For the rule of cool situations just say "remember, everything you can do, the monsters can do too" and the laws of physics will suddenly become sacred.
or do it old school, let them roll and let them fail and look like a clown due to their low stats and equipment. the whole everyone gets a trophy mentality is really annoying imo especially with how all of the newer game rules gives so much leeway to do things easily, allowing homebrews or special exception shouldn't be a thing. if the players act stupid they should be punish for it and if the rules allows players to min max cheese they should also be allowed to do it. exceptions could be allowed for dramatic finishes but other then that no.
No, they'll nod their heads vigorously that it should definitely apply to the monsters also, so you let them do the thing. And then when a monster does the same thing, *then* the laws of physics are sacred....
Had someone who didn't heed that warning once. Next session the DM put us against a lone Lich straight outta Dragon Ball Z, floating around and kicking us in the face at stupid speeds while tossing energy orbs and beams everywhere. His phylactery was in the room, but fucker just tossed us around like dolls. Half of us were on our death saving throws when someone finally got it.
Can't speak for other games, but rule of cool in mine is usually a one off thing, and it's always a case of "I'll allow it if you roll high." Enemies can't do the same because it makes their power level too unpredictable: the players will assume that if one Lich can use an artifact to throw a dozen fireballs, then all enemy casters in general might do the same, and then the game basically grinds to a halt as they start planning for every easy fight with a Wizard like it was D-Day. It's better to make it clear that "cool" actions that are a bit too "out there" will have a price: in one case, I allowed something stupid because the group loved it, but wrote a story out of it by saying his god intervened, and now wants the favor returned lest the player be punished. As a result, most players control themselves, and the few that don't usually aren't social enough to last as part of a group.
We've banished hardcore physics discussions at our table, because one of our party members is so strictly "um actually" about physics that things hard coded into the games wouldn't be allowed... like giants and dragons lol We ended up getting in a heated debate about Enlarge :P
I give out Hero point to players that catch things in my Pathfinder2e campaign, regardless of who is the target/subject. Because it's a new system, we all need to chip in to get "good practices" in so that we don't learn to play with a ruleset where we just misunderstood something. Say you forget when you role to see if you can get rid of persistent effects. If you get it wrong one way or another you can essentially break the Alchemist class either way into mechanically unplayable or into superpowered.
Or voluntarily choose to embrace something to their character's disadvantage or possibly even mortal peril, because it fits the setting/theme/story/plot better than the more advantageous option.
yep... I remember the time I literally killed my character by reminding my gm that the enemy had advantage... about 20 minutes into the first session Xd
You say that but I had a Bard who tried to kill my character in the middle of a module that don't allow for *short* rests and they explicitly refused when the DM tried to bend the rules in their favor Reasoning: my character didn't worhip Bahamut. A god that the Bard hated vehemently.
To quote tv tropes on the rules lawyer: “Obnoxious Rules Lawyers manipulate the rules to give themselves advantages, Dumb Rules Lawyers will always insist on following the rules even when it's clear it won't work, while Helpful Rules Lawyers play by the rules even if that puts them at a disadvantage, and will even try to use their knowledge to help out someone else.”
It is not dumb to always follow the rules. Before we sit down at the table, we have entered an agreement. This are the rules (D&D5, pathfinder 1 or 2, deadlands, etc) and we will follow them. Like he says in his video, do not insult or dismiss people trying their best, to be fair and accurate. Rules & dice rolls ARE! When we sit down at the table we accept that. No matter what. Even if it means tpk. After the game, if something did not work, made people uncomfortable, created a problem, etc then you look for solutions or patches. But please, do not dismiss or insult those who make an effort to be as fair as posible.
@@Voroeg I think the situations where following the rules doesn't work is less when the group is about to tpk and more when you hit upon an edge case of the system where some rules interact in a weird way that breaks immersion. Like, I dunno, if you use Fireball underwater and instead of creating a steam explosion or fizzling out it just... keeps going, and everyone agrees that it's *really weird* for fireballs to work underwater. (I dunno if that's an actual situation you might encounter, but it's an example of rule boundary fuzziness) The point is that there are cases where the rules lead to unintended situations, and in those cases it's reasonable to decide to go the way that's more immersive and coherent, and if you stick to the rules 100% of the time you'll be the one arguing that the rules never *say* that water extinguishes fire.
Had a guy like that who didn't do that with his money and would ask that "How much money do I have?" in the middle of combat. pissing off the dm. He justified this by saying he was transferring is character from one digital sheet to another like from dndbeyond to reroll... in the middle of the game.
I would ask if I could roll to see on which tile I ended up on. Even if it hurts me, I have a chance at getting into a better position. (Blindly Teleporting a random direction and a random distance within 30 feet.) (or if your character knows they are in a 25 foot room then 15 foot teleport maybe.)
@@VoidplayLP Well, that's just hypocritical of you. Wanting to use an ability, that explicitly states that you must be able to see the target, as a means to escape a situation where you literally cannot see, and then expecting rules to be followed as written, when it is disadvantageous for you... See how you just made yourself a problem player, with that statement concerning the use of misty step? You fell right into one of Ben's sentences "Rules are for me to inflict upon others." Or "Rules are for everyone but me." You have to be careful making such a statement.
"You're the DM! You're meant to be keeping track of my HP and Spell slots as well!" Me, Looking down at the various HP trackers of multiple battle encounters, NPC notes, Dungeon notes, maps and encounter tables, monster statlines, and campaign notes, then back up to the cheeky fucker who thinks its also my job to keep his stuff in check *NOW LISTEN HERE, YOU LITTLE SHIT*
Honestly, I acidentily did this on my 1st character; but only for spell-slots, not H.P. however, it was only beacuse I didn't even understand what "spell-slots" were. I was used to using the term mana, or magic-points. Thus I thoguht my "spell-slots" were my "spells-known," and that I had infinite mana. I know better now thoguh. Spell slots are mana. Spells known is what I have in my spellbook. Spells prepaired, are what I can actually cast on command, provided I have the mana and spell components.
@@agsilverradio2225 If someone forgets or just is new. I'm always happy to help out, but if they comes out with "it's your job to do it!" they get no sympathy from this forever DM.
Ive been a DM for about 20 years, and my rule is what I call Macgyver: if you can reasonably argue something being plausible, and the table agrees, I'll allow it, and try to figure out the necessary buffs/debuffs/rolls required to make it happen. So, throwing a sword like a javelin. ...weird, but *technically* possible with a longsword, if you think about how theyre weighted. Okay, but you'll have a short range and damn high DC to actually make it work. And with something like Misty Step? Havent had that problem but Id be willing to at least hear the argument that "well I have seen the area moments before, it's only a few feet away, what about calling it a leap of faith?" Or people counter-arguing that if they do that there should be a chance for it to go horribly wrong, like teleport fused into the floor. Not to sound old but 'back in my day' DM was judge jury and executioner, period. DM was god. Willing to listen, but at the end of the day if DM says shut up you're wrong: then shut up you're wrong. *shrug* just my 2 cents on all this. Glad I havent had players as annoying as some of yours sound.
With the misty step thing i would probably say they decide how far they travel and i roll an 8 sided dice to see which direction they go in. Not ideal for the player but might be better then where they are now
See, this is how I believe dms should act with rules. Follow the rules when you can, if it’s not in the rules, provide a good enough argument and it’s legal. And if something in the rules is really stupid or not situationally appropriate, provide a *really* good argument and an exception might be made.
Why I think a DM should make it very clear that all homebrew rules/items are subject to change, good or bad, and they should have a discussion between sessions with the player if they think there needs to be some rebalancing.
I agree. I've accidentally given players way too powerful of items or abilities before. My way to fix that was to add abilities or increase stats on the things they fought, but that turned into so much work as a DM because I eventually had to homebrew practically everything they fought. Now I put much more thought into what few homebrew things I incorporate.
One of my rules as a DM is, "If a mistake is made before the end of someones turn, the dice are re rolled. Once the turn has ended, neither the player, or me, can go back to fix it." Overall, it balances out.
One Crazy Pig great rule, I’m gonna start using that. What I would do if there was an argument I would just say “role for it, if you get 123 we keep this rule if you get 456 we don’t” both ways work
@@violet3430 I prefer "GM is god" rule (also what One Crazy Pig said). GM is arbiter. He is always right. I once have player who was arguing with my over the bullshit. He shut up after he noticed that all monsters target only him. Because "why they couldn't do that"?
I've just had things retroactively heal or take extra damage without really telling the players. Since we're a group of one power gamer, three minmaxers ( four rules lawyers) and a spouse of one of the group, we occasionally have a discussion on the rules to make sure everyone is on board with whatever our current DM will be ruling by, whomever that is.
My DM just had a general rule of: Once the turn has ended, that's canon. Many a time us players have forgotten about some debilitation we had. Equally as many times, the DM has forgotten an entire mechanic of the boss he designed. We always just shrug it off and carry on cuz that's just easier to do.
Yeah my DM is like that too. If we forget a roll or buff, that’s on us. Equally if he forgets a mechanic or debuff, that’s on him. But once the turn has ended, that’s the canon. Funny situations though with it. We had a Druid try to deliver a finishing blow, but rolled out of turn order. It was actually my turn. So DM had me deliver the finishing blow as a monk. THEN he had the Druid cast the lightning spell that ended up hitting me. DM ruled that since the player had called for it during my turn, it counted as cannon and was part of my turn, but only after I had taken my action.
I mean, not really? Congress is more about 'does this serve the big corporations paying me to vote in their interest' then 'does this balance what people in my state need against what people in another state need'.
@@MarkoArillius Congress doesn't exclusively serve big corps. They just serve anyone who has the money to bribe them, whether that individual or group is a corporation or not.
So I think I get what the "I love dice rolling for stats but hate that it's random" guy means. And it's more that it's a bit *too* random. You might like the idea of a character that's strong in some things, and not in others, and to not know what those things will be before hand. But the problem is that rolling dice is truly random and not a normalized randomization of the average point buy. You can end up with a really dull "10,10,10,11,12,10" or something that just makes a really "bad" character with no strengths like a n"11,4,6,6,9,8". Not that those are necessarily bad to all players, and some might find a Normal McAverageson master of average stats or a useless-at-everything character to be an entertaining idea, but many would find that difficult to play or enjoy. I think some people appreciate the *idea* of randomizing their character just not being prepared to live with the full breadth of possibility that entails. Which really is kind of where 4d6 *drop** lowest came from in the first place. Problem with that is that you all too often don't get any weaknesses. Whenever I use that system as a player I've tended to roll high in most stats, and then ask the DM if I can self-nerf one stat to be like a 6 for the fun of it. *edited reroll to drop it was just a typo.
I mean depends how the rolling was done. I've always had (home) rules stating to Roll 4d6, subtract lowest value, then place stat where you want it. This allowed players to make the class they wanted, even if it's not as 'powerful' as they wanted. 4d6 reroll 1's is another option with similar although sometimes drastically different results. (depending if they drop lowest, or count all 4 dice allowing 24 in a stat, something so powerful that it can break the game, at least early on)
I've given up on rolling because I realised i was only rolling for that really high and really low score that point buy doesn't allow. So my new standard array is 8, 10, 11, 14, 16 so everyone gets a skill they're pretty bad at and one that they're great at no matter what.
@@xXKisskerXx Yeah but all you can really do is make numbers trend one way or another. 4d6 subtract lowest trends the numbers upwards which is good as you say to make the characters people want, but ive rolled ultra strong characters out of this and sometimes characters with no weaknesses at all and have found myself having to ask the DM if i can swap one of my 15s for a 7 or something just for some flavour. I get why it seems contradictory but I get the viewpoint. "True" randomness has become rarer and rarer all across game design because it's rarely consistently satisfying because it's... random. It's not consistently anything, lol. What people often want out of randomization is *variety* and *surprise* rather than actual randomization which can easily lead to neither of those things as often as it leads to both.
@Naren Gurrier-Jones In my current campaign, I had each player roll 4d6-drop1 for each stat in order, and then they got to decide among themselves who got which roll for each stat.
I think rolling for stats can lead to some interesting character concepts too. I was making a wizard and I ended up with an 8...So i decided to drop it into dex. Took the soldier background, and said that he had been a soldier, but in an attack a building he was in collapsed and crushed his leg. he was stuck there too long, so the clerics couldn't repair the damage... After that he decided to pursue magic. Boom. A wizard character that will die instantly because he has like 8 AC, but interesting as hell :P
I prefer point buy, last time I rolled, my stats were around 5,7,4,9,11,8. I was given the option of re-rolling and got worse. Once rolled 2 3's and an 18. Most of the time I couldnt imagine the character becoming an adventurer due to how crippled he is.
Lawful Good Rules Lawyer: Ensures that the group is playing by the rules, even when it goes against their favor. Lawful Evil Rules Lawyer: Ensures that the rules always benefit them and is otherwise perfectly happy to forget them when they don't. Chaotic Evil Rules Lawyer: Only brings up obscure rules or interactions when it's super inconvenient and severely interrupts the flow of gameplay. Chaotic Good Rules Lawyer: "There's only one rule - if you're having fun, rock on."
Also the True Neutral Lawyer from the plane of automatons that makes sure the dm's word is law and that all rules are followed, or at least acknowledged, at all times no matter what.
@@dddmemaybe I have one of those True Neutral Lawyers. Him actually playing the game really helps me as DM so I don't have to spend so much time on rules, and more on plot. Thanks Gabe :)
like the video says; it's bad when you have to make the decision on everything. the established rules are supposed to be guideline for allowing players to know how things work. if something odd happens, sure: rule 0 that.
@@Maibak3175 The DM still decides which rules go and which don't. If the player really dislikes the rules, they can tell the DM and other players to be on their way and find somewhere else to play.
Or when a DM keeps screwing up the game, they can be relieved by the group. The DM is just one player with a specific role and can be replaced. I have seen this happen and even voted them out for steering away from the game rules, fudging dice rolls, and creating BS monsters to name a few.
I'm studying in order to become a teacher and what's striking me now is the uncanny similarities between teaching a class and DMing. You have to prepare a lot for a session. Keep everyone on board and entertained. You've got all the answers (or most of them - let's keep it real. Who got ALL the answers?). And sometimes there is even homework the players have to do.
@@lennar2328 that's sort of why I think teachers should look into game design. sure, they can just say "screw it" and blame on their students for not engaging in class and performing poorly on exams but sometimes trying to help students to pay attention and testing them in a way that actually checks if they learned what you were trying to teach and not just exposing the subject and testing if they can answer X many questions on difficulty Y in Z minutes can be interesting
That can be the same issue when creating a house rule to "solve" an issue. You make a house rule to change something and find out it that it creates a few new problems. Then you try to "fix" those problems and end up creating more issues. Can be a vicious cycle if one is not careful.
We had a general Philosophy of "You live with your mistakes" That applied to everyone at the table DM or player. So there was an understanding that sometimes you might get an unnatural advantage and sometimes a disadvantage. I feel it help the group focus more on keeping track of stuff and letting each other know about rolls/buff/debuffs. It is IMO about finding the right group sometimes and slowly working your way through issues.
Being a first time player I can honestly admit that I was "that guy " because it was my first character and I didn't want to get hurt/lose my cool armor. I didn't realize that I was making the game not fun or unfair. But after the game was canceled and I wasn't invited for a new one, I started to question if I had done something wrong. It hit me hard. But I learned. And I'll never forget. Sometimes you have to learn how to play well with others, and sometimes you have to learn that the hard way. But I'm ready to try again. And I'm willing to be more of a team player. But honestly some people (like myself) just have to realize how they affect others in a game.
That's brave to admit, I've been "that guy" when it comes to wangrodding and blurring the line between character and player. I had one bad experience with getting so angry at another player character I wanted to push the player down the stairs on the way home. It made me double take on how I was allowing the game to anger me. Thankfully I've never been like that since, but it can take one bad experience to learn.
Good for you for realizing that. I run an online game and we have a couple of young players and they suffer from this as well as powergaming. I did too when I was their age. But like you said, you have to learn how to play well with others. It's annoying to have to teach that to (some) young players though.
it's always interested me how strongly some people's sense of empathy is vs how weak it is in others. do you generally have a hard time gauging how people feel around you, or how you make them feel? i have this theory that cheaters strongly tend to be low on the empathy spectrum, and the worst are just full blown undiagnosed sociopaths. for me such a thing is easy - i joined my first dnd group recently and we're all generous people and play well together, and it makes no sense to me how someone can not realize the negative effect they're having on others, particularly when they start to show outward signs of frustration which they almost certainly did.
Ok, if we admit to dnd sins, i will do it as well. My first (2 or 3) games i was making myself the main character of the story. Not that i didn't let anyone else talk, but i was like "What do you think of this druid?" in a way, as if they are my sidekicks. I got that what i was doing is wrong quickly enough, by myself. And after that i was only making characters that are fine to be a PART of a team.
I've gotten somewhat of a reputation in my group for being a rules purist. I routinely have to call out other players and tell them "hey, no, you can't do that". Most of it is because of the other players not being really that experienced, but I can see why it can be frustrating. We've got our Paladin who keeps forgetting that Divine Smite takes a spell slot, so after about seven rounds of combat I'm like "Um hey, how many spell slots you got left? Can you even cast Find Steed?" Or our rogue who thinks sneak attack is something you add to every attack, not just one attack. "No no, you've already used your sneak attack this round, you can't use it again." Or our fighter who can parry as a reaction. "You've already parried an attack, you can't take an opportunity attack because you parried." Recently some of the other players started telling me that I was kind of being a prick for doing so, because I never call myself out for messing up, so lately I've been saying things like "And since I already cast Zephyr Strike, I can't Hide as a bonus action, so I guess I'll just end my turn normally." They can be pretty chill sometimes though. Once we fought an armored bird creature as a bossfight. To keep it from flying, we paralyzed it with arrows and javelins dipped in potions, and then started going ham on it. Our GM forgot that paralyzed creatures take all melee hits as critical hits, and so when we figured this out we were like "oh crap, that thing should have been dead a long time ago." But I sorta just shrugged and said, "Well I guess it just had Adamantine armor on and we *just now* knocked it all off." And everyone was alright with that.
"you never call yourself out for messing up" if I know I'm making a mistake, I wouldn't call myself out for it because I wouldn't make the mistake I know is a mistake.
@@thekenyonsquad5672 That was the impression I got too. If OP knows the Fighter's rules, the Rogue's rules, and the Paladin's rules better than their players' then they probably know their own character's rules too. If I had to guess, they were mad OP was calling them out on being bad players and were grasping at straws to find something to throw back at them.
I'm very similar in the way I use rules. I don't expect other people to know all of the rules but I do expect them to follow them. People in my group used to think that I was just trying to nerf/ control them. That usually ends when they become my DM. Cause I'm the kind of person who, outside of the sessions, messages my DM about how my character's rules work. So that I know before the situation comes up.
I actually had a reverse christmas thing happen to me recently but it has a happy ending. An out of state friend of mine wanted to start dming his own game and had asked our online group to roll up level 7 characters and that we can have either two uncommon or one rare magic item. I decided to try out the paladdin class and to make myself extra smity I took the Sword of light as my rare item of choice. My dm didn't realize that a lot of rare items are a bit to powerfull for characters at level seven. He had asked me if I would be willing to nerf my sword with the promise he would buff it up as the story unfolded. I thought about it for a few minutes and came up with a very creative nerf for the sword. I flavored that my sword is ancient and the power source has broken over time/got lost/ ect. To activate it I have to be channeling divinity and if I rolled a critical hit I have to make a Con Saving throw (dc10). If I fail the saving throw I take 1d6 necrotic damage as the sword is pulling more power from me than my channel divinity can provide. My dm liked it a lot and even gave me a long sword +1 to use when not channeling.
I like the flexibility of that. Powerful but with sensible limitations so you only use it when you really need it. Plus it's got excellent dramatic potential. "I sacrifice the last of my strength to strike down the main villain" sort of thing.
@@sockmonkey6666 Right? Also I chose Heroism paladin and one of my Channel divinity options is landing crits on 19-20. So the con save should come up a bit more often than usual.
@@valensfdbn Oh but you really do. Don't get me wrong, it's not about ratting out an other player. I think the problems stems from people viewing the hobby as a competitive sport instead of a collaborative improv session. Sure if you are pointing out a co-player's mistake because you want to see him/her suffer then that's a problem. But I would argue that most people who do it aren't doing it for selfish reason and that really makes all the difference (at least to me). It is (or at least should be) about facilitating the rules to a point where everyone gets it so the sessions run smoother. You can't do that unless you make people aware of their mistakes. I would expect any player or DM who caught me in a mistake to tell me.
@@Micras08 same, if it stops having to look back and go "shit we did combat _and_ skills wrong for 3 hours oops" then I'm like, yea imma grab da rulez to go on the next one.
Rules Lawyer is to me : "I will argue whatever rules we have, to support my claim, and only my claim." usually the people who roll dice, and pick it up after and have a habit of "bad math"
Taken from my collection of House Rules: 23. Avatar the Last Rule Bender. Rule of Cool does exist, and your DM doesn’t want to constantly say no when you try something crazy. If a particularly important event or scene would be made way more satisfying with a rule-bending, you may do so, with your DM’s consent.. Pushing your abilities beyond their normally limits is very exhausting and dangerous, and requires taking levels of Exhaustion. Depending on the severity of the rule bending, your DM will inform you ahead of time if it will cost 1d4 points (Ex: Making a skill check you normally can’t because of proficiency restrictions, or getting a small modifier to the behavior of a cantrip or 1st level spell), 1d6 points (Ex: Making any skill check with advantage, or getting a substantial modifier to a higher level spell), or 2d4 points (Ex: Taking “Dying Actions”, Legendary Actions/Reactions, like blasting a villain with a 9th level spell after watching them murder your family and it was still the villains turn). You take the levels of exhaustion at the end of combat, or at the end of that scene. In any case, you may only use this feature once per play session.
What I particularly like about this is that, because exhaustion is so extreme. Players that use 'the rule of cool' to do more damage won't do so, because it's statistically a dumb thing to do that actually increases the risk of your character getting hurt.
When my dad was DM, every time we'd get off-track asking questions about the dice rolls or exact rules, he'd say something like, "The giant pauses while your characters argue with one another about something called a 'monster manual,' and he has no idea what you're talking about. His eyes begin to glaze over. Then, suddenly, he snaps out of it and swings the tree at you again..."
@@Zoomeep I can see both sides to it. You don't want to spend *too long* arguing over something, but at the same time you kinda want to an actual resolution. That second part can only be glossed over so many times, before it starts becoming a problem for the game as a whole.
@@InfernosReaper Same. If it seems to be a consistent problem (especially if it's a minor one) that keeps eating up large parts of time in the session, just state it for the players that if they waste everyone else's time arguing a rule for ten minutes, you will penalize them.
@@Zoomeep That's like the worst reading possible of that anecdote. The point is if you're spending so much time arguing about the rules, then you're not playing the game.
I'm glad I have the group I've got, we were in a pretty beefed up fight (I wanted them to lose an encounter for once, they did, not TPK they retreated like I hoped), the party Wizard went down, she had become a lich by this point and was going to come back, but after the encounter was long over, I was like "oh shit your a lich, you're immune to crits and at least 2 of those were", he shrugged it off saying he forgot about that too and said it was still a cool encounter and we'd deal with it when we went back for round 2. I've got a player that likes to nix a skill or feat here and there which is ok as long as everyone gets the option and he does in fact help them see if its good or bad ideas, he does like to min-max but having cross checked his stuff several times it's always completely within the RAW.
One time I was playing with a DM who changed her ruling mid-battle. She had let my druid escape from a Shambling Mound by casting Freedom of Movement on myself. However, after our Cleric got engulfed, she decided that being engulfed didn't count as a condition that FoM would work on. i was kind of miffed about that. Then I got the cleric out by casting Polymorph and turning him into a Tyrannosaurus, so all was well.
FOM for you OK, but that pretty much is how the shambling mound works and your FOM nerfed her mound, leaving her with a big pile of nothing as an encounter. She might not have made the right choice but I get her problem. You might need to run a few games to appreciate the DM view.
Having looked over FOM and the shambling mounds abilities. FOM states in the spell "The target can also spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has it grappled." While the Shambling mound grapples you and begins to engulf it blinds and restrains the target Engulfed creatures are still grappled.. FOM allows escape from grapple thus the engulf of the SM. Engulf is not a condition but an action that applies additional conditions to Grappled creatures. She technically made the wrong call rules as written but I understand her frustration at that spell basically nullifying the SM big action.
Shambling mound must hit twice with multiattack to auto-grapple a victim. Freedom of movement would allow the player to spend movement to escape the grapple. Engulf is NOT a grapple attack, but rather requires a grappled target to be a legal attack, and takes an action, so there is a window depending on initiative orders and surprise (although there is no "surprise round" a surprised character takes no action n the first round combat. The mound could potentially end up going before the grappled character in the initiative order, meaning they get engulfed before breaking free of the grapple) FOM states that all magical/spell caused movement penalties and restraints cause no issue for the recipient of the spell, and that they can escape grapples and restraints such as shackles. I would personally rule it that FOM would allow the character to escape BEFORE being engulfed, but not afterwards. The examples given give the impression to me that the spell is meant for escaping situations in which the character has the space and room to wriggle free. Magical spell effects slide off the character and the character is able to somehow effortlessly wriggle free of any restraints. When engulfed there is literally nowhere for the character to go. There would be no escape routes except brute force. It depends on how crazy you want to get with FOM's affect. If it was meant to allow them to move freely regardless if the level of retraint, then i think the spell would have said so plainly, rather than give out a few examples of rather minor mundane restraints. Personally i see it as mainly an answer to magical restraints, and most mundane restraints as a bonus, but with the exceptions of full body restraint (trapped in a rockslide, neck deep in rock, fully engulfed by a creature, swallowed by a creature etc) IDK, that's the problem (or advantage) of a lot of DnD 5e spells. They're quite vague on specifics. Whether that's purposefully done to allow greater freedom of play or whether its a side effect if the simolified system, i can't say. Either way, to me id say this is more if a case of DM's discretion than a black and white "ONLY ONE ANSWER"
I always thought Rules Lawyers were the people who tried to equivocate on RAW over its syntactical or lexical ambiguities; for example people arguing about what classifies as an "object" for the purpose of True Polymorph, or cheese regarding Simulacrum and True Polymorph, and every other way to abuse True Polymorph...
Just want to let you know that you’ve helped a group of 8 soldiers get into D&D and other rpg tabletop games. You’re videos are awesome man, keep it up ! 👍🏼
As a DM, any time "rules lawyering" begins to descend into pointless arguing I make a judgement call. I tell my players, "This is how it played out today. We can discuss the rule after the session and agree as a group how the rule will apply moving forward."
I do something similar at my table. If a rule takes longer than 5 minutes to look up and clarify, I make an ad hoc ruling for that situation, take a note on the rule, and we look it up after the encounter or after the session which ever is more feasible. Something else that works well with my group is that someone who is not involved in the scenario, will go look up the rule. My players started doing this themselves and it has greatly sped up game play.
"Those people" are the worst. I ran a group for my first time and everyone was new to the game. 1st session went great! 2nd session.... I found the rules lawyer. He went home, studied up before the next session, then proceeded to act like he knew everything. Then the hypocrisy. Then the "that's stupid, it should work like this". All for the benefit of his terribly stupid incredibly strong half-orc. Every time he missed, every time he was hit, every time the party was role-playing well. I believe people that HAVE to have it the way they want in order to have fun are just bad players and bad people in real life. If you're gonna play a game, look for the fun in failure. Don't be so self absorbed and actually embrace what the game is. Immersion at it's finest
That reminds me of when older children tell the younger kid what to say during play house... so did that as a kid. Most people in their 30’s should be able to allow others some sort of... autonomy?! Huh?!!!
I fallow simple rule in my games "GM is a god and rules are suggestions" (what is actually how RPG work). Yes, I would correct myself if at the time someone point my something I forget about, but I don't retcon game with few exceptions and if someone get divine inspiration of punishment, what ever. If I find that players lie to my about stuff then they are fucked and I make that clear beforehand. Always make clear beforehand what is prime rule of the game, so no one could justifiably complain about that. If they dislike door are open.
@@TheRezro your broken English (no offense intended) actually made this way more fun to read XD but I agree completely. Setting up expectations for your players is important for game cohesion.
Its the chance of failure that makes it exciting. If there was no danger or risk then it would be incredibly dull. Becoming a Mary sue is an easy trap to fall into but it's worth avoiding it. One of my best moments in D&D came with the one last chance to save my dying character. Nat 20 and he escaped with 1 HP. It was epic because had I failed that roll, he would have been dead and I'd have burned his character sheet. ( I'd keep a copy of course )
After playing Disco Elysium, I feel like I understand why Rules Lawyers exist. When failing a roll only results in your character getting hurt, or looking like a fool, it isn't fun some people (me). I realized when I entertained the idea of save scumming, that I was only doing that because I was trying to make the character an extension of myself; I wasn't enjoying how much 'I' was failing. After that realization, I decided to play the character in a way that was vastly different than my real life self, which started to make the game more fun for me. Still didn't enjoy bad rolls, but they were more tolerable now, even fun occasionally when they resulted in a unique story path
Is that Basic rule Number for every roleplaying Game ? Don't recreate yourself in a Setting ? I came to the Same conlusion as you Not because of Bad Rolls but because of roleplaying. It's easier to roleplay a Charackter which might nothing or only very little in Common with you.
That doesn’t really work for me. My characters are very different from myself frequently but it’s the character I want to be cool and capable, so when they mess something up and look stupid or incompetent-especially if it’s the thing that they are supposed to be good at-it makes it less fun for me because I am invested in who this character is and I want them to succeed.
Matthew Heinlen understandable, but the line is when a player's "wants" extends into breaking/derailing/cheating a game (which yes conveniently forgetting is cheating) or arguing rules for their PC's image and subsequent personal desires for success. It makes the player look incompetent, stupid or childish and it's not fun for anyone involved. At that point you may as well just write a book about how great this fictional character is, which will likely be a very boring book. This is why I can't stand wikis or meta gaming (and in decades past, physical strategy guides) in video games. If you can't do something without trying or thinking for yourself, what's the point? A normal difficulty win by your own means will always be more rewarding than a legendary/impossible win where a walk-through held your hand the entire way. Don't get me wrong if you're playing at higher levels, the proficiencies should be enough to prevent amateur mistakes, but if you start out with an infallible level of skill in anything, simply because it's "your thing you do good", you may as well remove that component completely from the game because without a chance to fail it may as well just not even be mentioned. To keep that as a gameplay mechanic (at 100% success 100% of the time) is just you going on a monologue about how great you are, or worse, expecting someone else to narrate and others to listen.
Patient Zero sure; I’m not saying I should have a 100% success rate or anything. Just that not making myself as a character has no bearing on how I feel about it.
Isn't that the _traditional_ roll-for-stats method? When Puffin said he only used 3 dice I found it weird, maybe that's from older editions but If I recall correctly in the player manual and DnD beyond the stats roll option describes exactly rolling 4d6 and taking away the lowest.
@@Xfushion2 4d6 drop lowest was standard in everything but 2nd edition. And frankly it was standard in 2nd edition as well in terms of game balance; if you look at NPCs, they had stats that were more in line with that method.
@Titanium Dragon To add on to that, 2e's default was 3d6 right down the line. The first roll was Strength, the second was Constitution, etc. Thing is, they also had every method under the sun as options in the PHB, as well.
"When you think about a lawyer...when people complain about lawyers; they [lawyers] are just saying whatever they have to say to get the thing that they want. They don't actually care about the rules at all." Best explanation ever.
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 But that is the thing. It is up to DM to decide if he would be strict or not. I personally don't mind if player simply prefer one style over another. I usually try balance things under group. Problem is that "lawyers" in most cases are simply those bad gamers, who don't actually care about the rules. They only complain to get advantage.
I mean, its a lawyers job to get the result their client wants. A lawyer who "does the right/moral" thing when it goes against what their client wants is a bad lawyer. A good person, but a bad lawyer.
I always establish in session zero, as foreverDM, that my word is law. if i say something its not to harm anyone in particular but so the game can continue with as few hitches as possible and i spend No time arguing with someone unless i made a mistake and multiple people agree, at which point we look up the rules and rectify it and i make a note about it so i don't make that mistake again. Homebrew is different because i made those rules and i sometimes change them, but ive never changed a rule mid game.
Late to the party. My simple rule when DMing is once the end of the round is reached no backises. That applies to me and the players. The players accept it because as I am running many things at once I sometimes forget that x monster didn't attack or use its special ability, while the players running just their character make fewer errors. Same applies to mistakes that benefit either side - catch it during the round or it is done. This becomes important when the consequence of an act only becomes apparent several rounds later. Best example was a monk who charged to attack a spellcaster at the rear of a melee not realizing that they would get trapped away from help when reinforcements arrived. "I wouldn't have done that if I couldn't escape". No, you did do it because you thought it was safe to do at the time.
I'm pretty lax about backsies, we all forget things in the heat of the moment, so if me or a player goes "shoot, that was supposed to be 5 more damage" then that's fine. But that monk player better be ready to run.
I always played end of the round, I always thought it was the rule for mistakes honestly. That only applies to mistakes, not actions that were a bad idea or you change your mind. That's a big NOPE however soon it is unless it's before you've actually done it.
@@kendrajade6688 No, once you take your hand off it you can't move it is correct. As in, you can't change your mind, as long as you hold the piece you can move it to a potential space and look, then change your mind and put it somewhere else, but as soon as you let go, that's your move.
Chase Gamer The rules lawyers didn’t have enough money to pay for their education! They’re now in crippling student loan debt. Just send a collector. Easy.
"I like rolling for stats but hate that it's random" can be directly transliterate as "I like rolling for stats and getting super lucky rolls compared to everyone else. Otherwise it sucks"
Honestly, anyone who doesn't roll great on their random stat rolls is going to feel like trash compared to anyone who got better rolls. In fact, this was a real problem back in 2nd edition: you literally can't play certain classes without good rolls, due to prerequisites, and many of those prereqs were high scores. For that and many other reasons, it's just helpful to use Point Buy. It gives players more agency over their character's performance.
"Hey DM, could we try my buddy's 'All 18's' system?" I like a system that allows stat increases during the course of level progression, like 5e. It makes the lower rolls more palatable since you know you can nudge them back into range if they truly become a problem (which they usually won't, unless you dumped CON). Though in my 5e campaign I allow 1 bump every 2 levels instead of 2 every 4, just to spread it out more evenly.
@@SomeUA-camTraveler That actually started in 3rd edition, and it was actually pretty revolutionary for D&D: beforehand, magic items were the only method of stat-boosting once your character started play at level 1. And you are correct that it definitely reduces the need for stellar stats early on. Spellcasters do need high stats to access their highest level magic, but with level-based stat increase, they can honestly get by with, say, a 16 (possibly even a 15) in their primary stat at character creation.
@@Eisfalken Exactly... you'll get there eventually! It even makes it feel like your character is increasing in power, instead of just "starting off bad." What's your stance on stat caps in 5e? I get why they're there (balance and reducing samey-ness), but it just doesn't sit right with me that an elf and a dwarf could potentially cap off at the same Dex. I always rule that any racial stat boosts also increase your cap, and then I come up with other incentives for having players make characters outside the typical archetypes.
OBJECTION ! My client pleads that ruling Magical North Korea was an acquired right from the DM. Furthermore, Mr Abserd wishes to exercise his right to make Flatch Kriga exclusively distributed by Otterton Fisheries LLC. Please refer to the Most Favored Otter law of international commerce for clarification.
@@alexross1816 Your honor, Mr Whimsy is clearly biased in his testimony. As these pictures demonstrate, he has often consorted with malicious flora. Specifically a most beligerant individual this court banished to...to...the realm of El-Aye ! *collective gasp*
@@KaiserAfini I wish to point out your honor, that this client, as shown in these documents, has had known relationships with the very group responsible for instigating the aforementioned banishment of that belligerent individual and it is suspected based on this evidence that they had...a relationship, with a planned getaway to that very realm! This very courtroom and trial could be part of his plans to return at any moment. With such dire consequences, should we be focusing on such a lesser matter!?
@@KaiserAfini Very well you honour in this case I would like to call a surprise witness to the stad. One who is known for their bravery and integrity. I call forth the man, the myth, the legend that is The Hero of Parnast
either that or a no-way street it gets easier when the rule of cool thing isn't persistent , isn't heavily mechanical or isn't already ruled clearly by the book but this is why we need a DM, so we can have things that rules alone can't make
I'm fine with rolling 3d6, just so long as we can put our rolls in the stat of our choice. Putting the first roll in Strength, then Dex, etc. is a recipe for misery.
I always used the one my very first dm used. Which is 6d6 take the highest three rolls and you get one free eighteen. I've still had characters that the highest stat outside the eighteen is a twelve. But I enjoy it because it creates a slightly stronger pc which means I as a DM can make stronger encounters without worrying about a tpk at lower levels
Ya know what is even more painful? Random rolls. Random assignment of stats from said rolls. AND THEN being assigned a random class after that. All the players agreed to that. I tell you it is panful to have a cleric with a wisdom of 11. LOL But then I had no one to blame because I agreed to the wacko concept. There was one guy that was fighter and had a negative mod for constitution. OUCH!
Nope. It was a campaign. What made it even worse was we played the parts. I was a half-orc that was a cleric of Gruumsh (random race). There were a couple of elves in the party. Gruumsh no likie elves but some how we came together. One of the elf boy and I played up the orcs and elves as enemies. Surprisingly we lasted till like 6th level even though the racism mostly split the party. It does get better, after the tpk, the DM gave permission to roll up and assign stats the way we wanted. I think the DM took pity and allow group cohesion.
Man, I've been trying to remember the name of that RPG! I wanted to check it out, and couldn't remember it. I thought it was a weird and interesting system, and was sad I couldn't watch the video again.
Honestly, I use the term Rules Lawyer in the same way you do: it's someone who will use, abuse, or ignore the rules as it benefits them. I guess I can see where that other definition is coming from, but the sleazy definition fits the term so much better in my book.
A very selfish rules lawyer is incredibly toxic. However, a positive form of rules lawyering is the Encyclopedia of the rules that the DM can refer to when they don't know and don't want to make a call that already has established Sage Advice or PHB reference.
@@gavir4379 yeah, it's like asking someone you know who have knowledge in say tech/it when you are having trouble with your computer instead of going to the tech shop.
Rules lawyering is fine as long as you remember 2 very important facts: 1) The D&D books are a guide and can be altered to fit the world. 2) (Rules lawyer arguing back and forth with the DM). DM: "You see a large mountain floating over your head. Slowly, lights flare along the bottom of the mountain. In common it reads out, "Don't f♡@k with the DM."
I recently started a campaign in which my friend was the DM, and I was a fan of what he did to avoid rule lawyering. Before our session 0, he typed up a document listing how the rules of our campaign were gonna work, which rules stayed the same and which he homebrewed, and posted it in our discord server. Then he gathered us in the vc to go over it and explain things. All of us players then understood what we were getting into, proceeding to make characters and start the campaign. This level of clarity from the DM can help to mitigate rules lawyering, but at the end of the day, those who really just enjoy playing the game will be willing to adhere to the DM’s rules, provided they aren’t too far removed from the base game.
i mean normally you'd think that'd do it all, but for some players they want to play and still have it their way anyway, i have personally done a similar thing, trying to run a campaign, but 2 of the players kinda ended up ruining the experience for everyone, and made it kinda just unplayable to a point.
Maaaan, I have a lawyer in my group. He is constantly arguing about some rules - all he considers is his own gain. His latest proposal was - I want to be able to kill someone with one blow if I roll high enough stealth or the person is sleeping. In order to avoid combat. He was really pissed that I was not allowing "such a cool RP moment". He plays a monk, not even assassin. Their half-assed attempt at infiltration has gone awry and suddenly he was like - well, I want to hit this berserker from behind and since he hadn't notice me I think I should be able to drop him in one hit. WHAT?! He was totally cool, said it should be a blanket house rule. I was like - ok, than monsters would be able to kill you in one blow also. And suddenly it was unfair.
Well, to be fair, on the specific point, and ONLY that, of the "sleeping enemy insta kill" I actually agree, usually when you're fighting someone to death you will always aim for the neck or similar deadly spot, but even if you land the attack the enemy still avoided it to some extent so that instead of the neck it got hit on the shoulder or something. But a sleeping foe won't do that, obviously, so it should be hitkill. And obviously again, the monsters would be able to as well
That's not even a rules lawyer, really. All he's done is suggest his own rules and try to enforce them; there's no actual precedence within the existing ruleset (and, indeed, a lot of things that outright contradict him) to justify this change. A rules lawyer is someone who argues for specific rulings based on their own (relatively) comprehensive knowledge of the ruleset (house-ruled or otherwise), whether that be for their own advantage, or to maintain consistency within the mechanical game. For me personally, I really enjoy finding legal, internally consistent means of doing a lot of fun, unconventional stuff like casting Dominate Beast on a polymorphed/wildshaped enemy or attacking myself on my turn to trigger Misty Escape before to avoid taking a much bigger, deadlier hit from the demon on my heels. In general, I tend to be the planner because I like using all of the party's abilities to the fullest possible extent.
My group understands the golden rule, "The DM is always right". And thankfully, regardless of which of us is the DM at that time understands that rules are there to guild fun gameplay, not get in the way of it.
As a long time GM, here's what I found helpful: • Just call the shots and find ways to collaborate to make it fun. • If a player is consistently annoying, set them aside after game and make it feel collaborative. Like saying, "I'll run things how I have them for the pacing, but if you have a couple notes for me, I'll see how I can make it fun for everyone". • I play with a lot of story-focused or friendly players from theatre, improv, marginalized peoples, or larp groups. • Using games that aren't D&D. Sooooooooo many games are as fun or more but easier to learn for everyone
I'm in the same camp as your regarding other systems (your last point), but recently I discussed running some Dungeon World or FATE with a new group and a lot of the newer players were actually afraid of not having enough rules to use as a safety net. So I guess my point is that you need to consider WHY you recommend more rules-light systems before you recommend them. Luckily we had a good talk and it seems like people are willing to give it a shot. I'm sure it's going to be fine, they are way better at improv than they give themselves credit for and I think they'll find that it's easier to get the scene you want if you don't have to read spell-cards in fine print before you declare what you are going to do :P So my take away from that experience was this: - Some players need (or think they need) some kind of structure more than others. - BUT, using concrete examples of when the rules got in the way of their character concept in more rules-heavy systems is a good way of turning them on to more rules-lite systems :)
@@Micras08 I really think the reason players fear playing more ttrpgs and trying out other ttrpgs is because D&D, despite overwhelming popularity, is needlessly complex and deep. Ryuutama, Dungeon World, and Fate I found to be incredible experieces for new players, and then if the GM is comfy, a hack or homebrew power per player really helps them feel like they're playing something unique and easy.
That last point. I've played D&D for over 20 years, but recently I feel like part of the problem IS the game - and how complicated it still is, despite 5e. I've recently purchased ICRPG and am really considering switching, even after all this time.
@@wanderinghistorian yeah it's ridiculous. For the three systems I mentioned, I can teach all the needed rules in like 10 minutes, or even less if they've played D&D before. And so customizable and simple if wanting to hack. Balance is also way easier so min-max/rules lawyer/power gaming is a lot harde to pull off.
It doesnt necessarily mean that. My problem with random roles is that it doesnt feel good when some characters have a low role while others have a high role in the same game.
@@Berethgor I saw a stat generation system recently you might like. Roll 6 six sided dice in order. labeled A B C D E F; your stats are calculated as thus: 13+A-B, 13+B-C, 13+C-D, 13+D-E, 13+E-F, 13+F-A. this gives 8-18 average 13, similar to roll 4 six sided dice drop the lowest. If you want something closer to 3 six sided dice use a 11 instead of a 13 and use 6 eight sided dice instead of six sided dice for 4-18 average 11. the number added to the dice is your average stat value and dice size determine the level of variance. You can even roll this once and use the result as a stat array for all the players.
@@Berethgor That's why rolling for stats is bad and I've banned it from my games. I had considerable problems with one group where a couple players rolled a string of 18's and everyone else at the table rolled crap, it basically ruined the whole group for everyone except for the couple guys that got lucky and I'm never allowing that to happen again.
Thanks for this! I'm a noob and am trying to watch out for things that I should avoid falling into... This is a good video for me to watch and know what NOT to do when it comes to "bending" rules or even when to approach my DM for things like that. At the moment I just kinda let everything roll. If we screwed up, we write it into the RP in some way and if there's something that happens shortly down the line that's detrimental BECAUSE of the screw up prior- I'll ask for some help from the DM and we'll make a small bend back in a positive direction.
6:23 the rule of cool states that it’s fine as long as it doesn’t give you an advantage mechanily your players really are bad for trying to use the rule of cool to gain advantage
The rule of cool states that it's fine to bend the rules a bit to do something cool. That does in many cases give small advantages. It just should not allow to ignore the rules alltogether.
I've never seen anyone call for the rule of cool unless it mechanically advantaged them. The DM hardly says no to cool things that don't have mechanical effects. That would just be stupid.
lol. One of my friends is always getting cucked by RNGesus. That's why in my game where's he's playing a halfling arcanist, I put out the rule "Roll for HP, but if you roll below average, take average." Don't want to have a level 10 character with only 10 HP. :P
@@meris8486 I am to an extent guilty of this. I like rolling for stats and random and I can deal with below average stats. However, if I get like a 7 and a 5 in two of my six stats, I fell bad about it. Also I don't like rolling for HP. I would rather take fixed HP or average HP than risk rolling 1s for HP gains.
I think we can all agree that a player that's considered a " rules lawyer" in D&D at least is the person who only brings up the rules when it is advantageous to them or their party, or a person who is just using rules to screw with other people. The person who wants to follow the rules no matter if it benefits them or not is more a " rules stickler", which depending on the group can be ok or not. This is how AD&D 2nd ed described a" rules lawyer", and I agree completely. Players should be diligent on keeping track of effects/ modifiers/ spell slots/ etc, the DM has enough to worry about . This can lead to dishonesty sure but if you have to cheat to enjoy the game your not doing anyone any favors playing with honest people. Sure I have had crap rolls that if I would have lied about something my character would have lived but D&D is supposed to be brutal ( at least the version I grew up on), that's the game and it makes the times you do pull amazing things off that much more cool when played honestly. Hell if you die honestly at least you have a good story to possibly remember, and if your really attached to your hero a lot of times your DM will bend the rules a bit to make sure your character is not gone forever. If something like a bonus or penalty is honestly missed and a couple rounds later it is discovered the best thing to do is just play through it IMO. There are exceptions I guess but like Ben said in the video if you wouldn't want to redo the rolls if something bad would possibly be the result then you shouldn't expect a redo.
I run my tables on one simple rule concerning "false" rolls: "What's done is done, if the dice fell, none of you corrected me and I narrated the outcome, that's the state of the world and if you want to change things retroactively, you better start collecting those dragon balls."
My group used to call this "Scooter Ladders." They had a guy (Scooter) that would stack up old calls, rules interpretations, situational advantages, and just try to nuke the game. So whenever someone tried doing mental gymnastics they would say "Stop building a Scooter ladder!"
I appreciate your insights. As a DM, I actually really appreciate it when players don't want their characters to get hurt. It shows the players care about their characters. I usually have a mechanic in my games where some characters can be resurrected at least once. Either one NPC friendly to the party has a resurrection spell scroll, or the friendly priest is a secret Deva, etc. So if a player has a character they love and they don't want them to get hurt, I give them inspiration for following the rules and ask them if they want their character to be resurrected or if they came up with a cooler character. Really cuts down on rules lawyering in my games.
Honestly, I really liked the old video, because it talked about how there are two types of rules lawyers: Those that just want to make sure the rules are followed (which is my kind), and those that only want to use them to their advantage (what I am sometimes confused for). I like being able to point to that when the topic comes up. You might not like the video, but I still request its return. Please?
When I did a lot of Dm'ing, I was almost always willing to work with players because I was lucky and had players who were very consistent. Also, most of them were new and looked to me to kind of set how flexible they could reasonably expect situations to play out. And like I said, since many were new, I let them have more rules of cool that I'd normally allow just because they were really getting into the game, adding extra flair other than roll to hit, you hit, roll for damage, etc. I would try and describe how the player's attack and the enemy's response would play out. Stuff like: You just barely missed the AC so as your blade arcs through the air, the enemy shifts their position causing your blade's swing to impact with more weakness than you expected. The smooth metal pauldron deflects your blow away and the enemy looks no worse for wear. Or if they overkilled an enemy by a lot, I'd tell them that their underhanded greatsword swing bit into the body of the "insert enemy here" with a wet and meaty noise. Your swing was so devastating to your opponent that your greatsword continued slicing through the enemy's body, nearly cutting them in two. They have little time to even scream, let alone react, as their blood pours over your sword. One time a player asked if their greatsword had gotten stuck in the enemy and I had determined that no, it wasn't stuck, she'd be able to free the blade fairly easily. She asked if she could do the thing where she places her boot on the body and just 'mighty boots' the enemy off their blade. I say 'absolutely'. They're getting into the game, if people want to be more descriptive and really let their imagination go wild, awesome. As long as we can maintain our pace. She then said after she kicked the body off the blade that she let out a scream of triumph since it was a significant character moment as though her character was strong, they were also a bit afraid to be in a real battle where they could die. This scream signaled that she'd gotten over her reservations and was fully committed. I asked her to roll a d20 and decided to play off the rule of cool and make it so that her triumph inspired her allies, so everyone's next attack would benefit from Inspiration. That was a great group. Large, but great. I'm wondering if the player who said they liked rolling but disliked the randomness was maybe referring to that with the pure randomness, you can end up with an extremely weak character. So I usually had a couple bad luck counters for when rolling for stats as many liked rolling as it usually made for more unique characters than a point buy system. My anti-bad luck was if you roll 6-8, just auto reroll unless they wanted to keep it for an RP purpose which happened sometimes. And when rolling, the two crappiest rolls, roll again and pick which ever result you want. So the occasional 16-18 in stats, a ton of 14s-10s, and you know all the rest. We did have one person who had a wisdom of six once. That was pretty funny. Absolutely NO common sense. Almost a perfect representation of an absent minded expert.
NOBILIS! That was it! God, I couldn't for the life of me remember what that game was called and after combing through this channel's archive I realised you took the video on it down.
I completely agree. I remember the previous rules-lawyering video and appreciate that you have adapted to a less combative style for this topic. When rules are concerned, they are around for everyone to adhere to, generally speaking. Whatever the rules are, they should be adhered to consistently and equitably. I personally like the official rules of 5e. But if everyone in the group wants a different rule set, that's fine. Just administer the rules consistently. Your example about rolling for stats is spot on. "I love rolling for stats, but hate the randomness".
Good take on rules lawyers. Typically the ones I run into in the groups I've ran are the ones who try to take advantage of the rules or pick and choose which ones apply, and yeah that gets old really quickly.
I'd like a playlist of all removed videos. The original Devil's Gold video (the one without animation) had significantly better vocal delivery. At least if I remember correctly. I can't go back and check. Hint hint.
I also liked the original Devil's Gold / Weird West video. Some of the jokes were set up better or delivered better. For example, the "if he rolled a 1 on a blah-sided die" joke. Far better delivery originally. (Also, originally it was an 8-sided die, but now it's 6-sided?!? Unacceptable! :P )
Good one PF! I like it when there's that one player in the group who is the rules lawyer. I know that the term "rules lawyer" probably has more negative connotations than good ones and it's really all about how it's done and how consistent it's done as you stated. Really running the game, while the DM is in charge of it, takes the players as well.
I would like to thank you a ton for this video. Through most of my RPG career, I have had a good deal of experiences about me being called a rules lawyer/focusing on the rules to much, etc. So I had forced myself to stop doing it since it annoyed the others, slowed down the game or what else they had as a complaint. But, there would be times where others would throw the rules around, call out my choices as "bad" or "this is better".. It was really confusing to me for a long time, and I never got around to understand "what am I doing wrong?". So again, thank you.
As a DM myself, although only a novice, we have our own rules lawyer: my brother. My brother is one of those people who think that "If it's in the book, you have to follow the rule", which I'm totally fine with, unless the book describes it as a SUGGESTION. It doesn't help that he's literally read all the book. My rule for this is "If you can can explain to me what you want/what you're doing in a way that makes sense to me, I'll allow it". This doesn't always go far, though For example, for his character, he wanted a particular Weapon. In one of the books, it was comparable to another weapon, but it was for flavor. I didn't agree that the weapon he wanted did as much damage as what the book was comparing it to. I told him, "It doesn't make sense for the damage to be that high because of how each weapon does its damage". The only argument he had was that "it was aesthetic", which, for this discussion, wasn't enough for me. I had no problem with him having the weapon, but he would have to explain to me exactly how he wanted it, and then I would determine the damage. It turned into a shouting match. I don't have a problem with rules lawyers. My problem is when they try to argue about something that the DM doesn't agree with and is changing
I can see your point, but the weapon thing just sounds petty. "I want to have a katana, it's the exact same thing as a longsword, but I call it a katana." "Acthttually, katanas are sharper and lighter and made of inferior metal so it should be something closer to a short sword in damage." "Why do you care, it's a longsword in every way that matters. If I wanted a longsword you wouldn't be complaining about it so why are you doing so just because I'm calling it by a different name?" "Because that's what I think katanas should be like, even though you could have a regular longsword and it wouldn't change the game in any way whatsoever." ...or something like that. At least that's the way it sounds to me.
I can absolutely understand that. The line between causing trouble and airing a grievance is thin sometimes. For this particular situation, I'm assuming the type of weapon he wanted required a feat or proficiency that he didn't have. If he just wanted it for the aesthetics you could've made it a hybrid weapon with the stats of a weapon he could wield. For example, if I had a player that was a wizard that wanted to use a scythe, I could theoretically allow him to stat it as a staff with slashing damage. Of course it is fully within your right to just refuse and tell him to get proficiency with it if he wants it so badly. By contrast, sometimes players get screwed by their GM/DM because it's believed the rules as written are too powerful. I was in a pathfinder RP once where a player was an Aasimar cavalier. His racial heritage gave him wings, and his archetype gave him a ship instead of a mount. The GM thought that was all too OP, so they had him start without his ship and his wings were so damaged he couldn't fly. This was technically within his rights as a GM/DM... but it left the player without core class features and a distinguishing racial bonus. I don't think it was a coincidence that the player only played for one session before leaving.
@@armaggedon390 if someone did the whole katana/longsword argument. I wouldn't go into damage due to materials (cause they both do a lot of damage irl, and wouldn't want to get hit by either). I would go to the exotic weapons section of the book and get the stats for the katana, and tell him that if he really wants to use it without penalties then he should get exotic weapons proficiency feats. If it isn't in the 4th or 5th edition books then look in 3.5, and work from there.
Tell him to draw his character with a katana if he is so pressed about it, girl, like there isn’t a limit on his imagination outside the game. But, also, he is your brother so sometimes that gets in the way of being rational.
"I like dice rolling, but it's too random" Someone slap this player. I am happy with my current 8 Str, 10 Con Halfling Wizard. I am scared for my life with my 5 HP, and having NO attack spells wee~~~~
I mean. It's pretty easy to roll up a spellcaster. You only need one good stat realistically. But say. For something like a monk. You need like 3, sometimes 4. Of course you'd be having fun if you rolled a bunch of low stats with one high one if you already wanted to play a spellcaster but if say just as an example, you always play spellcasters and you decide "I wanna play something simpler this time" and roll with the intention of playing a fighter but now you have to pick between having either no Con or no Str. I don't think that's very fun.
Wow 700k Congrats puffin I stopped watching you for a little while once I started to play dnd less and I'm pretty sure you were at 300k or 400k at the time Your channel has really grown I'm happy for you
This is actually really good timing for me, just had a session with my party today. I'm very new to DMing, in fact this was only our second meet but somebody was (granted indirectly) rules lawyering (they've only played twice whereas I've had quite a bit of experience) and it caused a lot of bad anxiety for me. I'm not very confident in my DMing yet, and I worked very hard to set up an encounter but it was the little things like how to cast spells correctly or, for instance, distancing from enemies and a lot of general pushing and it just really hit hard for me. I ended up closing the session mid-encounter because I was frustrated, but thank you for this video. It did give me a new perspective on the situation, and I'll definitely try a little harder next time with compromising and having that needed confidence to communicate with the players.
As the DM, you have control of the pacing of the game. If you ever get frustrated, never be afraid to slow down or stop and think. Yes, it will break the flow of the game, but the flow of the game is nothing compared to your own enjoyment of the game. Take it slowly, look up the rules if you must and work on remembering from the top of you head over time.
Hi Blue Jayyy. I think a lot of new DMs get flustered by trying to follow "The rules" or "The adventure". It's a lot easier to remember you aren't a robot, you're a game designer. Remember, enemies don't have to follow any rules but what you say (as every enemy can be designed its own way with special abilities). Your magical effects can work however you say they do. The rules exist to serve your game, not the other way around, and anything can be a special case while still technically honoring the rule itself. Just focus on giving your players a great time and getting them curious about what's going on in your adventures, what might be behind the next door. I never use monster manuals for this reason. It's much easier just to invent cool stuff for monsters to do.
You'll find your footing soon! My group has a lot of new players (only playing for a few months to a year, where I've been playing for almost a decade), and some of them have taken up DMing one shots when I'm not DMing our usual campaign. I constantly want to butt in with the way I DM, but I hold back because not every DM wants to use the rules the way I do. Sometimes, I'll have something I want to do as a player be shut down where I wouldve allowed it, and I just gotta roll with the punches. Don't use this as a way to punish or railroad your players, but do remember you are running the game. Your word is final, and if people want to argue, you've got every right to end the session. The confidence to do this comes with time and experience. Just keep toying around with it. I'm sure you're doing a great job regardless!
I suggest looking up Matt Colville's "Running the Game" series. It's a detailed, still-running series about _D&D_ 5e targeted at new Dungeon Masters, focusing on, among other things, how easy it can be as well as common pitfalls and how to avoid them. It did a lot to help my confidence just to run a module and I feel like, in time, I can start writing my own content.
@7:47, During character creation in a 3.0 Game I asked the DM "How do you want to roll Stats?" "It doesn't matter" was his answer I started rolling 3D20's :)
Glad to see this, still miss the old video. The example of the monk wanting his attack of opportunity when fully restrained was good one. I liked how you explained the traditional (stickler) vs lawyer in the old video with the animations. Keep up the good work!
The best game ever seen in my days was when my friend told another group, "You guys should roll 3d6, no assigning where the rolls go", so you had folks rolling straight down the stat block, and the folks who had decent rogue stats ended up being halfling thieves with "Cheese x2 Wheels" and "Bread x2 Loafs" on their inventory, because pretty much everyone was "basic" and so they were less heroic heroes and more some local do-gooders who brought lunch with them while they cleared out rats from a local cave.
3d6 going down the stats is a fun way to make a character you wouldn't have thought about, if everyone does it in a group it can be a great experience and really adds to the randomness that creates the need to really think about character
The way I see it is simple: "What is the best call a DM can do to ensure EVERYONE has fun?" Honestly? Homebrew is probably appropriate if you're trying to mimic something for the sake of a theme (For example: A "My Hero Academia" campaign where everyone has by default amazing dexterity and strength by default). However, I generally push for basic rules as a go-to, provided it ensures the most people at the table can have fun. IF there's ever a situation where a rule will cause absolute unavoidable mayhem, OR if a rule is abused by someone who uses it to take advantage of the group (and as a result their fun), then it's the DM's responsibility to step in and make fair calls to mitigate the situation, and to ultimately bring the game back to a state where the most people can have fun again. I personally hate, HATE, people who try to pull some tom-foolery by manipulating rules, race bonuses, situations, etc, so that they create a totally broken character which thanks to its existence removes the fun from everyone else. Yes we're all impressed with your character building skills, fake stellar rolls, and knack to avoid consequences by bringing up (or outright lying about) some arbitrary abstract rules...but that doesn't do the GROUP any bit of good when you're screwing up the campaign. A DM's job is not only to orchestrate fun, but also mitigate unfun.
"the best call a DM can do to ensure EVERYONE has fun?" Yeah it's an important question to ask yourself, often before starting a session I say "Is everyone ready to have fun?" I think it puts people in a good frame of mind for the game. But players are unpredictable and sometimes uncommunicative. There's a reason plot hooks are called hooks the players may ignore them like a fish ignores bait. You have to work on figuring out what they'll be interested in, sometimes that one throwaway merchant who you gave an Irish accent will become enrapturing for them. They want to learn about his long lost Goblin son who he disowned and wish he could reunite with them to reconcile. All hastily improvised as you expected them to just dump their junk on him.
"Those rules lawyers", at least in my experience, are the ones who *just so happen to forget* something that would put them at a disadvantage, but suddenly it's the most important thing in the world and it can't be ignored if that same thing happens to a monster ar a random enemy. Personally, I'm a min-maxer myself. I just can't help it. When we're arguing about what system to use for something, of course I'm going to argue for the one that would help me. But the thing is, I am the DM in our current adventure, so when a system argument comes up, I let my players decide on a system, offering my advice in the middle, and make sure I use it for the monsters as well.
I know where you're coming from as I sit both sides of the screen myself. I might be a min-maxer at heart, but my DMing time has taught me I should put my time into polishing turds to maintain party balance. It has also taught my groups to not leave me alone with the splat books for any extended period of time ;)
I'm a firm believer that if the DM and group want to change a rule for a home game, then the newly adapted rule stands, and it is always applied, because everyone agreed on the specific rule. Otherwise the book rules apply. Mistakes happen, each table is different in how you deal with mistakes. If it's a quick catch, deal with it then, if it's a remembered mistake from three rounds ago, then make sure it doesn't happen again. Your table, your group, your rules.....Just stick to them, and have fun! Great video!
At my table, we don't retcon anything once that turn has ended. Regardless of what happened or who screwed up, everyone has to live with it. It's the only way to actually learn and improve is when there are real consequences. It takes too much time and is too annoying to backtrack 4 turns later because someone forgot bonuses or advantage or whatever else. You just have to suck it up when you make a mistake and move on. We also do rules as written for everything unless bending the rule at that exact moment wouldn't provide any sort of advantage. For example, the killing blow on a monster are usually more epic and extend beyond what your normal attacks or spells would do, but it doesn't really change anything because that monster is going to die anyway. Only issue that ever causes is those exceedingly rare occasions where someone wants to knock something out rather than kill it but doesn't bother telling anyone else this, then gets upset the monster's head was cut off and it can't be healed with cure wounds or spare the dying to save it. Rules lawyering is needed to an extent because a spell can be used in a way that it was never intended and you have to adjudicate that and decide what happens. For example, the spell Temple of the Gods I believe it's called lets you create a "building" of very large size but it is made entirely out of magical (and indestructible) force, similar to Leomund's Tiny Hut. The spell explicitly states you can choose the shape of this "building". So what happens if you cast it on the water and shape it like a ship? The distinction between a building and a ship is largely functional. Is magical force weightless? Does it have mass? Should it float on the water? Then when you start considering whether or not it has mass or weight, you have to consider that if it were 100% weightless, what is stopping such buildings from simply floating away in the air. That obviously can't be right, so it must have weight. But how much? Where does this weight come from? Does magical energy possess mass? If it has weight, it has to have mass. And on and on it goes. You have to choose where to draw those lines and distinctions. If you just crapped out a building as was intended, it wouldn't really be an issue, but when you start considering other uses that might/should/could work in a real world scenario, it gets trickier. Perhaps those walls of force are simply "locked" in place and will never move at all. But if that is the case, could you not cast it from the back of a flying creature to create some kind of floating temple in the sky? Oy.
Okay, I 100% agree with you on the ruling to not retcon a turn once it's ended. However the ruling on the spells you listed are a little flawed: "Temple of the Gods" - "You cause a temple to shimmer into existence ON GROUND you can see within range." It requires the use of solid flooring to place the temple, I would definitely rule that a body of water would not be considered "ground", let alone in the middle of the sky or on the back of an animal. "Leomund's Tiny Hut"- "A 10-foot-radius IMMOBILE dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains STATIONARY for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area." This one's a little trickier, but the fact that it explicitly says it is immobile and stationary gives plenty to say that it wouldn't be able to be cast on something that moves and wouldn't be able to move with it. Love the creativity tho 🧙♂️💚
@@brettwillinsky428 Different spell my dude. The one i'm talking about, I believe it's called "Temple of the Gods", IIRC 7th or 8th level cleric spell. It lets you create a building of any shape you desire.
@@brettwillinsky428 I mean... The hull of a ship is one of the most basic shapes :P Kind of hard justifying you don't know vaguely what a ship looks like. Even if you fucked it up badly and made it look awkward or weird, should still float as long as you don't put holes in the bottom.
For me, "rule of cool" translates to "things the players could normally do but want to be fancy with" Example: Players are in a bar fight and the rogue wants to swing from a chandelier to get to an enemy and make an attack. If the player could've done the same thing by just walking there and attacking, I'll let them do that. If the player avoids an obstacle or expects to not receive an attack of opportunity by doing that, then it's a no-go.
When it comes to rules I had and ability the DM had questions on how it worked I just read him the text about three times then showed it to him in writing and let him decided how it should work as a DM and a player if my /your turn is over what you did is written in stone we do not do reconing past attack rolls. I was playing and after my turn we remembered I had something that would have given me and advantage on my last attack and the DM looks at me and is like lets redo your attack I am like no just keep moving forward it is done. What is worse then rule lawyer is the rule expert that is feels the need to show off all the D&D knowledge they have. When not asked or there is not even a question. When I am playing the rules in my mind should be between the DM and the Player unless asked. Also Puffin I love all your videos they are awesome keep them comming.
6:03 I expect my table to keep track of everything involving their character. I try to keep an eye on it, and if it's a negative effect I keep a closer eye, but it's their job as players to be honest and keep track of what's going on. If theres no threats or penalties, theres no real reason to put encounters. I was also blessed with a very good table tho
This hit super close to home for me. I had a player who wanted to create a new form of magic and use that with a new character. The problem was that would be his 4th character in 4 1/2 sessions (we had previously agreed his 3rd would be his last) and he wanted to use that magic system at our next meeting. Which was in three days. There were a bunch of issues going on but he had been consistently trying to break the game. Obviously it didn't work out.
Oooof. Even when it's in the official rules, different types of magic are hard to use and require a LOT of planning from everyone ( example: psyonics in 3.5. If the dm doesn't have stuff to counter them specifically they get op so so fast and just game breaking). So a homebrew one? IN THREE DAYS?!
Yeah the official attempts by professional nerds spending months to attempt to create psionics and shadow-magic were bad enough. If you allowed even a spell book worth of homebrewed basic-ruled spells that were created in three days, the campaign would be tits up. An entirely new form of magic would be a nightmare for any and all DM's.
Thank you for changing the video. I agree with this assessment. I have a propensity for being the rules guy. I am impartial and happily inform the players and GM alike when they're flat wrong - but importantly, my group likes to play as close to RAW as possible. We WANT to play in accordance to the rules. We like it. This is not for everyone.
5:45 I like what you said here about finding another group, but I feel there are a lot of people who don't have other options, which is why I love online play. other than that, awsome video
I feel bad for the people who don't have other options, it can be hard finding the right group for you or knowing what that is. I think a lot of people put up with other players bs cause they don't know better.
For the rule of cool situations just say "remember, everything you can do, the monsters can do too" and the laws of physics will suddenly become sacred.
or do it old school, let them roll and let them fail and look like a clown due to their low stats and equipment.
the whole everyone gets a trophy mentality is really annoying imo especially with how all of the newer game rules gives so much leeway to do things easily, allowing homebrews or special exception shouldn't be a thing.
if the players act stupid they should be punish for it and if the rules allows players to min max cheese they should also be allowed to do it. exceptions could be allowed for dramatic finishes but other then that no.
No, they'll nod their heads vigorously that it should definitely apply to the monsters also, so you let them do the thing. And then when a monster does the same thing, *then* the laws of physics are sacred....
Had someone who didn't heed that warning once. Next session the DM put us against a lone Lich straight outta Dragon Ball Z, floating around and kicking us in the face at stupid speeds while tossing energy orbs and beams everywhere. His phylactery was in the room, but fucker just tossed us around like dolls. Half of us were on our death saving throws when someone finally got it.
Can't speak for other games, but rule of cool in mine is usually a one off thing, and it's always a case of "I'll allow it if you roll high."
Enemies can't do the same because it makes their power level too unpredictable: the players will assume that if one Lich can use an artifact to throw a dozen fireballs, then all enemy casters in general might do the same, and then the game basically grinds to a halt as they start planning for every easy fight with a Wizard like it was D-Day.
It's better to make it clear that "cool" actions that are a bit too "out there" will have a price: in one case, I allowed something stupid because the group loved it, but wrote a story out of it by saying his god intervened, and now wants the favor returned lest the player be punished. As a result, most players control themselves, and the few that don't usually aren't social enough to last as part of a group.
We've banished hardcore physics discussions at our table, because one of our party members is so strictly "um actually" about physics that things hard coded into the games wouldn't be allowed... like giants and dragons lol
We ended up getting in a heated debate about Enlarge :P
The best players remind the DM of things even if it hurts them.
I give out Hero point to players that catch things in my Pathfinder2e campaign, regardless of who is the target/subject. Because it's a new system, we all need to chip in to get "good practices" in so that we don't learn to play with a ruleset where we just misunderstood something.
Say you forget when you role to see if you can get rid of persistent effects. If you get it wrong one way or another you can essentially break the Alchemist class either way into mechanically unplayable or into superpowered.
Or voluntarily choose to embrace something to their character's disadvantage or possibly even mortal peril, because it fits the setting/theme/story/plot better than the more advantageous option.
Right? I always do, just thought that made sense.
yep... I remember the time I literally killed my character by reminding my gm that the enemy had advantage... about 20 minutes into the first session Xd
You say that but I had a Bard who tried to kill my character in the middle of a module that don't allow for *short* rests and they explicitly refused when the DM tried to bend the rules in their favor
Reasoning: my character didn't worhip Bahamut. A god that the Bard hated vehemently.
To quote tv tropes on the rules lawyer: “Obnoxious Rules Lawyers manipulate the rules to give themselves advantages, Dumb Rules Lawyers will always insist on following the rules even when it's clear it won't work, while Helpful Rules Lawyers play by the rules even if that puts them at a disadvantage, and will even try to use their knowledge to help out someone else.”
Aka lawful evil, neutral, and good
You forgot Bunny Ears Lawyers, ignores the rules up until it screws everyone over. Aka, Chaotic Evil/Chaotic Neutral
It is not dumb to always follow the rules. Before we sit down at the table, we have entered an agreement. This are the rules (D&D5, pathfinder 1 or 2, deadlands, etc) and we will follow them. Like he says in his video, do not insult or dismiss people trying their best, to be fair and accurate.
Rules & dice rolls ARE! When we sit down at the table we accept that. No matter what. Even if it means tpk.
After the game, if something did not work, made people uncomfortable, created a problem, etc then you look for solutions or patches.
But please, do not dismiss or insult those who make an effort to be as fair as posible.
@@Voroeg thanks
@@Voroeg I think the situations where following the rules doesn't work is less when the group is about to tpk and more when you hit upon an edge case of the system where some rules interact in a weird way that breaks immersion. Like, I dunno, if you use Fireball underwater and instead of creating a steam explosion or fizzling out it just... keeps going, and everyone agrees that it's *really weird* for fireballs to work underwater. (I dunno if that's an actual situation you might encounter, but it's an example of rule boundary fuzziness)
The point is that there are cases where the rules lead to unintended situations, and in those cases it's reasonable to decide to go the way that's more immersive and coherent, and if you stick to the rules 100% of the time you'll be the one arguing that the rules never *say* that water extinguishes fire.
BUT BEN
I got disoriented for a second and thought this was an animated spellbook video
Why tf does this have 32 likes
@@amirarsalanganji8304 because it's jocat
SerenaOculis ..yes jocat i was wondering why theres so little likes
@@amirarsalanganji8304 Oh. The way you phrased it made me think you were confused about there being too many.
That explains why I couldn’t find a certain video: where Puffin loses a board game in the 1st turn
I mean. Is pretty hard even if you try to do it on purpose.
Ohh yeah remember that one. I can see why he took that down, i wouldn't want people to see that either
He talks about it in D&D Story: The unsolvable murder mystery!
@@yellowpig1026 really? I mean it was just a story about him being slightly unlucky and it was done well.
I really want to see it now
"You're supposed to be keeping track of my hp and spell slots and stuff too."
Me: *maniacal laugh* Okay my notes say you're dead in that case.
if i ever get that line i'm going to start tracking their health and not telling them how much damage they take
Both great responses. Mine would be, “well it seems I don’t have an HP recorded for you thus you must have no Hp.”
@@AngelStickman in case of HP, you have. no HP
Omaiwa mo Shindeu
Had a guy like that who didn't do that with his money and would ask that "How much money do I have?" in the middle of combat. pissing off the dm. He justified this by saying he was transferring is character from one digital sheet to another like from dndbeyond to reroll... in the middle of the game.
"That shouldn't be how it works. It's magic!"
Uh... according to the magic rules, that's exactly how that works.
just say "Okay, you didn't know where you were teleporting to and ended up inside a wall, killing you on the spot"
@@matheusd.rodrigues429 thats actually 4d6 force damage and a failed teleport...at least for all the spells that actually can teleport you into walls.
Hahahah It is known.
I would ask if I could roll to see on which tile I ended up on. Even if it hurts me, I have a chance at getting into a better position. (Blindly Teleporting a random direction and a random distance within 30 feet.) (or if your character knows they are in a 25 foot room then 15 foot teleport maybe.)
@@VoidplayLP Well, that's just hypocritical of you. Wanting to use an ability, that explicitly states that you must be able to see the target, as a means to escape a situation where you literally cannot see, and then expecting rules to be followed as written, when it is disadvantageous for you...
See how you just made yourself a problem player, with that statement concerning the use of misty step? You fell right into one of Ben's sentences "Rules are for me to inflict upon others." Or "Rules are for everyone but me."
You have to be careful making such a statement.
"You're the DM! You're meant to be keeping track of my HP and Spell slots as well!"
Me, Looking down at the various HP trackers of multiple battle encounters, NPC notes, Dungeon notes, maps and encounter tables, monster statlines, and campaign notes, then back up to the cheeky fucker who thinks its also my job to keep his stuff in check *NOW LISTEN HERE, YOU LITTLE SHIT*
My response: Alright you have 5 hp and two spell slots.
Honestly, I acidentily did this on my 1st character; but only for spell-slots, not H.P. however, it was only beacuse I didn't even understand what "spell-slots" were. I was used to using the term mana, or magic-points. Thus I thoguht my "spell-slots" were my "spells-known," and that I had infinite mana. I know better now thoguh. Spell slots are mana. Spells known is what I have in my spellbook. Spells prepaired, are what I can actually cast on command, provided I have the mana and spell components.
@@agsilverradio2225 If someone forgets or just is new. I'm always happy to help out, but if they comes out with "it's your job to do it!" they get no sympathy from this forever DM.
@@RoseInTheWeeds "Also, you didn't prepare any damage spells during the last long rest, so all the damage you did is null"
Every time I dm'd, i tracked that stuff anyway. Helps me better track how much the players think they can cheat.
Ive been a DM for about 20 years, and my rule is what I call Macgyver: if you can reasonably argue something being plausible, and the table agrees, I'll allow it, and try to figure out the necessary buffs/debuffs/rolls required to make it happen. So, throwing a sword like a javelin. ...weird, but *technically* possible with a longsword, if you think about how theyre weighted. Okay, but you'll have a short range and damn high DC to actually make it work. And with something like Misty Step? Havent had that problem but Id be willing to at least hear the argument that "well I have seen the area moments before, it's only a few feet away, what about calling it a leap of faith?" Or people counter-arguing that if they do that there should be a chance for it to go horribly wrong, like teleport fused into the floor.
Not to sound old but 'back in my day' DM was judge jury and executioner, period. DM was god. Willing to listen, but at the end of the day if DM says shut up you're wrong: then shut up you're wrong.
*shrug* just my 2 cents on all this.
Glad I havent had players as annoying as some of yours sound.
F in chat for all DMs with murder hobos
With the misty step thing i would probably say they decide how far they travel and i roll an 8 sided dice to see which direction they go in. Not ideal for the player but might be better then where they are now
I like it better if we play by the DMs rules, that way you get more unique experiences with different groups, it keeps things interesting
See, this is how I believe dms should act with rules. Follow the rules when you can, if it’s not in the rules, provide a good enough argument and it’s legal. And if something in the rules is really stupid or not situationally appropriate, provide a *really* good argument and an exception might be made.
@@Pixal_Dragon why thank you
Definitely need to be careful with those homebrew rules.
Things can quickly descend into chaos lol
Why I think a DM should make it very clear that all homebrew rules/items are subject to change, good or bad, and they should have a discussion between sessions with the player if they think there needs to be some rebalancing.
I agree. I've accidentally given players way too powerful of items or abilities before. My way to fix that was to add abilities or increase stats on the things they fought, but that turned into so much work as a DM because I eventually had to homebrew practically everything they fought. Now I put much more thought into what few homebrew things I incorporate.
At my Table its absolute Chaos.
And everyone just f*ckin loves it!
@CommandoDude Good simple method. I like it.
My kids only use homebrew. No underlying system, even.
One of my rules as a DM is, "If a mistake is made before the end of someones turn, the dice are re rolled. Once the turn has ended, neither the player, or me, can go back to fix it." Overall, it balances out.
One Crazy Pig great rule, I’m gonna start using that. What I would do if there was an argument I would just say “role for it, if you get 123 we keep this rule if you get 456 we don’t” both ways work
sorta like chess and not taking your finger off the piece...
@@violet3430 I prefer "GM is god" rule (also what One Crazy Pig said). GM is arbiter. He is always right. I once have player who was arguing with my over the bullshit. He shut up after he noticed that all monsters target only him. Because "why they couldn't do that"?
I've just had things retroactively heal or take extra damage without really telling the players.
Since we're a group of one power gamer, three minmaxers ( four rules lawyers) and a spouse of one of the group, we occasionally have a discussion on the rules to make sure everyone is on board with whatever our current DM will be ruling by, whomever that is.
Came here to say this but found it instead
My DM just had a general rule of: Once the turn has ended, that's canon. Many a time us players have forgotten about some debilitation we had. Equally as many times, the DM has forgotten an entire mechanic of the boss he designed. We always just shrug it off and carry on cuz that's just easier to do.
Yeah my DM is like that too. If we forget a roll or buff, that’s on us. Equally if he forgets a mechanic or debuff, that’s on him. But once the turn has ended, that’s the canon.
Funny situations though with it. We had a Druid try to deliver a finishing blow, but rolled out of turn order. It was actually my turn. So DM had me deliver the finishing blow as a monk. THEN he had the Druid cast the lightning spell that ended up hitting me. DM ruled that since the player had called for it during my turn, it counted as cannon and was part of my turn, but only after I had taken my action.
You just described LG, LN, and LE
That's the way I always run it.
“Everyone who would get a bonus from the new system wanted it and everyone who would get a penalty didn’t.”
So Congress, basically.
I mean, not really? Congress is more about 'does this serve the big corporations paying me to vote in their interest' then 'does this balance what people in my state need against what people in another state need'.
@@MarkoArillius changes the occasion and metrics but, yeah, still "good for me vs bad for me" (as in good for my pocket or my neck)
@@MarkoArillius Congress doesn't exclusively serve big corps. They just serve anyone who has the money to bribe them, whether that individual or group is a corporation or not.
More like any group of people larger than one.
@@whiterabbit75 Even groups of one, honestly. It's just that there's no disagreement in groups of one.
the term you're looking for, especially when invoking lawyers and law, is "precedent."
So I think I get what the "I love dice rolling for stats but hate that it's random" guy means. And it's more that it's a bit *too* random. You might like the idea of a character that's strong in some things, and not in others, and to not know what those things will be before hand. But the problem is that rolling dice is truly random and not a normalized randomization of the average point buy. You can end up with a really dull "10,10,10,11,12,10" or something that just makes a really "bad" character with no strengths like a n"11,4,6,6,9,8". Not that those are necessarily bad to all players, and some might find a Normal McAverageson master of average stats or a useless-at-everything character to be an entertaining idea, but many would find that difficult to play or enjoy. I think some people appreciate the *idea* of randomizing their character just not being prepared to live with the full breadth of possibility that entails.
Which really is kind of where 4d6 *drop** lowest came from in the first place. Problem with that is that you all too often don't get any weaknesses. Whenever I use that system as a player I've tended to roll high in most stats, and then ask the DM if I can self-nerf one stat to be like a 6 for the fun of it.
*edited reroll to drop it was just a typo.
I mean depends how the rolling was done. I've always had (home) rules stating to Roll 4d6, subtract lowest value, then place stat where you want it. This allowed players to make the class they wanted, even if it's not as 'powerful' as they wanted. 4d6 reroll 1's is another option with similar although sometimes drastically different results. (depending if they drop lowest, or count all 4 dice allowing 24 in a stat, something so powerful that it can break the game, at least early on)
I've given up on rolling because I realised i was only rolling for that really high and really low score that point buy doesn't allow. So my new standard array is 8, 10, 11, 14, 16 so everyone gets a skill they're pretty bad at and one that they're great at no matter what.
@@xXKisskerXx Yeah but all you can really do is make numbers trend one way or another. 4d6 subtract lowest trends the numbers upwards which is good as you say to make the characters people want, but ive rolled ultra strong characters out of this and sometimes characters with no weaknesses at all and have found myself having to ask the DM if i can swap one of my 15s for a 7 or something just for some flavour.
I get why it seems contradictory but I get the viewpoint. "True" randomness has become rarer and rarer all across game design because it's rarely consistently satisfying because it's... random. It's not consistently anything, lol.
What people often want out of randomization is *variety* and *surprise* rather than actual randomization which can easily lead to neither of those things as often as it leads to both.
@Naren Gurrier-Jones i like that
@Naren Gurrier-Jones In my current campaign, I had each player roll 4d6-drop1 for each stat in order, and then they got to decide among themselves who got which roll for each stat.
Rolling for stats is fun. It's amusing when the GM asks for everyone's saving throw result and you can announce "-1."
I think rolling for stats can lead to some interesting character concepts too. I was making a wizard and I ended up with an 8...So i decided to drop it into dex. Took the soldier background, and said that he had been a soldier, but in an attack a building he was in collapsed and crushed his leg. he was stuck there too long, so the clerics couldn't repair the damage... After that he decided to pursue magic. Boom. A wizard character that will die instantly because he has like 8 AC, but interesting as hell :P
Rolling for stats can either make a weak barbarian or a God of a monk.
God, its so much fun to just say: "I got a negative one on my wis save" "Did you nat 1" "Nope, I rolled a 2"
I prefer point buy, last time I rolled, my stats were around 5,7,4,9,11,8. I was given the option of re-rolling and got worse. Once rolled 2 3's and an 18. Most of the time I couldnt imagine the character becoming an adventurer due to how crippled he is.
We just made session and players where creating pesants for warhammer. All of them pesants. They rolld twice and pickd the lower rolls. ;>
Lawful Good Rules Lawyer: Ensures that the group is playing by the rules, even when it goes against their favor.
Lawful Evil Rules Lawyer: Ensures that the rules always benefit them and is otherwise perfectly happy to forget them when they don't.
Chaotic Evil Rules Lawyer: Only brings up obscure rules or interactions when it's super inconvenient and severely interrupts the flow of gameplay.
Chaotic Good Rules Lawyer: "There's only one rule - if you're having fun, rock on."
Also the True Neutral Lawyer from the plane of automatons that makes sure the dm's word is law and that all rules are followed, or at least acknowledged, at all times no matter what.
@@dddmemaybe I have one of those True Neutral Lawyers. Him actually playing the game really helps me as DM so I don't have to spend so much time on rules, and more on plot. Thanks Gabe :)
Lawful Neutral: RAW is God, do not disobey RAW.
I’m a lawful good rules lawyer
@@dddmemaybe I'm definitely a True Neutral Lawyer, and I'm perfectly okay with that
"Players should realize that the final decision is the DM's: not theirs, and not this booklet's!" D&D Basic Set Page B60
like the video says; it's bad when you have to make the decision on everything. the established rules are supposed to be guideline for allowing players to know how things work. if something odd happens, sure: rule 0 that.
What about when the player is literally the only one who has a space to host the group?
@@Maibak3175 The DM still decides which rules go and which don't. If the player really dislikes the rules, they can tell the DM and other players to be on their way and find somewhere else to play.
Exactly. Rules are fine. But if the DM decides that something happens, for the sake of the story, than this is what happens.
Or when a DM keeps screwing up the game, they can be relieved by the group. The DM is just one player with a specific role and can be replaced. I have seen this happen and even voted them out for steering away from the game rules, fudging dice rolls, and creating BS monsters to name a few.
“This is the rules lawyering video.”
OBJECTION!
“I need to talk about it in a more serious, less silly tone.”
Oh... (kicks rock) Sorry, Puffin.
i hate you.
*OBJECTION!*
@@Thornhammer_K22 Sustained.
5:20 "You, as a DM, find 1 problem and 9 more pop up"
So, you're saying being DM is like working IT
99 bugs to patch, 99 bugs to patch,
fix one up, patch one up
105 bugs to patch...
Or something like that.
I'm studying in order to become a teacher and what's striking me now is the uncanny similarities between teaching a class and DMing. You have to prepare a lot for a session. Keep everyone on board and entertained. You've got all the answers (or most of them - let's keep it real. Who got ALL the answers?).
And sometimes there is even homework the players have to do.
@@lennar2328 that's sort of why I think teachers should look into game design.
sure, they can just say "screw it" and blame on their students for not engaging in class and performing poorly on exams
but sometimes trying to help students to pay attention and testing them in a way that actually checks if they learned what you were trying to teach and not just exposing the subject and testing if they can answer X many questions on difficulty Y in Z minutes can be interesting
That can be the same issue when creating a house rule to "solve" an issue. You make a house rule to change something and find out it that it creates a few new problems. Then you try to "fix" those problems and end up creating more issues.
Can be a vicious cycle if one is not careful.
This is partly why I love online D&D for dice rolls. No questions, I can see your sheet and the calculations that are occurring, no questions asked.
We had a general Philosophy of "You live with your mistakes" That applied to everyone at the table DM or player. So there was an understanding that sometimes you might get an unnatural advantage and sometimes a disadvantage. I feel it help the group focus more on keeping track of stuff and letting each other know about rolls/buff/debuffs. It is IMO about finding the right group sometimes and slowly working your way through issues.
I either live with my mistakes, apologize or say, "this is the way it's going this time because there is a mysterious gas filling the room.
You can of course retcon minor mistakes during turn, but never retcon stuff back.
Being a first time player I can honestly admit that I was "that guy " because it was my first character and I didn't want to get hurt/lose my cool armor. I didn't realize that I was making the game not fun or unfair. But after the game was canceled and I wasn't invited for a new one, I started to question if I had done something wrong. It hit me hard. But I learned. And I'll never forget. Sometimes you have to learn how to play well with others, and sometimes you have to learn that the hard way. But I'm ready to try again. And I'm willing to be more of a team player. But honestly some people (like myself) just have to realize how they affect others in a game.
That's brave to admit, I've been "that guy" when it comes to wangrodding and blurring the line between character and player. I had one bad experience with getting so angry at another player character I wanted to push the player down the stairs on the way home. It made me double take on how I was allowing the game to anger me. Thankfully I've never been like that since, but it can take one bad experience to learn.
Good for you for realizing that. I run an online game and we have a couple of young players and they suffer from this as well as powergaming. I did too when I was their age. But like you said, you have to learn how to play well with others. It's annoying to have to teach that to (some) young players though.
it's always interested me how strongly some people's sense of empathy is vs how weak it is in others. do you generally have a hard time gauging how people feel around you, or how you make them feel? i have this theory that cheaters strongly tend to be low on the empathy spectrum, and the worst are just full blown undiagnosed sociopaths.
for me such a thing is easy - i joined my first dnd group recently and we're all generous people and play well together, and it makes no sense to me how someone can not realize the negative effect they're having on others, particularly when they start to show outward signs of frustration which they almost certainly did.
@@oldfrend Lack of awareness, and trouble with empathy. Not out of the realm of possibility. Also poor undeveloped social skills.
Ok, if we admit to dnd sins, i will do it as well. My first (2 or 3) games i was making myself the main character of the story.
Not that i didn't let anyone else talk, but i was like "What do you think of this druid?" in a way, as if they are my sidekicks.
I got that what i was doing is wrong quickly enough, by myself.
And after that i was only making characters that are fine to be a PART of a team.
I've gotten somewhat of a reputation in my group for being a rules purist. I routinely have to call out other players and tell them "hey, no, you can't do that". Most of it is because of the other players not being really that experienced, but I can see why it can be frustrating. We've got our Paladin who keeps forgetting that Divine Smite takes a spell slot, so after about seven rounds of combat I'm like "Um hey, how many spell slots you got left? Can you even cast Find Steed?" Or our rogue who thinks sneak attack is something you add to every attack, not just one attack. "No no, you've already used your sneak attack this round, you can't use it again." Or our fighter who can parry as a reaction. "You've already parried an attack, you can't take an opportunity attack because you parried."
Recently some of the other players started telling me that I was kind of being a prick for doing so, because I never call myself out for messing up, so lately I've been saying things like "And since I already cast Zephyr Strike, I can't Hide as a bonus action, so I guess I'll just end my turn normally."
They can be pretty chill sometimes though. Once we fought an armored bird creature as a bossfight. To keep it from flying, we paralyzed it with arrows and javelins dipped in potions, and then started going ham on it. Our GM forgot that paralyzed creatures take all melee hits as critical hits, and so when we figured this out we were like "oh crap, that thing should have been dead a long time ago." But I sorta just shrugged and said, "Well I guess it just had Adamantine armor on and we *just now* knocked it all off." And everyone was alright with that.
I totally expected the story to go another direction.
Your the kind of player I like, you seem cool
"you never call yourself out for messing up"
if I know I'm making a mistake, I wouldn't call myself out for it because I wouldn't make the mistake I know is a mistake.
@@thekenyonsquad5672 That was the impression I got too.
If OP knows the Fighter's rules, the Rogue's rules, and the Paladin's rules better than their players' then they probably know their own character's rules too.
If I had to guess, they were mad OP was calling them out on being bad players and were grasping at straws to find something to throw back at them.
I'm very similar in the way I use rules. I don't expect other people to know all of the rules but I do expect them to follow them. People in my group used to think that I was just trying to nerf/ control them. That usually ends when they become my DM. Cause I'm the kind of person who, outside of the sessions, messages my DM about how my character's rules work. So that I know before the situation comes up.
I actually had a reverse christmas thing happen to me recently but it has a happy ending. An out of state friend of mine wanted to start dming his own game and had asked our online group to roll up level 7 characters and that we can have either two uncommon or one rare magic item. I decided to try out the paladdin class and to make myself extra smity I took the Sword of light as my rare item of choice. My dm didn't realize that a lot of rare items are a bit to powerfull for characters at level seven. He had asked me if I would be willing to nerf my sword with the promise he would buff it up as the story unfolded. I thought about it for a few minutes and came up with a very creative nerf for the sword. I flavored that my sword is ancient and the power source has broken over time/got lost/ ect. To activate it I have to be channeling divinity and if I rolled a critical hit I have to make a Con Saving throw (dc10). If I fail the saving throw I take 1d6 necrotic damage as the sword is pulling more power from me than my channel divinity can provide. My dm liked it a lot and even gave me a long sword +1 to use when not channeling.
I like the flexibility of that. Powerful but with sensible limitations so you only use it when you really need it. Plus it's got excellent dramatic potential. "I sacrifice the last of my strength to strike down the main villain" sort of thing.
Excellent, & mature, compromise you guys came to.
@@sockmonkey6666 Right? Also I chose Heroism paladin and one of my Channel divinity options is landing crits on 19-20. So the con save should come up a bit more often than usual.
I've pointed out situations where the DM had advantage, its only fair. It's a two way street.
I've had it happen, but only on things targetting my character. you don't want to be the guy that ask for homework at the end of the class.
@@valensfdbn Oh but you really do. Don't get me wrong, it's not about ratting out an other player.
I think the problems stems from people viewing the hobby as a competitive sport instead of a collaborative improv session. Sure if you are pointing out a co-player's mistake because you want to see him/her suffer then that's a problem. But I would argue that most people who do it aren't doing it for selfish reason and that really makes all the difference (at least to me). It is (or at least should be) about facilitating the rules to a point where everyone gets it so the sessions run smoother. You can't do that unless you make people aware of their mistakes. I would expect any player or DM who caught me in a mistake to tell me.
@@Micras08 same, if it stops having to look back and go "shit we did combat _and_ skills wrong for 3 hours oops" then I'm like, yea imma grab da rulez to go on the next one.
Rules Lawyer is to me : "I will argue whatever rules we have, to support my claim, and only my claim."
usually the people who roll dice, and pick it up after and have a habit of "bad math"
Taken from my collection of House Rules:
23. Avatar the Last Rule Bender. Rule of Cool does exist, and your DM doesn’t want to constantly say no when you try something crazy. If a particularly important event or scene would be made way more satisfying with a rule-bending, you may do so, with your DM’s consent.. Pushing your abilities beyond their normally limits is very exhausting and dangerous, and requires taking levels of Exhaustion. Depending on the severity of the rule bending, your DM will inform you ahead of time if it will cost 1d4 points (Ex: Making a skill check you normally can’t because of proficiency restrictions, or getting a small modifier to the behavior of a cantrip or 1st level spell), 1d6 points (Ex: Making any skill check with advantage, or getting a substantial modifier to a higher level spell), or 2d4 points (Ex: Taking “Dying Actions”, Legendary Actions/Reactions, like blasting a villain with a 9th level spell after watching them murder your family and it was still the villains turn). You take the levels of exhaustion at the end of combat, or at the end of that scene. In any case, you may only use this feature once per play session.
This is a pretty cool way of doing it.
That's a pretty good way to have those epic hero moments, I'm gonna remember this one! Thanks lad
I'm curious about the rest of the collection.
thats a very high chance of death. oh my
What I particularly like about this is that, because exhaustion is so extreme. Players that use 'the rule of cool' to do more damage won't do so, because it's statistically a dumb thing to do that actually increases the risk of your character getting hurt.
When my dad was DM, every time we'd get off-track asking questions about the dice rolls or exact rules, he'd say something like, "The giant pauses while your characters argue with one another about something called a 'monster manual,' and he has no idea what you're talking about. His eyes begin to glaze over. Then, suddenly, he snaps out of it and swings the tree at you again..."
So, asking questions about the thing you're all trying to enjoy should be punished? Sounds like a seriously unpleasent fellow.
@@Zoomeep I can see both sides to it. You don't want to spend *too long* arguing over something, but at the same time you kinda want to an actual resolution. That second part can only be glossed over so many times, before it starts becoming a problem for the game as a whole.
@@InfernosReaper Same. If it seems to be a consistent problem (especially if it's a minor one) that keeps eating up large parts of time in the session, just state it for the players that if they waste everyone else's time arguing a rule for ten minutes, you will penalize them.
@@Zoomeep
That's like the worst reading possible of that anecdote. The point is if you're spending so much time arguing about the rules, then you're not playing the game.
@@Zoomeep arguing about rules is for after the session. if it takes longer than a few minutes to resolve then move on and come back to it afterward.
I'm glad I have the group I've got, we were in a pretty beefed up fight (I wanted them to lose an encounter for once, they did, not TPK they retreated like I hoped), the party Wizard went down, she had become a lich by this point and was going to come back, but after the encounter was long over, I was like "oh shit your a lich, you're immune to crits and at least 2 of those were", he shrugged it off saying he forgot about that too and said it was still a cool encounter and we'd deal with it when we went back for round 2. I've got a player that likes to nix a skill or feat here and there which is ok as long as everyone gets the option and he does in fact help them see if its good or bad ideas, he does like to min-max but having cross checked his stuff several times it's always completely within the RAW.
One time I was playing with a DM who changed her ruling mid-battle. She had let my druid escape from a Shambling Mound by casting Freedom of Movement on myself. However, after our Cleric got engulfed, she decided that being engulfed didn't count as a condition that FoM would work on. i was kind of miffed about that.
Then I got the cleric out by casting Polymorph and turning him into a Tyrannosaurus, so all was well.
FOM for you OK, but that pretty much is how the shambling mound works and your FOM nerfed her mound, leaving her with a big pile of nothing as an encounter. She might not have made the right choice but I get her problem. You might need to run a few games to appreciate the DM view.
Your "I got the cleric out by turning them into a tyrannosaurus rex" ending, is among the best long comment endings that I've read in a while.
Having looked over FOM and the shambling mounds abilities. FOM states in the spell "The target can also spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has it grappled." While the Shambling mound grapples you and begins to engulf it blinds and restrains the target Engulfed creatures are still grappled.. FOM allows escape from grapple thus the engulf of the SM. Engulf is not a condition but an action that applies additional conditions to Grappled creatures. She technically made the wrong call rules as written but I understand her frustration at that spell basically nullifying the SM big action.
Shambling mound must hit twice with multiattack to auto-grapple a victim.
Freedom of movement would allow the player to spend movement to escape the grapple.
Engulf is NOT a grapple attack, but rather requires a grappled target to be a legal attack, and takes an action, so there is a window depending on initiative orders and surprise (although there is no "surprise round" a surprised character takes no action n the first round combat. The mound could potentially end up going before the grappled character in the initiative order, meaning they get engulfed before breaking free of the grapple)
FOM states that all magical/spell caused movement penalties and restraints cause no issue for the recipient of the spell, and that they can escape grapples and restraints such as shackles.
I would personally rule it that FOM would allow the character to escape BEFORE being engulfed, but not afterwards.
The examples given give the impression to me that the spell is meant for escaping situations in which the character has the space and room to wriggle free. Magical spell effects slide off the character and the character is able to somehow effortlessly wriggle free of any restraints. When engulfed there is literally nowhere for the character to go. There would be no escape routes except brute force.
It depends on how crazy you want to get with FOM's affect. If it was meant to allow them to move freely regardless if the level of retraint, then i think the spell would have said so plainly, rather than give out a few examples of rather minor mundane restraints.
Personally i see it as mainly an answer to magical restraints, and most mundane restraints as a bonus, but with the exceptions of full body restraint (trapped in a rockslide, neck deep in rock, fully engulfed by a creature, swallowed by a creature etc)
IDK, that's the problem (or advantage) of a lot of DnD 5e spells. They're quite vague on specifics. Whether that's purposefully done to allow greater freedom of play or whether its a side effect if the simolified system, i can't say.
Either way, to me id say this is more if a case of DM's discretion than a black and white "ONLY ONE ANSWER"
I always thought Rules Lawyers were the people who tried to equivocate on RAW over its syntactical or lexical ambiguities; for example people arguing about what classifies as an "object" for the purpose of True Polymorph, or cheese regarding Simulacrum and True Polymorph, and every other way to abuse True Polymorph...
Just want to let you know that you’ve helped a group of 8 soldiers get into D&D and other rpg tabletop games. You’re videos are awesome man, keep it up ! 👍🏼
Spaceslime94 --- how is your campaign going?
As a DM, any time "rules lawyering" begins to descend into pointless arguing I make a judgement call. I tell my players, "This is how it played out today. We can discuss the rule after the session and agree as a group how the rule will apply moving forward."
I do something similar at my table. If a rule takes longer than 5 minutes to look up and clarify, I make an ad hoc ruling for that situation, take a note on the rule, and we look it up after the encounter or after the session which ever is more feasible.
Something else that works well with my group is that someone who is not involved in the scenario, will go look up the rule. My players started doing this themselves and it has greatly sped up game play.
"Those people" are the worst. I ran a group for my first time and everyone was new to the game. 1st session went great! 2nd session.... I found the rules lawyer. He went home, studied up before the next session, then proceeded to act like he knew everything. Then the hypocrisy. Then the "that's stupid, it should work like this". All for the benefit of his terribly stupid incredibly strong half-orc. Every time he missed, every time he was hit, every time the party was role-playing well. I believe people that HAVE to have it the way they want in order to have fun are just bad players and bad people in real life. If you're gonna play a game, look for the fun in failure. Don't be so self absorbed and actually embrace what the game is. Immersion at it's finest
That reminds me of when older children tell the younger kid what to say during play house... so did that as a kid. Most people in their 30’s should be able to allow others some sort of... autonomy?!
Huh?!!!
I fallow simple rule in my games "GM is a god and rules are suggestions" (what is actually how RPG work). Yes, I would correct myself if at the time someone point my something I forget about, but I don't retcon game with few exceptions and if someone get divine inspiration of punishment, what ever. If I find that players lie to my about stuff then they are fucked and I make that clear beforehand. Always make clear beforehand what is prime rule of the game, so no one could justifiably complain about that. If they dislike door are open.
@@TheRezro your broken English (no offense intended) actually made this way more fun to read XD but I agree completely. Setting up expectations for your players is important for game cohesion.
@@TheRezro I've read your post with Russian accent in mind xD Strong opinion, by the way, I agree completely.
Its the chance of failure that makes it exciting. If there was no danger or risk then it would be incredibly dull. Becoming a Mary sue is an easy trap to fall into but it's worth avoiding it. One of my best moments in D&D came with the one last chance to save my dying character. Nat 20 and he escaped with 1 HP. It was epic because had I failed that roll, he would have been dead and I'd have burned his character sheet. ( I'd keep a copy of course )
After playing Disco Elysium, I feel like I understand why Rules Lawyers exist. When failing a roll only results in your character getting hurt, or looking like a fool, it isn't fun some people (me). I realized when I entertained the idea of save scumming, that I was only doing that because I was trying to make the character an extension of myself; I wasn't enjoying how much 'I' was failing. After that realization, I decided to play the character in a way that was vastly different than my real life self, which started to make the game more fun for me. Still didn't enjoy bad rolls, but they were more tolerable now, even fun occasionally when they resulted in a unique story path
Is that Basic rule Number for every roleplaying Game ? Don't recreate yourself in a Setting ?
I came to the Same conlusion as you Not because of Bad Rolls but because of roleplaying. It's easier to roleplay a Charackter which might nothing or only very little in Common with you.
Basically Role Playing vs Self insert.
That doesn’t really work for me. My characters are very different from myself frequently but it’s the character I want to be cool and capable, so when they mess something up and look stupid or incompetent-especially if it’s the thing that they are supposed to be good at-it makes it less fun for me because I am invested in who this character is and I want them to succeed.
Matthew Heinlen understandable, but the line is when a player's "wants" extends into breaking/derailing/cheating a game (which yes conveniently forgetting is cheating) or arguing rules for their PC's image and subsequent personal desires for success. It makes the player look incompetent, stupid or childish and it's not fun for anyone involved. At that point you may as well just write a book about how great this fictional character is, which will likely be a very boring book.
This is why I can't stand wikis or meta gaming (and in decades past, physical strategy guides) in video games. If you can't do something without trying or thinking for yourself, what's the point? A normal difficulty win by your own means will always be more rewarding than a legendary/impossible win where a walk-through held your hand the entire way.
Don't get me wrong if you're playing at higher levels, the proficiencies should be enough to prevent amateur mistakes, but if you start out with an infallible level of skill in anything, simply because it's "your thing you do good", you may as well remove that component completely from the game because without a chance to fail it may as well just not even be mentioned. To keep that as a gameplay mechanic (at 100% success 100% of the time) is just you going on a monologue about how great you are, or worse, expecting someone else to narrate and others to listen.
Patient Zero sure; I’m not saying I should have a 100% success rate or anything. Just that not making myself as a character has no bearing on how I feel about it.
As far as the roll for stats systems, I use “4d6, take away the lowest die”. That works for me.
Isn't that the _traditional_ roll-for-stats method? When Puffin said he only used 3 dice I found it weird, maybe that's from older editions but If I recall correctly in the player manual and DnD beyond the stats roll option describes exactly rolling 4d6 and taking away the lowest.
Same
@@Xfushion2 3d6 is a "lower power" method according to the 3.5 PHB
@@Xfushion2 4d6 drop lowest was standard in everything but 2nd edition. And frankly it was standard in 2nd edition as well in terms of game balance; if you look at NPCs, they had stats that were more in line with that method.
@Titanium Dragon To add on to that, 2e's default was 3d6 right down the line. The first roll was Strength, the second was Constitution, etc. Thing is, they also had every method under the sun as options in the PHB, as well.
"When you think about a lawyer...when people complain about lawyers; they [lawyers] are just saying whatever they have to say to get the thing that they want. They don't actually care about the rules at all."
Best explanation ever.
And the rule traditionalist who would abide by the rules, regardless of consequence or reward, and encourage others too as well.
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 Yes!
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 But that is the thing. It is up to DM to decide if he would be strict or not. I personally don't mind if player simply prefer one style over another. I usually try balance things under group. Problem is that "lawyers" in most cases are simply those bad gamers, who don't actually care about the rules. They only complain to get advantage.
I mean, its a lawyers job to get the result their client wants. A lawyer who "does the right/moral" thing when it goes against what their client wants is a bad lawyer. A good person, but a bad lawyer.
@@StarboyXL9 And that is the point here.
I always establish in session zero, as foreverDM, that my word is law. if i say something its not to harm anyone in particular but so the game can continue with as few hitches as possible and i spend No time arguing with someone unless i made a mistake and multiple people agree, at which point we look up the rules and rectify it and i make a note about it so i don't make that mistake again. Homebrew is different because i made those rules and i sometimes change them, but ive never changed a rule mid game.
Late to the party. My simple rule when DMing is once the end of the round is reached no backises. That applies to me and the players. The players accept it because as I am running many things at once I sometimes forget that x monster didn't attack or use its special ability, while the players running just their character make fewer errors. Same applies to mistakes that benefit either side - catch it during the round or it is done.
This becomes important when the consequence of an act only becomes apparent several rounds later. Best example was a monk who charged to attack a spellcaster at the rear of a melee not realizing that they would get trapped away from help when reinforcements arrived. "I wouldn't have done that if I couldn't escape". No, you did do it because you thought it was safe to do at the time.
I'm pretty lax about backsies, we all forget things in the heat of the moment, so if me or a player goes "shoot, that was supposed to be 5 more damage" then that's fine. But that monk player better be ready to run.
@@Nihilakh4life You mean you can't move a different piece after you put your hand ON one.
I always played end of the round, I always thought it was the rule for mistakes honestly.
That only applies to mistakes, not actions that were a bad idea or you change your mind. That's a big NOPE however soon it is unless it's before you've actually done it.
@@kendrajade6688 No, once you take your hand off it you can't move it is correct. As in, you can't change your mind, as long as you hold the piece you can move it to a potential space and look, then change your mind and put it somewhere else, but as soon as you let go, that's your move.
Just handle rules lawyers like how you handle edgelords and vampires, drench them them in holy water and debt
Chase Gamer The rules lawyers didn’t have enough money to pay for their education! They’re now in crippling student loan debt. Just send a collector. Easy.
@@door1722 Maybe turn a priest into a debt collector
@@Archbagel When you think about it, a priest might work too. Considering rules lawyers are naturally evil
Noice
I hear there's a family in Britain that used breathing techniques to handle Vampires...
"I like rolling for stats but hate that it's random" can be directly transliterate as "I like rolling for stats and getting super lucky rolls compared to everyone else. Otherwise it sucks"
Honestly, anyone who doesn't roll great on their random stat rolls is going to feel like trash compared to anyone who got better rolls. In fact, this was a real problem back in 2nd edition: you literally can't play certain classes without good rolls, due to prerequisites, and many of those prereqs were high scores.
For that and many other reasons, it's just helpful to use Point Buy. It gives players more agency over their character's performance.
@@Eisfalken I agree everyone loves to roll until they get something worse than the standard array
"Hey DM, could we try my buddy's 'All 18's' system?"
I like a system that allows stat increases during the course of level progression, like 5e. It makes the lower rolls more palatable since you know you can nudge them back into range if they truly become a problem (which they usually won't, unless you dumped CON). Though in my 5e campaign I allow 1 bump every 2 levels instead of 2 every 4, just to spread it out more evenly.
@@SomeUA-camTraveler That actually started in 3rd edition, and it was actually pretty revolutionary for D&D: beforehand, magic items were the only method of stat-boosting once your character started play at level 1.
And you are correct that it definitely reduces the need for stellar stats early on. Spellcasters do need high stats to access their highest level magic, but with level-based stat increase, they can honestly get by with, say, a 16 (possibly even a 15) in their primary stat at character creation.
@@Eisfalken Exactly... you'll get there eventually! It even makes it feel like your character is increasing in power, instead of just "starting off bad."
What's your stance on stat caps in 5e? I get why they're there (balance and reducing samey-ness), but it just doesn't sit right with me that an elf and a dwarf could potentially cap off at the same Dex. I always rule that any racial stat boosts also increase your cap, and then I come up with other incentives for having players make characters outside the typical archetypes.
PF: Says the word random 20 times with ever increasing hysteria.
Me: You OK over there?
"I want 4d6, reroll 1"
"You got a 6."
"Can I mulligan?"
NO. NO I'M NOT OKAY! I PROMISE!
*TRUST ME*
OBJECTION ! My client pleads that ruling Magical North Korea was an acquired right from the DM. Furthermore, Mr Abserd wishes to exercise his right to make Flatch Kriga exclusively distributed by Otterton Fisheries LLC. Please refer to the Most Favored Otter law of international commerce for clarification.
Defense calls Whimsy the Aboleth to the stand, your honor.
@@alexross1816 Your honor, Mr Whimsy is clearly biased in his testimony. As these pictures demonstrate, he has often consorted with malicious flora. Specifically a most beligerant individual this court banished to...to...the realm of El-Aye ! *collective gasp*
@@KaiserAfini I wish to point out your honor, that this client, as shown in these documents, has had known relationships with the very group responsible for instigating the aforementioned banishment of that belligerent individual and it is suspected based on this evidence that they had...a relationship, with a planned getaway to that very realm! This very courtroom and trial could be part of his plans to return at any moment. With such dire consequences, should we be focusing on such a lesser matter!?
@@KaiserAfini Very well you honour in this case I would like to call a surprise witness to the stad. One who is known for their bravery and integrity. I call forth the man, the myth, the legend that is The Hero of Parnast
Legal eagle?
My take away from this video is that rules-lawyering and "rule of cooling" needs to be a two-way street.
either that or a no-way street
it gets easier when the rule of cool thing isn't persistent , isn't heavily mechanical or isn't already ruled clearly by the book
but this is why we need a DM, so we can have things that rules alone can't make
I'm fine with rolling 3d6, just so long as we can put our rolls in the stat of our choice. Putting the first roll in Strength, then Dex, etc. is a recipe for misery.
I always used the one my very first dm used. Which is 6d6 take the highest three rolls and you get one free eighteen. I've still had characters that the highest stat outside the eighteen is a twelve. But I enjoy it because it creates a slightly stronger pc which means I as a DM can make stronger encounters without worrying about a tpk at lower levels
Ya know what is even more painful? Random rolls. Random assignment of stats from said rolls. AND THEN being assigned a random class after that. All the players agreed to that. I tell you it is panful to have a cleric with a wisdom of 11.
LOL
But then I had no one to blame because I agreed to the wacko concept. There was one guy that was fighter and had a negative mod for constitution. OUCH!
@@targetdreamer257 Please tell me that was a one-shot and not a campaign.
Nope. It was a campaign. What made it even worse was we played the parts. I was a half-orc that was a cleric of Gruumsh (random race). There were a couple of elves in the party. Gruumsh no likie elves but some how we came together. One of the elf boy and I played up the orcs and elves as enemies. Surprisingly we lasted till like 6th level even though the racism mostly split the party.
It does get better, after the tpk, the DM gave permission to roll up and assign stats the way we wanted.
I think the DM took pity and allow group cohesion.
I really loved that Nobilis video.
Man, I've been trying to remember the name of that RPG! I wanted to check it out, and couldn't remember it. I thought it was a weird and interesting system, and was sad I couldn't watch the video again.
Donovan_Du_Bois playing basketball whilst his hand is dripping blood!
Honestly, I use the term Rules Lawyer in the same way you do: it's someone who will use, abuse, or ignore the rules as it benefits them. I guess I can see where that other definition is coming from, but the sleazy definition fits the term so much better in my book.
A very selfish rules lawyer is incredibly toxic. However, a positive form of rules lawyering is the Encyclopedia of the rules that the DM can refer to when they don't know and don't want to make a call that already has established Sage Advice or PHB reference.
@@gavir4379 like when Matt Mercer is a player, and whoever is the DM consults him
@@scouttyra Since I'm a very well read DM, I'm often asked because I can get the info really fast if I don't already have it.
@@gavir4379 yeah, it's like asking someone you know who have knowledge in say tech/it when you are having trouble with your computer instead of going to the tech shop.
Rules lawyering is fine as long as you remember 2 very important facts:
1) The D&D books are a guide and can be altered to fit the world.
2) (Rules lawyer arguing back and forth with the DM).
DM: "You see a large mountain floating over your head. Slowly, lights flare along the bottom of the mountain. In common it reads out, "Don't f♡@k with the DM."
Videos like this I enjoy the most. I don't know why, I like hearing Puffin talk about how to be a better player or what to do / not to do.
It's been so long since a "discussion" video regarding DnD so to speak. I'm a big fan of them so this is a nice surprise.
I recently started a campaign in which my friend was the DM, and I was a fan of what he did to avoid rule lawyering. Before our session 0, he typed up a document listing how the rules of our campaign were gonna work, which rules stayed the same and which he homebrewed, and posted it in our discord server. Then he gathered us in the vc to go over it and explain things. All of us players then understood what we were getting into, proceeding to make characters and start the campaign. This level of clarity from the DM can help to mitigate rules lawyering, but at the end of the day, those who really just enjoy playing the game will be willing to adhere to the DM’s rules, provided they aren’t too far removed from the base game.
i mean normally you'd think that'd do it all, but for some players they want to play and still have it their way anyway, i have personally done a similar thing, trying to run a campaign, but 2 of the players kinda ended up ruining the experience for everyone, and made it kinda just unplayable to a point.
Jason Wazza some people just can’t help being privileged lol. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Maaaan, I have a lawyer in my group. He is constantly arguing about some rules - all he considers is his own gain. His latest proposal was - I want to be able to kill someone with one blow if I roll high enough stealth or the person is sleeping. In order to avoid combat. He was really pissed that I was not allowing "such a cool RP moment". He plays a monk, not even assassin. Their half-assed attempt at infiltration has gone awry and suddenly he was like - well, I want to hit this berserker from behind and since he hadn't notice me I think I should be able to drop him in one hit. WHAT?! He was totally cool, said it should be a blanket house rule. I was like - ok, than monsters would be able to kill you in one blow also. And suddenly it was unfair.
What a gobshite...
Well, to be fair, on the specific point, and ONLY that, of the "sleeping enemy insta kill" I actually agree, usually when you're fighting someone to death you will always aim for the neck or similar deadly spot, but even if you land the attack the enemy still avoided it to some extent so that instead of the neck it got hit on the shoulder or something. But a sleeping foe won't do that, obviously, so it should be hitkill. And obviously again, the monsters would be able to as well
That's not even a rules lawyer, really. All he's done is suggest his own rules and try to enforce them; there's no actual precedence within the existing ruleset (and, indeed, a lot of things that outright contradict him) to justify this change. A rules lawyer is someone who argues for specific rulings based on their own (relatively) comprehensive knowledge of the ruleset (house-ruled or otherwise), whether that be for their own advantage, or to maintain consistency within the mechanical game.
For me personally, I really enjoy finding legal, internally consistent means of doing a lot of fun, unconventional stuff like casting Dominate Beast on a polymorphed/wildshaped enemy or attacking myself on my turn to trigger Misty Escape before to avoid taking a much bigger, deadlier hit from the demon on my heels. In general, I tend to be the planner because I like using all of the party's abilities to the fullest possible extent.
I’ve been looking for that rules lawyering video recently.
What a coincidence. I was just rewatching all of Puffin’s old videos last night. Now I’m sad to learn I missed all these earlier ones.
My group understands the golden rule, "The DM is always right". And thankfully, regardless of which of us is the DM at that time understands that rules are there to guild fun gameplay, not get in the way of it.
As a long time GM, here's what I found helpful:
• Just call the shots and find ways to collaborate to make it fun.
• If a player is consistently annoying, set them aside after game and make it feel collaborative. Like saying, "I'll run things how I have them for the pacing, but if you have a couple notes for me, I'll see how I can make it fun for everyone".
• I play with a lot of story-focused or friendly players from theatre, improv, marginalized peoples, or larp groups.
• Using games that aren't D&D. Sooooooooo many games are as fun or more but easier to learn for everyone
I'm in the same camp as your regarding other systems (your last point), but recently I discussed running some Dungeon World or FATE with a new group and a lot of the newer players were actually afraid of not having enough rules to use as a safety net. So I guess my point is that you need to consider WHY you recommend more rules-light systems before you recommend them.
Luckily we had a good talk and it seems like people are willing to give it a shot. I'm sure it's going to be fine, they are way better at improv than they give themselves credit for and I think they'll find that it's easier to get the scene you want if you don't have to read spell-cards in fine print before you declare what you are going to do :P
So my take away from that experience was this:
- Some players need (or think they need) some kind of structure more than others.
- BUT, using concrete examples of when the rules got in the way of their character concept in more rules-heavy systems is a good way of turning them on to more rules-lite systems :)
@@Micras08 I really think the reason players fear playing more ttrpgs and trying out other ttrpgs is because D&D, despite overwhelming popularity, is needlessly complex and deep.
Ryuutama, Dungeon World, and Fate I found to be incredible experieces for new players, and then if the GM is comfy, a hack or homebrew power per player really helps them feel like they're playing something unique and easy.
That last point. I've played D&D for over 20 years, but recently I feel like part of the problem IS the game - and how complicated it still is, despite 5e. I've recently purchased ICRPG and am really considering switching, even after all this time.
@@wanderinghistorian yeah it's ridiculous. For the three systems I mentioned, I can teach all the needed rules in like 10 minutes, or even less if they've played D&D before. And so customizable and simple if wanting to hack. Balance is also way easier so min-max/rules lawyer/power gaming is a lot harde to pull off.
"Rules are for me to inflict upon other people"
Welp, that's Lawful Evil for ya.
That was 90% of the GMs back in 1E days of the game.
@@kevinsullivan3448 And their favorite rule was "The GM is always right."
The difference between a rules lawyer and a rules bargainer. I appreciate how you made a clear distinction between the two in your original video.
"I like rolling for stats but I hate that it's random" That literally just means he likes having higher numbers than standard point-buy.
It doesnt necessarily mean that. My problem with random roles is that it doesnt feel good when some characters have a low role while others have a high role in the same game.
@@Berethgor my solution is to have each person roll 1 stat and that's the standard for that game. So everyone is the same but the dice are random.
@@Berethgor I saw a stat generation system recently you might like. Roll 6 six sided dice in order. labeled A B C D E F; your stats are calculated as thus: 13+A-B, 13+B-C, 13+C-D, 13+D-E, 13+E-F, 13+F-A. this gives 8-18 average 13, similar to roll 4 six sided dice drop the lowest. If you want something closer to 3 six sided dice use a 11 instead of a 13 and use 6 eight sided dice instead of six sided dice for 4-18 average 11. the number added to the dice is your average stat value and dice size determine the level of variance. You can even roll this once and use the result as a stat array for all the players.
Yeah, people often like being unexpectedly strong.
@@Berethgor That's why rolling for stats is bad and I've banned it from my games. I had considerable problems with one group where a couple players rolled a string of 18's and everyone else at the table rolled crap, it basically ruined the whole group for everyone except for the couple guys that got lucky and I'm never allowing that to happen again.
Thanks for this! I'm a noob and am trying to watch out for things that I should avoid falling into... This is a good video for me to watch and know what NOT to do when it comes to "bending" rules or even when to approach my DM for things like that. At the moment I just kinda let everything roll. If we screwed up, we write it into the RP in some way and if there's something that happens shortly down the line that's detrimental BECAUSE of the screw up prior- I'll ask for some help from the DM and we'll make a small bend back in a positive direction.
6:23 the rule of cool states that it’s fine as long as it doesn’t give you an advantage mechanily your players really are bad for trying to use the rule of cool to gain advantage
The rule of cool states that it's fine to bend the rules a bit to do something cool. That does in many cases give small advantages. It just should not allow to ignore the rules alltogether.
Alresu small advantages yes but his players are abusing it
@@maddoxWolfe Absolutely. I was just talking about your statement, which sounded a little bit absolute.^^
I've never seen anyone call for the rule of cool unless it mechanically advantaged them. The DM hardly says no to cool things that don't have mechanical effects. That would just be stupid.
"THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS TO BE RANDOM! IT'S. RANDOM."
Preach it, my good sir! :D Spread the word of RNGsus!
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
lol. One of my friends is always getting cucked by RNGesus. That's why in my game where's he's playing a halfling arcanist, I put out the rule "Roll for HP, but if you roll below average, take average." Don't want to have a level 10 character with only 10 HP. :P
"I like random but only when it's good for me"
Not very random then lol
3d6 for stats! Roll for hp every level no do overs! Wild magic sorcerer except you use an expanded d1000 table!
@@meris8486 I am to an extent guilty of this. I like rolling for stats and random and I can deal with below average stats. However, if I get like a 7 and a 5 in two of my six stats, I fell bad about it. Also I don't like rolling for HP. I would rather take fixed HP or average HP than risk rolling 1s for HP gains.
I think we can all agree that a player that's considered a " rules lawyer" in D&D at least is the person who only brings up the rules when it is advantageous to them or their party, or a person who is just using rules to screw with other people. The person who wants to follow the rules no matter if it benefits them or not is more a " rules stickler", which depending on the group can be ok or not. This is how AD&D 2nd ed described a" rules lawyer", and I agree completely.
Players should be diligent on keeping track of effects/ modifiers/ spell slots/ etc, the DM has enough to worry about . This can lead to dishonesty sure but if you have to cheat to enjoy the game your not doing anyone any favors playing with honest people. Sure I have had crap rolls that if I would have lied about something my character would have lived but D&D is supposed to be brutal ( at least the version I grew up on), that's the game and it makes the times you do pull amazing things off that much more cool when played honestly. Hell if you die honestly at least you have a good story to possibly remember, and if your really attached to your hero a lot of times your DM will bend the rules a bit to make sure your character is not gone forever.
If something like a bonus or penalty is honestly missed and a couple rounds later it is discovered the best thing to do is just play through it IMO. There are exceptions I guess but like Ben said in the video if you wouldn't want to redo the rolls if something bad would possibly be the result then you shouldn't expect a redo.
It takes alot of effort and awareness to see flaws in work and to re-evaluate and re-upload. I applaud you. Well done sir.
I run my tables on one simple rule concerning "false" rolls:
"What's done is done, if the dice fell, none of you corrected me and I narrated the outcome, that's the state of the world and if you want to change things retroactively, you better start collecting those dragon balls."
Does the reverse also apply though? If you fail to catch a mistake made by the players does the outcome still stand when the mistake comes up?
@@thundereagle97 It should. The only good rules are universal rules.
@@thundereagle97 Basically. I have two rules "GM is god" and "when done is done". If turn ended then all mistakes become the reality.
@@thundereagle97 Yes it does, if I miss something that's on me and I will have to live with it
Yeah, that's typically how I run stuff as well. Retconning is a pain.
My group used to call this "Scooter Ladders." They had a guy (Scooter) that would stack up old calls, rules interpretations, situational advantages, and just try to nuke the game. So whenever someone tried doing mental gymnastics they would say "Stop building a Scooter ladder!"
I appreciate your insights.
As a DM, I actually really appreciate it when players don't want their characters to get hurt. It shows the players care about their characters. I usually have a mechanic in my games where some characters can be resurrected at least once. Either one NPC friendly to the party has a resurrection spell scroll, or the friendly priest is a secret Deva, etc. So if a player has a character they love and they don't want them to get hurt, I give them inspiration for following the rules and ask them if they want their character to be resurrected or if they came up with a cooler character. Really cuts down on rules lawyering in my games.
I was literally just thinking puffin forest when will he upload and then you did so I guess what I'm saying is get out of my head
I think that's more of you being in his head, but what do I know about these phenomenons.
Honestly, I really liked the old video, because it talked about how there are two types of rules lawyers: Those that just want to make sure the rules are followed (which is my kind), and those that only want to use them to their advantage (what I am sometimes confused for). I like being able to point to that when the topic comes up. You might not like the video, but I still request its return. Please?
i agree, it was a very informative and entertaining video, particularly for a dnd newbie like myself
When I did a lot of Dm'ing, I was almost always willing to work with players because I was lucky and had players who were very consistent. Also, most of them were new and looked to me to kind of set how flexible they could reasonably expect situations to play out. And like I said, since many were new, I let them have more rules of cool that I'd normally allow just because they were really getting into the game, adding extra flair other than roll to hit, you hit, roll for damage, etc. I would try and describe how the player's attack and the enemy's response would play out.
Stuff like: You just barely missed the AC so as your blade arcs through the air, the enemy shifts their position causing your blade's swing to impact with more weakness than you expected. The smooth metal pauldron deflects your blow away and the enemy looks no worse for wear.
Or if they overkilled an enemy by a lot, I'd tell them that their underhanded greatsword swing bit into the body of the "insert enemy here" with a wet and meaty noise. Your swing was so devastating to your opponent that your greatsword continued slicing through the enemy's body, nearly cutting them in two. They have little time to even scream, let alone react, as their blood pours over your sword. One time a player asked if their greatsword had gotten stuck in the enemy and I had determined that no, it wasn't stuck, she'd be able to free the blade fairly easily. She asked if she could do the thing where she places her boot on the body and just 'mighty boots' the enemy off their blade. I say 'absolutely'. They're getting into the game, if people want to be more descriptive and really let their imagination go wild, awesome. As long as we can maintain our pace. She then said after she kicked the body off the blade that she let out a scream of triumph since it was a significant character moment as though her character was strong, they were also a bit afraid to be in a real battle where they could die. This scream signaled that she'd gotten over her reservations and was fully committed. I asked her to roll a d20 and decided to play off the rule of cool and make it so that her triumph inspired her allies, so everyone's next attack would benefit from Inspiration. That was a great group. Large, but great.
I'm wondering if the player who said they liked rolling but disliked the randomness was maybe referring to that with the pure randomness, you can end up with an extremely weak character. So I usually had a couple bad luck counters for when rolling for stats as many liked rolling as it usually made for more unique characters than a point buy system. My anti-bad luck was if you roll 6-8, just auto reroll unless they wanted to keep it for an RP purpose which happened sometimes. And when rolling, the two crappiest rolls, roll again and pick which ever result you want. So the occasional 16-18 in stats, a ton of 14s-10s, and you know all the rest. We did have one person who had a wisdom of six once. That was pretty funny. Absolutely NO common sense. Almost a perfect representation of an absent minded expert.
NOBILIS! That was it! God, I couldn't for the life of me remember what that game was called and after combing through this channel's archive I realised you took the video on it down.
Puffin: a video on a video, rules lawyering
Me: wut..
I completely agree. I remember the previous rules-lawyering video and appreciate that you have adapted to a less combative style for this topic. When rules are concerned, they are around for everyone to adhere to, generally speaking. Whatever the rules are, they should be adhered to consistently and equitably. I personally like the official rules of 5e. But if everyone in the group wants a different rule set, that's fine. Just administer the rules consistently. Your example about rolling for stats is spot on. "I love rolling for stats, but hate the randomness".
RIP HSI AMRS OFF! HE'S EXPRESSING HIMSELF ON THE INTERNETS!
...
On a serious note, that was a good video and very well explained.
Good take on rules lawyers. Typically the ones I run into in the groups I've ran are the ones who try to take advantage of the rules or pick and choose which ones apply, and yeah that gets old really quickly.
'IF YoU dOn'T LiKe RaNdOm, tHeN dOn'T USe RaNdOm!"
best quote in existance.
But shiny math rocks!
I use it in a similar way, a rules lawyers is usually someone who argues for their own benefit, not in the spirit of the game.
I'd like a playlist of all removed videos.
The original Devil's Gold video (the one without animation) had significantly better vocal delivery. At least if I remember correctly. I can't go back and check. Hint hint.
I agree, maybe have them be "unlisted" but available via link
Yeah, It would be amazing!
I also liked the original Devil's Gold / Weird West video. Some of the jokes were set up better or delivered better. For example, the "if he rolled a 1 on a blah-sided die" joke. Far better delivery originally. (Also, originally it was an 8-sided die, but now it's 6-sided?!? Unacceptable! :P )
Good one PF! I like it when there's that one player in the group who is the rules lawyer. I know that the term "rules lawyer" probably has more negative connotations than good ones and it's really all about how it's done and how consistent it's done as you stated. Really running the game, while the DM is in charge of it, takes the players as well.
Is that the Flaming Raging Posionious Sword of Doom? +30 attack
I would like to thank you a ton for this video.
Through most of my RPG career, I have had a good deal of experiences about me being called a rules lawyer/focusing on the rules to much, etc.
So I had forced myself to stop doing it since it annoyed the others, slowed down the game or what else they had as a complaint. But, there would be times where others would throw the rules around, call out my choices as "bad" or "this is better".. It was really confusing to me for a long time, and I never got around to understand "what am I doing wrong?".
So again, thank you.
As a DM myself, although only a novice, we have our own rules lawyer: my brother. My brother is one of those people who think that "If it's in the book, you have to follow the rule", which I'm totally fine with, unless the book describes it as a SUGGESTION. It doesn't help that he's literally read all the book. My rule for this is "If you can can explain to me what you want/what you're doing in a way that makes sense to me, I'll allow it". This doesn't always go far, though
For example, for his character, he wanted a particular Weapon. In one of the books, it was comparable to another weapon, but it was for flavor. I didn't agree that the weapon he wanted did as much damage as what the book was comparing it to. I told him, "It doesn't make sense for the damage to be that high because of how each weapon does its damage". The only argument he had was that "it was aesthetic", which, for this discussion, wasn't enough for me. I had no problem with him having the weapon, but he would have to explain to me exactly how he wanted it, and then I would determine the damage. It turned into a shouting match.
I don't have a problem with rules lawyers. My problem is when they try to argue about something that the DM doesn't agree with and is changing
I can see your point, but the weapon thing just sounds petty.
"I want to have a katana, it's the exact same thing as a longsword, but I call it a katana."
"Acthttually, katanas are sharper and lighter and made of inferior metal so it should be something closer to a short sword in damage."
"Why do you care, it's a longsword in every way that matters. If I wanted a longsword you wouldn't be complaining about it so why are you doing so just because I'm calling it by a different name?"
"Because that's what I think katanas should be like, even though you could have a regular longsword and it wouldn't change the game in any way whatsoever."
...or something like that. At least that's the way it sounds to me.
I can absolutely understand that. The line between causing trouble and airing a grievance is thin sometimes.
For this particular situation, I'm assuming the type of weapon he wanted required a feat or proficiency that he didn't have. If he just wanted it for the aesthetics you could've made it a hybrid weapon with the stats of a weapon he could wield. For example, if I had a player that was a wizard that wanted to use a scythe, I could theoretically allow him to stat it as a staff with slashing damage. Of course it is fully within your right to just refuse and tell him to get proficiency with it if he wants it so badly.
By contrast, sometimes players get screwed by their GM/DM because it's believed the rules as written are too powerful.
I was in a pathfinder RP once where a player was an Aasimar cavalier. His racial heritage gave him wings, and his archetype gave him a ship instead of a mount. The GM thought that was all too OP, so they had him start without his ship and his wings were so damaged he couldn't fly. This was technically within his rights as a GM/DM... but it left the player without core class features and a distinguishing racial bonus. I don't think it was a coincidence that the player only played for one session before leaving.
@@armaggedon390 if someone did the whole katana/longsword argument. I wouldn't go into damage due to materials (cause they both do a lot of damage irl, and wouldn't want to get hit by either). I would go to the exotic weapons section of the book and get the stats for the katana, and tell him that if he really wants to use it without penalties then he should get exotic weapons proficiency feats. If it isn't in the 4th or 5th edition books then look in 3.5, and work from there.
At some point you have to put your foot down, I've made the call, that's what happened and it didn't happen any other way.
Tell him to draw his character with a katana if he is so pressed about it, girl, like there isn’t a limit on his imagination outside the game.
But, also, he is your brother so sometimes that gets in the way of being rational.
"I like dice rolling, but it's too random"
Someone slap this player.
I am happy with my current 8 Str, 10 Con Halfling Wizard.
I am scared for my life with my 5 HP, and having NO attack spells
wee~~~~
My current Str 4, con 6 character is a blast to play.
I just have to convince others to be my pack mules and shield all in one!
My warlock can spam eldritch blast( old one)
Later: what do you mean I can't contact my lord in the frozen wasts
I mean. It's pretty easy to roll up a spellcaster. You only need one good stat realistically. But say. For something like a monk. You need like 3, sometimes 4. Of course you'd be having fun if you rolled a bunch of low stats with one high one if you already wanted to play a spellcaster but if say just as an example, you always play spellcasters and you decide "I wanna play something simpler this time" and roll with the intention of playing a fighter but now you have to pick between having either no Con or no Str. I don't think that's very fun.
It's basically like saying "I like dice rolling, but I hate that it's dice rolling."
I went with the suggested numbers for my tiefling wizard, but then I am quite new to dnd and iirc was pretty tired when creating them.
Wow 700k
Congrats puffin I stopped watching you for a little while once I started to play dnd less and I'm pretty sure you were at 300k or 400k at the time
Your channel has really grown I'm happy for you
This is actually really good timing for me, just had a session with my party today. I'm very new to DMing, in fact this was only our second meet but somebody was (granted indirectly) rules lawyering (they've only played twice whereas I've had quite a bit of experience) and it caused a lot of bad anxiety for me. I'm not very confident in my DMing yet, and I worked very hard to set up an encounter but it was the little things like how to cast spells correctly or, for instance, distancing from enemies and a lot of general pushing and it just really hit hard for me. I ended up closing the session mid-encounter because I was frustrated, but thank you for this video. It did give me a new perspective on the situation, and I'll definitely try a little harder next time with compromising and having that needed confidence to communicate with the players.
As the DM, you have control of the pacing of the game. If you ever get frustrated, never be afraid to slow down or stop and think. Yes, it will break the flow of the game, but the flow of the game is nothing compared to your own enjoyment of the game. Take it slowly, look up the rules if you must and work on remembering from the top of you head over time.
Hi Blue Jayyy. I think a lot of new DMs get flustered by trying to follow "The rules" or "The adventure". It's a lot easier to remember you aren't a robot, you're a game designer. Remember, enemies don't have to follow any rules but what you say (as every enemy can be designed its own way with special abilities). Your magical effects can work however you say they do. The rules exist to serve your game, not the other way around, and anything can be a special case while still technically honoring the rule itself. Just focus on giving your players a great time and getting them curious about what's going on in your adventures, what might be behind the next door.
I never use monster manuals for this reason. It's much easier just to invent cool stuff for monsters to do.
You'll find your footing soon! My group has a lot of new players (only playing for a few months to a year, where I've been playing for almost a decade), and some of them have taken up DMing one shots when I'm not DMing our usual campaign. I constantly want to butt in with the way I DM, but I hold back because not every DM wants to use the rules the way I do. Sometimes, I'll have something I want to do as a player be shut down where I wouldve allowed it, and I just gotta roll with the punches. Don't use this as a way to punish or railroad your players, but do remember you are running the game. Your word is final, and if people want to argue, you've got every right to end the session. The confidence to do this comes with time and experience. Just keep toying around with it. I'm sure you're doing a great job regardless!
I suggest looking up Matt Colville's "Running the Game" series. It's a detailed, still-running series about _D&D_ 5e targeted at new Dungeon Masters, focusing on, among other things, how easy it can be as well as common pitfalls and how to avoid them. It did a lot to help my confidence just to run a module and I feel like, in time, I can start writing my own content.
@@PotatoGuidanceMissle this is very helpful to me, thank you! I'll certainly keep this in mind the next time the party meets!
@7:47, During character creation in a 3.0 Game I asked the DM "How do you want to roll Stats?"
"It doesn't matter" was his answer
I started rolling 3D20's
:)
@Noah Hornbeak
I think my first number was a 32 :)
@Noah Hornbeak as soon as the DM caught on he declared how he wanted us to Roll, I forget what his decision was.
LoL 5d20 drop the lowest two.
Glad to see this, still miss the old video.
The example of the monk wanting his attack of opportunity when fully restrained was good one.
I liked how you explained the traditional (stickler) vs lawyer in the old video with the animations.
Keep up the good work!
"Have happy gaming."
Thanks man, I'll do my best.
The best game ever seen in my days was when my friend told another group, "You guys should roll 3d6, no assigning where the rolls go", so you had folks rolling straight down the stat block, and the folks who had decent rogue stats ended up being halfling thieves with "Cheese x2 Wheels" and "Bread x2 Loafs" on their inventory, because pretty much everyone was "basic" and so they were less heroic heroes and more some local do-gooders who brought lunch with them while they cleared out rats from a local cave.
3d6 going down the stats is a fun way to make a character you wouldn't have thought about, if everyone does it in a group it can be a great experience and really adds to the randomness that creates the need to really think about character
Idk if it's just me, but playing local do gooders is way more satisfying than playing high magic world savers.
I really enjoyed this video, Mr. Puff. It feels honest and brings a great perspective.
The way I see it is simple:
"What is the best call a DM can do to ensure EVERYONE has fun?"
Honestly? Homebrew is probably appropriate if you're trying to mimic something for the sake of a theme (For example: A "My Hero Academia" campaign where everyone has by default amazing dexterity and strength by default). However, I generally push for basic rules as a go-to, provided it ensures the most people at the table can have fun. IF there's ever a situation where a rule will cause absolute unavoidable mayhem, OR if a rule is abused by someone who uses it to take advantage of the group (and as a result their fun), then it's the DM's responsibility to step in and make fair calls to mitigate the situation, and to ultimately bring the game back to a state where the most people can have fun again.
I personally hate, HATE, people who try to pull some tom-foolery by manipulating rules, race bonuses, situations, etc, so that they create a totally broken character which thanks to its existence removes the fun from everyone else. Yes we're all impressed with your character building skills, fake stellar rolls, and knack to avoid consequences by bringing up (or outright lying about) some arbitrary abstract rules...but that doesn't do the GROUP any bit of good when you're screwing up the campaign.
A DM's job is not only to orchestrate fun, but also mitigate unfun.
"the best call a DM can do to ensure EVERYONE has fun?" Yeah it's an important question to ask yourself, often before starting a session I say "Is everyone ready to have fun?" I think it puts people in a good frame of mind for the game. But players are unpredictable and sometimes uncommunicative.
There's a reason plot hooks are called hooks the players may ignore them like a fish ignores bait. You have to work on figuring out what they'll be interested in, sometimes that one throwaway merchant who you gave an Irish accent will become enrapturing for them. They want to learn about his long lost Goblin son who he disowned and wish he could reunite with them to reconcile. All hastily improvised as you expected them to just dump their junk on him.
"Those rules lawyers", at least in my experience, are the ones who *just so happen to forget* something that would put them at a disadvantage, but suddenly it's the most important thing in the world and it can't be ignored if that same thing happens to a monster ar a random enemy. Personally, I'm a min-maxer myself. I just can't help it. When we're arguing about what system to use for something, of course I'm going to argue for the one that would help me. But the thing is, I am the DM in our current adventure, so when a system argument comes up, I let my players decide on a system, offering my advice in the middle, and make sure I use it for the monsters as well.
I know where you're coming from as I sit both sides of the screen myself. I might be a min-maxer at heart, but my DMing time has taught me I should put my time into polishing turds to maintain party balance. It has also taught my groups to not leave me alone with the splat books for any extended period of time ;)
I'm a firm believer that if the DM and group want to change a rule for a home game, then the newly adapted rule stands, and it is always applied, because everyone agreed on the specific rule. Otherwise the book rules apply. Mistakes happen, each table is different in how you deal with mistakes. If it's a quick catch, deal with it then, if it's a remembered mistake from three rounds ago, then make sure it doesn't happen again. Your table, your group, your rules.....Just stick to them, and have fun! Great video!
At my table, we don't retcon anything once that turn has ended. Regardless of what happened or who screwed up, everyone has to live with it. It's the only way to actually learn and improve is when there are real consequences. It takes too much time and is too annoying to backtrack 4 turns later because someone forgot bonuses or advantage or whatever else. You just have to suck it up when you make a mistake and move on.
We also do rules as written for everything unless bending the rule at that exact moment wouldn't provide any sort of advantage. For example, the killing blow on a monster are usually more epic and extend beyond what your normal attacks or spells would do, but it doesn't really change anything because that monster is going to die anyway. Only issue that ever causes is those exceedingly rare occasions where someone wants to knock something out rather than kill it but doesn't bother telling anyone else this, then gets upset the monster's head was cut off and it can't be healed with cure wounds or spare the dying to save it.
Rules lawyering is needed to an extent because a spell can be used in a way that it was never intended and you have to adjudicate that and decide what happens. For example, the spell Temple of the Gods I believe it's called lets you create a "building" of very large size but it is made entirely out of magical (and indestructible) force, similar to Leomund's Tiny Hut. The spell explicitly states you can choose the shape of this "building". So what happens if you cast it on the water and shape it like a ship? The distinction between a building and a ship is largely functional. Is magical force weightless? Does it have mass? Should it float on the water? Then when you start considering whether or not it has mass or weight, you have to consider that if it were 100% weightless, what is stopping such buildings from simply floating away in the air. That obviously can't be right, so it must have weight. But how much? Where does this weight come from? Does magical energy possess mass? If it has weight, it has to have mass. And on and on it goes. You have to choose where to draw those lines and distinctions. If you just crapped out a building as was intended, it wouldn't really be an issue, but when you start considering other uses that might/should/could work in a real world scenario, it gets trickier. Perhaps those walls of force are simply "locked" in place and will never move at all. But if that is the case, could you not cast it from the back of a flying creature to create some kind of floating temple in the sky? Oy.
I thought the spell was called magnificent mansion or something
Thats when as a dm you go, "sure, dc25 arcana check at disadvantage because youve no idea how to make a boat"
Okay, I 100% agree with you on the ruling to not retcon a turn once it's ended. However the ruling on the spells you listed are a little flawed:
"Temple of the Gods" - "You cause a temple to shimmer into existence ON GROUND you can see within range." It requires the use of solid flooring to place the temple, I would definitely rule that a body of water would not be considered "ground", let alone in the middle of the sky or on the back of an animal.
"Leomund's Tiny Hut"- "A 10-foot-radius IMMOBILE dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains STATIONARY for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area." This one's a little trickier, but the fact that it explicitly says it is immobile and stationary gives plenty to say that it wouldn't be able to be cast on something that moves and wouldn't be able to move with it.
Love the creativity tho 🧙♂️💚
@@brettwillinsky428 Different spell my dude.
The one i'm talking about, I believe it's called "Temple of the Gods", IIRC 7th or 8th level cleric spell.
It lets you create a building of any shape you desire.
@@brettwillinsky428 I mean... The hull of a ship is one of the most basic shapes :P Kind of hard justifying you don't know vaguely what a ship looks like. Even if you fucked it up badly and made it look awkward or weird, should still float as long as you don't put holes in the bottom.
For me, "rule of cool" translates to "things the players could normally do but want to be fancy with"
Example: Players are in a bar fight and the rogue wants to swing from a chandelier to get to an enemy and make an attack. If the player could've done the same thing by just walking there and attacking, I'll let them do that. If the player avoids an obstacle or expects to not receive an attack of opportunity by doing that, then it's a no-go.
When it comes to rules
I had and ability the DM had questions on how it worked I just read him the text about three times then showed it to him in writing and let him decided how it should work
as a DM and a player if my /your turn is over what you did is written in stone we do not do reconing past attack rolls. I was playing and after my turn we remembered I had something that would have given me and advantage on my last attack and the DM looks at me and is like lets redo your attack I am like no just keep moving forward it is done. What is worse then rule lawyer is the rule expert that is feels the need to show off all the D&D knowledge they have. When not asked or there is not even a question. When I am playing the rules in my mind should be between the DM and the Player unless asked.
Also Puffin I love all your videos they are awesome keep them comming.
6:03 I expect my table to keep track of everything involving their character. I try to keep an eye on it, and if it's a negative effect I keep a closer eye, but it's their job as players to be honest and keep track of what's going on. If theres no threats or penalties, theres no real reason to put encounters.
I was also blessed with a very good table tho
This hit super close to home for me. I had a player who wanted to create a new form of magic and use that with a new character. The problem was that would be his 4th character in 4 1/2 sessions (we had previously agreed his 3rd would be his last) and he wanted to use that magic system at our next meeting. Which was in three days.
There were a bunch of issues going on but he had been consistently trying to break the game. Obviously it didn't work out.
Oooof. Even when it's in the official rules, different types of magic are hard to use and require a LOT of planning from everyone ( example: psyonics in 3.5. If the dm doesn't have stuff to counter them specifically they get op so so fast and just game breaking). So a homebrew one? IN THREE DAYS?!
Yeah the official attempts by professional nerds spending months to attempt to create psionics and shadow-magic were bad enough. If you allowed even a spell book worth of homebrewed basic-ruled spells that were created in three days, the campaign would be tits up. An entirely new form of magic would be a nightmare for any and all DM's.
@@flamebloom4659 But he swore he'd spent all weekend balancing it! 😱😱😱😱
@@newt1izard969 Doesn't matter honestly. You're the dm, if you judge even that it will just be a pain in the back for you to handle, then say no.
Thank you for changing the video. I agree with this assessment. I have a propensity for being the rules guy. I am impartial and happily inform the players and GM alike when they're flat wrong - but importantly, my group likes to play as close to RAW as possible. We WANT to play in accordance to the rules. We like it. This is not for everyone.
Objection!
You shouldn't take down any of your videos…
i like the mature and reasonable puffin who can self reflect and improve
really manly right there
Hold It!
If I were him, I would make a playlist of "Videos I don't like anymore" so that people can see how he's grown.
@@Xenibalt I do too, but I'd like the old videos to stick around too so we can see and measure that improving Puffin.
5:45 I like what you said here about finding another group, but I feel there are a lot of people who don't have other options, which is why I love online play.
other than that, awsome video
I feel bad for the people who don't have other options, it can be hard finding the right group for you or knowing what that is. I think a lot of people put up with other players bs cause they don't know better.
Kobold Slayer Online play?
@@pikachupika5501 like playing on roll20, Fantasy grounds or even discord
It works well if your group can never meet up in person like mine