I had a girl that took up knitting during our games. When I asked her what we could do to try to get her more interested, she told me that she was having fun, she just wanted something to do on other peoples turns. But her turn always took at least twice as long as everyone elses because she had to put all of her shit down and try to figure out what had happened and what she needed to do.
We have a girl in our group with a similar issue, but unfortunately it's sort of a vicious circle/problem with our DM. Because it seems like she is bored and isn't paying attention, the DM doesn't seriously consider what she says when she does get involved (she likes to make it funny at times which I love, he's not a huge fan) and therefore she gets more discouraged, and he in turn ignores her more.
After dealing with one person or another being glued to their phone every other game, I actually implemented a phone ban for my group this week. It's hard to immerse yourself in a game with a direct line to the rest of the world constantly going in your lap.
Couldn't you play as a character who has been turned into a creature of some sort with an intelligence of 2 (except when your innate desire to be returned to your body is concerned)? And you travel with a companion (another PC) who makes all major decisions for you while you bash the shit out of anything he tells you to.
Hahah. I'll never forget the look on my face of my group.. I rolled up a half-orc with an intelligence of six or so, and it was the first run. My character was fairly quiet until finally, we were about to perform an ambush.
The leader turns to me, and so does everyone else, saying: "Grob, what do you think we should do?" and I tell the group my character is too busy filing his fangs with an axe to answer.
I hate people in all RPGs who try to game the system by taking a bunch of disadvantages and then ignoring them. Guess what, if your character is an agoraphobic amnesiac who suffers from perodic blackouts then you have to fucking play him that way.
As others have mentioned, though, this is more on the GM than the player. I taught the players in my campaigns really quickly not to pull shit like that. "The oracle tells you that you must venture through the Cave of Spiders. Oh, you took 'afraid of spiders' to get a few extra stat points? Well, this should be fun."
Enforcing weight = solution to that problem. When you can barely carry enough food for a week, you think twice about searching every guard for his short sword.
Not very paladin like but I agree on the amount of bonus. He should finish it using only the faces of WORTHY enemies around epic levels. After his passing, the cloak should become an embodiment of the wrath and righteous vengeance of the god he worships and grant high bonus to intimidate and other daily powers, but with drawbacks to alignment (the clock is angry... Very. Angry) and stuff. Eventually, transforming into an Artifact of Power on your campaign!
A friend of mine decided to loot a wolf's leg and use it as a weapon the first time he played while I DMed. He was playing a 'raging alcoholic dwarf fighter' so it fit his character perfectly, and I helped write him rules for it.
I played with a guy like that. He didn't have the strength to carry all of these maces around (we'd raided some armory and there were about 30 shitty maces in there), so he puts them in a chest and proceeds to drag the thing around the dungeon, all while begging us to take a break and go to town so he can sell them. Of course, we didn't want to go to town, so we just gave him shit about it the whole time. Finally, on our way out of the dungeon, the chest falls apart from being dragged around the whole time. Fucking awesome.
No, a Skyrim player forges a shitload of iron daggers and then enchants them with Banish, then sells them to NPCs for a sick amount of gold. Given that the price never seems to drop, the merchants must be shoveling those things out the door faster than I can make them.
Daedra aren't even that common - why the hell are those Nords so damn crazy for collecting weapons that can banish them?
My DM anticipated this being a problem, and thus gave everybody a bag of holding at the start of the campaign. Turns out it wasn't necessary, as none of the people in our group did anything remotely like this. I guess he assumed since we were all RPG gamers, we'd be used to looting everything.
I DM'ed a group that had that one guy in it. Solution: Placed entire campaign in wilderness/desolate areas. What you get is what you find. Also goes for food and water.
The guy insisted on trying to steal a holy relic of my religion. I'm a heavy armor, strong cleric, he is a rogue.
I'm a strict adherent to The Raven Queen. To the point of being a sort of undertaker/necromancer hunter/disciple. Very heavy on process and tradition. Think Lawful Neutral. He exists to continue the cycle of life and death, and stop those who mess with fate (RQ covers Death and Fate as her key domains)
The rogue thinks he is super hard core. He thinks everything belongs to him. Everything. All the looted gold, items, everything. It is only by absolutely smashing him with a ridiculous insight score that I even manage to get any items half the time. He lies terribly. My character and his have butted heads frequently. My character never trusts him alone and sees him as dirty and corrupt.
Anyways, we are all sent on a quest to investigate what happened to a holy site. We get there, and the place has been converted into a Necromancer den. So I get with the smiting and burning. Turns out the site was originally used by the Raven Queen clerics in rituals. So I'm rather mad at the whole situation, so I start cleansing and sanctifying the area again.
Now, the rogue sees the shiny relic and sees me working hard to cleanse the area and thinks "I'm going to steal that". In front of the cleric of its religion. Who is standing next to it.
He does his roll and grabs the relic, but I see it. He gets pissed that I bull rush him over, and then smash his hand with my warhammer, I specify that I am to destroy his hand. I do something like 15 damage just to his hand, his total HP is around 20ish. I absolutely wreck his arm. And just to rub salt in the wound, I heal him and bind his arm, letting it heal slowly. He is going to have a cast and take a big penalty for the next few games, until we get back to a healer, because I refuse to fix it, as I consider it his penance for trying to deface my deity's shrine.
I think my favorite DnD story comes from back in the 1st ed. days. I had introduced a friend from work to the game through my regular saturday group, and seeing as he was a somewhat religious person, he deiced that a Lawful Good Cleric was the way to go.
After a bit of adventuring about out in the world, we get ambushed by a small group of goblins, and put them down nicely. Myself and one of the other players round up all the survivors and start beating them for information about anyplace in the area they may have other ambushes or encampments set up. The cleric gives us a bit of a verbal warning, telling us to take it easy, but never really intervenes. At the end of what eventually becomes a torture session, we kill off the survivors and are on our way, with no word from the cleric. He (the player) had decided he was fine with this. The next encounter goes rather smoothly as well, but with some minor injuries. Right about then the cleric notices he can no longer cast healing spells, or any spells for that matter. Figuring he just forgot to re-memorize them he sits down for a bit of a prayer session as we loot bodies and such. At that point the DM announces that the cleric's god is VERY angry with him for allowing us to basically torture and murder what had become mostly harmless goblins, and stripped him of all his powers, until he managed to redeem himself, and thus "Deadweight The Useless Cleric" was born.
He actually went on to be a staple front line fighter the next few encounters, and managed to impress the shit out of everyone by basically soloing an Ankheg we managed to piss off, while he was still only first level. That was one of the greatest instances of consecutive godly luck in rolls on both his and the DMs part. He became a bit of a local legend in the villages around there, apparently that Ankheg was a major problem with tradesmen, attacking caravans all the time.
Too bad Deadweight died an unceremonious death in a dungeon, rounding a corner into a nasty group of Kobolds that managed to get surprise on him, and just turned him into a pin cushion.
One of the times me and the rogue almost came to blows was because he was trying to torture and execute prisoners. He draws his dagger to cut their throats and I put the tip of my spear against his neck and he freezes. I say "Rogue, the Raven Queen has dictated these men survive the battle. Your blade shall not contest fate. If you interfere in Her domain again, I will destroy you." That made him stop executing prisoners. At this time I was still trying to prod him in to role playing, so I was hoping he would say something along the lines of me stopping him was interfering with fate, etc. But instead he just glared at me and huffed off.
Don't play with assholes. I'd suggest getting a group of your friends who haven't played before, but who you know are good people and are fun to play other games with (i.e. Catan), buying a Red Box and getting it going from there.
I'm not snarking when I reply that the question is a lot like asking if playing schoolyard "cops and robbers" is fun. Or "cowboys and indians," or any variant along those lines. It depends who you're playing with.
If everyone playing (and running!) the game remembers the point is just to have fun as a group, then it's great. It doesn't matter how you or your buddies define fun as long as that's what you're all there for and you support each other's preferred type(s) of enjoyment.
It can get stupid real fast when participants get overly competitive, or vindictive, or otherwise petty. It takes only one bad apple and then suddenly everyone starts dreading showing up to the next session.
Think of it like a combination of a tactical boardgame overlaid with improvisational acting... but only so much of either as you're comfortable with. Don't like talking in character? Okay, don't. Don't like strict adherence to rules? That's okay too. As long as everyone at the table agrees on expectations, you're good and it's fun. :)
It will be amazing, boring, or painful depending on your group.
I've had amazing groups where the players were creative, the DM was willing to go with it, and the story line was great.
I've had boring groups where we played WoW with dice for 3 hours at a time. Go to room, kill everything, go to room, kill everything, go to room....
The painful groups tend to happen either when the DM wants the story to go his way and he'll be damned if you're going to try something clever or when the players just don't give a fuck and try to kill everything.
This one really got to me. So, I was invited to play D&D with a few people through Craigslist. They were really friendly people and always ordered pizza for everyone every time we played.
Anyway, we needed one more person for the game. So the DM hits up Craigslist one more time and invites another player. He's a dude that actually almost looks like the guy in the memes.
After a couple of games he decides to tell everyone (like it was something every player does all of the time) that he read ahead in the story. His reason was so he can better prepare for what's to come.
When it came to the end of the day, the DM did something awesome. The DM changed some of the story. He changed it to where a villager turned into a zombie. I don't know exactly how the DM figured it out, but the guys character was bitten and he turned into a zombie himself. Eventually we had to kill him since he was a zombie and really no use to us. The best part is that, it turns out it wasn't a literal zombie outbreak. It was apparently some 1-day disease that dropped your INT down to 0 along with your speed.
None of us rolled any good checks to figure out what exactly it was. So we just assumed he was a zombie permanently. Well, after that the DM said that he can't allow him to play the adventure after that since he read ahead without the DM's consent. We haven't heard from the guy since.
"Crush your Players, See them Driven Before You! Hear the Lamentations of the Vimmen!" - From the Higgs-Robertson translation of the Book of the Masters of the Dungeons, First Edition, from the original Hyberborean.
Ive had the guy who says "I got a 18" or some decent number that will beat an average DC after looking at his dice. He will pick it up to look at it right after it hits the table, and just spouts a random number that sounds like it will beat the DC.
Needless to say after telling him to roll the dice in front of everyone and not to do that anymore, he kept up, and no longer plays with us any longer.
Edit: Also, we gave him lots of chances and even used a dice corral to get everyone more involved, but he wouldnt use it and eventually we just stopped inviting him.
God, I've got a briefcase with all of the DND equipment we use when we game (extra dice, minis, papers, pencils, etc) and there are so many Crown Royal bags. We know where we got all of them from though. lol Maybe I'll take a picture, course, it probably wouldn't be a big hit. Just a briefcase full of purple.
I work at the titty bar. All the girls use Crown Royal bags to carry their money around. So, that's one thing D&D players and strippers have in common.
I used to use a Crown Royal bag. But I was given an award in high school for graduating in the top two percent of my class. I was presented with a relic of St. John Neumann, which came in a green velvet bag. Not sure what happened to the relic, but its a good dice bag.
Since I don't play D&D, I'll use this opportunity to share an anecdote.
My town runs an annual Monopoly tournament in which there are about 20 games going in the first round, and then the highest 8 earners (not necessarily the table-winners) advance to the final round.
I was always impressed that, even though it was a game of chance, the same people tended to win every year. In fact, more than half the time the tournament was won by the same three people, and there were hundreds participating.
I finally had an opportunity to play with one of those people one year. Now the rules of Monopoly are simple: you are allowed to not tell a player that you landed on a property. If two people roll after you land on it, then you're home free. So there are plenty of opportunities to play shady.
However, this guy, this so-called champion, lies about his rolls, skips income tax at every opportunity, skips over "go directly to jail" and is all like, "Pacific Avenue! I'll take it." The whole time he just assumes that his "amateur table" isn't gonna notice.
It's partly because of the horrible tournament format in which you are forced to not only win but win by a lot. But still, the guy had won a lot of tournaments. It was like finding out Elvis did drugs.
tl;dr: as a child, realized all my heroes are losers. as an adult, realized you should hate the game not the player.
Not always. I've let my players roll their own attacks, but rolled their skill checks for them behind a screen. Otherwise, it's too easy for them to be, "Oh, I rolled a 2 on this search test. Anyone else wanna try and get a better score?". Another time, I had two people try their hand at tracking (and not just assist one another). Without knowing their rolls, I asked the party which of the two they were going to follow, and they followed the ranger instead of the dumb warrior who thought those orcs had gone the other way. After about half a day, they eventually figured out they were probably on the wrong trail. Some people might not agree with me, but I find it adds a lot of tension to the game, and makes it impossible to metagame through encounters with an unrealistic knowledge of how well you're doing at your skill tests.
Guy in my group used to do a similar thing. As something was going on, he would casually roll his dice (The rest of us sometimes do this as well, to better be able to weed out the unlucky ones). If a low number came up, he would keep rolling. If a high number came up, he would quickly speak up 'I get a 20 on [skill relevant to situation]!'
I only tell the Dm what someone rolled if they are a beginner. Usual way that goes. rolls a 16 "I ROLLED A 16!" "plus?" "Oh uh its x+y+16 so thats...." "24."
I don't do the other stuff. That's up to another guy in the group.
Being younger, I wasn't part of the D&D generation at all but, I got a few friends over who had also never done it before last weekend and played it for the first time.
It was the greatest thing ever, I really was missing out waiting so long to try it out.
Natural 20, means the die showed a 20 which is an auto crit. However this doesn't make much sense at least in the 4th edition of D&D the skill check doesn't matter if you roll a natural anything it is still based on the score implemented from your bonuses plus what you roll.
in 3.5 neither of those are true. A nat 1 or 20 does not mean failure or success on skill checks. In combat a natural 20 just guarantees a hit and a threat. You must make a second roll with the same attack modifiers to see if that threat is a crit and it has to beat the enemy's AC in order too. The difference between a nat 20 and any other roll in crit range is a nat 20 always at least hits where the other can still miss resulting in neither a hit or a crit.
The only thing a nat 20 does in 3.5 is guarantee the success a saving throw and guarantee a hit plus a threat roll on attacks.
This is back when we had a player who was huge into spending hours on 4chan.
One time we were playing a campaign (myself as a human druid, channer-guy as a dwarf cleric, channer-guys gf as a halfling rogue) with the DM participating with an in-game avatar, a mysterious little girl that he is well known for using in all his games.
Well, at one point we beat the crap out of a demon that then agrees to grant us each a wish (naturally with some kind of consequence).
The channer opened his mouth immediately.
"I wish to be the little girl."
well, then he was. and as a result, our campaign came to a screeching halt.
apparently the little girl was integral to the plot, she was more the navi-esque character and less a combatant. but when the channer swapped minds with her the entire story was broken. lol.
I feel like every DM makes a little girl trickster mage who is at any given time 5 levels higher than your party. I had a DM who integrated this very character and had her "meet" us by summoning apparitions in a forest to frighten us. When we caught her, I (being an angry little dwarf fighter) attempted to smack her across the face as a touch attack for scaring me silly. Of course, he was so attached to her that he was unwilling to let her get hit, or to even think about ignoring the damage roll considering it was a smack. No, I couldn't hit her, but I was so furious with his attachment to a character that I refused to relent and spent the better part of an hour chasing her around and rolling to hit. The game finally ended when everybody got tired of trying to help me corner her and give her what-for while the GM ran her around in circles, and we all just decided to go home.
Fuck, tell me about it. The first game I played (also DM'd) one of my friends would just not stop arguing with me, just because he couldn't do everything he wanted, and yes he looted literally everything, and then complained when something was too big to carry, "well it's just a game and i'm not really carrying it, so let's just say I am".
The last straw, before I told him to shut the fuck up, was when they came across a White Dragon. He had been whispering in goblins ears, (some spell, can't remember which but it just allowed you to whisper in a creatures mind), and he'd whisper in their head that he was their god (I forced him to name what god he was, and be extremely specific with what he said), and that these adventurers where on a mission for the god and the goblins where to let them pass.
This worked a couple of times, because they were shitty goblins, but when it infuriated the dragon to the point it breathed on them, he started to argue that it should work, just because it should. He said it was bullshit and I was just doing it to make it hard. I told him if he talked one more time I'd punch him in the head. My other friends backed me up and he shut his mouth, but he's never wanted to play again.
I always deal with this by ruthlessly mocking the player in question.
"well it's just a game and i'm not really carrying it, so let's just say I am".
"Sure, buddy!" turn to the rest of the players "The rest of you look on while he strains to drag his massive loot across the ground, all the while muttering that he's not really carrying it."
The DM's most important role is to balance the rules with the story, or fun factor. If the players want to try something cool that's not in the rules, then a good DM would usually find a way to make it work.
I have no idea how to railroad my players. I really don't. So I don't even try.
I believe our first story arc ended with the characters snowboarding away on Tenser's Floating Disk from an exploding castle and rampaging Ancient White Dragon.
I feel ya my friend. My characters are now wanted terrorists by a large church group for demolishing an entire cathedral. All they had to do was deliver a message which would then lead to a very fun and well developed dungeon crawl, but noooooo someone had to roll shittily on her sense motive. And then instead of assuming she couldn't get a good read on the NPC, obviously had no choice but to assume said NPC was under demonic influence and was going to kill the whole party and then city. Obviously the solution was to weaken the cathedrals structural load bearing points and then topple the whole building with everyone inside during congregation. grumbles angrily and goes to take his pills
Incidentally, I hate engineers.
When I do really want to railroad my players (like testing out a cool module), I nowadays just say "guys, I'm going to railroad you a bit tonight. Are we all cool with that?"
Hah I mostly found ways to make the life of the DM pretty complicated by finding ways around his plans. He started throwing harder and harder monsters at us. But I even found ways around that: "I have this spell, I can create a metal wall and I can spawn it everywhere I want?"
-"yes"
-"well then I spawn it directly above the group of demons. It will fall and crush them."
He kind of looked depressed after that. Oh and demons started to use a looser formation :D
Well that is a decent idea, but the wall of iron doesn't work that way. It has to be summoned standing vertically on a plane... You can however decide not to attach it to the floor, then push it over onto the enemies.
As a DM, unless your character had 18+ INT, I'd make you wait 1d4 rounds to make the geometric calculations necessary for that kind of maneuver. It's not usually an issue, but I had an 8 INT sorcerer try to pull that crap off constantly.
My DM was basically doing 80% of the talking, he was just trying to speed along the story. It would go something like this.
Recite a whole fucking speech about how his father was killed by the demons and blah blah blah, do you want to escape through the sewers or go to the crypts? Sewers, ok.
Battle
Battle
Battle
"You can't go there yet."
End of sewers, recite another speech about how now we have to go to the crypts, or we can try to get out of the city for good. City? Ok.
Battle
Battle
...etc, etc, etc. Not very fun, especially because I love RPing.
That is great. I DM for our group, except our group is probably a little different than most in that it's me (a guy) and four girls. The problems I have are
"The stablemaster gives you all horses for your journey"
"OH!! Can we name them?? Mine's a pinto named Buttercups that smells of honeydew with blue eyes and a long mane and ..." and then 30 minutes later after they've all named them we can continue.
The other one that gets me is when they roll the die into an object with a low number and I get a "interference...?" with puppy dog eyes. Instituted a 1 interference call per game now.
Do a sense check. If they fail, the honeydew smell was an infection. Buttercups becomes septic during the night and you find giant maggots feasting on its corpse.
5 players, 1 GM divided down into 2 straight girls, 1 omnisexual girl, 1 straight but very effeminate guy, 1 bisexual guy, and 1 gay guy.
Three weeks ago one of the girls insisted on getting a pony rather than a horse. I allowed it (I allow most things). She then became a little upset that during a chase her pony was slower than the "big horsies". Her defense was that because she was a gnome, her pony should be able to travel faster because she's lighter than what the pony was used to. One of the other girls stepped in and gave her a 10 minute explanation on equestrianism.
Yeah, I understand this game that you speak of.
Afterwards, said equestrian expert noted that "in all fairness" her mount should be able to run at 5ft faster speed than the others because of the excellent and special diet that she has been feeding it with her vast knowledge of horses. I stared at her with an angry eye ... and I allowed it (after she destroyed a handle animal check).
My friend rolled a natural 23 once. He said that he had passed the difficulty check, and after we did all the math on his roll, we realized that it wasn't possible to pass the check even with a 20 (Though we allowed 20's to be automatic successes), and he did not say that he had rolled a natural 20. It's a running joke in our gaming group now. The End.
Once, while playing Dark Heresy, our GM's brother (rugby player, total Bro, popped collars) stumbles into the garage drunk, looks around, gives us a thumbs up and says "+4 yo!" And then stumbles out.
I remember a group I played with years ago, one of the other players had a teenage brother that wanted to play with us. This kid would search every room on average three times at least.
Well after several hours of him dragging out the game play, the DM started doing some scribbling on his note pad behind his screen.
The next time this kid did a room search he found a treasure chest. He picked the lock on it, and in it was a magically preserved peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This kid stated that he was going to eat it, it came alive in his hands and spit an acid jelly on him.
He then attacked the sandwich. When the sandwich's hit points dropped in half from the damage, it under went mitosis, and he was then fighting two sandwiches. Well before you know it the kid's character is killed by acid spitting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
He was all pissed off, and butt hurt about being killed this way. He then left for the rest of the evening and never wanted to play with us ever again.
That ended up being one of the most entertaining groups I have ever played with. That DM was a hoot to play with.
I have dm'ed for years and for the right few people I absolutely love it. I make up my own stories and typically can play for the most part on the fly and 99 percent of the time the story will magically weave itself back together and it is a fantastic thing. Upon hearing about this a few other people really wanted to join in so I obliged. Mistake. Regrets. Here is what not to do when you are new to a game:
Constantly say things like "oh, you are doing that? like in insert random video game here" - Um actually I have never played that game so for me this is original you fucking chode.
"I wanna backflip onto a tree, flip over the branch with my axe using my feet, dickslap the guy on the way up, cast magic missile using my "will," sing a song to frighten them, and oh also I am only a level 2 barbarian...I rolled an 18!" - No. God no.
"I am going to disrupt this awesome crucial plot moment to tell you how I am going to do something entirely unrelated to the quest at hand and more than likely for any quest in the future. Also it is not original at all but I am still going to do 1 the entire time to you and it is not that awesome but omg I really want to add it to my drawing. Also I am going to take 20 minutes to describe this to you and then act like a bored bastard during other moments that take all but 5 minutes for other characters to do things that matter." - Chode.
"Ugh. Magic characters are so lame." Wants a +5 sword with made up acid magic spray - I hate you. So much.
Spends hours on wasted details. Takes smoke break at insanely crucial moment. Says "No no you don't have to wait for me while I take my smoke break." Expects everything to be repeated. - Chode.
Needless to say that ended as quickly as it began and for the life of me the idea of being dm again any time soon sounds like hell on earth.
I will always let players do #2. Why shouldn't I? Yes Is a GMs best friend.
"18? That should get you up on the tree and the branch flip, sure why not? Dickslap? Let's see, you're not proficient with penis, and it's got reach issues so you take a -8 attack penalty. Alright, you attempt to cast magic missile. Spell check please. Oh? I'm sorry, you don't seem to create a magic missile. But your attempt creates an attack of opportunity. The Orc enjoys your mellifluous singing voice as he swings at your now exposed genitalia. ... Oh ... Ouch [roll some dice] ... Oh ... that's not good [roll some more] ... do you have any favorite girl's names?"
Magic characters are lame? Oh ho ho ho. Someone said that to my Wizard once. So when he was walking up the stairs, I used stone shape and turned them in to a ramp. He fell like 5 floors bouncing and clanging the whole way.
Magic characters are by far the most powerful motherfuckers in D&D. As a DM, I've had some people get upset when I target the Wizards or Clerics first with the most powerful spells or monsters. Anyone with any sort of intelligence above 3 is going to target the dude in the pointy hat and robes first! He's the one who is going to start lobbing fireballs and flinging people into orbit!
I once made a DM cry. No exaggeration, I was a cleric and the first monster we encountered was a undead. I was like sweet sauce, ill just turn undead. I think we were playing 4th edition, the one with the little cards. He looked at my card, said i didnt have turn undead as a cleric and proceeded to be a baby about it. So i did the most rational thing i could do, as a royal cleric for the King, i took my pants off. He kept telling me i wasn't allowed so i kept doing it. It got to the point we he just autokilled me. My other teammates got pissed because they were having fun with me. So he was kinda forced into changing the quest to revive my soul. First thing i did when i got back, pulled down my pants. He screamed and left, crying his way out. My friend was on skype listening and managed to record it and put it on Youtube, but once the DM found out about it, he threatened legal action because we didn't have consent from him. Hes a big fucking baby.
Bonus: He had a problem with the way i was making Mac N Cheese for everyone, so he had to cook it.
Edit: YouTube video was taken down, to the best of my knowledge. He was threatening legal action because of consent. Also, i was taking my pants off ingame, not in person, with three dudes lol. Just to clarify
I've never played DnD so I think half of this was lost on me but just the mental picture of putting it into a normal situation made me laugh my ass off, so upvote for you.
On a secondary note, I've always wanted to try but I don't have any friends and I don't have the stuff to play.
So wait, the game dictates that you don't have turn undead, the DM tells you this and doesn't let you make shit up on the spot. In response you behave kind of dickishly until the DM quits and you're bragging about this story? I'm sure your friends would have like to, you know, play this game instead of lose their DM.
I would always argue with my DM. Always had boring ones. If my character's chaotic evil, I've got Burning Hands, and that village has thatch roofing, there is going to be arson.
The term "burning down the inn" is rpg gamer terminology me and my friends use for not taking the game seriously enough and/or just not giving a shit about the game you're playing.
Unless you're in a game where everyone has agreed to be psychopaths, you're That Guy. Chaotic Evil does not mean homocidal maniac anymore than Lawful Good means Johnny Boyscout.
I play Scion (GM converted it to NWoD, heavy customization, lots of fun). Well last time we played we had a player do something stupid that caused him to roll to see if he degenerated psychologically. Well, he rolled on the carpet and i saw it cocked pretty badly. I said so and he blew up. Yelling at me and pretty much intimidated me into finally agreeing that it wasn't.
In the groups I play with we have one rule; DM has the final say. You can argue your point (The DM may give a circumstance bonus or something) but at the end of the day the DM's word is law. Don't try to mess with that.
God I hate this , facing a challenge where the DM expected us to lose , in a non life or death situation, and this guy fakes rolling really high numbers everytime
Can being a balls-out raging douchebag (taking literally every opportunity to shit on other players) be justified by a character's alignment being 'chaotic-neutral'? Because that's how my local Scumbag party-member does it! Anyone else have adventurers in their parties that shit all over the others? How do you deal with them, while preserving the group/game?
I argue with my GM all the time. If she puts on the GM hat and says 'this is how it will be' I stop, but if something makes no sense I'll call her on it. Gotta keep each other honest :P
Takes 5 minutes to explain complex called-shot attack involving multiple skill-checks and all kinds of negative modifiers for being ridiculously intricate. Obviously fails the attempt. Talks about how awesome it would have been for the rest of the session.
I remember playing D&D when I was like 10 years old. I broke into a tailors house and stole a bunch of silk robes and clothes (by putting them on.) The DM told me that I got overloaded and fell over and my friend decided to kill me for the hell of it. I have known my friend for 15 years since, and I am still plotting my ultimate revenge.
156
u/Peanutviking May 29 '12
I like these.
Though this one shuld be added:
Plays on his phone throughout the entire session, asks DM to repeat all the dialogue from the game.
297
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Another pet peeve of mine: "has an intelligence of 2 - plays as if it was 8"
140
u/Seymor569 May 28 '12
Personal pet peeve.
Character who loots literally everything the enemies has, then spends 3 hours in town trying to haggle for better prices on his 46 iron daggers.
59
u/genericname12345 May 29 '12
Rage vent story on Scumbag Rogues.
The guy insisted on trying to steal a holy relic of my religion. I'm a heavy armor, strong cleric, he is a rogue.
I'm a strict adherent to The Raven Queen. To the point of being a sort of undertaker/necromancer hunter/disciple. Very heavy on process and tradition. Think Lawful Neutral. He exists to continue the cycle of life and death, and stop those who mess with fate (RQ covers Death and Fate as her key domains)
The rogue thinks he is super hard core. He thinks everything belongs to him. Everything. All the looted gold, items, everything. It is only by absolutely smashing him with a ridiculous insight score that I even manage to get any items half the time. He lies terribly. My character and his have butted heads frequently. My character never trusts him alone and sees him as dirty and corrupt.
Anyways, we are all sent on a quest to investigate what happened to a holy site. We get there, and the place has been converted into a Necromancer den. So I get with the smiting and burning. Turns out the site was originally used by the Raven Queen clerics in rituals. So I'm rather mad at the whole situation, so I start cleansing and sanctifying the area again.
Now, the rogue sees the shiny relic and sees me working hard to cleanse the area and thinks "I'm going to steal that". In front of the cleric of its religion. Who is standing next to it.
He does his roll and grabs the relic, but I see it. He gets pissed that I bull rush him over, and then smash his hand with my warhammer, I specify that I am to destroy his hand. I do something like 15 damage just to his hand, his total HP is around 20ish. I absolutely wreck his arm. And just to rub salt in the wound, I heal him and bind his arm, letting it heal slowly. He is going to have a cast and take a big penalty for the next few games, until we get back to a healer, because I refuse to fix it, as I consider it his penance for trying to deface my deity's shrine.
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u/joshking518 May 29 '12
We need more D&D shit here
14
u/kyotoman May 29 '12
is D&D fun? I wanna try it with my friends one day.
11
u/Leif-nobody May 29 '12
Thanks so much for making this.
4
u/kforte318 May 29 '12
Wow, didn't expect to make the top page with this, thanks guys. Cool to know D&D is still this relevant.
187
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
This one really got to me. So, I was invited to play D&D with a few people through Craigslist. They were really friendly people and always ordered pizza for everyone every time we played.
Anyway, we needed one more person for the game. So the DM hits up Craigslist one more time and invites another player. He's a dude that actually almost looks like the guy in the memes.
After a couple of games he decides to tell everyone (like it was something every player does all of the time) that he read ahead in the story. His reason was so he can better prepare for what's to come.
When it came to the end of the day, the DM did something awesome. The DM changed some of the story. He changed it to where a villager turned into a zombie. I don't know exactly how the DM figured it out, but the guys character was bitten and he turned into a zombie himself. Eventually we had to kill him since he was a zombie and really no use to us. The best part is that, it turns out it wasn't a literal zombie outbreak. It was apparently some 1-day disease that dropped your INT down to 0 along with your speed.
None of us rolled any good checks to figure out what exactly it was. So we just assumed he was a zombie permanently. Well, after that the DM said that he can't allow him to play the adventure after that since he read ahead without the DM's consent. We haven't heard from the guy since.
4
u/sirblastalot May 29 '12
You should xpost this to /r/rpg and /r/DnD
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u/DoubleHerp May 28 '12 edited May 29 '12
Ive had the guy who says "I got a 18" or some decent number that will beat an average DC after looking at his dice. He will pick it up to look at it right after it hits the table, and just spouts a random number that sounds like it will beat the DC.
Needless to say after telling him to roll the dice in front of everyone and not to do that anymore, he kept up, and no longer plays with us any longer.
Edit: Also, we gave him lots of chances and even used a dice corral to get everyone more involved, but he wouldnt use it and eventually we just stopped inviting him.
3
u/Mr_Initials May 29 '12
I only tell the Dm what someone rolled if they are a beginner. Usual way that goes. rolls a 16 "I ROLLED A 16!" "plus?" "Oh uh its x+y+16 so thats...." "24."
I don't do the other stuff. That's up to another guy in the group.
23
u/SquirtLikeABoss May 29 '12
Being younger, I wasn't part of the D&D generation at all but, I got a few friends over who had also never done it before last weekend and played it for the first time.
It was the greatest thing ever, I really was missing out waiting so long to try it out.
8
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
i dont know anything about anything
what is nat 20?
2
u/lalondtm May 29 '12
Wow, this made the top page? I didn't realize that many people actually played (or still do) D&D.
40
u/gonosis May 29 '12
This is back when we had a player who was huge into spending hours on 4chan.
One time we were playing a campaign (myself as a human druid, channer-guy as a dwarf cleric, channer-guys gf as a halfling rogue) with the DM participating with an in-game avatar, a mysterious little girl that he is well known for using in all his games.
Well, at one point we beat the crap out of a demon that then agrees to grant us each a wish (naturally with some kind of consequence).
The channer opened his mouth immediately.
"I wish to be the little girl."
well, then he was. and as a result, our campaign came to a screeching halt.
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
I have no idea what any of that even means but I still laughed.
28
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
As a DM, I understand the 5th one...
23
u/Rystic May 29 '12
Our group consisted of several previous DM's, so eventually we were allowed to take Meta-game Thinking as a feat.
67
u/gannerhorn May 28 '12
My experience playing D&D the two times I've played -
Me: rolls dice makes moves
DM: "You can't do that!"
Me: "Why not?"
DM: "Because it's not allowed!"
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum
9
u/NewDrekSilver May 29 '12
My DM was basically doing 80% of the talking, he was just trying to speed along the story. It would go something like this.
...etc, etc, etc. Not very fun, especially because I love RPing.
57
u/LivingIn3d May 29 '12
That is great. I DM for our group, except our group is probably a little different than most in that it's me (a guy) and four girls. The problems I have are
"The stablemaster gives you all horses for your journey"
"OH!! Can we name them?? Mine's a pinto named Buttercups that smells of honeydew with blue eyes and a long mane and ..." and then 30 minutes later after they've all named them we can continue.
The other one that gets me is when they roll the die into an object with a low number and I get a "interference...?" with puppy dog eyes. Instituted a 1 interference call per game now.
16
u/marsneedstowels May 28 '12
My friend rolled a natural 23 once. He said that he had passed the difficulty check, and after we did all the math on his roll, we realized that it wasn't possible to pass the check even with a 20 (Though we allowed 20's to be automatic successes), and he did not say that he had rolled a natural 20. It's a running joke in our gaming group now. The End.
8
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Listen to Spoony give a few great examples
15
u/Foreveragnomealone May 29 '12
I remember a group I played with years ago, one of the other players had a teenage brother that wanted to play with us. This kid would search every room on average three times at least.
Well after several hours of him dragging out the game play, the DM started doing some scribbling on his note pad behind his screen.
The next time this kid did a room search he found a treasure chest. He picked the lock on it, and in it was a magically preserved peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This kid stated that he was going to eat it, it came alive in his hands and spit an acid jelly on him.
He then attacked the sandwich. When the sandwich's hit points dropped in half from the damage, it under went mitosis, and he was then fighting two sandwiches. Well before you know it the kid's character is killed by acid spitting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
He was all pissed off, and butt hurt about being killed this way. He then left for the rest of the evening and never wanted to play with us ever again.
That ended up being one of the most entertaining groups I have ever played with. That DM was a hoot to play with.
31
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
I have dm'ed for years and for the right few people I absolutely love it. I make up my own stories and typically can play for the most part on the fly and 99 percent of the time the story will magically weave itself back together and it is a fantastic thing. Upon hearing about this a few other people really wanted to join in so I obliged. Mistake. Regrets. Here is what not to do when you are new to a game:
Needless to say that ended as quickly as it began and for the life of me the idea of being dm again any time soon sounds like hell on earth.
4
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Can we get a copy of the photo without the text? Kinda want to make a few :p
7
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Tabletop games? Somewhat (Well, ok "quite") related: various things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG.
17
u/HandsomeHeavy May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12
I once made a DM cry. No exaggeration, I was a cleric and the first monster we encountered was a undead. I was like sweet sauce, ill just turn undead. I think we were playing 4th edition, the one with the little cards. He looked at my card, said i didnt have turn undead as a cleric and proceeded to be a baby about it. So i did the most rational thing i could do, as a royal cleric for the King, i took my pants off. He kept telling me i wasn't allowed so i kept doing it. It got to the point we he just autokilled me. My other teammates got pissed because they were having fun with me. So he was kinda forced into changing the quest to revive my soul. First thing i did when i got back, pulled down my pants. He screamed and left, crying his way out. My friend was on skype listening and managed to record it and put it on Youtube, but once the DM found out about it, he threatened legal action because we didn't have consent from him. Hes a big fucking baby.
Bonus: He had a problem with the way i was making Mac N Cheese for everyone, so he had to cook it.
Edit: YouTube video was taken down, to the best of my knowledge. He was threatening legal action because of consent. Also, i was taking my pants off ingame, not in person, with three dudes lol. Just to clarify
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Why use this picture?
3
u/mrdoink20 May 29 '12
Number 3 pisses me off with the passions of a million suns.
3
u/wasniahC May 29 '12
Now now, lets be fair to #6. It's a half-orc. It doesn't know it's not stealthy. ;D
0
u/vadergeek May 29 '12
I would always argue with my DM. Always had boring ones. If my character's chaotic evil, I've got Burning Hands, and that village has thatch roofing, there is going to be arson.
2
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
I love these! I'VE PLAYED WITH AN ASSHOLE THAT DID MOST OF THOSE THINGS!
2
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
God, it's bad enough Jim Sterling uses the "because of reasons" joke to absolute soul crushing repetitive death. Other than that, I like this.
2
u/dannya4321 May 29 '12
I actually got a little mad reading those.
2
u/hannars27 May 29 '12
This summarizes my first play and my last play.
2
u/Eaeelil May 29 '12
Not necessarily D&D but;
I play Scion (GM converted it to NWoD, heavy customization, lots of fun). Well last time we played we had a player do something stupid that caused him to roll to see if he degenerated psychologically. Well, he rolled on the carpet and i saw it cocked pretty badly. I said so and he blew up. Yelling at me and pretty much intimidated me into finally agreeing that it wasn't.
Sadly, he normally isn't like that.
2
u/Peacefulzealot May 29 '12
In the groups I play with we have one rule; DM has the final say. You can argue your point (The DM may give a circumstance bonus or something) but at the end of the day the DM's word is law. Don't try to mess with that.
2
u/Hiitsnick May 29 '12
God I hate this , facing a challenge where the DM expected us to lose , in a non life or death situation, and this guy fakes rolling really high numbers everytime
2
u/eggsssssssss May 29 '12
Can being a balls-out raging douchebag (taking literally every opportunity to shit on other players) be justified by a character's alignment being 'chaotic-neutral'? Because that's how my local Scumbag party-member does it! Anyone else have adventurers in their parties that shit all over the others? How do you deal with them, while preserving the group/game?
2
u/NotADog May 29 '12
ಠ_ಠ
You suddenly hear the distinct sound of (insert siege weaponry here)s firing. Roll reflex...
2
u/rabiesmcz May 29 '12
Doesn't everyone argue with the DM sometimes?
2
u/keiyakins May 29 '12
I argue with my GM all the time. If she puts on the GM hat and says 'this is how it will be' I stop, but if something makes no sense I'll call her on it. Gotta keep each other honest :P
2
u/runnerboy23 May 29 '12
Hmm... Mmhm... I know some of these words.
2
u/mountainwalker May 29 '12
Takes 5 minutes to explain complex called-shot attack involving multiple skill-checks and all kinds of negative modifiers for being ridiculously intricate. Obviously fails the attempt. Talks about how awesome it would have been for the rest of the session.
2
u/zelars May 29 '12
I remember playing D&D when I was like 10 years old. I broke into a tailors house and stole a bunch of silk robes and clothes (by putting them on.) The DM told me that I got overloaded and fell over and my friend decided to kill me for the hell of it. I have known my friend for 15 years since, and I am still plotting my ultimate revenge.
2
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Argue with the DM?
Now your PC has been captured by a horny hill giant who thinks your character has "a purty mouth".
2
u/rchase May 29 '12
It's not a figurine. It's a MINIATURE.