mUh cHaRacter

I think Critical Role and D&D type podcasts have ruined people's ability to play roleplaying games in truly group focused way.

>My character wouldn't do that

I'm so fricking sick of this hyper obsession with 'muh character'.
I recently was playing a Monk who has -1 Charisma.
We have a Bard and Rogue with proficiencies in all the Social Skills.
So at some point, I as a Player suggested that it'd be both fun and efficient to deceive a group of bandits into fighting a Dragon since we need both gone.
The lie was logical and made sense. But all I got was static from the other players.

>I don't want to/My character wouldn't want to do that
>That probably won't work
>If you want to do it so bad have YOUR character do it

Long story short, I got frustrated and DID do it alone.
I succeeded only because the GM was lenient and secretly wanted to see it play out. (He told me that later)
Ultimately led to one of the best sessions and encounters we've had so far.
But then I get told this UNIRONICALLY from the Rogue post game

>You keep trying to play this like it's just a Dice Rolling game with Stats and Numbers
>If you want to do something just do it even if your character sucks at it

It took everything I had to not fricking go ballistic.
THIS IS LITERALLY A DICE ROLLING GAME WITH STATS AND NUMBERS!
I'm a fricking Human, I have a natural understanding of Risk/Reward and d&d is built around it.
I'm NOT going to play Sub Optimally in a game about success and failure just because you've been taught by D&D Shows that Failure and Success aren't real.
It's literally what makes the game a fricking game!

Frick

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  1. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Have you tried not playing DnD?

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      You get what you get. My friend is GMing for the first time and wanted to run some 5e Prebuilds.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Not that anon, but recommended me something to try. I have only played dnd (3rd and 5th), shadowrun, and traveller. Open to suggestions from anyone.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Hey anon, I appreciate you stretching out and taking a risk here. Some quick questions so I (we) can make a good recommendation.

        What kind of genre are you looking for?
        What's your group's comfort level with non-d20 mechanics?
        Is your group combat-oriented or story-oriented?

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Genre: Open to anything
          I am willing to try non d20 mechanics, and I rather something more story based. Sorry for the late reply.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            You may want to try something like 13th Age which is still very similar to D&D structurally but introduces several story elements that shape how the game progresses. It's also medium crunch like D&D and uses a d20.

            If you're feeling like shock therapy might be best, something like Fellowship might be worth a look. Think of it as a Fellowship of the Ring simulator where a group comes together to journey to defeat a great evil, with the emphasis on the journey and coming together to fight. It's Powered by the Apocalypse, so it's a pretty significant departure from the structure of D&D.

            If you'd prefer something that isn't fantasy, take a look at Stars Without Number which is Kevin Crawford's space opera d20 game. There are some very basic similarities between how it runs and D&D that will make for a lighter transition for the group.

            Finally, if you just want to peel that bandaid fast, there's Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG. Pretty significant departure from D&D style mechanics with narrative dice that help dictate how the action moves with a caveat: it's always fail forward.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            I can suggest Ryuutama or The One Ring if you want something more travel focused that also works. However, it will require you to actually get into the headspace that it's the travel that matters and the in between locations aren't the main focus. It'll definitely be weird at first. It was for us.
            If you want something more combat focused but similar to Ryuutama do Fabula Ultima, and there's a doc an anon posted here that combines thw two (they use the same syatem).
            Call of Cthulhu if you want something more horror focused. It's also really easy to play. But combat is bad in BRP. Not that you're actually supposed to fight 99% of things in this game.
            If you want something political I suggest L5R. Not the FFG version, and not the 5e version, but 4e.
            If you want something focused in cults and stuff, Mythras. But again, combat won't happen and magic is difficult. Not to understand, but in character.
            Righteous blood, ruthless blade is a really cool Wuxia RPG and I can't recommend it enough. The system is simple and elegant, the way techniques are represented is perfect.
            If you want something more story focused, do WoD. Yea, you can do combat but it's really bad. I'd recommend keeping it more to the story and ignoring the combat rules. Though, to be fair, I only played V20, W20, V5, KotE, OG Mummy, and Geist.

            in 5e you can roll skills with attributes other than the default if the situation asks for it (phb 175)

            Don't bother. Most D&D players haven't read the books, let alone the detractors. That's why 5e is "rules light" or "doesn't have x rule so you have to brew it".

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous
      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Nta but it's a variant rule and at least in my case hated in all the he groups I've been because "incentives minmaxing"

        it's ironic, since without it you end up with background characters that only activate during combat
        i think a5e uses the rule by default, especially for initiative

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      This seems like a problem that might come up *more* often in other systems, especially ones that emphasize roleplaying more than D&D does.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      I had this shit happen to me in a Masks and an Apocalypse World game. The player was a stupid frick who objected to everything that happened to their character, and kept trying to get out of everything.

  2. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Bullshit. People have always been moronic. It's not some shitty podcast making them incompetent.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Then I have no idea what else it could be. I used to GM Pathfinder 1e a lot with a group of players who were all pretty new to Roleplaying. They were all pretty malleable and cooperative with each other.
      Now this new group of players I'm with are CONSTANTLY going on about D&D podcasts and admitting to how much in influences their play style. It's not HORRIBLY pronounced most of the time but every so often they just become roadblocks and I don't know why else they'd do it.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Initially I'd say it sounds more like their established method(s) of RPing conflict with your own. That's neither their fault nor your own, nor that of Critical Role, though more on that later. It sounds like you're not a good match for your group, though if the GM is on your side then maybe the two of you aren't a good match for the rest. This sounds more like a failure of the GM to determine if the group would work harmoniously enough together. That said, even this I say as a bit of a stretch.

        Critical Role has set an idea of what RP is like to the uninitiated. They don't realize that RP is very subjective in hoe it's approached and how it is executed. Whether or not Critical Role has done more harm than good, I am of no expertise to say and I would argue no one is. It's all subjective. I will say, however, that it's left an unfair and unrealistic standard upon those who are novice or beginners in RP to place upon those who are experts and/or veterans of RP, but at the same time this might also just be, in part, a symptom of attracting those who would otherwise be uninterested in RP. Again, for better or worse.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      its pulled in a lot of morons who have preconceived notions about how a game SHOULD run due to Critical Roll. My gripe isnt incompetent players as theyve existed way before then its the fact a lot of newbies who joined due to Critical Roll dont want consequences or reduced consequences for their moronic decisions.

  3. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    why would anyone care about how people think others think of them?
    they're just being uncooperative because you're asking them to do something outside of their rp "character"
    also if the rules are clearly set that it's rp they should go with it, agreed.
    but what's the point of metagaming this hard?

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      I don't think it's meta gaming for a PC to know they are good/bad at something and that other PC's are better than them at it. Nobody says you're Metagaming when you ensure the best odds of success during combat, because real people do that too so why is it different out of combat?

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        yes, because out of combat decisionmaking involves more RP than combat
        you're not playing a crpg, you're playing with other people. need to be cognizant of their own quirks and needs

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Nobody says you're Metagaming when you ensure the best odds of success during combat
        Depends. Does your character know that trolls are vulnerable to fire?

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          If your character doesnt research you are bad at the game
          >b-but its the wizards job to research, I dumped int
          Yeah like I said, bad. Get good, noob.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Metagaming is not inherently bad anyway.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >I don't think it's meta gaming for a PC to know they are good/bad at something and that other PC's are better than them at it
        Depends on how well your PC knows theirs, but it IS metagaming to go "hey you have bigger number you should roll instead of me even though you and/or your characters have no interest in this while me and/or my character does". Make the roll anyway if you want to do it, even if you suck at it, because forcing other people to play their characters wrong just because their numbers are bigger IS metagaming.
        >Nobody says you're Metagaming when you ensure the best odds of success during combat
        I absolutely would if you refused to roll an attack because your modifier was lower.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          >Monk can jump 50 meters long chasm, guess I'll have to jump too because otherwise it would be metagaming not doing it...oh frick I died
          At least I'm not a metagamer

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            Disingenuous post by a sub 80 IQ tard.

  4. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    You're probably not even in a game and if you are it's an online game and doesn't count. Go get killed gay.

  5. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    THIS HAS BEEN A PROBLEM IN TABLETOP GAMES FOR DECADES YOU FRICKING newbie

  6. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >play a role-playing game
    >why are people role-playing?
    not sure how to help you out with this one bud.

  7. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Think he looks like a loser who can't win an important battle to save his or anyone else's life
    >Actually look like the guy who saved Goku both physically and spiritually, and who continued to make a difference long after he should have been relegated to bystander status
    Damn.

  8. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    This is why basing social mechanics entirely on "man with big talk number roll good," is moronic. Some of my player's characters have better social skills in different areas than others, but people also have vastly different reactions to some of them than to others.

    Sure maybe the bard has better raw social stats than the barbarian, but if you try to deal with the orc warlord by leading with some fop with a lute, it's probably not going to end well.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      that's why making everything CHA checks is weird. wis, int, and str checks are all perfectly viable social checks in out of combat encounters, in my eyes

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Correct. There's also questions of status, cultural familiarity, general reaction, so on.

        You know, now that I'm thinking on it

        https://i.imgur.com/qbnNYkW.jpg

        I think Critical Role and D&D type podcasts have ruined people's ability to play roleplaying games in truly group focused way.

        >My character wouldn't do that

        I'm so fricking sick of this hyper obsession with 'muh character'.
        I recently was playing a Monk who has -1 Charisma.
        We have a Bard and Rogue with proficiencies in all the Social Skills.
        So at some point, I as a Player suggested that it'd be both fun and efficient to deceive a group of bandits into fighting a Dragon since we need both gone.
        The lie was logical and made sense. But all I got was static from the other players.

        >I don't want to/My character wouldn't want to do that
        >That probably won't work
        >If you want to do it so bad have YOUR character do it

        Long story short, I got frustrated and DID do it alone.
        I succeeded only because the GM was lenient and secretly wanted to see it play out. (He told me that later)
        Ultimately led to one of the best sessions and encounters we've had so far.
        But then I get told this UNIRONICALLY from the Rogue post game

        >You keep trying to play this like it's just a Dice Rolling game with Stats and Numbers
        >If you want to do something just do it even if your character sucks at it

        It took everything I had to not fricking go ballistic.
        THIS IS LITERALLY A DICE ROLLING GAME WITH STATS AND NUMBERS!
        I'm a fricking Human, I have a natural understanding of Risk/Reward and d&d is built around it.
        I'm NOT going to play Sub Optimally in a game about success and failure just because you've been taught by D&D Shows that Failure and Success aren't real.
        It's literally what makes the game a fricking game!

        Frick

        you and your GM are both moronic because 'some bandits' agreeing to commit blatant suicide by dragon because you rolled good is dumb as frick. If you're running social checks as mind control with no limits, then you're all moronic and can't be helped even before we get to the rest of the shit you're whining about.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          They ended up being Dragon Researchers who wanted the Dragon alive. The lie basically went "The Dragon is near death and we can split the loot" which changed as the conversation went on to "We get the loot, you get the Dragon corpse"

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            >They ended up being Dragon Researchers
            yeah LOL

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        CHA is the protagonist stat. If you dump CHA on your character it's because you want to be assisting the main character party members in some speciality tole, but the story is not about you, it's about the CHA characters who have the "spark" as Gygax put it.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Bullshit, frick gygax

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        in 5e you can roll skills with attributes other than the default if the situation asks for it (phb 175)

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Nta but it's a variant rule and at least in my case hated in all the he groups I've been because "incentives minmaxing"

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        This is one of the things Fate RPG does well with its approaches.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      There was a time in Shadowrun where this was very much reflected in the rules, and a lot of people got upset when it got taken out.
      Basically when taking a social skill you had to decide what culture that social skill applied to.
      Having Etiquette (Corporate) was very different from having Etiquette (Spirits) or Etiquette (Seattle Streets), and so on.
      There was even an edge (think of it like an expensive background feat you can get on character generation) that said you're so affable you get a bonus whenever meeting a new group of people, but lose it on repeat meetings because they expect you to be a bit more like them.

      It complicated the shit out of things, but it was better than "I'm the face so my Etiquette applies to everyone equally"

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        This works. I prefer to consider such cultural familiarity more like a perk. Something you take a penalty to the skill roll for if you don't have but can buy off. But that's my preferred method to handling field skills in general, just to cut down on having umpteen different Skill(Thing) entries with slightly different numbers.

        Social shit goes something like, in my book
        >Initial reaction roll, modified by cultural familiarity, appearence, apparent status, what just happened if relevent, so on.
        >May just stop right here depending on outcome
        >Players can use social skills to adjust outcome to better result, but this may require a separate reaction roll depending on how obviously different the next person they meet is.
        Sometimes "Trot out the hottie and have her ask nicely," makes a good social gambit. Maybe on some flue roll in my first example, the orc warlord thinks the bard looks so fricking stupid that it's hilarious and he'll reconsider the request.

        They ended up being Dragon Researchers who wanted the Dragon alive. The lie basically went "The Dragon is near death and we can split the loot" which changed as the conversation went on to "We get the loot, you get the Dragon corpse"

        Somewhat more fair, I guess. Though I'll really my bias is borne of older playgroups and games where "Do (anything involving a dragon,)" is just such a monstrously bad idea that most people aren't going to buy into it if you don't have some sort of elite warhost backing you up.
        I guess I could see this situation happening in someone's game, but man not mine. Nobody would fall for that, especially not 'dragon researchers,' who are going to ask why it's dying and then scowl when your answer is inevitably nonsense. Nor for that matter would they want the body unless they were insane, because 'defiling a dragon's corpse,' is a good way to piss off other dragons, which never has good long term health outcomes.

  9. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    If you want to participate in the role playing part of the game you need to play a charisma based character, yeah it's bad design but that's D&D for ya. Why would you ever play a monk anyway?

  10. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Just play solo.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Unironically this.
      I don't have to deal with CRgays or any of D&D's other problems.

  11. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >min-max player mad when people want to role-play
    a tale as old as time

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >min-max player mad when people want to role-play
      >a tale as old as time
      This guy hit the nail on the head. Exactly right.
      OP refuses to even roll dice if he doesn’t have some huge advantage. homosexual.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Riddle this frickwit, how is he "roleplaying" if he's acting suave when his stats and skills say he's a social moron?

        There is the absolutely moronic idea the roleplaying and stats and skills are somehow adversarial, when the stats are supposed to quantify the character to guide roleplaying.

        In reality this isn't really an issue of good vs bad roleplaying this a issue of the other two players being non-team players and refusing to help another character in advancing the group's goals. Now OP may be leaving some shit out but from the information provided they absolutely should have assisted because you should try not frick up and use the person best suited for a task.

  12. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >role playing in a role playing game is *Le Bad
    The Rogue Is completely in the right.
    >THIS IS LITERALLY A DICE ROLLING GAME WITH STATS AND NUMBERS!
    Yeah but it is not JUST a game about stats and numbers. Its about role playing and the stats and numbers are just there to facilitate a framework.
    >I'm a fricking Human
    No, you are a meta gay who needs to be spoon fed success by minmaxed builds and are too enslaved by fear of not getting spoon fed a win optimally enough.
    >I'm NOT going to play Sub Optimally in a game about success and failure just because you've been taught...
    Pottery.
    I have a question, why do you play RPGs? Why not just play World of Warcraft and just run the exact same dungeon over and over with a minmaxed build copied off of the net?

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      But making someone have less fun in the game because you want to role-playing a character is just kinda dumb.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        So is making someone have less fun because you don't want to engage with the roleplaying part of the game.
        Though I will concede one point: When you're all scrubs, nobody is good enough at roleplaying to not occasionally suck violently at it anyway. It shouldn't get to the point of having to justify something as 'what my character would/wouldn't do.' If it does, some expectation has probably gone wrong somewhere.

  13. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Literally just play videogames instead you autist

  14. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    I don't understand the OP. I'd rather look like Yajirobe. Vegeta's an unlikeable butthole. Were the images accidentally reversed?

  15. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    it isnt just a dice rolling game you actual autist. go optimize a suicide method and execute it.

  16. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    I think you are shouting at clouds, while also having less than 5 sessions of playing TTRPGs behind your belt through your entire life.
    As for your problem - stop watching podcasts ad it will literally disappear. The problem, not the podcasts.

  17. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    anon there is literally no purpose to playing tabletop now that computer games exist

  18. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Dear OP,

    I understand that you wanted to suggest a interesting course of action and I commend you for this. Maybe the fact that your group DIDN'T follow your suggestion was just them respecting the low number you have in CHA.

    If you're willing to lead and tell others what to do, maybe you shouldn't play as a suboptimal class for this (Monk with low CHA? Seriously? Are you daft?)

    You were the player playing suboptimally.

  19. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Everyone in the thread is moronic. In a life or death situation, everyone would be attempting to act as optimally as possible, proper roleplaying, that is playing the role of an adventurer who constantly faces life and death, would mean total optimization, why would somebody not act in the most rational manner at all times?

    Roleplay to these people means to purposely act like a moron and treat the game like you are invincible and in no danger. Also, if you have a +1 in a stat, you already do that better than most people, and you know your strengths and weaknesses. If you can clearly see that doing something you are good at would be advantageous even if it was risky, there is a good reason to do it. Roleplay is downstream of stats.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >In a life or death situation, everyone would be attempting to act as optimally as possible
      COVID-19

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >COVID-19 is a life or death situation

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          >People were not dying of COVID
          You're not gonna make it anon

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            were not dying of COVID
            Not to the extent I had any reason at all to fear being outside than I would a flu epidemic.
            >You're not gonna make it anon
            I am not nearly as dysgenic as you.

            • 10 months ago
              Anonymous

              You hear that guys, this guy isn't some dysgenic b***h. He fricks! He's got kids! His kids frick b***hes! They're all going to breed and kill us all with their superior cro magnon evolutionary drive!! Save us joe biden!!!

              • 10 months ago
                Anonymous

                >life and death is when you walk into McDonalds without a mask
                Dysgenic

              • 10 months ago
                Anonymous

                My town ignored the mask mandates. No one died of COVID. Some of us, myself included, got it but I was fine two weeks later. The pneumonia was the bad part, not the flu itself. Even the nursing staff here didn't get vaxxed, they just wore the masks. Again, no one died of COVID here. Cities... well, frick cities. I don't care about cities.

            • 10 months ago
              Anonymous

              Bet you think the Earth is flat too.

              • 10 months ago
                Anonymous

                Stfu you stupid homosexual, you israelite worshippers are the ones that push this garbage vaccine.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Nobody who thought COVID was a life or death situation didn't take it seriously. they turned our entire society upside down over it

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          >Nobody who thought COVID was a life or death situation didn't take it seriously
          Consider the following: Players not taking shit seriously in games don't think their characters are going to die.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            Pathetic.
            At my high lethality table, there is always one death per encounter, forcing rerolls. You get two rerolls and then you're out of the game. The winner is the last player standing, whose character gets to be immortalized as a DMPC.
            Based.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      If you play your characters as though they had mechanical awareness of the expected outcomes of their actions, you arent roleplaying.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        nta, but I feel there's a fine line. The mechanics do inform reality or we wouldn't use them; a character should have a reasonable idea of their chance of success at an action at which they're proficient, after all, and their awareness of that is reflected in the numbers.
        But in turn, if you're only ever optimizing stats and your character basically doesn't exist otherwise, you're missing the point and probably broken by a bad game or two.
        If you're the previous anon and view even social situations as nothing but an opportunity to extract the best short-term outcome by the numbers, you're probably a sociopath IRL and should be hung.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          >If you're the previous anon and view even social situations as nothing but an opportunity to extract the best short-term outcome by the numbers, you're probably a sociopath IRL and should be hung.
          Why is it wrong to believe this when 50% of the human race take it as a matter of fact?

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          I was the person he was replying to. Sure you don't optimize conversations in real life all the time, but you also don't act like an butthole "You are fat and ugly, heh I'm just such an honest person with a strong identity". There also are times where you optimize how you talk to people for short term gain, like a job interview, talking to a girl you like, etc. When I talk to the king, you best believe that I'm coming in with a plan.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        So characters shouldn't know what they are good at, or what skills they have? Do you roll a d100 to figure out if your wizard knows it can cast spells?

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Back when dnd was good people would roll their stats, so yeah you roll to see if you can have the int to cast spells.
          More importantly, there's a difference between an abstract awareness of your competence and a concrete awareness that the other party member has +6 to persuasion and you have -1, which is why you want to delegate all the talking in order to minmax even when you are the one that came up with the idea. It's completely unnatural.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            We are on the same page I think. Someone who has a +1 knows they are slightly above average, but they don't know they have a +1.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            >yeah you roll to see if you can have the int to cast spells.
            You entirely missed the point of his post. Reread it.

            Everyone in the thread is moronic. In a life or death situation, everyone would be attempting to act as optimally as possible, proper roleplaying, that is playing the role of an adventurer who constantly faces life and death, would mean total optimization, why would somebody not act in the most rational manner at all times?

            Roleplay to these people means to purposely act like a moron and treat the game like you are invincible and in no danger. Also, if you have a +1 in a stat, you already do that better than most people, and you know your strengths and weaknesses. If you can clearly see that doing something you are good at would be advantageous even if it was risky, there is a good reason to do it. Roleplay is downstream of stats.

            Adventurers have their own goals and interests, as well as their own flaws. If you think something is a bad idea why do it? Are you going to shout at the paladin because pledging his soul to the Demon Lord for help in the next big battle is the mechanically optimal thing to do? Hell people in real life don't always act optimally in life or death situations.

            • 10 months ago
              Anonymous

              A good way to look at it is through the eyes of a soldier. A soldier has a role and a set of resources. He is going to use those resources as effectively as possible, but that might vary based on the given soldier. A demolitions expert would use explosives, a marksman will set up a scenario which keep enemies far away and exposed, and so on. Adventurers, if they manage to survive, should have strengths and weaknesses that they are aware of and should attempt to manipulate the tactical situation to benefit them. I enjoy playing half-casters who use mundane equipment to strengthen their martial characteristics. If I walk into an ambush I have smoke bombs, marbles, alchemist's fire, etc.

              • 10 months ago
                Anonymous

                That's true, but even with clearly defined and acknowledged roles you run into problems like OP's. Your marksman hat want to steal from the buildings you're fighting upon even if it puts them in danger, your demolitions expert may not want to use the explosives they're carrying in a certain situation for a variety of reasons even if you consider it to be optimal.

                Of course these things might get them killed, but they can still choose to do em. Pair this with the fact the average adventurer would be far less disciplined than the average soldier and it's fine to do suboptimal things within reason. You don't have to go full dumbass and cast fire spells on a fire elemental, but not everything you do has to be the most efficient tactic.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      You clearly have ZERO understanding of roleplaying. You're a turbo autist with no empathy skills at all, and can't put yourself in anyone else's thought process. Finally, you're so fricking stupid you actually believe your idea of "optimally as possible" is the objectively correct view of the best path, rather than your flawed, personal perception. Ergo, anyone who doesn't do EXACTLY what you decide is correct in any situation is "moronic".
      You are among the most dense autists I've seen in 15 fricking years on Ganker.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >In a life or death situation, everyone would be attempting to act as optimally as possible
      Combat vet here. You are completely and totally wrong in every way that could ever matter.

      It's like the greatest living philosopher of our time said: "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Sun Tzu is dead homie.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      ,>everyone acts as optimally as possible in a life or death situation

      Anon you can't be this dumb

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      maybe the monk should have used his massive wisdom to come with a clever plan to convince the rest of the party then, since he has a bonus there and he should know his strengths too

  20. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    a lot of this is talking around the issue
    having a centralized authority in the form of podcasts (or video games for prior generations of this problem) in an anarchic, decentralized game is just a recipe for chafing

    popularity and disproportionate influence is authority, if only through reach
    i can never play with any of these people just like i couldn’t deal with anyone who got into the hobby through video games and baby duck’d all the shitty habits that came along with it

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      You're a social moron if you can never understand or get along with people even slightly different to yourself. Do you also find you have trouble interacting with people who have been in the hobby longer than you or do you feel you can't get along with them too?

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        you’re an actual moron

  21. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Thread derailed

  22. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Min maxing powergamers must be punished. If you have a negative charisma modifier you shouldn't be able to convince anyone of anything. People shouldn't even be willing to talk to you.

  23. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    How hard is it, honestly, to tell people to just play their characters out naturally? Adjusting to their strengths without using meta-game bullshit to squeeze every last ounce of bullshit into their broken character, while also not trying to play against their own character's type/traits?

    Like, you know...a normal fricking human being?

    I HATE min-maxers who view character creation as a challenge to create the "Best" character, and I HATE narrativists that look at the game like it's some kind of social hug-box. I didn't come down here to be your friend, I came down here to kill trolls, gather treasure, and go on a journey.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >I didn't come down here to be your friend, I
      If you arent my friend, I have no reason to care about what you want or why you do things

  24. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >I'm NOT going to play Sub Optimally
    I would NEVER play with you, turbo autist. The party rogue is 100% right. People obsessed with metagaming like you suck the fun out of all ttrpging.
    FYI, the picture you posted applies to you, homosexual. Not your character, but you.

  25. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It's been happening since literally before you were born. I know you're a nogames homosexual who's never so much as cracked a PHB and only learned what D&D was six weeks ago when someone told him to hate a mid-tier webshow for culture war points, but there are better things for you to do with your time than LARPing a fa/tg/uy. Instead, maybe you could try reading that book you've been meaning to finish, or give your parents a call and see how they're doing.

  26. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It's also not playing in a world. The world will exist without you, but your actions can affect it. Lots of normals forget that.

  27. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Muh character wouldn't do that

    That's a perfectly acceptable response depending on the situation, don't be a frickwit. A thief isn't going to do charity work and a paladin isn't going to standby and let the thief rob the same charity.

    The best thing to keep the group working as a unit? Punish them when they split the party including killing a PC. It enhances the idea "I should play nice with these guys because I am dead without them."

  28. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    According to what you said, two of the three other players disagreed with your plan for non-RP reasons, and the last disagreed for RP reasons.
    This isn't a single player game where you control 4 characters, this is a group game: one player trying to force the otherd into a plan they don't like is just as disruptive as one player refusing to go along with the plan everyone else agreed on.
    >I succeeded only because the GM was lenient and secretly wanted to see it play out
    This is the only part of your story that might be the result of CR influence, and if that's how your GM runs the game then the Rogue player was 100% right for noticing that stats and numbers don't mean shit at your table.

  29. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Hmmm…
    If only there weren’t a game with these kinds of players and this kind of mediocre system…

  30. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Reminder that Yajirobe is the strongest human. According to Toriyama himself, his power level was quite close to the other Z-Fighters after their training despite barely training himself, and also considering the fact that he was Goku's equal originally, lends credibility to the idea he might've been on the same level as the big guys if he had tried.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      His voice sounded like muscleman in the dub

      “You know who else needs senzu beans? MY MOM!”

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Strongest human
      Lelel
      Krillin literally blocks a Kamehameha full power from Goku god blue
      If Yajirobe could even attempt 1% that he would have beaten Goku black

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Yajirobe was strong enough to fight in the original tournament, but he quickly fell behind.

      I don't really buy that "if he had trained" -- Yajirobe was a trained swordsman already -- he would be among the strongest humans. That's Krillin's arc. Yamcha can easily curbstomp Yajirobe in current year.

      Anyway, the original pic is wildly accurate.

  31. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    I'm not reading all that shit.
    And I'm not going to do things my character wouldn't do.

  32. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Just play a video game you moron.

  33. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    gay

  34. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    If you play point buy and minmaxed stats you have no pity from me
    I you were forced to elite array or roled and had to make the best of a shitty situation with rolls as a monk (been there) it's sad but maybe your charisma and personal magnetism wasn't strong enough to draw your party into following that path

    I tend to not have cha below 12 explicitly because of that, but I understand is hard to pull off with a shitty and mad class as monk

  35. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    The problem presented in your story wasn't character motivation, it was a lack of motivation on the part of players.

    If your story wasn't just put together for the (you)s, you made the right choice attempting it regardless. The other player was both right and being a moron at the same time: doing something that your character would do is the point of roleplaying as a character, but the fact he wouldn't have his character do something interesting and helpful to the party suggests a lack of imagination or willingness on his part to advance the party's goals and roleplay an interesting story.

    In short, OP, you're a little bit of a homosexual and I think you've misdiagnosed the problem, but I agree with you that your party was being dumb and I appreciate your willingness to fall on the sword to try and make things go. Your GM was a pretty cool guy to help it along as well, but the point that he shouldn't have had to is well taken.

  36. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    I think you're blaming Critical Role for your players just being bad. If anything I would think CR would encourage players to want to work together more to make epic moments happen, given it's a semi-staged show with a planned story and actors that are paid to work together instead of fight each other.

  37. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >My character wouldn't do that
    A reasonable thing to say. If your character wouldn't do it, then you shouldn't be doing it, but if your character refuses to adventure then you've made a bad character. There is nothing wrong with a character having things they won't do but that doesn't ruin a group-focused game that enhances it because now someone else can try it.
    >The lie was logical and made sense. But all I got was static from the other players.
    Then you should have done it even with the -1 to your Charisma Modifier. The inverse of "my character wouldn't do that" is "My character would try to do that even if they're bad at it", which you should be willing to do. They were in the right.
    >Long story short, I got frustrated and DID do it alone.
    Good, that's literally the point. That's roleplaying.
    >I succeeded only because the GM was lenient and secretly wanted to see it play out. (He told me that later)
    That's bad GMing. Should have let what happened happened.
    >If you want to do something just do it even if your character sucks at it
    He's right, you're wrong. You're the Yajirobe here.
    >THIS IS LITERALLY A DICE ROLLING GAME WITH STATS AND NUMBERS!
    Wrong, it's a roleplaying game where the dice and numbers decide the outcome of the choices you make based on who your character is and what they would do in that situation. If you're playing it as your PC just being a vehicle to roll big number you're doing it wrong.
    >I'm NOT going to play Sub Optimally in a game about success and failure just because you've been taught by D&D Shows that Failure and Success aren't real.
    It's more that success and failure are very real, and because you chose to make a character with low charisma you should be playing that character as if they have low charisma instead of just metagaming and rollplaying.
    >It's literally what makes the game a fricking game!
    It's a ROLEPLAYING GAME, the mechanics exist to determine the outcome when said outcome is in question.

  38. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Honestly you both have a point.
    They should be more open to working together instead of focusing only on what they want to do
    You should be more willing to do thing your character is bad at. Success and failures are part of what makes games fun and any that doesn't kill your story just leads down a different path.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      This. If the group isn't so against the plan they're unwilling to allow the dude who's bad with words to try talking some guys into something, they should also be willing to have the best wordsmith in the guy be the one to give it a try. If the shitty talker fails, the entire group is going to have a bunch of pissy bandits to deal with.

      The point of a group is to work as a group, not be a bunch of solo adventurers hanging out in the rough vincinity of each other.

  39. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Just follow the flow, if their characters won't do it, do it yourself (or don't do it either). I got a PC killed because I refused to do something that was piss easy for me and hard for him, said character was the "my character wouldn't do that" type despite being piss easy for him and hard for the rest, but we were smart enough to not do it either because it was like 1 in 20 chance for us. He got mad I just told him to get better at roleplaying

  40. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Welcome to the Mercer effect.

    When people watch a stage play with dice called Critical Role they only see the theatrics, they don't understand the immersion and roleplaying at all.

    It also doesn't help that the players are typical LA zoomies with moronic character concepts that would probably die the moment they saw a monster.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      It existed before Shitical Role, now is just more on the open

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Generally gatekeeping kept them in check.

  41. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    When I DM I usually incentivize people to go for options that are sub-optimal numerically but in line with their character's desires by awarding Inspiration or a similar benefit depending on the system.

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