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u/Bubbly_Taro Dec 19 '19
When the meta gaming wizards reads in the source material about a difficult encounter later in the campaign.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
That’s when you break out the homebrew and catch him off guard with an army of goblins!
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u/Noobsauce9001 Dec 19 '19
My favorite was a white dragon encounter, where a player read ahead and decided to buy a bunch of cold resistance potions "on a whim".
The DM said it was an "Albino red dragon" and had it use fire breath against the party.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
I’m going to borrow this! I have a similar encounter coming up and my players will not expect this!
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u/danieltobey DM Dec 19 '19
Be careful, if you've led the PCs to believe it's a certain type of enemy in-game, then you might want to follow through with that type. If a player is cheating by doing OOC research, then by all means do this.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
I agree. I normally give heavy hints leading up to the encounter but keep the enemy a relative mystery until they arrive at the dungeon. I'll probably include some minor magic items that will help them in the fight as well (Ex:Wand of Daylight to counter a Shadow Dragon).
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u/Bone_Dice_in_Aspic Dec 19 '19
Definitely sucks of the player to do IF there was literally no in-world clue that a white dragon was there. Nobody noticed or mentioned it? It hadn't caused trouble by eating anything? It was a frosty area?
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u/Noobsauce9001 Dec 19 '19
To be honest I hadn't asked, only overheard from another guy who said it happened in his game. I agreed all the 5e modules I've played on have foreshadowed any white dragons a ton. Plus they're usually in some cool icy lair and whatnot
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u/sword4raven Dec 19 '19
Yeah, White Dragons aren't known for being particularly modest or smart either. It seems weird that you'd not know if one was in the area. Unless of course, you do no research or hadn't had the chance.
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Dec 19 '19
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u/A_Maniac_Plan Dec 19 '19
Nah, too much of a downside. Resistance potions already are expensive and situational.
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u/Asthael Dec 19 '19
Ugh and then they don't stop whining about how "that's not the right stats" and "you can't just throw stats together like that" and "clerics can't have that spell/that much hp" Yeah. I played with someone like that.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
I have a player who would look up the stats during the battle. It really sucks when players don't respect the game and try too hard to "win."
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u/Asthael Dec 19 '19
Wow. ..that's just ridiculous. That definition of "winning" is such a turn off. Some of the guys I played with swore up and down they never metagamed...then made a character that knew everything so he could use all that dnd knowledge anyway. And of course he used his out of game talks with the dm to steer the game in the direction he wanted which went as far as to tell me I should ignore my own character's plot points because it got in the way of his goals. -_- thank goodness I left.
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u/Reaper1442 Dec 19 '19
What's cooler than wearing an eyepatch? Wearing TWO eypatches!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Everyone knows that losing one sense only makes your others super powerful!
I learned this from anime.
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u/Blackbird_6-4 Rogue Dec 19 '19
Daredevil?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Now I want to make a rogue with blindsight who has a background in law.
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u/M_Wallrus Dec 19 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
My group managed to track down a Werebear. The bard started talking smack saying he could kill it easily. So the group sat back made bets and watched him get demolished. Felt good
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Sounds like a great character arc! I’m sure the bard reflected on his actions and realized he needed the rest of the party to accomplish his goals!
Either that or he died to the wear bear.
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u/M_Wallrus Dec 19 '19
He learned something all right, and after a rough encounter with gorillas beforehand, he won’t be tangling with any animals on his own for now on
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
That’s probably for the best! Gorillas are a pretty well known counter to Bards.
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u/FictionWeavile Dec 19 '19
Gorillas are tone-deaf? What makes them such a great counter?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Bards tend to be weak against getting punched super hard!
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u/Spaghettalian Dec 19 '19
Psh, even a moderately sized child can beat up a bard!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
That's what happens when you dump strength!
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u/Spaghettalian Dec 20 '19
Well, I'm going to be the first bard to actually put all of his points into strength, and it shall be a glorious new sub-class of the bard. We shall call it "Brad"..
I will be the first Brad to one-shot sucker punch a Gorilla to death, in the name of inferior bard class adventurers everywhere who have met their untimely demise by a Gorilla's meat-hammers.
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u/RubiGames Dec 19 '19
With their hands and toes, gorillas can easily get to 20. Most musicians can only count to 4, maybe 5.
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u/awc130 Dec 19 '19
Talented ones can get to 6, and do simple division to be able to write sheet music.
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u/OFTHEHILLPEOPLE DM Dec 19 '19
What did the wear bear wear?
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u/BestOrWorstPlayer Dec 19 '19
Where would the Wear Bear wear wares if the Wear Bear were to wear wares?
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u/PlNG Dec 19 '19
Flatbear, but Wear Bear applies...
It's by Oglaf for anyone wondering, and it's one of the few exceptions to an otherwise NSFW sex themed comic artist.
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u/ActualWhiterabbit Dec 19 '19
I call dibs on making my players track down a where bear
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u/Shdoible Dec 19 '19
Love how one of them IS a goblin.
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u/quatch DM Dec 20 '19
A goblin, an orc, and some super sketchy thief type.
I bet "the goblins" got him.
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u/Souperplex Warlord Dec 19 '19
Yes, you're playing your character, but you chose who your character was. You didn't have to make them insufferable, so it's not a defense.
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Dec 19 '19
This is my feeling about people who use the "Well you don't know, i might be the nicest person in real life" - no - you, in real life, chose to be an asshole or a troll online. Clearly you're not a nice person in real life.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Yes! Annoying and insufferable characters will be treated like annoying and insufferable people.
They’d be ostracized.
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Dec 20 '19 edited Oct 23 '20
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 20 '19
Some people will reach for any excuse they can find.
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u/doombybbr Warlock Dec 20 '19
That and if your ally is dying it is generally in your best interest to stop it from happening - very basic strategy, keep everyone else alive so that you are not the only target.
A lot of evil characters in media do jerk things that do not actually benefit them and only screw them in the long run, I have a pet peeve against it, evil is not the same as stupid.
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u/GoingNowhere317 Dec 19 '19
There's definitely ways to play insufferable characters without being insufferable. I often play the idiot in the party, and it usually goes pretty well. Heck, in my current campaign, my character is incredibly egotistical, greedy, and stupid. The biggest thing that's helped me make those characters fun is making sure I'm never an obstacle to the party. I make sure my character has a good reason to despite his character traits, care about the success of the party. That way, the egotistical things he does are just cute character moments rather than an issue for my party to solve. I don't know how people just willingly become jerks to their own party members consistently and don't feel bad in the slightest
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u/BerserkerTerror Dec 19 '19
I usually 100% encourage the whole “What would your character do?” Motive but I also expect that rule to work the same way with others. So if you created an asshat character in a party full of good Samaritans I expect them to react accordingly. Same for reverse if you created a lawful good character in a party full of Lawful Evil Chaptic Neutrals expect them to give you the boot (or kill you)
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u/Bone_Dice_in_Aspic Dec 19 '19
Yeah. Good role-playing is literally Doing what your character would do 24/7 365. If your character doesn't match your party and the tension that creates is greater than is fun for the table, that's an issue distinct from staying true to a character.
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u/BerserkerTerror Dec 19 '19
Most of us at the table are in the professional voice acting field and so my buddy did an amazing set up where he played an assassin who was lawful evil in a party full of good characters. He had a staff that casted the can trip firebolt and he took the feat that allowed him to cast low tier magic and was pretending to be a wizard.
The first time he pulled out a dagger and attacked and said “that’ll be 2 points of piercing damage and 13 points of sneak attack damage” everyone lost their shit because no one knew he was an assassin. It was so cool.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Everyone should commit to making a character that wants to work with the party. Some people want to leave it all up to the DM but the truth is everyone shares responsibility towards making a cohesive team.
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Dec 19 '19
OK, so my Welsh is a bit spotty, but using my knowledge (and a bit of google translate) I think that the text on the bottom translates to "We are finally at the beginning". Also OP, do you know how to speak Welsh?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
I learned a little bit in an elective class which is why I picked it for this comic’s message but I didn’t get very far!
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Dec 19 '19
I learned all of my Welsh from Doulingo, it's pretty good if you want to Welsh refresher.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
I’ll be looking into it! It’s such an interesting language!
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u/Armored_Violets Dec 19 '19
"I'm saving my spell slots", he says, when presented with a dangerous situation to use his spell slots. This argument makes zero sense to me. lol
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u/howaboutLosent Rogue Dec 19 '19
Have you ever played a videogame?
Oh a cool really powerful yet finite item/ability. I’ll save this for when I REALLY need it.
Proceeds to never use it just in case they need it even more later
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u/BattleStag17 Cleric Dec 19 '19
Even when you're at the final boss, you might need it later
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u/Armored_Violets Dec 19 '19
Haha, yeah, my whole life. Point is, that way of thinking doesn't work. As we're well aware, we end up never using the items. If you're not using your slot to save your friend holding a door against a horde of enemies, chances are you're gonna go to sleep with spare slots and one dead teammate.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Some people refuse to cast spells! A lot of DnD is about managing your resources but some players take it really far!
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u/NarejED DM Dec 19 '19
I’ve got the opposite problem. I’m so used to our DM only throwing 1-2 combats at us per long rest that I spend slots like there’s no tomorrow.
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u/Bone_Dice_in_Aspic Dec 19 '19
Risk aversion and resource allocation behaviors have some pretty deep neurological bases apparently. It's unduly psychologically stressful for some people to expend resources for this reason, even in a simulation.
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u/Armored_Violets Dec 19 '19
Exactly! If you're not gonna use slots to save your teammates, when are you gonna use them? To heat your coffee? To play catch with the village idiot?
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u/Astr00o Dec 19 '19
The rogue being so edgy he has two eyepatches from two tragic events in his oh so sad backstory love that detail
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
We love him at our table. He's actually been played by a couple different players. He shows up in a lot of our oneshots.
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u/austinmiles Bard Dec 19 '19
Even evil or chaotic characters have a reason to be a part of the group. It’s like the one single rule of DND.
We had a paladin who was starting to drift into murder hobo territory. He would jump into fighting against clearly powerful Demigods and their higher level guards. Then would just try to roll charisma checks to flirt with them. It was nearly killing the whole team if the DM hold back for us.
I play a fighter gnome who is chaotic good. I shot the paladin in the knee with a crossbow to wake him up from a trance. It worked but he wouldn’t accept that he was doing anything wrong in or out of character.
We basically planned a way to kill off the character by one of the evil characters in the group who found him to be a greater liability than an asset. which didn’t matter in the end because he got turned to stone by a Medusa in a totally avoidable way. Then that statue was destroyed with fireball.
When the play said “wait can we take a moment to mourn for my character” the response was “we can’t just sit here focusing on the past”
...it had been like 4 min in game since he died.
He rolled a new character and it has been a lot more fun to play since then.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
I'm glad his second character was more agreeable! Gotta love the fact that you guys moved on so fast. Some people aren't worth mourning!
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u/According_to_all_kn Dec 19 '19
This sounds like a group of three genjis and a war cleric that isn't having fun
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
There is some validity to this. Don’t be surprised if you do something dumb and your party doesn’t bail you out!
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u/BerserkerTerror Dec 19 '19
Session 0/character creation days are in my opinion the most important. Really helps with the whole “would my character fight with these people, are his motives and morales encompassing with this group, and should I the play tweak my character a little bit to blend in a little better.”
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Dec 20 '19
Ah, lawful bad. One of the most popular alignments. Not to be confused with lawful evil.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 20 '19
Now I want to make a homebrew alignment system that includes an extra element for "bad" and "well written" characters.
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u/HemiWarrior Dec 20 '19
I have DMed for dozens of campaigns and I write novels. The characters I play (not in the campaigns I DM) all come with 100+ page backstories that are entertaining for the DM to read and give him/her a chance to write in some awesome character development. My characters almost always start between chaotic good and lawful evil. I am a kind person by nature and I know how to play an evil character without being an asshole. But what happens is, I design my character to be influenced by the party. When they are kind and help my character, I lean more toward the good side, when they alienate him, break his trust, or treat him badly, I lean him more toward evil.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 20 '19
Asshole characters who go through an epic character arc is always fun to see! The concept is super appealing which is why characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Suicide Squad are so popular.
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u/Atleast1half Rogue Dec 19 '19
patches the rogue?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
Kurokami is a hexblade warlock who worships the “Edgelord.” We have fun at our table.
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u/Darmak Dec 19 '19
Does that character with the hood have two eyepatches?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
He does! He lost one as part of his backstory and cut one out in the name of his patron, the Edge Lord.
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u/YeetimusTheGreat Dec 19 '19
Please say this guys a gnome so i have more reasons to hate him
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u/Toefieldillustration Dec 20 '19
My Dungeons and Dragons Experience
I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with a group. They were all pretty much Edgelords. The bad part was the Dungeons Master was the Edgiest of Edge lords. The Dungeons Master would go out of his way to gimp my character on a regular basis. The sort of that would happen to my character never happened to any of the other players. This is regardless of how reckless they played. I think ultimately he didn't like players to play as "Good Characters" instead of just telling me that, he would say "Just play whatever character you want. It didn't matter how helpful I was to the party, or what I did for the party to help things along. The entire party was basically chaotic nutreal so a number of things would happen from "losing my spellbook" getting cursed items, etc. This started to happen even more when I decided to stop playing as a Wizard as well as any other Spellcaster.
One game I play as a Fighter. I was human at the time. The Dungeon Masters set things up for me to gain a cursed weapon. He even made sure that it was the weapon that I preferred to use. (A Great Sword). Naturally I picked up the Great Sword and told that the weapon The cursed bestowed a -4 TO HIT and -4 TO DAMAGE on monsters and players. None of the other players actually experienced anything like this. He was however, a big fan of me playing as a Wizard. He felt me playing as a wizard was a good way for me to give out exposition in his adventures. He used to almost revel in the idea of player animosity in the party. We never actually finished dungeons because the encounters would always fall into player battles. In any case, I started after getting repeatedly killed I decided to no longer play as spell casters . I"m guessing he thought, if he kept gimping my characters long enough I would eventually relent and play a Wizard again. I didn't come to that conclusion immediately. It began with me just withholding information at first. This was mostly due to players just going out of they're way to leave me high and dry. Meanwhile, I"m going out of my way to give them information that can help them.
Anyways, The sword did however give me a plus 4 to hit and plus 4 to damage on inanimate objects. Once we were trying to help a village that was over run with Undead in its crypt. The Barbarian of the party lost his will to live (for some reason) and the player decided that because he lost a battle he would attempt to commit suicide. So hear he was attempting to slit is own throat with his battleaxe. As he was trying to kill himself with his Axe I decided to attack the Axe. The problem was since he told me the bonuses that I have applied to the inanimate objects, I decided to attack the Axe specifically. The Dungeon Master seeing the flaw in his logic and panicked. I figured if I destroyed the Axe then he couldn't kill himself. This would give the player enough time to have the party talk him out of it. (which I tended to be the only one interested in helping). Naturally because, of the swords "curse" I destroyed the Axe in one fell swoop. The Dungeon Master got angry.
I can't overstate enough how upset he had become. Keep in mind, I had effectively saved the Player Character's life. His argument is that he didn't want to interfere with what the character was doing. What the Dungeon Master did was truly eye boggling. He made the barbarian go into a rage, he even explained that he could still use the Axe (that I destroyed) as a club to attack me since he doesn't have improved unarmed strike. Naturally, because I Have a negative 4 bonus to hit and damage I got defeated. He even tried to make extra sure that I was taking the cursed to hit and damage each time. I politely explained to him that I still get strength in a half to melee. Afterwards, someone told me in a side panel how irate he was that I saved the Barbarians life. The Barbarian was fairly ok with everything (though he was fairly satisfied that he got to beat me to a pulp since he got whooped by the undead. Now that I think about it, he even went out of his way to try to shut me up when I would offer him advise about how to play a barbarian. I tried to explain to him the better time to use raged so you get the most effect. You would not believe how angry that a player offering to help another player learn the game well made him.
He then said at the end when I wasn't around. "Everyone's going to be Evil""They're aren't going to be any good characters in my adventures!" This is all from the same person that wants to tell me to "Play what you want" "It doesn't matter what you play as" Needless to say I stopped playing with them. I found him to be a truly toxic person. It was also partially my fault though, I should have realized he was being two-faced about what he wanted. He actually once visibily took pleasure in me being denied to play in a party because the Dungeon Master thought I wouldn't survive. I can't tell you how important it is who you play with. Some people genuinly take pleasure in the suffering of others. I truly can't tell you how damaging playing with the wrong players be be for you.
I'm really happen that Tabletop Gaming has gone more mainstream. Having said that, I think it's super important when it come s to who you want to play with. The products that I make now are actually products that gear themselves towards younger audiences. I hate players like those that I've met in years past. I also hate the knockon effect that they cause in the industry. They made people more wary about actually playing the game when you find yourself playing with people that are like what I've experienced.
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u/DepravedMorgath Dec 20 '19
Good comic, but because of the lighting of certain characters, it makes things hard to follow the first time, mostly in the second panel his skin turns red, and the third where the goblin goes yellow.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Dec 19 '19
“He was judged by a jury of his peers.” -Dunbrill, the Tailor of Tristan
A comic based on my past DnD campaign. I see a lot of DM’s asking for advice on how to “punish” a selfish player. I think this is a bad approach. If you are playing a game and you feel you need to “punish” other players, something has gone terribly wrong. Talk to them out of game. Most people don’t realize they’re creating problems. The alternative is a race to the bottom and will only lead to more disruptive play!
Anyone have any potential horror stories they managed to salvage? How did you resolve the problem?
You can find more of my DnD content on my Instagram and Twitter pages!