> We, 5 friends. Game night.
> One of us said he want to DM.
> He has been playing with us for 2 years. Good player, funny. Everyone ok with that.
> Standart fantasy medieval world. The gods have desappeared. In her last breath, the Night Goddess gave us a magical cat. Ok
> Bla bla, travel to temples fight minions.
> Big Bad appears. Impossible to win. The cats start to talk and transform into anime weapons. Oh no.
> The cat/weapons manifest around us like anime girls. OH NO!!
> Big Bad create shadow clones of us. Impossible to win, again.
> All the party in 1 hp.
> A bad copy-paste of Drizzt appears. "He is the son of Lolth, who is a good goddess but victim of Corellon bad propaganda". He absorbs the shadow clones and single handle the Big Bad, making him retreats. Self-inserted character.OH HELL NO!
> We never let him DM again.
>standart
I know Ganker was never a happy place, but when it got infected with sooo many petulant "smartass" 14 years old jerks? The worst thing, these pathetic peasants acusse you of redditor when im 10000% sure they are the real redditors.
Summer is almost over, anon. Just hold on
>when it got infected with sooo many petulant "smartass" 14 years old jerks
Summer of 2006
it was summer of 2005, newbie
>Being on Ganker
>Confused why people are trolling and pretending to be moronic
>pretending to be moronic
>pretending
>Why assume malice, when stupidity will do
yeah thats cringe and unfun but its hardly that bad compared to what other DM's can do
>blatantly puts his fetishes in game
>every game he's run involves birth in some way
>even convinced a player to have his character introduced by having his mother birth his baby brother
>everytime goblins are involved there's always the mention of "half goblins"
>goblin matriarchy clearly just a shortstack Amazonian race
>almost every female npc is flirty in some way
>in a CoS the artificer became interested in Ezmereldas mechanical leg
>He's a kobold so she's not interested and says something along the lines of "that's enough leg for you"
>female pirate captain is obvious coombait
>tall, strong, haughty, loose, the works
>commands an army of men who she had free choice of
>vampire queen takes blood from her willing subjects, and is known to join a newlyweds bed for the same reason in exchange for lavish gifts
>I'm the only one who seems to notice
I love being a DM
>convinced a player to have his character introduced by having his mother birth his baby brother
elaborate
also based
He's a theater kid, so when I tossed the idea that his character could loudly interrupt an npc to go get his wife to help his characters mom give birth he jumped at it
Dude speak fricking English
I've been quite possibly bamboozled.
I admit it, I smiled. You badtard.
Anon, you do fantasy right.
>female pirate captain is obvious coombait
One of the major characters, if not the most important NPCs in my pirate campaign is a strong female pirate captain. well, their captain. Players have been working and growing fond of her for a year now, and I really like how they ended up interacting and growing bonds with her and the crew. But I could never shake up the feeling that I had based her on some existing character I could see deep in my mind, and I knew it was not Miss Fortune from Leeg.
Half a year into the campaign, jacking it off, I finally realize. She's basically non-coombait Bal'rana. I'm taking the secret to the grave.
>as I am literally jacking off I think about the character I am apparently obsessing over that is definitely it “coombait” and it makes my nut something fierce
cope
No, I mena that while I was jacking it off I came across her because Opala is top tier. Then it downed on me: she was the character I based the NPC of. Just the asthetics, tho, and not fully. But I had this clear image in my head and she was it.
>the character whose appearance I based off of a porn game character that I jerk off to is definitely not "coombait"
uh huh
>D&D
b***h about it somewhere else.
OP never mentioned D&D, stupid redditard. Stop being a pretencious b***h
Flip the script, Black folk.
>acting like /tg/ regards the opinion of one moron as holy scripture
>acting like an Anon you disagree with regards the opinion of one moron as holy scripture, just because it hurts the narrative you're trying to push
>Picture of the DM
>DM instead of GM
>Fantasy medieval
>D&D level bullshit
>Lolth
>Corellon
Suuuure, we are totally wrong for assuming that something that reads exaclty like a bad D&D game, on a board where it is D&D 90% of the time, is not D&D. I still have my doubts that it was not D&D anyway because it likely was and the usual homosexuals decided to make a big deal out of how it "could be anything!"
shut the frick up, moron
it’s dm, I don’t give a frick about what your gay ass book calls it because it got cucked out of using the og term
OP here. Mmmm, it wasnt D&D, but he took Lolth, the drows and Corellon from it
> Used to DM at small conventions, so I got to meet quite a few good and bad GMs.
> We had one GM who was the special brown blot on our nice shirt
> He smelt like death, either spoke very quietly or very loud, would zone out and drool on himself, and was known to "Rocks fall, you die" if the party slightly annoyed him and then go hide in the break room.
> We all found him annoying but he was none the wiser. Very Standard bad GM I've heard of before and after this.
> However we did find a very good use for him by lumping all the reoccurring problem players we would get with him.
> I heard many stories from other GMs that were near the table of what would happen. Most of the time it was just pure Autism and I've heard it went well but none of which I could confirm.
lurk before posting
>playing Shadowrun
>having a good time
>even have a joke session making fun of our previous shitty D&D DM
>GM introduces a DMPC at some point
>DMPC is obviously just John Constantine
>We were hired to "save" him, but he Mary Sue'd himself out of everything
>Literally can't roll for shit because "Oh, he tricked some gods in the past, so he never actually fails unless he wants to"
>Shows up to slowly push us into some dumb not-D&D plotline
>We grumble about it, so he keeps it to a minimum
>GM gets a girlfriend
>She joins our group
>non-Constantine meets us for "one last job"
>He dies, but "allows" himself to become the spirit animal of someone in our party
>To no-one's surprise, his girlfriend gets the spirit animal and all of not-Constantine's powers
>Me and the other Decker drop out of the game a feel sessions later, because we only go on magical only jobs where literally nothing technological is needed, reducing our characters to glorified background characters
>deckers drop out because they get dragged into magic shit they don’t care about nor can contribute and are relegated to spectating
supreme irony, get fricked
Honestly , if your GM can't juggle combat and hacking at the same time, he shouldn't be doing Shadowrun.
>"Oh, he tricked some gods in the past, so he never actually fails unless he wants to"
It's your own fault for not leaving at this point. Hell, you should've left at
>GM introduces a DMPC
Then everyone stood up and clapped.
Same GM, 2 stories.
1. A sort of alternate modern setting where portals to magic realms started appearing and allowing magic in. The party were a first response sort of law enforcement that's sent to detain anything that comes through. I played a German earth genasi woman. She was a very stern, by the books sort of stubborn cop, and was clad in bombsquad armor with an equally armored riot shield and a shotgun she could pump via a notch in the shield. I was the fronline vanguard. So anyway, dispatch had us head to a portal that opened where we fought some nasties, but a demon woman escaped. We pursued her into and onto the roof of a building in the city. Turned out to be a succubus, and somehow managed to charm my character. My officer proceeded to start stripping, rolling around in the gravel on the roof, and rubbing it all over her while orgasming constantly. What should have been a 5-10 minute encounter ended up being twice as long sincethe GM was describing in intimate detail what my character felt and all that, while trying to cyber with me.
2. Was a Darkest Dungeon themed campaign. We used pathfinder, and I made a bloodmage (bloatmage). She (I swear I rarely play female characters) was a shabti by race, so i stead of bloating, she stored her blood reserves inside her as the GM said she was hollow. My character was a sadomasochist, since that seemed nice and grimdark to me. Eventually, an alchemist npc lady wanted to do experiments on my character after we found out she's actually a shabti. My character agreed, being curious herself. The GM then proceeded to again, trying to cyber with me about how sexy it is that my character is being vivisected and how the alchemist is so turned on she can't stand it and want's to frick my character while she's cut open.
>specifically lists their character's sexual preferences
>OMG guys the GM put my character in a sexual situation
Sadomasochism isn't always a sexual thing, Anon. I made her a sadist because "frick yeah, watch the nasties suffer!" and a masochist because she found a deep interest in the human condition, what with her being essentially a magical clone of someone, and exploring this by unhealthy means, such as being whipped in the chappell. Because geimdark.
When I think grimdark, I do not think of fun sexy times. I also don't want to cyber with anyone, especially in what's an otherwise serious hardcore game.
Also, my riot cop earth genasi was a very trad woman who would only express her sexuality with a man, and only after marriage under the Lord Jesus Christ.
She was raped by a succubus, and I will never stand for that.
>only after marriage under the Lord Jesus Christ.
OK nice troll you got me
>[insert main stream gamed] themed campaign
That's your fault
>giving your character a fetish
that's your fault
>agree to do ANYTHING with a PC that would trigger your fetish
that's your fault
>roleplays as femool characters
>Specifies sexuality and fetishes
>plays meme races
>roleplays online in fruity modern setting
This is on you. He simply assumed you were as much of a weird freak as he is
Sorry this might be long
>Game event happening in my town
>Poster had heaps of games on it + live music + swordplay
>Don't have many friends so what the hey, i'll check it out
>Show up and there's literally 3 people in a room
>Two of them (DM and a kid) just started playing a Warhammer 40k match while the third was watching
>DM immediately gives off ex-drug addict vibes just the way he looks and sounds and acts
>I decide to watch too since 1v1's are usually more fun than a "three" for all
>Alright, dope, let's get this game started
>DM- "Uh what's the story, we can't fight without a story"
>This is Warhammer homie, just fight
>DM- "Alright well i think my guy will try and talk to your guy and he says "oi! get off my land you human!""
>Kid ignores and rolls for a shot
>DM- "oh this is quite like Middle Earth huh? so do these guys do-" insert 15 minutes of him asking the kid questions and asking more questions each and every time the kid is answering mid sentence
>Kid asks what his defense is since he just wants to get the game going
>DM rambles for another 30 minutes about some random shit
>Kid is visibly agitated
>The guy watching is on his phone
>Decide to leave because holy frick the DM will not shut the frick up and it's been 45 minutes and nothing has fricking happened
I forgot your name kid but if you're reading this i'm sorry you had to put up with that.
Aw, I hoped that didn't turn the lad off of the game.
I had a similar experience when I was playing X-wing with a buddy of mine, and there was a smelly dude that was watching us. He kept getting uncomfortably close to where his arm was against ours and was breathing heavily, and would keep inturrupting us with random unrelated gibberish. Worst was when he'd grab a ship and move it, saying "this is what I would do" and we'd always have to move it back to where it was. That alone made me not want to return to that store.
Pretty sure no one ever is supposed to talk in wargames.
Did you get lost on your way to the Critcrab subreddit? If you're going to waste my time with a greentext story, at least make it a good one.
My turn
> 4 in the table. A woman, and the rest of us man
> Female DM
> Lovecraft, cosmic horror style game
> The animals in a farm appear dead each night. Farmer wants our help
> We set a tras and wait. We have guns.
> Monster appears. Hybrid between Deep One, leech and centipede. It falls in our trap.
> We shot the frick out of it. We kill it.
> DM angry "why did you kill it!?!" "The game is over, congrats". She llaves angry.
> All of us be like "wtf happened?"
> Monster appears. Hybrid between Deep One, leech and centipede. It falls in our trap.
> We shot the frick out of it. We kill it.
Just like that? No sanity checks? No “the monster avoids/escapes from the traps? Or just attacks some other farm instead of the one the PCs staked out? Nothing?
Geez, either this GM is embarrassingly new to the TTRPGs, or new to the concept of horror.
She wasnt new in DMing, but i dont know what she was trying to do. Maybe she wasnt expecting us to kill the creature on sight, maybe she did it too weak, maybe we had to talk with the creature? dont know. And the cherry on top, she got angry and left, leaving the 4 of us really confused. Was the shortest and most horrorless game i have play.
maybe she thought you were supposed to totally freak out?
Based on my grasp of ttrpg women, it's specific enough that you were probably supposed to have sex with it.
she sounds like a redditor.
Good, there's a thread for this. I need to know if I "that DM"d tonight. A completely preventable TPK just happened.
I set up a big glowing glass ball artifact the size of a room, deep underground, that needs to be destroyed to save the world. Dramatic plot reveal just before they get to it: it will explode violently when broken, leveling the entire area and surely killing anyone nearby. Surely some brave soul will have to stay behind to do the deed.
Enter: the macguffin of the previous quest, a voodoo doll orb for objects that an evil mage was using to torment an entire castle. You can attune it to any object you want on contact, and whatever you do to the little orb, happens to the object. He threatened to use it to destroy said castle during their confrontation, PCs prevailed, etc, I made absolutely sure to let them know it's intact and in their possession and now unbound, able to bind to anything again.
Basically I handed them a solution that'll make them feel clever on a silver platter in very recent memory. I had an NPC remind them while they thought the destruction plan through, by asking in their telepathic channel if they still had that object. The PCs respond by saying "yes, and it's a good thing. This cursed object will die with us."
That's right, they didn't use the voodoo orb to kill the bigger orb. They didn't choose to sacrifice one person. They sacrificed the entire party, ending the campaign on heroic speeches to one another.
Did I frick this up in some way? Does this thing sound too unclear?
they're braindead
even if they didn't figure out the voodoo trick they still could have had one person stay behind and everyone else just leave
I don't think you fricked up
Players need more clues most of the time
Since you're making it, it seems obvious to link it to the voodoo doll
Maybe you could have had another voodoo doll orb where it was used so they could have seen the effect first hand
I won't say players are idiots but they need a lot of clues if you want them to do one specific thing
Otherwise, wing it and see what solutions they come up with and go from there
>I won't say players are idiots but they need a lot of clues if you want them to do one specific thing
I will. Let's just say the doll doesn't even exist, the ENTIRE party dying is entirely unnecessary. They could have just left one person behind to do it.
Aahahahaha, your fricking NPC should have just spelled it out for them. PCs are dense, hell maybe they wanted to die. I can't pin this on you. I've done similar things and usually they figure it out.
People do have a bad habit of developing tunnel vision when trying to problem-solve. Best I can advice I can give might be frowned on by some other GMs as overstepping, but you could pause the game and just tell the players what their characters should already know (that voodoo orb can be used to destroy evil bomb-orb remotely).
I actually saw another game implement a similar rule. Star Trek Adventures has an entry in the game for GMs that pretty much says that since the PCs are Starfleet Officers and likely smarter than their actual players and one way to represent is to assume the PCs have forethought (basically this is to encourage GMs to, instead of just asking “are you sure?” To outright tell the players what the most likely outcome of their stupid plan is going to be before they commit, so if they decide to go ahead anyway then they will be doing so with full knowledge of what the consequences will be)
>I need to know if I "that DM"d tonight
If you need to know if you were "that DM," you probably weren't.
>They sacrificed the entire party, ending the campaign on heroic speeches to one another.
The players chose to die and end that campaign. It may seem stupid, but that was their choice. You should just respect it.
>They sacrificed the entire party, ending the campaign on heroic speeches to one another.
Seems like a good end to an adventure.
Yeah i did respect the choice and I'm not telling them after how dumb I found it or what they could have done because they'd just pointlessly feel bad about their bittersweet end if I did, but I would have felt unsatisfied as a player. It wasn't completely end of story but hey if they felt that way, I guess it was.
Frankly I expected and planned for 1 person's final sacrifice in case it happened because a plan with 2 moving parts is something you can never be sure on. But 5 people dying out of combat is a bizarre ride that left me feeling like I fricked up. I would have scrapped the idea if I'd known.
At least from the way you retold it, I’m not getting the impression anyone fricked up anything, it just sounds like they weren’t interested in using the artifact and felt this was a stronger ending than “and then they used the convenient mcguffin to render the significance of destroying the evil threat to existence utterly meaningless as if there never was one to begin with”.
I mean, no offense, but that’s some b-tier video game writing, at least make it so using the orb has a consequence of its own so the players can have a stronger justification to sacrifice themselves than vague evilness in character, except not really because it’s just a get out of jail free card ooc.
As for not leaving someone behind, it sounds like they played a good party, so it makes sense.
If you’re unsure about it, just ask them how they felt about how the game ended, you don’t have to ask about the orb or why they didn’t do X, just how they feel about how it went down.
The gays calling them stupid are projecting, if they didn’t attempt to get around the explosion, it’s likelier that they didn’t want to than that it never occurred to them.
>but I would have felt unsatisfied as a player
Good thing you were not a player in that game, only the gm, eh?
I don’t see the problem, it sounds like they ended the campaign on their terms and went out like heroes without trying to circumvent the opportunity to be martyrs or stooping down to using an evil artifact to save themselves.
Sometimes a story has a clear end, it doesn’t have to be some grand never ending journey.
If anyone is at fault for anything, it’s you insisting they should have played your semi-railroad instead of having agency in how they go out.
Your party is a bunch of morons. Also, I am going to steal this idea from you.
Bring it up at the end of the next session (assuming that happens), and ask if they thought about using your item solution, if they just wanted to end this campaign and start with new characters, or if they thought your game was bad.
Nah, not your fault. Either way, they have a funny story, and gives you opportunity to start with new characters.
Our DM for Star Wars EotE (I hate it, but I like the group) spent the entire first session trying to steal speeder bikes to escape from some "Black Sun" guys (or blue sun, I don't know or care) when the hideout was about 100 metres away, but the DM didn't make it clear, and also didn't want us stealing the speederbikes (dumb, he should have made it part of the story), so despite my technician fixing them, hotwiring them etc, me making up a load of BS terminology that sounded star wars, stealing them, he used his stupid jedi token things to make it crash into traffic a few meters down the road.
I didn't make it clear. We, the players tried to steal the speederbikes and the DM did everything possible to stop us and try to railroad us down a different path.
Players will think that a random cat is somehow the mastermind behind it all, and will also spend 3 hours on a puzzle that takes 30 minute or less.
You kinda have to increasingly spell things out or leave like 3 clues for anything you need them to know.
>be PC
>walk into room with party
>all of us scour the room for details to solve the puzzle in there
>once we seem to have all the pieces, try to solve it
>spend like a half hour
>eventually the DM just cracks and tells us to look at the ceiling
>have our characters look at the ceiling, the actual puzzle was fricking up there this whole time
Frick me for figured that'd be covered when rolling to examine the entire room
*figuring
I wish I had the sliding door greentext
It was 6 years ago, I don't remember much but
>I'm told to create a character using some mobile app
>Know nothing about the rules, have no roleplaying experience
>The day of my first DnD session comes
>First battle with a bunch of goblins starts
>I don't really know what I'm supposed to do, nobody explains shit
>We win the battle, but I die during the fight
>I think the goblins not only knocked me out but even finished me off
>DM says "Well, you found a treasure chest, but since one of you is dead let's imagine there's a revival potion there and nothing else"
>Okay, seems fair. Back then I didn't know it was fricking stupid
>The next session we are in a city. Everyone goes through their own business
>The night goes by
>DM says "You all wake up, except Player1 and Player2, you are dead" as if it's some kind of fricking Werewolf game or something
>"Also, you, Player3, and you, Anon, would've died if you did X"
>Okay, whatever, seems fair
>Nobody was really expecting to die so we just continue playing as if nothing's happened
Back then I didn't even know how stupid it was.
Oh, also the DM's name in the social networks was literally "Dungeon Master".
Alright, time to get some of this off my chest.
Back in college, my buddies and I had a group of three people including myself. We would rotate as DM while two of us were players. Occasionally we'd have other friends come and go, but this was the core group.
We went to a local hobby shop in search of a DM so we could all three be PCs with one another for a change. The weebshit posters and stench should have scared us off. It didn't. Holy shit what a dumpster fire this idea was.
1
>Roll up characters
>DM likes the characters, says he hates it when DMPCs show up to steal the spotlight
>Very excited for first session and to see where these characters go
>First session rolls around and the characters find themselves in service of some local lord (I think, it's been a while)
>Go off to scout in some barely-explored region
>Our guide in the session is a half-orc with two hand crossbows and an attitude problem
>Party begins to notice menacing figures lurking in the trees around us
>Brace ourselves for combat. There's potential for tension in the scene
>When we would have rolled initiative, the DM instead had not half-orc John Wick bust out both hand crossbows
>He picks off all the enemies in a flurry of shots and miraculous reloads
>We roll our eyes
>"I wanted this scene to happen just to show how powerful this character is"
>We get it
>Continue on to a port town and the first session comes to a close
This one was tame, stay tuned
2
>Talk shit about the DM after the fact, but we're buddies and can have fun with each other despite shit DM
>We believed this
>Session 2 rolls around
>There's a new guy at the table. He's at least one generation older than us. He wears a basketball jersey. His spectacles are strong and create a magnified version of his empty eyes. He has a glazed but hopeful look in his eye
>DM introduces this as his uncle. He'll be joining the session, but not as a party member
>Okay whatever
>Uncle brags about having Max HP
>Not sure what exactly he means by this but he is very impressed with the fact
>Our railroad takes us onto a ship. The rest of the crew are tieflings. They are all females.
>Ship goes out to sea and we run into hobgoblin pirates. Uncle is a significant figure in the hobgoblin crew
>We are tasked with manning the cannons and shit, essentially rolling to fire for each round
>Hobgoblin ship is made of metal and shoots acid balls instead of cannonballs
>Mentally challenged uncle becomes increasingly frustrated as he realizes the ramifications of not being the protagonist
>Feel both sorry for him and annoyed at the DM
>Session ends with us sinking his battleship after doing nothing besides rolling for cannon attacks
>Did I mention the rest of our ship's crew is nothing but female tieflings?
Before continuing, I want to point out that one of my friends in this group is a very talented artist. DM has at this point given friend a spiral notebook detailing some fanfic or some shit with the request for friend to illustrate parts of it
3
>Near the end of second session
>DM calls attention to all the female tieflings on the ship
>He goes into detail about how sexy they are, what they are wearing, etc.
>Some are sparring and we are invited to participate
>Our characters decline to step into the magical realm
>Characters eat their dinner and retire to their respective lodgings
>Tiefling sailor women are throwing themselves at the PCs
>DM really wants us to dick down these tieflings. The sailors really want friend's dragonborn fighter in particular
>Friend makes it very clear that his PC is not interested, he goes to bed alone that night
>Session 2 concludes
>Start of session 3
>DM sets the scene with friend's Dragonborn fighter waking up in bed with 2-4 tiefling sailors naked in bed with him
>Describes the dragonborn as having "pitched a tent" under the blanket if the sexual connotations weren't strong enough
>We pack up our things and go back to playing amongst ourselves in a group of rotating DMs
It's really our fault for ignoring the multitudes of red flags and for letting things get this far.
We really just wanted to play in a game together and though we were willing to deal with a shit DM to achieve that end.
Epilogue
>Friend is no longer humoring the idea of illustrating DMs fanfic
>Returns to the hobby shop, shit's closed
>He leaves the spiral of fanfic at the door and drives off, washing his hands of the situation
>Months pass and I go back to hobby shop to buy a gift or two
>DM: "Was I that bad of a DM?"
>Try to explain some of our grievances without being a dick. Mostly talked about how he raped friend's character
>DM: "He didn't have to throw my notebook into the ditch"
>Evidently some wind had tossed the fanfic across the road and DM had to pick it out of a ditch
>Apologize that things happened like they did while stifling my laughter
god, frick railroading. i am guilty of killing a campaign because i couldnt bear my actions not being worth a thing (i left the table not in-game and dm said it wasnt my fault but i knew it was). its a symptom of overplanning and actually ruins your fun as a dm, because theres no room for surprise.
>Try to explain some of our grievances without being a dick
>without being a dick
You're a fricking saint, anon.
Fun read
>DM: "He didn't have to throw my notebook into the ditch"
>Evidently some wind had tossed the fanfic across the road and DM had to pick it out of a ditch
>Apologize that things happened like they did while stifling my laughter
The wind had more sense than the DM
I feel like this would be the place to ask rather then making a new thread.
At what point do you guys feel like you're not a good DM or maybe your players are shit? I've ran various different settings, various different systems, but every time my game generally dies within like 10 sessions. These same players would then turn around and play, what I think, is an absolute homebrew garbage fire of stories that make 0 canonical sense.
at what point is it easier to say that you are a bad/mediocre dm vs having bad/mediocre players?
Sometimes both can be true.
You can be a great DM for the wrong group of players. They can be great players with a different DM. If they enjoy wacky homebrew bullshit and you don't, it doesn't mean one of you is objectively wrong. It just mean you're not a good fit for each other.
It's like how I wouldn't run lotfp for a group of children, and i also wouldn't run MAID for my group that only enjoys gritty dark fantasy.
Thank you for the advice, I feel for myself that as long as I try to make a conscious effort to keep elements in mind like: seeing how people react at the table, keeping themes consistent, keeping everyone engaged, etc, I can be a fairly good DM
Pretty much what
said. an example is, I have played in games like W:oD, more specifically V:tM, and Every ST I had or heard about seems like they never read anything about the clans or world in general. I've had ST's:
>throw Caine at the players, and survive
>Have Players meet Antediluvians, and survive combat against them
>ST's throwing league of legends enemies at the group
and pretty much everything is "always covered up" so its ok for the party to blow up buildings, or walk around in full plate armor, or just carrying rotary grenade launchers as if they are fruit snacks. And i understand that there is a "split" within the V:tM community where its either "political espionage and drama" vs "Vampire superheroes" and maybe its just the circles I've been in, but it seems like most people just go for "superheroes" here in my local scene
you are not a good dm when you dont care enough to collaborate with your players to set the table's mood. we play any ttrpg ultimately to have a good time, and if you want to have a good time, you have to be able to read the room. this applies both as a player and the dm, everyone in the room has equal power in regards to how bad a session can be.
you can read a room well enough but choose to not collaborate with it to create tension, which is great if something rewarding awaits at the end, or else you risk just ending up as a moron.
the worst dm cannot read the room and thus cannot bring joy to others.
none of this means you being unable to convey a truly emotional description, or you being able to do the best plot twist to the best plot in the hardest, greatest battle. these things are bonus, which is i think why people can have fun playing 'terrible homebrew'.
>absolute homebrew garbage fire of stories that make 0 canonical sense.
what the frick does this even mean? what the frick is “canonical sense” for rpg “stories””
homebrew garbage fire of stories that make 0 canonical sense.
>what the frick does this even mean? what the frick is “canonical sense” for rpg “stories””
Either he means the stories are internally inconsistent or he doesn't like how they change established elements away from the typical usage
>guy who has never dm'd wants to dm
>chargen inlcudes a bunch of poorly balanced items, races, homebrew classes
>first half hour goes alright
>player abilities just stop working, because he wants to have a specific result
>rules are getting changed mid-encounter
>by the end of the 3rd hour it's basically free-form
>one guy is still stuck in a box he fell into 45 minutes in.
>at this point it's clear our characters are just there for him to do what he wants with.
After that we collectively agreed he made a better player than a DM, and he never did it again.
Nice enough guy. Horrible fricking DM.
Never let a weeaboo DM
I accidentally raped a player once. It was meant as a punishment for her actions, but i took it too far
When you say "player" that means the IRL person. I hope to god you meant her character, although that's obviously still cringe.
Well to be fair there is a BIG difference between “cringe” and “criminal”.
Teehee Maccaroni is the bane of my fricking existence.
Every fricking campaign that my GM runs inevitably at some point involves running into an NPC named "Teehee Maccaroni," who the GM affectionately describes as "an epic level sorcerer who's also a moronic nudist gnome."
Teehee Maccaroni wander the countryside with a unique Rod of Wonders powered by "moron magic" shoved up his anus, and he casts the Rod of Wonders by diddling his penis. He says nothing but his own name in different inflections and the phrase "I like-a the goodberry, gimme gimme the goodberry." The GM thinks it's hilarious to have this character show up during the middle of encounters we're struggling at and start jerking off magic everywhere.
But the worst part is his chant. He wanders around chanting his name, so when he's about to show up the GM will start low;
>Tee-hee-hee. Maccaroni Maccaroni
>Tee-hee-hee. Maccaroni Maccaroni
And then get louder and louder until he's fricking shouting
>TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI!
>TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI!
And the table loves it! The other guys I play with think this is the best shitl Teehee Maccaroni has been our table's de-facto inside joke, our signature "running gag" for six years now. When that chant starts up, everyone else joins in like a ritual; the whole table is expected to start chanting "TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI" by the end, and every fricking time I refuse because this is some embarrassing circa-2002 Penguin of Doom shit, it's always the same thing; "There goes Anon again! No fun allowed around Anon! Anon's just a big grouch who's getting angry because we're making him touch Teehee Maccaroni's penis again! Why won't you just let us have fun with this character, he's just here for dumb fun, you stick-in-the mud!"
These motherfrickers are all over 25 years old.
Teehee Maccaroni is going to be the death of me.
lame copypasta
based copypasta
It only works if you post it at the start of the thread tbh.
Always read all these stories with the idea in mind that everyone involved is 13 years old and using Ganker, and that qill explain everything.
>dm thought it was funny to rape my character with a donkey
>was unhappy when I suicided the character and walked
>not asking to get Favored Enemy (donkeys) and derail his game with a genocidal crusade
for shame
I wanted out as it was clear where the game was going. And that's not shit you pull "for luls"
Would not surprise me, I posted it full length back when it happened. Campaign was a cluster frick, it was meant to be a pathfinder intro with myself and Chef as experienced helpers to the party.
In reality it was the gm playing favours to a girl he liked, and making her defacto mc. After I left it only got worse.
I have another bad gm too actually
>guy wants to run a dark heresy game
>he knows nothing about 40k bar the very least of the lore
>opening scene is us waking up to an inquisitor telling us we are now a team and to go investigate a planet for chaos
>he then vanishes
>we leave our room, (we are on an imperial merchantman) and, after being disarmed by guards, head to the mess deck
>gm describes orks, tau, humans, and elder, all mingling happily
>on an imperial vessel
>group pulls concealed arms and prepares to die for the Emperor
>gm halts the game, confused
>long break as he is given a crash course in "Suffer not the Xenos to Live"
>game resumes, no more aliens
>we overhear cultists talking at the table next to ours
>capture one, start interrogating, guards come and arrest myself and the other player present after I accidentally kill the cultist whilst removing his kneecap (somehow took his leg off)
>game goes downhill from here. Tl;dr:
>cult knows the party is there
>our lander is filled with bombs (20 iirc)
>when we take off, posing as pilgrims, planet sends up an escort flight "for the party of inquisitorrial agents"
>thisissupposedtobeastealthmission.snake
>everyone on the ground seems to know who we are and/or is way too powerful for the party to face even 5 to 1
The game fell apart. I later heard he tried to run another where the players were tasked with infiltrating a rogue Imperator that was online and fully operational.
I've more from him. We don't play with him any more after an incident, but he was a trash gm.
>>gm describes orks, tau, humans, and elder, all mingling happily
>>on an imperial vessel
pulls concealed arms and prepares to die for the Emperor
>>gm halts the game, confused
>>long break as he is given a crash course in "Suffer not the Xenos to Live"
So he was portraying a less grimderp take on the setting, and you got mad because the Imperium wasn't as Stupid Evil in this one?
also, even in baseline 40k, the inquisition sometimes has to actually be sneaky and not just pull guns and die for the emperor against overwhelming force because xenos bad
definitely weird that this would be on an imperial vessel but on a less reputable trader or some such this could happen within canon
Isn't the point of the Eldar that they look down on us and the Orks want to fight everyone?
orks want to fight the biggest thing they can fight, it’s why they stop fighting each other and go fight a bigger target, they’d definitely be down to “cooperate” in order to fight a bigger thing as long as there’s someone big around to smack em in da gob every once in a while
you sound like a raging homosexual, mane, and a secondary to boot
>I have another bad gm too actually
Not gonna lie, bro, you sound like a trash player.
I think I've heard a story like this before, probably from neckbeardia reading it.
>playing 3.5e for the first time
>character is an elf ranger with an int of 5 and lyncanthropes as my preferred target
>Join after first session, where the DM had the party killed by a dragon
>DM railroads us by having the fricking Cheshire Cat show up to keep us from going where he doesn't want us yet
>First real dungeon is litearlly the mansion from Resident Evil
>Party is "parazlied with fear" so that his Sephiroth-knock off BBEG can give us a literal 10 minute speech
>Next session, we run into a werewolf
>RP preferred target as going into feral rage
>Werewolf runs away but takes me away and locks me in a jailcell
>DM admits that he completely forgot about my PT, and that I had to be taken out of the game for a bit or else I'd "ruin the story flow"
>5 fricking sessions later, the party gets to where I'm held captive
>we waste 2 more sessions searching the jail for silver because the werewolf threw my silver dagger away "somewhere"
>another fricking anime villain riding a dragon shows up to give us another 10 mintue long speech
>Uses polymorph on me and I'm told to re-roll so I don't disrupt the story anymore
I've hated story DMs ever since.
>>DM admits that he completely forgot about my PT, and that I had to be taken out of the game for a bit or else I'd "ruin the story flow"
>>5 fricking sessions later, the party gets to where I'm held captive
>>we waste 2 more sessions searching the jail for silver because the werewolf threw my silver dagger away "somewhere"
fricking anime villain riding a dragon shows up to give us another 10 mintue long speech
>>Uses polymorph on me and I'm told to re-roll so I don't disrupt the story anymore
>5 fricking sessions later
>waste 2 more sessions
Absolutely zero chance you’re not heavily exaggerating. Nobody on the planet has the patience for that shit. You’re expecting me to believe you sat in werewolf jail for seven straight sessions just to get polymorphed by a DMPC on a dragon? You, my friend, are flat-out lying
Yeah, you would think that everyone would leave after the speech and a player locked in a cell for 5 sessions.
maybe they play on the lunch break or he’s somewhere where being a dm is the nerd equivalent of being a 9/10 woman because nobody runs games
One of the few times where i genuinely hoped they were making shit up. IIRC, she joined an ERP party as a cleric who generated healing potions as breast milk.
that’s obviously taking the piss, autist
>Playing a dungeon crawl in 3.5
>Bring a 10 foot pole
>Press down on everything before stepping there to test if it’s a trap
>”What roll is that, search?”
>Just tell him we’re poking things with sticks to see if it’s dangerous
>Gets upset that we’re beating the traps without rolling a skill check
>Replaced every trap in the dungeon with Minotaurs
I like 3.5 but man people who only play that edition can’t take a shit without rolling a d20 and taking five feats for it.
>I'll climb this ladder
>give me a climb check
>...it's a fricking ladder dude
Note how >60% of those accidents are actually caused by incorrect placement, handling, or other cases related to standing on the ladders rather than climbing them. Climbing can be an issue, but that's only if you're old, reckless, carrying power tools, or it's improperly handled.
I'd only ask for a climb check if there's some other risk factor at play than just a ladder.
has he inspected the ladder condition and placement and concluded that they’re safe? no? roll climb sweaty
No, no, no. You have to make him roll a perception check to see if there's anything afoot, then an investigation to figure out if the ladder is actually safe, and only then do you make them roll a climbing check to climb that 10 foot ladder.
Do you even play games?
sorry, grognard, I only play dungeon world
you use narrative ladder inspection to establish fictional positioning for the climb move so you can shape the story with the MC
I hear what you're saying but we're not playing realistic workplace accident simulator
People only have to make checks for very simple tasks when something is making it harder than usual, like if some little shit thinks he's funny and is shaking the ladder or a kobold is shooting at you
...I'm going to make a multilevel dungeon where kobolds shake the ladders
half the problem is figuring out where the bastards are and how they're doing this
for the most part they're crawlspaces and using ropes or poles. some ladders are actually just really shit and shake like frick but those are marked if you know where to look.
thank you for this fantastic idea
>"dude, the game isn't simulationist!"
>"it isn't supposed to be realistic!"
If it’s in combat or if the ladder is sufficiently tall I’m absolutely going to make them roll to climb.
3.5 feats and video games are the reason why modern players have no idea how to actually improvise. I remember having a party member argue that I should have gotten less XP because I was misdirecting monsters into traps with my lantern at the end of a pole instead of wasting my last two spells. What do these idiots think the 10 ft pole is for?
One of my favorite homebrew common magic items is a livewood quarterstaff. No combat bonuses but It regenerates any damage it receives at dawn assuming at least 3 feet of it are left and you can use a bonus action to change its length from normal quarterstaff length to 10 feet. You can attack with it while extended, then it’s a reach weapon with a d4 damage. Really though it’s mostly a collapsible 10 foot pole that repairs damage. Nothing spectacular but for a common magic item I think it’s neat if your players are into that. The uncommon version is a +1 quarterstaff that can extend up to 20 feet and otherwise the same abilities, disadvantage on attack rolls when attacking with it if it’s beyond 10 feet though.
fricking you are fat mom
Aye in fairness sometimes that can happen just through lack of awareness though.
>Tend to make more significant NPC's particularly physically and mentally powerful, as one signifier to players to not attack them, but also to introduce the concept that the PC's aren't the ones with authority on violence.
>Introduce a good fight, where their opponent is more powerful physically, so they need to use the environment and their brains to beat them.
>Enough players fall into DnD logic and try to out DPS/Tank the LBEG, putting them near to death, and loudly bemoan their fates while changing nothing in their behavior, that the encounter is fubar because the healer and damage dealers both went down from trying to box with a 40k Terminator.
>Introduce one of a couple of NPC's from before that has some half-assed reason for being there, who either rescues them from death, or who's intervention diretly results in winning the encounter. Because if they die, the players will lose their shit because they never saw it coming and are attached to their characters.
>"No don't GM again, you have this huge issue where you make OP DMPC self inserts, okay. And that's actually really bad as a GM."
Honestly, frick some players man.
a good fight, where their opponent is more powerful physically, so they need to use the environment and their brains to beat them.
players fall into DnD logic and try to out DPS/Tank the LBEG
The problem with fights like that is that they work well in video games because visual design often give big clues on how the terrain might help, but with something like D&D it's hard to know what terrain is relevant without the DM more or less spelling it out. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words.
Bullshit. Most modern players have no idea that they're suppose to investigate any of their surroundings unless promoted to by their DM, nor does it occur to them to improvise.
>Making a single godlike NPC so that the players can't fight and beat it
>Not making decently powerful NPC with a million veterans, mages, and guards around him that will jump the PCs if they start shit.
You did this to yourself. At least try to make it believable.
>Bailing your players out with a godlike NPC when they get themselves into shit
>Not knocking them out and capturing/torturing/mocking/raping them
Or better yet
>Not letting them get their shit kicked in
>Not having enemies leave them for dead after looting every gold piece and magic item from their bodies
>Not leaving them rolling death saves in a puddle of their own blood
If you're playing 5e, players have a ~60% chance to make their death saves and stabilize. So even if you "TPK", half of the party will survive if they are simply left for dead. This allows the survivors to lick their trauma wounds and think about why they almost died and the dead to roll up new characters who hopefully won't have the same weaknesses as their previous characters. And since most of the party survives, "TPKing" doesn't kill your game.
The surviving party members can recruit the newly rolled characters to come on their quest with them. Or better yet, to go get revenge on the bastards that robbed them and killed their friends...and get their stuff back.
VERY cute butt on that boy
Another cultured enjoyer of boys wearing boobplate, I see.
literally don't remember a single thing except that i played a monk and punched a goblin to death only for the dm to reveal that the goblin was pregnant and the baby flied out dead from the force of my punch and then the dmpc told people in the town i was a babykiller. it was very weird and also the first time i played so i left
>That DM
Have you tried not playing D&D?
>Critcrab and the other greentext youtubers are monitoring this thread
Be the stories real or not, at least those dickweeds are making bank. At the expense of the hobby that is, since I've had a few people been dissuaded from running games until I actually could convince them to join us at the table.
If you are reading this greentext youtubers, you are homosexuals that should put more research into your non-games existence before you mouthbreath into a mic and misread the greentext in your nasally voices.
Put in some fricking effort.
This anon is literally tilting at windmills. Hope your fight against the giants goes well, anon-san
Crticrab doesnt monitor these threads, and even if I did, I wouldnt use your shitty stores.
So to preface, this particular GM is usually pretty good, but he can be obtuse at times. This setting of his was a sort of cyclical civilization thing. The world gets "reset" every so often.
>be gunslinging western themed holy man
>forget what other player was
>fall down chasm, barely manage to survive
>patch up wounds and rest before exploring for a way out
>stumble upon ruins of a civilization long forgotten deep underground
>not like a big city in a massive cavern or anything, it was OLD and was caved in and had natural rock formations around it
>eventually enter a mostly intact structure
>come to a big room witg what appears to be some sort of altar towards the back
>GM describes the altar as being made of some sort of material we've never seen before, but it resembles a mixture of finely carved stone and wood, yet was neither of those
>a single hole towards one side of it
>spend half an hour trying to figure out what it is, even think of placing plot mcguffin in the hole, nothing happens
>gm eventually gets tired of our moronation and tells us it's an irl modern computer desk
>makes fun of our stupidity for not realizing he had modern day shit in his otherwise fantasy game
That's bullshit. IRL the computer would have a metal case with metal inside, the keys would look like a type of wood, and the screen would be glass.
There was nothing on the desk strangely enough, which made it all the more difficult to figure out what it was based on his description.
>Laughing at someone for not realizing an ordinary fricking desk is a computer desk.
Well, he thought the hole that you put your cables through was enough of a hint, but yeah, it was pretty bullshit.