Thanks to the ever doughy Jacob, host of a show called XP to Level 3. A video with a surprising amount of edited skits. Also it's about a type of dnd player.
I'm my group's problem solver, and last session I finally learned why: I'm literally the only person who listens to anything the DM says. It's really quite astounding how far we've gotten despite this.
"And I would have gotten away with it, too. If it wasn't for you meddling kids. And your ghost dog, Sherlock Bones. And your Abolith. And your gold dragon." Puffin Forrest two-thousand something or other.
2:14 I die a little everytime. Especially when the DM specifically said that it was going to be a detective game, and it still devolves into a horribly derailed Quest about a jar of pee pee.
"Accompanied by a saxophone player" *trumpet is playing* My god is that a Nat 1 Perception check if I ever heard one. Jacob would've gotten that right, Logan. C'mon now. lol
All problems can be solved through the proper application of explosives. This is a fundamental truth of the universe that works in both real life and fictional settings.
My sister is making an investigation themed campaign and told us to make investigators with the city watch. And such was the birth of Detective Hank LaChance, a wood elf with PTSD and a hand crossbow who might be fully colorblind. I haven’t decided yet.
@@Elmithian i disagree. There are plenty of people who entirely separate the two Sure i know exactly what monster were fighting, and how to kill it, but if my character dosen't he won't use it, esp if system has a knowledge roll. I suppose you could view something like " fire damage sucks in 5e, so I'm going to pick it sparingly" as meta gaming, but i think character planning and meta gaming are different. After all no one wants to be the fire mage going into a demon campaign
@@kallsusae I more meant that even by tiny bit we cannot fully remove beforehand given knowledge. I mean, I assist most of the Gms with the things they are planning for the group, giving them advice, coming up with&writing alternative measures/methods and so on (Even creating unique monsters and artefacts for them to use). I am the one person in the group that has more knowledge about what the GMs are going to throw at the group or what their story is heading towards than anyone else. Knowing that, I tend to play on that knowledge to enhance the experience for other players. I tend to consult with the GMs and offer my character as a way/option to enhance the other players experience and fun. This may, and does, cause my characters to get into undesirable and dangerous situations (So long as it fits the character personality of course), but if it makes the story work better and let's the rest have more fun then I am all for it (since that is also very fun for me). See, metagaming can be played out in different ways. In one way it can be played out in purely selfish manner, another way is to play on what you know to make your character act and react believably in a way that wouldn't be possible if you had no meta knowledge to speak of. Think of it like rehearsing before a play. If you are good at it, you improve the feeling of immersion, both for you *and* the rest of the group.
There’s already a billion videos on meta gamers, do we really need another one? Honestly I’m getting so sick of hearing about them that I’d rather play with one than hear someone bitch about them condescendingly. Same goes for murderhobos. Yes, both of those types of players are bad. But they’re a lot rarer than you think. This is like the Mary Sue witch hunt all over again.
I find that these sorts of character archetypes mesh surprisingly well in a D&D game...typically because the class (such as the Rogue Inquisitive) needs to rely on the strengths of other party members to account for their own weaknesses. For instance, the Rogue Inquisitive is both intellectual and perceptive (and has great Sneak Attack)...but they aren't a fighter, and they'll quickly be swallowed up by a mob. From a narrative perspective, they'd pursue a quest (or "case") based solely on their own agenda, but they would need the aid of some bruiser or Fighter for dealing with physical threats, or a magic-user or Wizard for arcane dangers. And the "problem solver" would be smart enough to understand this reality. It creates a fun dynamic; the investigator may not particularly "like" having to tag along with adventurers, but would begrudgingly depend on them...or they could form a strong bond with their party members...every Sherlock (Rogue) needs a Watson (Fighter), after all. On a related note, a "NOIRE" styled D&D campaign would be perfect for a Waterdeep setting...I'm keeping that in my back pocket for future sessions.
I bet Dragon Heist would be perfect for a Waterdeep Noire game. Though, there, the Problem Solver is more likely to be CHASING the Party than working with them.
I've been marathoning your videos recently, they've been a huge help to setting up my DnD podcast and just a fun watch in general, best of luck to you! I hope you keep making great content!
I knew you were going to post this video. I knew what you were going to talk about. I knew you were going to make your own channel before XP to level 3 was even a channel.
"The Mystery of the Peepee Land Express was my slippriest case to date." "The road to glory s ain't paved with gold, kid." "Sometimes, life deals the a runt hand, sometimes, it's a flush." Lean into the fiction, detective!
I actually had a slightly different experience as the problem solver. I got so good at reading our DM that the party started relying on me exclusively to solve problems. It got to a point where my DM had think of interesting ways to get the group engaged in puzzle solving again like separating the group or make the story focused on one person. I have to give credit to her, she never took the easy route of incapacitating me.
Not gonna lie this is fucking perfect for how I play my rogue inquisitor. Literally a half orc private detective named Detective ogg. But I love this character so damn much. Also ROFLMFAO AT 1:43 so damn true.
I saw myself in a lot of these videos, but this was the first time I felt directly called out haha (I even play an inquisitive archetype rogue... I............)
I feel like he's talking to me sometimes as well. my current character was a city guard, specifically a detective. oh no. I'm playing into a trap fighter by the way.
@@stanard_bearer oh man, my character is also a detective (private detective, not guard, though). she wears a trench coat and black gloves like the thumbnail. I'm like. well...
@@windsroad- my character's name is Eric, he used to be a guard. but one day his wife Scarlet turned out to be a silver dragon (thank you Xanathars guide to everything) and flew away leaving Eric to take care of their kids. so his main thing is that he's looking for Scarlet. I based his design off of the Man at Arms from Darkest Dungeon, look it up if you're interested. also any tips on the whole detective thing? I kinda suck at mysteries.
@Noricky Mephism my character is a tiefling who took the name justice (I KNOW) when she took part in an attempted rebellion. When they failed she fled the country and eventually became a detective. And I’m in curse of strahd, so detective work is... something. I already got completely tricked by our fave vampire lord once lmao, so she’s having a bit of a crisis of confidence.
I have been blessed with two (most likely three) problem solvers in my current campaign (I'm running Tomb of Annihilation). Had to completely rewrite the beginning because I knew they wouldn't be as engaged if I had just given them the details of the death curse. So I homebrewed some things that would translate to them investigating and finding out everything about said curse themselves. Not gonna lie its been a mild pain in the ass to set up but their engagement into the campaign has been worth it. Oooh, they're gonna love all the puzzles and dungeons out there in Chult.
Was anyone else confused when they were talking about a saxophonist and had a trumpet playing in the background? These videos keep getting better and better. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Well if you're actually that kindd of player, which I am, it's kinda obvious. I mean I love film noire and it's where you'll find most of the good detective films and investigator players tend to inspire a lot of their characters from that, I've even played a Samurai that was just a straight up film-noire detective caught in a web of conspirations within a society that doesn't even care about legitimate proof when courtesy and status are the most important thing, he had a really awful time, including having to kill his fiancé in a duel when a corrupt politician thought that would be enough to stop him, he ended up being killed for accusing a Feudal lord of being corrupt, he had all the evidence and could prove it but it didn't matter, he didn't have anyone of equal or higher importance backing him so that was that, and he died cursing a society that allowed those things to happen. It was an interesting character to play although the DM was sad that I chose the truth rather than give in and become corrupt (He loved messing with that character), the party was super happy because that meant they didn't have to continue getting in problem just because that guy wanted to do what was right and was simply unwilling to back down.
I understood the Film Noire part. I was commenting on the continuity of saying "I have a saxophone player" and then clearly having a trumpet part played.
JoaoG R A combination of Rogue expertise in both Investigation and Perception, point buy maxing out Wis and Int, and taking the Observant feat with Variant Human. Don't remember the math off the top of my head, but I know it's over 20 passive. EDIT: Just checked the sheet I had; it's 22 if we're assuming point buy.
In my next campaign, one of my potential character options (based on what fits best with the party) is either gonna be an Inquisitive Rogue, or a Divination Wizard, And I'm planning to play them like a Detective, so this video speaks to me.
“yeah, i dont really see myself as this guy” i say, watching this video as background noise while i put together my conspiracy corkboard based on the events of my last session
Perception rolls are one of my favorite types of rolls to have players do at random times purely for the sake of teaching them that they are not the end all be all rolls for seeing important things.
This is straight up one of the most accurate descriptions of me ever...even down to when he said "egotistocal pride", as I was actually diagonosed as an egotist, among other things. This reminds me of my 3.5e character who is currently level 3. He has one level of Cloistered Cleric (gives skill points galore and the Lore ability), two levels Soulknife (not really related to this topic), and the Scribe profession, which gives the Speak Language skill. And here's a list of things he can use to just solve problems: Language barrier? No problem! He knows 10 languages (Xeph as racial, Common as automatic, Northern as regional, and Undercommon, Celestial, Draconic, Ignen, Elven, Orcish, and Goblin from +3 Int Mod and +4 Speak Language), +7 Decipher Script, the Message spell, and the Comprehend Language Spell. Other stuff? Also not a problem! He has +9 Diplomacy, +7 Lore ability (I roll to see if I recognize something, and the higher I get, the more the DM has to tell me), and all Knowledge skills from the Knowledge domain, including +11 Psionics, 7 Religion, Arcana, and Planes, +6 Local, and +3 Nature, Architecture, Geography, Dungeoneering, Nobility, and History. In one campaign (it was very short lived, as it was just to satisfy us until we got an actual DM), we were attacked by assassins. One Lore roll later (with +5 modifier because I was level 1) on a symbol the wore, and I knew essentially everything I could've possibly needed to know. And to add to that, I spend much of my time out-of-game, or also in-game, just coming up with multiple solutions to one problem. This trait of mine also lets me perform cool loopholes with stuff, like insa-killing with the spells Create Water or Purify Food and Water, or that time at character level 2 when we were fighting a CR 6 chimera, and I used the Message spell and convinced it that I was its conscience, and I got it to do much of what I told it to in order to make the fight MUCH easier, or that time I defeated thag same chimera with the Light spell... TL; DR: This video is just me in a nutshell. I don't expect anyone to read this comment in its entirety, but if you did, then thankyou, I guess.
A few months ago, just before the new plague, my family ran a two-session heist campaign. I made a changeling rogue/monk designed to emulate the skills of historical ninjutsu (and no, I don't mean Naruto or some black-clad martial artist. I mean the actual historical practices: impersonation, infiltration, stealth, mobility, manipulation, environmentalism, mind games, and fire). I managed to kidnap and impersonate a guard and enter the fortress and scout it out long before the DM had ever planned for us to get in. We wound up getting in and out while only tipping off three of the twenty-eight guards to our presence, which we managed to subdue with a Silence spell.
I played a table with one of these on it. They basically changed the adventure to be what they thought the answer was. They started off by saying: "It doesn't make sense for bandits to attack us here. Clearly, they are really the good guys, a rebellion of some sort, trying to keep quiet." The GM, realizing that he'd made a mistake somewhere along the way decided to go with it to save face, and, after we were attacked by these random people, decided to make them a group of freedom fighters instead of bandits.
You are fantastic. I found your know your player series a while ago and I can just see how much fun you have with it. Keep having fun and being yourself. Also encourage your fellow actors becauae they truely seem to enjoy the silly ideas and sketches, not to knock them, but to make sure they know how appreciated they are.
I thought I was having a stroke when I heard the Saxophone solo start playing because I used this exact song is a sound assignment for a noir narration.
It me. Playing the Expert in Monster of the Week basically turned the game into my show for 80% of the time, because the three other characters when we started were The Monstrous (fighty werewolf boy), The Summoned (fighty demon boy), and the Luchadore (fighty wrestler boy). After all, the fights are AFTER we talk to the witnesses, track down the clues, identify the bad guy, and gear up. Things got a little bit less about me when we finally got another investigative character. Now the party consists of an Expert (moi), a Monstrous (whose branching into magic to complement his werewolf powers), a Summoned (whose close to dooming reality), a Luchadore (party face), a Flake (who keeps the conspiracy board), an Initiate (who has tried to murder the party twice), and a Spooky (a loadstone for everyone involved)
5:23 I tried this but had an instigator. Instead of everyone navigating a criminal base and using interesting ideas and utilizing various skill proficiencies (not just stealth if they want!) in literally the first room, after sneaking into a window, the sorcerer uses burning hands on a table of guards playing cards. He ended up burning the whole place down and nearly killed the hostage they were gonna rescue if not for the rogue slipping back inside and not getting crushed by debris thanks to his dexterity, while the rest of the party fought a bunch of guards. I’m... uh.... going to be very cautious about wood from now on. I’m also very glad the leaders weren’t there, so there was no risk of them dying. They’re gonna be pissed though, and come after the party as soon as they find a lead on where they are... which is great because they’re gonna be wanted soon after the bardlock’s patron has him ransack a rival goddess’ temple since she’s petty!
While traveling through a forest, our wagon was accosted by bandits. We were moving at 80 feet per round and we rolled higher initiative than all the bandits. I took one look at the position of the bandits' horses and grinned. I cast dissonant whispers on one of the warhorses pulling one of the two bandit wagons chasing us. The warhorse failed its save but survived the damage and was forced to use its reaction to move as far away from me as possible. Since that wagon's other horse was unaffected, this caused the wagon to veer right into the other wagon, causing a collision that dealt 8d10 damage (54) to both wagons and destroyed them. I expected the wagons to just be too damaged to keep up, but nope; they just shattered. The horse I cast the spell on got run over and killed as this happened, and the three remaining horses took 8d4 damage (18) from toppling over each other; they survived with 1 HP. The seven living bandits that were inside the wagons as they toppled and shattered took 8d8 damage (32), the exact amount of damage needed to instantly kill them (DM runs Monster Death at 0 HP). This was all caused by a level 1 spell. Our party felt bad and healed the surviving horses. Not wanting the meat to go to waste, we cut up and prepared the dead horse and got 12 days worth of rations. The horses watched in horror as we butchered their friend and ran away. Also, we found a note implying that these guys were pranking us into thinking they were robbing us. Our artificer is calling me a murder hobo, now.
I am an artificer and we have a rogue with 24 perception. He finds the clues and hands them to me for decoding Every scene starts with: “I give a subtle nod to the rogue”
I'm a problem solver in my game, but I use it to help my other players engage with the plot and what the DM puts in front of us. My Rogue is also a Harper, so he doesn't really care about getting the "glory" (we also have 2 Force Grey players in the party lol) rather than doing what's right, blah blah blah. My DM specifically asked me to fulfill this role since I'm a DM myself and he needed someone that could fill the role of leader, though my character isn't the leader in-character, it's pretty much a democracy, I just tie all the hints the DM give us to goals and use narrative to make argued cases for why we should proceed in one way or what I think might be the deal with certain factions.
And this is why my brother in law might regret introducing me to The Dresden Files right around the time our DnD game started... because now my Warlock is an unholy combination of Dr. Strange and Harry Dresden who is constantly bordering on his own ego turning him to choatic stupid. 🤣
I mean, the Eldritch Invocations can give you Detect Magic at will, Disguise Self at will, Alter Self at will, Polymorph at will, Speak with Animals AND Speak with Dead AT WILL, Improved Darkvision, X-Ray Vision, proficiency in Deception and Persuasion, a CLOAKING FIELD in low-light and darkness, and so much more! Alongside the Inquisitive Rouge, the Divination Wizard, and the Ranger, Warlocks are some of THE best detectives in D&D.
I love you're videos I can't wait to make a video and have you possibly see it one day. You are a huge inspiration to me and my creative side thank you so much for helping me be a better DM
Problem solvers playing inquisitors: Impossible! Divination wizards at 16th level knowing literally everything: Darling you have no idea whats possible.
I'm a problem solver, but it's depending on the character. A detective, maybe. But also an "action hero" warrior, who solves the problems of the turn, mostly related to combat.
I get the impression from these dm guides I keep seeing online that dms don't really want players. They want a npc that writes half the story for them but only if it more or less matches up to the half they wrote.
My favorite thing about RU-vid's addition of "most replayed" sections is I get to see that *"H E Y L O G A N A R E Y O U R E A D Y T O G O O N T H E P E E P E E Q U E S T T O D E L I V E R T H E P E E P E E M A N ' S P E E P E E T O P E E P E E L A N D ?"* is the most replayed part of this video.
This toataly discribes how I played my first ever character, who was a divination wizard. He wasn't trying to be the leader though, (unless I thought we were working on a puzzle.) We had more experienced players for that.
It's kind of funny that you said you're usually supposed to win. I've played 2 campaigns so far in the first one we completed our quest, but then there was a betrayal and a secret new villain stole our artifact. In the 2nd campaign we got to the final boss, but we were unable to defeat him due to some unfortunate and unexpected events so he got away with his plans although I managed to get the artifact back as part of negotiations since he no longer needed it 😅
I feel called out even though I switched from dodgy rogue to chaotic sorcerer (currently of the "cursed by Beshaba" variety, and soon a case of "aftermaths of an Elven wizard who fucked up her experiment" lol). Though I do remain a teamplayer, I'm just the one who really takes the time to think, especially since my current sorcerer _will_ avoid combat as much as possible. However, I think I'd think a type not mentioned in the video: the strategist. As in: oh we have these fanatical paladins trying to siege the town we have our HQ at? Well let's go full guerilla on them, here is what we can do. Oh, there's a dragon in the tower, and enemies threatening us to the South? Let's go and have a chat with the dragon then! (< it actually went very well because my character speaks Draconic and well, Sorcerer so high charisma with the right proefficiencies). Also, from a meta PoV, I tend to easily catch the hooks and point them out to the other players in a "character puts 2 + 2 together in an instant of clarity" way. I do enjoy puzzly stories, ngl. But I also like going at it in a "we all have our brick to add to the wall" way, so via RP, when I suggest plans, I always do so in a way that'll allow other players to have an input - after all, I'm not the only one with a brain at the table.
I had a hobo murder a problem solver and a newbie in a party. Holy shit I made each one of them happy as the campaign took a turn as they killed an NPC they thought were evil but turned out to be good all according to Stradt's plan as they now got framed and is wanted criminals. It was a very epic ''Oh Shit!'' moment.
