land on his shoulders, stab him, then jump off his shoulders onto another bookcase. (Which wouldnt ahve even utilixed my full movement. it was 3 squares then 3 squares). I even offered to make an acrobatics check to see if I could do it. and he jsut flat out said no, with the reasoning "thas not how the ability works"...even though the ability LITEARLLY stated "you make an acrobatic leap toward your opponent, cutting deep into them before leaping away before they can react" some DMs really need to learn when using the rule of cool is okay. another "fun" one was with a killer DM. we were trying to get an object out of a clockwork tower. we grabbed it, and the room suddenly turned downward at a 45 degree angle, the floor got slicked with grease, a clockwork bird dropped down, and set the grease on fire, AND teh gears at the now bottom of the room were spinning like a wood chipper. And the door to exit the room? literally right next to the gears. I'm talking like 0 0 0 0 ___ the 0s being the gears, the underscore being the door. Literally the ONLY reason I lived is because I leapt down toward the gears, stabbed my spear in between them,t hen leapt OFF my spear through the door, adn I ONLY got to do that because I crit. also, WE WERE LEVEL 2.
@@magentanide5984 hey monks are good my first caractor was a monk with garbage Con still managed to be in the front lines and be the only one who didn't fall later at 4th level stopped a mini boss from escaping with a valuable item then could also with his boots of speed 200 ft in 1 round
That's why I focus on making my sessions fun, even if they end up being silly or the enemies get absolutely floor wiped, my friends just have pretty damn strong characters I don't just up the ante because the team is strong because the enemies don't know that, I'm not trying to defeat the players anyway; that isn't the DM's job
@@unwithering5313 Very few DMs understand this. I have so little faith in DM, these days. Whenever I see "with your DM's permission" in any book, I just end up rolling my eyes, seeing nothing more than yet a other opportunity for imagined power to go to someone's head.
You see. He DMs like that because he lacks the intellectual ability and creativity to make a challenge. I can tell you exactly how I would both allow that sneak attack and make a challenge. The paladins are preaching and taking advantage of the people? The people likely don’t understand this and the party has not communicated with the villagers and certainly not keyed them in on the plan. So the villagers seeing “righteous” paladins preaching the good word being assaulted in an ambush join the combat. Loggers with axes, farmers with pitchforks and scythes, hunters with bows, black smiths with hammers... all become a complicated threat that the party must now also kill or try to persuade while in the heat of combat. THERES A CHALLENGE FOR YA
Dynamic as well - could lead to alternate roleplaying options of trying to lead later threats out of the city, trying more of a stealthy ally attack etc.
I could even see the paladins hamming it up and rallying the villagers to form a protective wall around them that the players wouldn't be able to break with conventional force because then they'd be murderers. The opening volley was good. Let them get their surprise round as payment for good strategy. After that I like your suggestion where the fight evolves and the players must adapt to the changing landscape.
"so yeah, they all totally missed, but just this once, i'm going to have them all crit and deal max crit damage to you to make the game more challenging."
4 things: 1. (this in particularly, if somebody who has played D&D knows otherwise then let me know.) I’m pretty sure with dungeons and dragons there are a few preset scenarios, maps, towns/dungeon layouts, so my guess is, if you want to make your own campaign the first thing you should probably do is maybe use one of those maps as templates. Then since you have campaigns in sessions, you iron out what you want to happen in stages in between the sessions. So long as you keep in mind the overall campaign you can work on little segments so that’s easier to manage. And most importantly your campaign world feels like an actual world. 2. There was literally no reason for why the paladins would attack the wizard if they believed the wizard was on their side. That’s like saying: “We’re under attack! Quick, kill our allies.” So it doesn’t make sense in a logical way. 3. In the case of the paladins chasing the wizard there are cases in games in which during a Bossfight they will focus on a specific character as kind of a story element, but in those cases there’s usually a hint that there’s an attack winding up so that particular character being singled out has time to protect themselves. And with that happening it gives the other characters time to wale on him/heal up, because he’s focusing on somebody who is now ready to protect themselves. This in turn is a way of rewarding people who are paying attention to the flow of battle. 4. in terms of the world map. (I hate to say this because I actually like the game) Hyrule field in legend of Zelda ocarina of time is not a good role model for a hub map.
Matthias The Magician that’s true, for something short where it wouldn’t make sense to jam pack it full of places that you have no need to go to. But I don’t think it would work out well if you were wanting something in the vein of a JRPG style D&D like DM was going for.
RE: point 1 - while there _are_ pre-written adventures/scenarios, the core books for D&D (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual) don't come with any of that. At most, the DMG contains advice/tools to help create that stuff. There's also plenty of places online to get that stuff cheap, if not for free.
Honestly, the first red flag for me was that 'wanting to capture the feel of JRPGs' meant 'lots of random encounters whenever you travel anywhere'. Because that's okay in a JRPG, where random encounters last 30 seconds, but doesn't work at all in D&D, where all but the shortest encounters will take at least an hour. But it all does mostly sound like this was a rookie DM to hadn't really learned what did and didn't work in D&D running into classic pitfalls. Like wanting his boss fight to go the way he'd scripted it in his head rather than adapting to what the players did.
Everytime someone makes the "it's challenging" argument I'm just gonna show them this video. Challenging =/= fun Players OVERCOMING those challenges = fun. And props to the fighter who stuck around even though he got crited three times for max damage and the DM admitted he cheated.
More like Cheating =/= Fun. Challenges are fun. But only if you get the sense that it's a meaningfull challenge. If the DM has to outright 3-crit-max-dmg cheat to make you feel challenged then it's not a challenge, it's cheating. Now i'm not 100% against the DM fudging rolls SOMETIMES at key situations wher ethe situation could absolutely benefit from it, but that's very rare and even then it shouldn't be noticeable. If it's so obvious that even the players call BS on it then you simply failed in creating a meaningfull challenge.
I wouldn't even call what the DM put forth challenging. Generally challenges are obstacles that require a significant amount of effort to overcome. This doesn't seem like a challenge as the amount of effort put into it seems irrelevant. Why bother coming up with a plan if you get no benefit from the plan? The only thing that DM taught the players is that the only thing that matters in his combat are the way the dice land. Even then he'll change that in order to fit his predestined outcome. I disagree with the OP that the GM is a wargamer, it sounds to me more like someone who wants to be a wargamer without any inkling of how to actually create a difficult encounter. The last thing a wargamer would ever do is break the established rules contract as if rules aren't followed, there is no game.
I wouldn't give props to anyone sticking around at that point. You know what a git the DM is because he's just openly confessed to just making up hits and damage out of the blue. Choosing to just continue to put up with that is not commendable behavior. Quitting calmly and without throwing a complete fit is commendable. Continuing to play with that kind of a DM is frickin' dumb.
A pox upon your false king!! We will claim what is our own!! You cannot stop us!! -signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
DM says "challenging combat." Players think: "I'm going to need to come up with a good strategy to set up this encounter, and then coordinate with the rest of the party to give us the best chance of success!" DM thinks: "You must roll higher numbers than the ones I make up."
This reminds me of a time my pcs ruined everything in the best way The scenario: a rouge Baron had risen against his king, destroyed a village, and killing a PC's family. How I wanted it to go: they face his elite guard at the castle gate, then the Baron. How it went: the PC who lost his parents used an invisibility potion, and snuck in, while the others holed up against his guards. The best part: he blew up a part of the wall by hurling Greek fire at a few barrels of oil, then fought the Baron, two shotting him with a critical
my friend who got me into D&D was 100% like this as a DM! I remember countless times trying to do something smart or cool that made a fight easier and guess what?! Some how the enemies all knew of my plan! All he did was give us a load of high level monsters in a box! Worst of all I played as my icon...Megumin...for those who don't know...in other words I was fairly useless in combat...also he made my character...Either way I stayed with it because he was my best friend and I totally had a crush on him...
"He had a campaign idea he desperately wanted to try out". To me that sounded like an immediate red flag. It sounded like some of the DMs I've seen who want to TELL a story, pretty much regardless of the character's interactions. Basically that they should have written a book or short story instead of playing a game. As a DM, I always remind myself that it's my world/setting, but it's the character's stories.
@@yellowdaffodil7251 That always depends on your DM style really. Some DMs like mine simply trust that we want to experience the story and will, like a Skyrim player, eventually come back to the plot on our own, even if we spend 6 hours raiding a town before that. If you don't have that trust or simply want to make sure, you can always try to adapt as you go, if you don't make it too obvious. Like if your note says "They go to the tavern and overhear a guy complain about that damn undead infestation in the woods!" but they don't want to go to the tavern, then there is no reason this can't happen at the smithery, or the potion store. Or two travelers, blood-soaked, limping heavily towards the city when the party leaves through the city gates. Or if for story purposes it definitely HAS to happen on the tavern, have players randomly overhear some strangers at the marketplace go "Did you hear that guy at the tavern telling his story? It's unbelievable isn't it?" Basically, appeal to their curiousity or wing it. But that's something you'll learn as you get more experience. There isn't really a be-all-end-all way that works for all players, because it really depends on what the players want to do. If they want to adventure, lure them with rumors of fat loot. If they want to battle, lure them with the rumors of powerfull, challenging enemies. And if they just want to see the world burn, find a new group to DM for or write a campaign about slaughtering everything. Or just set the game up to begin with in a way where they are practically forced to do it this way. We did that in college for a while because all of us had little time and couldn't always sync our schedules, so we were part of an adventurers guild, each session was one quest we took from the guild in a interconnected oneshot style game. That usually kept us on track because we wanted to finish the quest we set out to do.
@@yellowdaffodil7251 personally, I have a few things on the go at any one point in time. -A main story line which the players can choose to ignore if the wish, however this would likely cause issues. My last campaign, planes were merging and Ravenloft was 'seeping through to Faerun'. This was detailed as a black mist which people seemed to get lost in and either never be seen again in, or wind up back where they started. The PC's can follow, or ignore it. I keep just enough info to hand to work with and loose enough to change things and amend notes on the fly. Then, I'll also have the following: - A few rumours prepped per session - A dungeon ready to go, even if only a small 3-5 room one - A list of names and personality traits ready incase they want to run with an RP session Anything else, I just run with what the PC's want to do, then make notes as the session goes on. Then I write it up afterwards and amend the game world accordingly. We called it after the group doomed the world by managing to tear open a rift allowing hell to pour into the world, destroying an entire continent, while simultaneously turning the angels that were helping them against them because a player betrayed them. So it was to become a world beseiged on 2 fronts, all the while the Dark Lords of Ravenloft were tightening their grip. Then I separated from my wife and lost 10 years worth of world notes when I moved out... So yeah, starting from scratch and writing a new world set 1000 years after those events where mortal races are forced underground while celestial/fiendish warfare destroys the surface. Some minor adjustments to give all races things like darkvision etc.
as soon as the DM said "well I just allowed the paladins to hit, so the fight would be tougher" id of packed up my stuff, thanks everyone except the DM for their time, and walked out. A DM who fakes rolls is a garbage DM.
Original author of the post here! Just wanted to say thanks for reading this story on your channel, as it was watching this channel that first inspired me to share the story on Reddit! Looks like the Crab kingdom is becoming self sufficient.
Lesson of the Story: While we each have different things we want out of RPGs, the two things everyone agrees on are "Follow the established rules," and "Everyone's here to have fun." If someone doesn't understand either of those, they could easily ruin the game.
@@deadtempleknight.6332 He pretended to be a civilian and the paladin trust them and yet he gets atack even thought their are ppl coming behied them bc "he has the lowest health"
Something fishy about the sponsor, it seems to not exist because one quick search reveals nothing but final fantasy tactics or warhammer and I think neither of these games are it.
Ewa Brząkała well, seeing as I and my colleagues created this project and these pages (working on getting a full fledged site up ASAP) I feel confident that it’s legit 😅
Agreed!! They need a stronger exoskeleton to stand up for themselves!! -signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
For real. I think a lot of gamers have issues with even the slightest bit of real world confrontation. They'd rather suffer through repeated abuse of themselves and their chosen pastime than potentially hurt the feelings of an acquaintance. It's kinda pathetic, to be honest.
I mean we all know rule one is DM is God. But the players are also in the same realm of this God and might not like their characters being shit on. Dont need to roll for this attack.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory He's technically allowed to do it, but there are rules and even the DM should follow them. Because if he goes as far as to 3-crit-max-dmg cheat on a whim then why roll for attacks anyway? Just let the DM decide what hits and doesn't.
because the paladin's totally know that the dude they believe is a convert is somehow an enemy despite showing no sign of that prior to battle and totally base their strategies on who has the smalelst helath despite having no way of knowing what is as a concept in-universe because PEOPLE DOn"T HAVE HEALTH BARS
The point of D&D and other TTRPGs is that it uses the brains of everyone involved to simulate experiences that computers never good. This DM decided his Enemies would use basic 90's level AI targeting systems, and the possibilities of the world would be limited to imitate basic video game design.
This. If i want to play a basic-ass JRPG i play Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. I play D&D because i want to play in a world that is too rich and has too many possibilities for a computer to handle.
you do know that the rpg genre of video game is inspired by table top rpg. ff11, and everquest before it used 3e ruleset. Same with early elder scrolls morrowind included, which put focus on the rp, of the rpg.
I am not that experienced in tabletop but I have been really wanting to make a vampire Hunter d campaign based off Pathfinder. These videos have been massively helpful in helping me look for the things to avoid to be a good DM. I appreciate the effort you put into them.
NO THINKING ALLOWED! I loved the Benny Hill reference. Seriously though, You make an encounter more challenging by adding more elements if your players outwit you, or fudge the numbers just enough to make the players worry without frustrating them.
Jrpg works as a VIDEO game, not as a tabletop game, mostly because jrpgs are linear, often grindy, and have systems built with limitations such as attack is just that attack. It does not have the nuances of tabletop games, because of it being a VIDEO game. Which is why his plan was doomed to fail.
@@gandalftheantlion If he wanted to have a very story-driven campaign with characters and story reminescent of a JRPG feel, it could've worked - the JRPG "feel" relies mostly on characters with extremely distinct (though not necessarily super complex) personalities and certain themes (like, y'know, friendship, struggle, etc), and a certain outlandishness and originality of setting. Trying to copy the MECHANICS of a JRPG in a tabletop game, however...
The D&D world needs to actually set up some kind of Network with players names and pictures for just this type of situation with a line beneath them labeling the player as Do Not Let DM!
Some other things this DM forgot, or never learned (WARNING, RANT AHEAD) : 1. Metagaming is frustrating because it ruins the game's immersion. And it doesn't matter if you're a DM, a min-maxer, a heavy roleplayer, or exclusively a murderhobo, once the game starts, that kind of metagaming (playing as though the characters in the narrative have all the same information as the players at the table) ruins the fun of EVERYONE at that table. I admit I am making an assumption here about the intentions of the DM which may or not be fair, but according to the information given it seems like a reasonable extrapolation to me to suggest that the DM was metagaming in the LEAST subtle way possible. 2. Breaking the rules, especially in such an obvious way, doesn't make the game harder, it makes the game more frustrating. The reason is that the players no longer have any reason to believe that their actions matter, since the DM is going to do anything they want regardless of the rules by which the players are still bound. Under this circumstance no one's actions have any meaning, the DM can punish anyone they want for any reason and the players are trapped in a circumstance where their actions don't meaningfully affect the outcome of the game. If their actions mean nothing then why should they invest any energy or emotion into the game? the answer is obviously that they shouldn't, and the result is a drawn out, boring, frustrating ordeal which bleeds everyone involved of any emotional or intellectual investment they may once have had in the game. I honestly believe that the best outcome in this sort of situation is for everyone at the table to just packing up and leave. Bad DnD is NOT better than no DnD. and 3. THERE ARE ESTABLISHED AND PUBLISHED WAYS TO INCREASE THE DIFFICULTY OF COMBAT THAT DO NOT INVOLVE CHEATING AND METAGAMING!!!! the Challenge Rating system has rules for this established, it is EASY to increase the CR of an encounter! there are published optional rules that increase the game's difficulty in consistent and interesting ways, there are probably hundreds of different "house rules" systems shared in forums and threads all over the internet, and some of them have even been extensively tested. This DM must have either not known about any of these resources, which would mean they never actually read through the game manual or bothered to look for ways to make combat difficult, or it means that they were too lazy to look at any of these resources opting to just B.S. their crappy game mastering at the table and never gave the game mechanics a moments thought outside of gameplay. If we assume that this story is accurate, and I've seen enough IRL crappy DM's to think that this story is entirely plausible, then I can only say that this person should never be allowed to DM again until they've read the game manual through cover to cover at least once. For anyone wanting to avoid being this DM I suggest you: 1. Learn to separate what your NPC's know and what you know. If you can't do this then you'll never be able to create a believable world, you can still DM, but you shouldn't be doing homebrew until you're sure you're not going to be guilty of metagaming. Metagaming is frustrating when players do it, it's infinitely worse when the DM does it, and it's absolutely unforgivable when the DM does it just to make the PC's lives miserable!!! 2. The rules are important. Don't fudge dice roles, in fact, roll your dice on the table for everyone to see and encourage your players to do the same. Don't bend rules to make something you want to happen happen, don't EVER let the story be more important than the consequences of your players actions. Your goal should be to make sure everyone's choices matter and have rational consequences. It gives the world better immersion and automatically makes your players more invested for the simple reason that their actions visibly affect the world around them. This is the most important advice I give to DM's trying to get murderhobos to act like people. If you force their alignment to change because of their actions, if NPC anti-parties are formed to stop the psycho murderers (PC's) terrorizing the countryside, if paladin militias are called in to hunt your players down because they're destabilizing an area, if they get arrested and all their expensive gear and magical items get taken and they're forced to go to trial to stand accountable for their actions, then just about everyone with any attachment to their character is going to stop indiscriminately killing every PC they meet and start role-playing HARD to save their character's skin. It doesn't always work, in fact I think it really only works about 50% of the time, but it's the most successful murder hobo reform tool I've personally ever found. and 3. Read and re-read the manual often. Every time you're going to DM a game, take an hour before the game starts, think about the mechanics you're likely to have to use, think of what mechanics you haven't read over in a while and re read those sections to make sure you can confidently know all the specifics of those mechanics. Then look for any mechanics you don't know at all and review them. And if you want to make things harder for your players then you should READ THE MANUAL, work to understand the CR system and how you can increase or decrease encounter difficulties in a way that is consistent and wont cheapen game play. If you want more interesting mechanics, do research out of game. Look online at forums and see what other people have tried, what they've liked, and what hasn't worked. And if you're going to change rules to make things harder or more interesting at the table then you had better damn well make sure you inform every single player at the table and get their consent BEFORE you start implementing those changes. (Pant, pant, pant....) ... ... Ok, rant over.
I gotta disagree on 2. Obviously that depends on the group and what you're doing, some groups might be so hardline ultra by the book that anything that is not written in the book is cheating and gets you thrown off the table. But here and there i can completely see a fudged dice roll be beneficial to the game. In the end DMing is about making sure everyone has fun. If you want a 100% by the book experience you can play a video game, they do that. And sometimes it CAN be more fun to do things a certain way. There are videos out there on youtube that talk about this at length. But in the end it always boils down to be REALLY sure that you want to do this, be REALLY sure that the outcome actually makes the game better, and be REALLY sure not to make it too obvious like the DM in this video did. And i don't agree with the "you should always just roll open for everyone" at all because that's quite frankly a question of taste. Some people are so by the rules that they want to be absolutely sure nothing can ever be funny, other players would prefer to not see all the mechanications behind everything. In the end, it's a simple matter of taste, but please stop pretending like your way is the only right way and everyone who does things differently is playing DnD wrong.
Honestly I would be super stoked if my players came up with something that creative. Overall sounds like a newbie/young DM hopefully they learn from all the terrible terrible mistakes made in that campaign .
Which is especially sad because the GM should secretly be rooting for the players The difficulties should be there for the players to overcome and if it seems too easy, the only concern should be "did I make this so easy it was boring for them?"
in 10th grade I took a creative writing course. My teacher offered us plenty of guidelines, but routinely said that good writing only has one rule "If you do something, have a reason for it."
It sounds like a new GM. Remember back when I was just beginning I was much the same way. Hopefully he’s been able to gain some experience since then and honestly a few lessons in humility don’t go awry and I’ve had to receive them myself. while it’s not easy it’s something that looking back you’re grateful for
To be fair, most JRPGs really don't allow you to spring plans or circumvent battle by planning ahead. Most videogames don't do that, that's kind of the point why we play DnD to begin with. Videogames simply can't posess the infinite possibilities that a human DM can react to at the spot. If the script says there is a boss battle there then there is a boss battle there. Period. And if the script says that the Boss goes first to do his scripted first attack then that's what happens, and no amount of planing will change that. That's why you don't model DnD campaigns after Video Games. The world, sure. A DnD campaign set in Hyrule sounds fun. Characters or certain mechanics, sure. But never try to rebuild your favorite game in DnD because that's not what DnD is for.
Played a champions game where the GM threw an enemy against us that was only really susceptible to an effect that no one in our group was even capable of doing, his game ended immediately after session.
Fudging rolls has a time and place as a DM, but rule #1 is NEVER tell your players that you fudged the roll, even if it is to their advantage. Once you do that, it ruins the magic.
"The fight would be too easy" gee it's almost like the players took time to plan out the fight properly, why punish the players for engaging with your game and trying to think about it like a real situation? so dumb.
What's bizarre about all of this, to me, is that the DM wanted "challenging" combat, but then he removed all aspects of strategy on the part of the players, turning the whole thing into a game of chance. And then he flat-out cheated on dice rolls for the NPCs, so it's not even a game of random luck at that point. What was he even getting out of it? The satisfaction of pretending his numbers were higher?
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Knights of pen and paper actually handled this type of situations flawlessly with their threat mechanic, attacks were randomized, but some abilities and items made it more or less likely to have an enemy attack specific characters,so, if you want to keep your cleric safe, best option is to keep that barbarian screaming for blood like there is no tomorrow...
Many other gamers find it unusual that our group has a member we call "The Bouncer". The ones that have had GM's like this never question why we have The Bouncer.
@@demonminer8093 No, that role falls usually to one of the old salts of the group, which is myself and one other. The Bouncer is just that, if a player's behavior just gets straight up intolerable, creepy, or hostile, he's the one that says "Alright, I'm showing you the door, c'mon." Ours is a 6'6 guy who's day job is being a Correctional Officer. He's only ever had to be The Bouncer once in several years of gaming.
Dear God I’m laughing so hard right now, literally called it as soon as I read the title. “So a murder hobo turned DM... oh I’ve got to see how this train wreck turns out.”
As soon as the DM admits the enemies were surprised but ignores all of that because it would "make the fight too easy" is the moment I get up and walk away.
The DM wasn't playing by the rules. I've played lots of JRPGs. There's plenty of ways to adapt that to D&D. The fight with the Paladins should have been unwinnable from the start (maybe they were higher level than the church let on), but having some modicum of code, instead of killing the party, they throw them in jail. This would lead to an interaction with a prisoner in the same or a nearby cell or guard which would lead then to them escaping the dungeon/ town and heading off to find out how to beat these guys which would lead to more manageable fights, exploration, rumors of Mcguffins and hopefully a colorful cast of NPCs which may or may not contain a runaway price or princess. The Paladins might not even be the BBEG, but used it possessed by some force and beating them then draws the attention of the BBEG. Things look like they're going to hell, but not all hope is lost. If you can help your hidden monarch obtain their goals, you too will be able to deal a blow to the great evil... oh, and if you go on this side quest for someone's dog randomly, you'll probably get into a fight with a god or return with an unknown item that will aid you in time of need. That's how the JRPGs do.
Barbarian: AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Fighter: You're going down! Enemy Paladin: Better stab that villager who just a second ago seemed like a fanatic convert!
I had a DM who punished us for thinking in a much different way. He had what he called "Plot Anvils". In short, if you took too long making a decision for his liking, he would move the scene forward without you, and you WOULD suffer for it. It seemed he wanted snap decisions so he could capitalize on any poor choices. He also loved giving decision-making privileges to a single player, and forbade outside advice. Got out of there fast. Newbie diechucker should NOT be asked to think fast AND alone.
This reminds me of a story my DM shared with me about his first DM for his Pathfinder group who was a Wargamer and wanted every encounter to be a combat scenario or end in one. This made planning and role-playing to attempt to avoid combat useless since the DM would just throw any old reason in why the people they had convinced to help them/turn the other way then decided to just go "fuck it, roll initiative". From what i heard, he has not had any new players since.
Heyyy, while you're here, why don't you show some love to our friends over at Last Arc: Tactics Analogue.
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You may want to replace the m with a www, that way people aren't sent to the mobile site, which is very sparse.
I pledge my loyalty to King Kingler
as a GM I fudged some rolls in a session 1 that would have been crits to squishy characters, or would make sure no one went down in a single hit. I only fudge early rolls to avoid early TPKs and frustrated mages that are bleeding out instantly due to bad luck.
I really like Last Arc. Haven’t got much of an opportunity to play much but I like the system. I like how there are many mundane weapons that have different properties. It’s also neat how multiclassing is very doable without much consequence. Really great system and I love the art for the orcs
At least it's not RAID.
"A trio of paladins had gone rogue..." Well that's just multiclassing.
Eyyy, I see what you did there.
What level tho
@@wafflejam9015 6!
@@wafflejam9015 three paladins all take a level of rogue, that means that at minimum they are all at level two!
GOT EM
Tip: Never give the DM's position to the new player in the group when he only played one session and was... a murder hobo...
No one was born a great player or a great dm. Everyone has to learn.
@@Spellweaver5 Except the murder hobo, SPECIALLY in a group that isn't made of other murder hobos
@@rompevuevitos222 most murder hobos grow out of it with experience.
The murder hobo was a red flag to me, never let someone that is disruptive the power role.
@@Spellweaver5 They can grow out of it in a murder hobo group where no one is affected
If it can't be helped at the very least don't let them be a GM, you know, the only position where they can 100% mess up every other player
DM: Alright. It's time for a challenging game for you all. This will be very difficult.
Players: *has a brain*
DM: No you aren't allowed to use that! It would make the game too easy.
ScootTheGrayWolf, when it comes to making a difficult game, I’d start adding in Morse code, Culper’s code, and other cryptographic messages. They’d be struggling to figure out who the villain was because they can’t translate what they want to translate.
Oh yeah, combat. They’ll be very coordinated groups, where there’s always one a good ways away to run over watch, able to identify the biggest field threats, and contact their squad to direct them like they’re an actually competent, challenging military group.
I left the crap kingdom but went back after you said 5k but now im in exile
It's also worth mentioning that the DM's role isn't to make the game difficult. It's to tell a fun and interesting story. Often, limitations do make games interesting and some people consider difficulty fun, but when those limitations are artificial like the guy in this story, even the most hardcore nail-eating survival game players and optimizing wargamers would find them just annoying. This dude really seems to have fallen into the thought-trap of thinking D&D is DM vs. players. Pretty sure the DMG says that it isn't on like the first page after the table of contents. Then again, with his clearly lacking writing ability, I wouldn't put much stock in his reading ability.
Hoarsebard yeah, that’s why I always ask for criticism. Hell, at this point I’m begging for criticism from my players.
The enemy paladins lowkey had Skyrim enemy AI when combat started.
Kinda surprised they didn't start the fight by saying "Never should have come here"
Classic Psychic Guard Syndrome!!
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Hit's Paladin with an arrow and sneaks back into the shadows
Paladin: Must have been the wind
"I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than you!"
@@Lobsterwithinternet Oh shit I remember those guys.
it is even worst, they have the AI of the oblivion guards. I was playing oblivion once, a thief npc stole something guards went after them attacking npc, hit another npc and all the other npc in the area got flagged for battle and my character just walks up on this mass chaos wondering wtf happen.
"He said he was trying to capture the feeling of an open world game."
"It was basically one key city with lots of walking from point A to point B."
Me: WOW IT'S SO ACCURATE
Welcome to Corneria!
Now if this was a Dragon’s Dogma campaign that *would* be accurate.
I'm impressed by the miles of empty plains in between the single city.
That was exactly my thought as well, he nailed jrpgs pretty well.
Would of gotten out of there the second the DM meta gamed and flat out told the players he was meta gaming.
I would've just told the DM that's stupid and he needs to rethink his approach to battles. Especially once it got to the point where the DM insisted the paladins attack the warlock, I would've completely refused to allow combat to progress until they attacked the actual reasonable targets, who were attacking them. If the DM wants to ruin a battle encounter with BS metagaming, then so will I. He could have, for example, had a secret ally of the paladins ambush the party a bit later in the fight as a way of organically increasing the difficulty without letting the players know. You know, ad-libbing. Probably not the best solution, admittedly, since I just came up with it on the spot, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than "This happens because I said so". Ad-libbing, I hear, is a pretty important skill as a DM.
That’s the best option, though I’d have said “that’s not how D&D works” first. There’s little to no reason to outright ignore dice rolls, even if you are a DM.
@@annabella1650 As a DM I ignore some of my rolls. But this is always in the favor of the players.
"Oh no I rolled a crit, that will probably kill the rogue... let's say they rolled an 18" (the players dont know I do this)
@@GiantProcrastiNation At the same time, it kinda decreases the tension if the players always succeed. I mean I get that it sucks to have your character die but fudging rolls ultimately just takes away from an epic fight.
Aaron Stoner always succeeding is more fun than constant failure. If you make a crit or two not happen then that’s ok. There’s still a lot of tension from the many other dice rolls across the combat. Just don’t make every roll irrelevant.
When the DM said "recapture the feel of jrpgs" he meant the paladins' AI
JRPGs, where Murphy's Law applies to every battle
I thought he meant 1 town of note surrounded by nothing but random encounters while being led from point a to b part
Characters who have literally sworn an oath to a god to protect the innocent at all costs: "Oh snap, we're being attacked from behind. Better kill this innocent person in front of us."
NarlepoaxIII to be fair, they had been excommunicated for breaking their oaths.
intergalactic92 fair, but that doesn’t excuse their total idiocy in attacking someone that, for all they knew, was actually on their side.
better safe than sorry
@@bobbobson110 i know this is old but how murdering a completely unrelated person that is in your side (because thats what the paladins believed) would be better safe than sorry by that logic i should murder everione because better safe than sorry
> who have literally sworn an oath to a god to protect the innocent at all costs
Bruh.
"The fight would be too easy."
Then design tougher fights?
An easy out would be to have one of them call out for backup, and a few low-end goons show up to pad out the fight. Even weak stuff can be dangerous if it has you surrounded. Never punish the players for your own GM mistake, but feel free to alter the paradigm to keep it interesting (and compensate accordingly with a later mini mercy)
@@Sneakysneaky88 never a bad idea to swarm the party if the encounter is going too well. I've had a few combats where the enemy rolled so many nat 1s I wish they would have called for backup.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory One of the things I tend to do in RPGs is stray from just straight dice-rolling. Perhaps that's not usual for D&D, but as an example, if a player in a sci-fi setting says "I shoot at the enemy" then they just get flat dice, but if another player says "I brace myself against the broken window and fire" they get a slight bonus to cover/accuracy even if not strictly in the rules. I used to play a sci-fi game with tons of betrayal and PvP called "Paranoia", and when fights broke out that people would run as "I shoot at the other guy!" "Now I shoot back!", I called that the 'laser tango'. It was boring. In the case of a fantasy setting, if the team gets a bunch of lucky crits that turns a fight too easy, and having low-end goons help out isn't an option, you could try something different. The crits cause some collateral damage, or cause the enemies to die in a particularly nasty fashion that is easier for other enemies to notice (blood trails, structural damage, etc). Improvisation is the strongest thing a DM/GM can ever have.
But I'm not gonna lie, being a good storyteller AND a good improviser is hard to do. Balancing all things and making nothing but good judgement calls as the god of the story is tricky as all hell. No narrator needs to be perfect, just fair enough to create fun without punishing the players, etc.
@@Sneakysneaky88 You might want to check out Exalted, you get bonuses for doing "Stunts" which are basically describing your combat turn in a great way, and the system is loose with exact positioning to allow dancing about in combat being theatrical as opposed to "I stab"
It's not even that, he seems to think ANY fight that gives the heroes a fighting chance is "too easy", and thus ignored the players attempt at getting a fighting chance, and even ignored his own failed rolls to bullshit his way into making sure a player is mrotally wounded, and even metagamed by having the paladins target the warlock 'because he had the lowest health' despite that not bieng something they'd know and still doesn't explain why they'd attakc him over the people ACTUALLY TRYING TO ATTACK THEM.
DM: Alright, I've got a challenge for you guys. It'll be difficult, but if you can do it you'll get some great loot.
Player: *Already has a brain*
DM: Hey where'd you get that?! You aren't supposed to be intelligent until level 8!
Fleeing villager: "I'm on your side! Why are you attacking me?!"
Charging paladins: "YOU HAVE THE LEAST HEALTH!"
VIllager: WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!? YOU ARE SAYING NONSENSE WORDS!
@@sarafontanini7051 "THE FICTIONAL POINTS I HAVE ASSIGNED TO YOU ARE LOWER THEN THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ATTACKING ME!"
The worst feeling you can get as a player is when you come up with something creative and even roll a crit for it but the dm says it doesn’t even matter and railroads you into being the weakest party member because only the mechanical aspects of gameplay for classes are explored
I sense Monk.
Yeah. And in this Story, it was even worse. I would have had a little bit of understanding for that inexperienced GM if he had been clumsily trying to railroad the group into losing the fight and getting captured or into letting the paladins get away from this encounter because he had this awesome story twist in mind and prepared that could not happen if the players win right now (still this wouldn't justify to openly cheat, but it would at least be somewhat understandable). In this story, the DM apparently didn't even have a solid reason why he begrudged the PCs an easy win, he cheated just to make the fight more "challenging". This doesn't even make sense from the moronic bord gamer perspective that seemed to be the only one that player knew, treating the characters like mere chess pieces instead of logically acting characters. It isn't a challenge when the DM cheats whenever he feels like it, at that point he could just as well announce how the encounter will play out without making any rolls.
@@chrisrudolf9839
that reminds me a little bit of one time when I wanted to literally FLAVOR something an ability ALREADY let me do, adn the DM didn't let me.
this was in 4e so we had actual like...abilities as attacks. I was a kobold rogue and I think the encounter ability was called like...acrobatic lunge or something? basically you can move six squares to the enemy, stab, then move six away without taking an opp attack. I happened to be standing on a bookshelf above the enemy. I asked if, for the sake of it being cool, I could flip off the bookcase, land on his shoulders, stab him, then jump off his shoulders onto another bookcase. (Which wouldnt ahve even utilixed my full movement. it was 3 squares then 3 squares). I even offered to make an acrobatics check to see if I could do it. and he jsut flat out said no, with the reasoning "thas not how the ability works"...even though the ability LITEARLLY stated "you make an acrobatic leap toward your opponent, cutting deep into them before leaping away before they can react"
some DMs really need to learn when using the rule of cool is okay.
another "fun" one was with a killer DM. we were trying to get an object out of a clockwork tower. we grabbed it, and the room suddenly turned downward at a 45 degree angle, the floor got slicked with grease, a clockwork bird dropped down, and set the grease on fire, AND teh gears at the now bottom of the room were spinning like a wood chipper. And the door to exit the room? literally right next to the gears. I'm talking like
0
0
0
0
___
the 0s being the gears, the underscore being the door. Literally the ONLY reason I lived is because I leapt down toward the gears, stabbed my spear in between them,t hen leapt OFF my spear through the door, adn I ONLY got to do that because I crit.
also, WE WERE LEVEL 2.
@@magentanide5984 hey monks are good my first caractor was a monk with garbage Con still managed to be in the front lines and be the only one who didn't fall later at 4th level stopped a mini boss from escaping with a valuable item then could also with his boots of speed 200 ft in 1 round
thats when you go for absolute min-maxing
"he was trying to capture the feeling of JRPGs" so 5 months of grinding before the first boss?
Oh man, that's not even that big of an exaggeration for some JRPGs.
Hmm, you must be doing a speed run.
I feel like 8 months is more accurate
Jesus Christ guys what JRPGs are you playing???
@@alfredpeverly2093 bloodborne
Rule 0 of DMing: You and your players are here to have fun. If they aren't, you are not doing what you're supposed to.
Correction: if they aren't (having fun), you fucked up.
That's why I focus on making my sessions fun, even if they end up being silly or the enemies get absolutely floor wiped, my friends just have pretty damn strong characters
I don't just up the ante because the team is strong because the enemies don't know that, I'm not trying to defeat the players anyway; that isn't the DM's job
@@unwithering5313 Very few DMs understand this. I have so little faith in DM, these days. Whenever I see "with your DM's permission" in any book, I just end up rolling my eyes, seeing nothing more than yet a other opportunity for imagined power to go to someone's head.
"I'm gonna make things similar to JRPGs"
**Map is a bigass empty world with REs and towns peppered between**
Eeeyup, that seems about right.
pretty much. i played enough final fantasy to know this.
You see. He DMs like that because he lacks the intellectual ability and creativity to make a challenge. I can tell you exactly how I would both allow that sneak attack and make a challenge. The paladins are preaching and taking advantage of the people? The people likely don’t understand this and the party has not communicated with the villagers and certainly not keyed them in on the plan. So the villagers seeing “righteous” paladins preaching the good word being assaulted in an ambush join the combat. Loggers with axes, farmers with pitchforks and scythes, hunters with bows, black smiths with hammers... all become a complicated threat that the party must now also kill or try to persuade while in the heat of combat. THERES A CHALLENGE FOR YA
Dynamic as well - could lead to alternate roleplaying options of trying to lead later threats out of the city, trying more of a stealthy ally attack etc.
I could even see the paladins hamming it up and rallying the villagers to form a protective wall around them that the players wouldn't be able to break with conventional force because then they'd be murderers. The opening volley was good. Let them get their surprise round as payment for good strategy. After that I like your suggestion where the fight evolves and the players must adapt to the changing landscape.
But he was trying to emulate jrpgs so it was actually handled pretty accurately if that was the aim
"so yeah, they all totally missed, but just this once, i'm going to have them all crit and deal max crit damage to you to make the game more challenging."
Also, they all have vorpal swords that will disintegrate after battle.
Then the DM got a job at Digital Extremes to continue making Warframe "end game" content.
4 things:
1. (this in particularly, if somebody who has played D&D knows otherwise then let me know.) I’m pretty sure with dungeons and dragons there are a few preset scenarios, maps, towns/dungeon layouts, so my guess is, if you want to make your own campaign the first thing you should probably do is maybe use one of those maps as templates. Then since you have campaigns in sessions, you iron out what you want to happen in stages in between the sessions. So long as you keep in mind the overall campaign you can work on little segments so that’s easier to manage. And most importantly your campaign world feels like an actual world.
2. There was literally no reason for why the paladins would attack the wizard if they believed the wizard was on their side. That’s like saying: “We’re under attack! Quick, kill our allies.” So it doesn’t make sense in a logical way.
3. In the case of the paladins chasing the wizard there are cases in games in which during a Bossfight they will focus on a specific character as kind of a story element, but in those cases there’s usually a hint that there’s an attack winding up so that particular character being singled out has time to protect themselves. And with that happening it gives the other characters time to wale on him/heal up, because he’s focusing on somebody who is now ready to protect themselves. This in turn is a way of rewarding people who are paying attention to the flow of battle.
4. in terms of the world map. (I hate to say this because I actually like the game) Hyrule field in legend of Zelda ocarina of time is not a good role model for a hub map.
Well for a one-shot or a short campaigh with only a handful of sessions a Ocarina of time slyted hub map could work.
Matthias The Magician that’s true, for something short where it wouldn’t make sense to jam pack it full of places that you have no need to go to.
But I don’t think it would work out well if you were wanting something in the vein of a JRPG style D&D like DM was going for.
Nazo- kage one things for sure, or carina of time had the benefit of being an actual good game so it’s flaws is justified.
The human brain is a lot better at making realistic geography than the N64 lol.
RE: point 1 - while there _are_ pre-written adventures/scenarios, the core books for D&D (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual) don't come with any of that. At most, the DMG contains advice/tools to help create that stuff. There's also plenty of places online to get that stuff cheap, if not for free.
Honestly, the first red flag for me was that 'wanting to capture the feel of JRPGs' meant 'lots of random encounters whenever you travel anywhere'. Because that's okay in a JRPG, where random encounters last 30 seconds, but doesn't work at all in D&D, where all but the shortest encounters will take at least an hour.
But it all does mostly sound like this was a rookie DM to hadn't really learned what did and didn't work in D&D running into classic pitfalls. Like wanting his boss fight to go the way he'd scripted it in his head rather than adapting to what the players did.
Everytime someone makes the "it's challenging" argument I'm just gonna show them this video.
Challenging =/= fun
Players OVERCOMING those challenges = fun.
And props to the fighter who stuck around even though he got crited three times for max damage and the DM admitted he cheated.
More like Cheating =/= Fun. Challenges are fun. But only if you get the sense that it's a meaningfull challenge. If the DM has to outright 3-crit-max-dmg cheat to make you feel challenged then it's not a challenge, it's cheating. Now i'm not 100% against the DM fudging rolls SOMETIMES at key situations wher ethe situation could absolutely benefit from it, but that's very rare and even then it shouldn't be noticeable. If it's so obvious that even the players call BS on it then you simply failed in creating a meaningfull challenge.
I wouldn't even call what the DM put forth challenging. Generally challenges are obstacles that require a significant amount of effort to overcome. This doesn't seem like a challenge as the amount of effort put into it seems irrelevant. Why bother coming up with a plan if you get no benefit from the plan? The only thing that DM taught the players is that the only thing that matters in his combat are the way the dice land. Even then he'll change that in order to fit his predestined outcome. I disagree with the OP that the GM is a wargamer, it sounds to me more like someone who wants to be a wargamer without any inkling of how to actually create a difficult encounter. The last thing a wargamer would ever do is break the established rules contract as if rules aren't followed, there is no game.
@@KillItWithFire2 Challenging is when the DM *makes* you use your brain to win. Challenging is not "Pray you min maxed hard enough."
I wouldn't give props to anyone sticking around at that point. You know what a git the DM is because he's just openly confessed to just making up hits and damage out of the blue. Choosing to just continue to put up with that is not commendable behavior. Quitting calmly and without throwing a complete fit is commendable. Continuing to play with that kind of a DM is frickin' dumb.
- = -
All hail King Crab, may he's reign be long and prosperous.
ALL HAIL THE KING CRAB!!! [bows before giant dancing Crab] :D
Northon Santana his reign*
@@kelnhide ok
A pox upon your false king!!
We will claim what is our own!!
You cannot stop us!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
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A Real Lobster With An Internet Connection
Normally I would cringe at channel promotion but this one got me
“A single prominent city with miles and miles of undetailed plains and random encounters in between.” I dunno that sums up JRPGS pretty well.
just the bad ones
“No! That’s not how you’re supposed to play the game.” - Masahiro Sakurai
Motomu Toriyama, Tetsuya Nomura, etc.
All hail the crab army. May it rise from the oceans and on to the tabletops.
But not the kitchen counters, stay away from those.
You crabs won’t win!!
We will stop you!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
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Ones worst enemy has to be a dm the ones who think winning is about killing the players
So those paladins were basically oblivion npcs.
DM: This is going to have challenging combat
Players prepare and think for combat
DM: That’s not how you’re supposed to play
DM says "challenging combat."
Players think: "I'm going to need to come up with a good strategy to set up this encounter, and then coordinate with the rest of the party to give us the best chance of success!"
DM thinks: "You must roll higher numbers than the ones I make up."
That is exactly how they are suppose to play.
This reminds me of a time my pcs ruined everything in the best way
The scenario: a rouge Baron had risen against his king, destroyed a village, and killing a PC's family.
How I wanted it to go: they face his elite guard at the castle gate, then the Baron.
How it went: the PC who lost his parents used an invisibility potion, and snuck in, while the others holed up against his guards.
The best part: he blew up a part of the wall by hurling Greek fire at a few barrels of oil, then fought the Baron, two shotting him with a critical
Did the PC two-shot the Baron or vice versa?
@@igorkopacynski8906 PC 2 shot him
@@rhysofsneezingdragon1758 Good.
my friend who got me into D&D was 100% like this as a DM! I remember countless times trying to do something smart or cool that made a fight easier and guess what?! Some how the enemies all knew of my plan! All he did was give us a load of high level monsters in a box! Worst of all I played as my icon...Megumin...for those who don't know...in other words I was fairly useless in combat...also he made my character...Either way I stayed with it because he was my best friend and I totally had a crush on him...
That’s sad. When I DM and my players come up with a good plan I’m excited for it to work and hope that it does
"He had a campaign idea he desperately wanted to try out". To me that sounded like an immediate red flag. It sounded like some of the DMs I've seen who want to TELL a story, pretty much regardless of the character's interactions. Basically that they should have written a book or short story instead of playing a game. As a DM, I always remind myself that it's my world/setting, but it's the character's stories.
Larry Berry Genuine question: How do you plan for plot points down the line while still giving free reign to the players?
@@yellowdaffodil7251 That always depends on your DM style really. Some DMs like mine simply trust that we want to experience the story and will, like a Skyrim player, eventually come back to the plot on our own, even if we spend 6 hours raiding a town before that.
If you don't have that trust or simply want to make sure, you can always try to adapt as you go, if you don't make it too obvious. Like if your note says "They go to the tavern and overhear a guy complain about that damn undead infestation in the woods!" but they don't want to go to the tavern, then there is no reason this can't happen at the smithery, or the potion store. Or two travelers, blood-soaked, limping heavily towards the city when the party leaves through the city gates.
Or if for story purposes it definitely HAS to happen on the tavern, have players randomly overhear some strangers at the marketplace go "Did you hear that guy at the tavern telling his story? It's unbelievable isn't it?"
Basically, appeal to their curiousity or wing it. But that's something you'll learn as you get more experience. There isn't really a be-all-end-all way that works for all players, because it really depends on what the players want to do. If they want to adventure, lure them with rumors of fat loot. If they want to battle, lure them with the rumors of powerfull, challenging enemies. And if they just want to see the world burn, find a new group to DM for or write a campaign about slaughtering everything.
Or just set the game up to begin with in a way where they are practically forced to do it this way. We did that in college for a while because all of us had little time and couldn't always sync our schedules, so we were part of an adventurers guild, each session was one quest we took from the guild in a interconnected oneshot style game. That usually kept us on track because we wanted to finish the quest we set out to do.
@@yellowdaffodil7251 personally, I have a few things on the go at any one point in time.
-A main story line which the players can choose to ignore if the wish, however this would likely cause issues. My last campaign, planes were merging and Ravenloft was 'seeping through to Faerun'. This was detailed as a black mist which people seemed to get lost in and either never be seen again in, or wind up back where they started.
The PC's can follow, or ignore it. I keep just enough info to hand to work with and loose enough to change things and amend notes on the fly.
Then, I'll also have the following:
- A few rumours prepped per session
- A dungeon ready to go, even if only a small 3-5 room one
- A list of names and personality traits ready incase they want to run with an RP session
Anything else, I just run with what the PC's want to do, then make notes as the session goes on. Then I write it up afterwards and amend the game world accordingly.
We called it after the group doomed the world by managing to tear open a rift allowing hell to pour into the world, destroying an entire continent, while simultaneously turning the angels that were helping them against them because a player betrayed them. So it was to become a world beseiged on 2 fronts, all the while the Dark Lords of Ravenloft were tightening their grip.
Then I separated from my wife and lost 10 years worth of world notes when I moved out... So yeah, starting from scratch and writing a new world set 1000 years after those events where mortal races are forced underground while celestial/fiendish warfare destroys the surface. Some minor adjustments to give all races things like darkvision etc.
The gameplay be like: "look at me i am a fighter, HELPME !!!!!!"
All will know the glory of Crustacia!
Only if we lobsters are allowed to lead it to glory!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
as soon as the DM said "well I just allowed the paladins to hit, so the fight would be tougher" id of packed up my stuff, thanks everyone except the DM for their time, and walked out. A DM who fakes rolls is a garbage DM.
Original author of the post here! Just wanted to say thanks for reading this story on your channel, as it was watching this channel that first inspired me to share the story on Reddit! Looks like the Crab kingdom is becoming self sufficient.
Lesson of the Story:
While we each have different things we want out of RPGs, the two things everyone agrees on are "Follow the established rules," and "Everyone's here to have fun." If someone doesn't understand either of those, they could easily ruin the game.
I would have just left after stabbing the warlock.
What did the warlock do?
@@deadtempleknight.6332 He pretended to be a civilian and the paladin trust them and yet he gets atack even thought their are ppl coming behied them bc "he has the lowest health"
@@Pablo_Martin_aa I know, so besides having the lowest hp, what did he do wrong?
@@deadtempleknight.6332 Nothing he LITERALLY did nothing wrong
@@Pablo_Martin_aa yeah, I know, that's why I asked OP why he'd leave after stabbing the warlock
"My character has a complex backstory!"
*Proceeds to kill everyone in sight*
So deep...
I think with deep he means the stab wounds he leaves in all the characters
"He looks at you with his doll-like eyes and does not answer"
Really enjoy these videos and I have aligned myself with the crab empire by subscribing before the video.
Loyal, wise, classic narwhal.
You have made a terrible enemy this day!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
"More on them in the description."
>Nothing about them in the description.
Uh... If that was a legit sponsor deal, won't they be mad about that?
Something fishy about the sponsor, it seems to not exist because one quick search reveals nothing but final fantasy tactics or warhammer and I think neither of these games are it.
@@gandalftheantlion yeah i googled it and didn't find anything
facebook.com/OldWorldStudiosInc/
@oldworldstudios (Instagram)
@oldworldstudiosinc (Facebook)
@@djn6962 pages on facebook are not legit sources. EVER.
Ewa Brząkała well, seeing as I and my colleagues created this project and these pages (working on getting a full fledged site up ASAP) I feel confident that it’s legit 😅
People in our hobby need to grow some damn backbones, I swear to God.
Agreed!! They need a stronger exoskeleton to stand up for themselves!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
For real. I think a lot of gamers have issues with even the slightest bit of real world confrontation. They'd rather suffer through repeated abuse of themselves and their chosen pastime than potentially hurt the feelings of an acquaintance. It's kinda pathetic, to be honest.
'Hey DM, it seems the dice don't matter, so I'm just going to ask you if I do damage from now on.'
The DM sounds like he doesn’t like the game and tactics very much
Wow that is hardcore metagaming and cheating on the dm's part.
I mean we all know rule one is DM is God. But the players are also in the same realm of this God and might not like their characters being shit on. Dont need to roll for this attack.
Well I think the dm should play realistically! Not like there is a god that hates you and wants to destroy you. I have that in real life already ;)
@@Gr3nadgr3gory He's technically allowed to do it, but there are rules and even the DM should follow them. Because if he goes as far as to 3-crit-max-dmg cheat on a whim then why roll for attacks anyway? Just let the DM decide what hits and doesn't.
because the paladin's totally know that the dude they believe is a convert is somehow an enemy despite showing no sign of that prior to battle and totally base their strategies on who has the smalelst helath despite having no way of knowing what is as a concept in-universe because PEOPLE DOn"T HAVE HEALTH BARS
Well, a DM is only a "Black & White" god, not a real one. The moment no one believes in him, he vanishes. And the DM was no more...
1 am! I am in the right amount of awakedness to watch another CritCrab video!
The point of D&D and other TTRPGs is that it uses the brains of everyone involved to simulate experiences that computers never good. This DM decided his Enemies would use basic 90's level AI targeting systems, and the possibilities of the world would be limited to imitate basic video game design.
This. If i want to play a basic-ass JRPG i play Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. I play D&D because i want to play in a world that is too rich and has too many possibilities for a computer to handle.
you do know that the rpg genre of video game is inspired by table top rpg. ff11, and everquest before it used 3e ruleset. Same with early elder scrolls morrowind included, which put focus on the rp, of the rpg.
I live vicariously through thees tales of fantastical woe. Please, continue what you are doing CritCrab. Happy holidays on your end!
I am not that experienced in tabletop but I have been really wanting to make a vampire Hunter d campaign based off Pathfinder. These videos have been massively helpful in helping me look for the things to avoid to be a good DM. I appreciate the effort you put into them.
OP. Your group let a very obvious troll be dm. Everything that happens after is completely on you and your group.
NO THINKING ALLOWED!
I loved the Benny Hill reference. Seriously though, You make an encounter more challenging by adding more elements if your players outwit you, or fudge the numbers just enough to make the players worry without frustrating them.
When he said he was going to make a JRPG style game, I thought it was going to go into weeb territory. But instead it was something much worse.
"It means you're not allowed to use tactics and the enemies behave like bots!"
Jrpg works as a VIDEO game, not as a tabletop game, mostly because jrpgs are linear, often grindy, and have systems built with limitations such as attack is just that attack. It does not have the nuances of tabletop games, because of it being a VIDEO game. Which is why his plan was doomed to fail.
@@gandalftheantlion If he wanted to have a very story-driven campaign with characters and story reminescent of a JRPG feel, it could've worked - the JRPG "feel" relies mostly on characters with extremely distinct (though not necessarily super complex) personalities and certain themes (like, y'know, friendship, struggle, etc), and a certain outlandishness and originality of setting.
Trying to copy the MECHANICS of a JRPG in a tabletop game, however...
The D&D world needs to actually set up some kind of Network with players names and pictures for just this type of situation with a line beneath them labeling the player as Do Not Let DM!
Some other things this DM forgot, or never learned (WARNING, RANT AHEAD) :
1. Metagaming is frustrating because it ruins the game's immersion. And it doesn't matter if you're a DM, a min-maxer, a heavy roleplayer, or exclusively a murderhobo, once the game starts, that kind of metagaming (playing as though the characters in the narrative have all the same information as the players at the table) ruins the fun of EVERYONE at that table. I admit I am making an assumption here about the intentions of the DM which may or not be fair, but according to the information given it seems like a reasonable extrapolation to me to suggest that the DM was metagaming in the LEAST subtle way possible.
2. Breaking the rules, especially in such an obvious way, doesn't make the game harder, it makes the game more frustrating. The reason is that the players no longer have any reason to believe that their actions matter, since the DM is going to do anything they want regardless of the rules by which the players are still bound. Under this circumstance no one's actions have any meaning, the DM can punish anyone they want for any reason and the players are trapped in a circumstance where their actions don't meaningfully affect the outcome of the game. If their actions mean nothing then why should they invest any energy or emotion into the game? the answer is obviously that they shouldn't, and the result is a drawn out, boring, frustrating ordeal which bleeds everyone involved of any emotional or intellectual investment they may once have had in the game. I honestly believe that the best outcome in this sort of situation is for everyone at the table to just packing up and leave. Bad DnD is NOT better than no DnD.
and 3. THERE ARE ESTABLISHED AND PUBLISHED WAYS TO INCREASE THE DIFFICULTY OF COMBAT THAT DO NOT INVOLVE CHEATING AND METAGAMING!!!! the Challenge Rating system has rules for this established, it is EASY to increase the CR of an encounter! there are published optional rules that increase the game's difficulty in consistent and interesting ways, there are probably hundreds of different "house rules" systems shared in forums and threads all over the internet, and some of them have even been extensively tested. This DM must have either not known about any of these resources, which would mean they never actually read through the game manual or bothered to look for ways to make combat difficult, or it means that they were too lazy to look at any of these resources opting to just B.S. their crappy game mastering at the table and never gave the game mechanics a moments thought outside of gameplay.
If we assume that this story is accurate, and I've seen enough IRL crappy DM's to think that this story is entirely plausible, then I can only say that this person should never be allowed to DM again until they've read the game manual through cover to cover at least once.
For anyone wanting to avoid being this DM I suggest you:
1. Learn to separate what your NPC's know and what you know. If you can't do this then you'll never be able to create a believable world, you can still DM, but you shouldn't be doing homebrew until you're sure you're not going to be guilty of metagaming. Metagaming is frustrating when players do it, it's infinitely worse when the DM does it, and it's absolutely unforgivable when the DM does it just to make the PC's lives miserable!!!
2. The rules are important. Don't fudge dice roles, in fact, roll your dice on the table for everyone to see and encourage your players to do the same. Don't bend rules to make something you want to happen happen, don't EVER let the story be more important than the consequences of your players actions. Your goal should be to make sure everyone's choices matter and have rational consequences. It gives the world better immersion and automatically makes your players more invested for the simple reason that their actions visibly affect the world around them. This is the most important advice I give to DM's trying to get murderhobos to act like people. If you force their alignment to change because of their actions, if NPC anti-parties are formed to stop the psycho murderers (PC's) terrorizing the countryside, if paladin militias are called in to hunt your players down because they're destabilizing an area, if they get arrested and all their expensive gear and magical items get taken and they're forced to go to trial to stand accountable for their actions, then just about everyone with any attachment to their character is going to stop indiscriminately killing every PC they meet and start role-playing HARD to save their character's skin. It doesn't always work, in fact I think it really only works about 50% of the time, but it's the most successful murder hobo reform tool I've personally ever found.
and 3. Read and re-read the manual often. Every time you're going to DM a game, take an hour before the game starts, think about the mechanics you're likely to have to use, think of what mechanics you haven't read over in a while and re read those sections to make sure you can confidently know all the specifics of those mechanics. Then look for any mechanics you don't know at all and review them. And if you want to make things harder for your players then you should READ THE MANUAL, work to understand the CR system and how you can increase or decrease encounter difficulties in a way that is consistent and wont cheapen game play. If you want more interesting mechanics, do research out of game. Look online at forums and see what other people have tried, what they've liked, and what hasn't worked. And if you're going to change rules to make things harder or more interesting at the table then you had better damn well make sure you inform every single player at the table and get their consent BEFORE you start implementing those changes.
(Pant, pant, pant....)
...
...
Ok, rant over.
I gotta disagree on 2. Obviously that depends on the group and what you're doing, some groups might be so hardline ultra by the book that anything that is not written in the book is cheating and gets you thrown off the table. But here and there i can completely see a fudged dice roll be beneficial to the game. In the end DMing is about making sure everyone has fun. If you want a 100% by the book experience you can play a video game, they do that. And sometimes it CAN be more fun to do things a certain way. There are videos out there on youtube that talk about this at length. But in the end it always boils down to be REALLY sure that you want to do this, be REALLY sure that the outcome actually makes the game better, and be REALLY sure not to make it too obvious like the DM in this video did.
And i don't agree with the "you should always just roll open for everyone" at all because that's quite frankly a question of taste. Some people are so by the rules that they want to be absolutely sure nothing can ever be funny, other players would prefer to not see all the mechanications behind everything.
In the end, it's a simple matter of taste, but please stop pretending like your way is the only right way and everyone who does things differently is playing DnD wrong.
Subscribed! Your schannel is awesome! I have a great time listening to these stories, thanks.
I'm really enjoying the stories, and your voice is quite relaxing. Keep up the good job
Honestly I would be super stoked if my players came up with something that creative. Overall sounds like a newbie/young DM hopefully they learn from all the terrible terrible mistakes made in that campaign .
it's amazing how many DnD players don't seem to understand that it's a collaborative storytelling game.
A GM that metagames against the players is one who won''t admit they've been outwitted
Which is especially sad because the GM should secretly be rooting for the players
The difficulties should be there for the players to overcome and if it seems too easy, the only concern should be "did I make this so easy it was boring for them?"
If they only added a Giant Lobster, they wouldn’t be having that problem!!
Me: I want to protect you King CritCrab!
King CritCrab: my son, my planet, or me?
Me: Yes!
in 10th grade I took a creative writing course. My teacher offered us plenty of guidelines, but routinely said that good writing only has one rule "If you do something, have a reason for it."
If I was in this party, I would have immediately got up and left once the DM attacked the warlock
I love these stories because, even though they are about bad players or DMs, They give me great ideas for a campaign element. Like corrupt Paladins.
It sounds like a new GM. Remember back when I was just beginning I was much the same way. Hopefully he’s been able to gain some experience since then and honestly a few lessons in humility don’t go awry and I’ve had to receive them myself. while it’s not easy it’s something that looking back you’re grateful for
Me: :(
CritCrab: HEllo everybody
Me: :)
What the hell has this guy been playing if he thinks this is how JRPGs work?
To be fair, most JRPGs really don't allow you to spring plans or circumvent battle by planning ahead. Most videogames don't do that, that's kind of the point why we play DnD to begin with. Videogames simply can't posess the infinite possibilities that a human DM can react to at the spot. If the script says there is a boss battle there then there is a boss battle there. Period. And if the script says that the Boss goes first to do his scripted first attack then that's what happens, and no amount of planing will change that. That's why you don't model DnD campaigns after Video Games. The world, sure. A DnD campaign set in Hyrule sounds fun. Characters or certain mechanics, sure. But never try to rebuild your favorite game in DnD because that's not what DnD is for.
Thought crime is not allowed in this Session.
Dm : Big Brother
War is cheat
Freedom is railroad
Murderhobo is strength
Carry on comrade
Played a champions game where the GM threw an enemy against us that was only really susceptible to an effect that no one in our group was even capable of doing, his game ended immediately after session.
"recapture the feel of jrpgs"
Me: Huh... neat.
Me on the inside: *RED FLAG! RED FLAG!*
I would have to physically *try* with all my might to leave a character's backstory at two sentences
Fudging rolls has a time and place as a DM, but rule #1 is NEVER tell your players that you fudged the roll, even if it is to their advantage. Once you do that, it ruins the magic.
"The fight would be too easy" gee it's almost like the players took time to plan out the fight properly, why punish the players for engaging with your game and trying to think about it like a real situation? so dumb.
Because the DM wanted Dark Souls, and if the enemies can't kill you right away it's not Dark Souls.
I would be frustrated, if I wouldn't laugh so hard. The chase scene plays out like a Scooby Doo chase in my head and it's just so hilarious
The number 1 rule of DMing is “Always make crabs the good guys”
Only if you’re making a list of what not to do!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/TEutg24JCBU/v-deo.html
What's bizarre about all of this, to me, is that the DM wanted "challenging" combat, but then he removed all aspects of strategy on the part of the players, turning the whole thing into a game of chance. And then he flat-out cheated on dice rolls for the NPCs, so it's not even a game of random luck at that point. What was he even getting out of it? The satisfaction of pretending his numbers were higher?
baby crab way back in the day, you've come so far already
HAIL THE CRAB ARMY, WE SCUTTLE AS ONE 🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
We Lobster will destroy you and will forevermore reign supreme!! 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
The beginning scarily sounded like my own game as a dm, got really worried for a sec
Knights of pen and paper actually handled this type of situations flawlessly with their threat mechanic, attacks were randomized, but some abilities and items made it more or less likely to have an enemy attack specific characters,so, if you want to keep your cleric safe, best option is to keep that barbarian screaming for blood like there is no tomorrow...
Many other gamers find it unusual that our group has a member we call "The Bouncer". The ones that have had GM's like this never question why we have The Bouncer.
May I ask what "The Bouncer" does? Is it like a guy who gives a sort of test to see if they can dm reliably?
@@demonminer8093 No, that role falls usually to one of the old salts of the group, which is myself and one other. The Bouncer is just that, if a player's behavior just gets straight up intolerable, creepy, or hostile, he's the one that says "Alright, I'm showing you the door, c'mon." Ours is a 6'6 guy who's day job is being a Correctional Officer. He's only ever had to be The Bouncer once in several years of gaming.
this dm must be craig's long lost brother greg
Blood for the crab god
Well, the DM certainly got the "Go from point A to point B" aspect of JRPGs down.
Me hitting the subcribe button: i for one welcome our new crab overlords
5:50 *exists*
my mind: Scene under production
Me:
that Spanish guy laughing
Dear God I’m laughing so hard right now, literally called it as soon as I read the title. “So a murder hobo turned DM... oh I’ve got to see how this train wreck turns out.”
Holy sheez. No raid bullshit. 😍 The new plug is much less invasive to the video. Thanks crabbie!
Hey you're welcome! Thanks for the kind words!
I vow to devour crab kind.
As soon as the DM admits the enemies were surprised but ignores all of that because it would "make the fight too easy" is the moment I get up and walk away.
I always get nervous that one of my campaigns will show up on here
The DM wasn't playing by the rules. I've played lots of JRPGs. There's plenty of ways to adapt that to D&D. The fight with the Paladins should have been unwinnable from the start (maybe they were higher level than the church let on), but having some modicum of code, instead of killing the party, they throw them in jail. This would lead to an interaction with a prisoner in the same or a nearby cell or guard which would lead then to them escaping the dungeon/ town and heading off to find out how to beat these guys which would lead to more manageable fights, exploration, rumors of Mcguffins and hopefully a colorful cast of NPCs which may or may not contain a runaway price or princess. The Paladins might not even be the BBEG, but used it possessed by some force and beating them then draws the attention of the BBEG. Things look like they're going to hell, but not all hope is lost. If you can help your hidden monarch obtain their goals, you too will be able to deal a blow to the great evil... oh, and if you go on this side quest for someone's dog randomly, you'll probably get into a fight with a god or return with an unknown item that will aid you in time of need. That's how the JRPGs do.
I'm surprised no one threatened to drop
Player: 🤔
Dm: *No*
Barbarian: AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
Fighter: You're going down!
Enemy Paladin: Better stab that villager who just a second ago seemed like a fanatic convert!
I had a DM who punished us for thinking in a much different way. He had what he called "Plot Anvils". In short, if you took too long making a decision for his liking, he would move the scene forward without you, and you WOULD suffer for it. It seemed he wanted snap decisions so he could capitalize on any poor choices. He also loved giving decision-making privileges to a single player, and forbade outside advice. Got out of there fast. Newbie diechucker should NOT be asked to think fast AND alone.
700 away, you just gained a new sub, imma just side walk to another one of your vids right quick
This reminds me of a story my DM shared with me about his first DM for his Pathfinder group who was a Wargamer and wanted every encounter to be a combat scenario or end in one.
This made planning and role-playing to attempt to avoid combat useless since the DM would just throw any old reason in why the people they had convinced to help them/turn the other way then decided to just go "fuck it, roll initiative". From what i heard, he has not had any new players since.
This went from carefully planned ambush to "WTF are you doing?!" very quickly.
The foolish mortals laugh, but the Crab kingdom is growing stronger, and stronger! Soon we will raid the earth!
SOON
Not if we have something to say about it!!
-signed, The Dancing Lobster Resistance
m.ua-cam.com/video/qfpg-YoQj60/v-deo.html
That was a well thought out attack. The DM doesn't know how to DM.
DM: Its difficult
Players: Yes, but if we-
DM: Its difficult.