For me, the progression of the list made me think "well, that seems reasonable." "Wow, this GM is an asshole." "Wow, these players are assholes." "Well, you are all assholes and I am glad I am not playing with ANY of you!"
Same here! Many of those "rules" seem way too specific to be anything but a response to players being assholes, and some just seem to be very common courtesy that wasn't observed.
Hell, this rules are so weirdly specific I would never want to run any game for that group. GM included. The main point of that shitty list is actually not the requirements, which are somewhat reasonable, but the language used to deliver these. It is mostly "I don't want to play with you, you f*ing mo*ons" list, and then the crying list of all things gone wrong in the previous campaign.
Honestly, it sounds like this whole table sucks. The DM’s attitude and arbitrary punishments are frustrating but their players sound awful. If I was running a game where players were constantly late or absent I’d quit pretty quickly. I imagine the DM started out being pretty much average and at this point they’re jaded with the game and their friends.
This is why having a good group to play with is so important. You need to be at a table with 3 to 5 other people who all have the same goal for the evening. For some groups that maybe be 6 solid hours of gaming with little breaking. For others that may be a few hours of gaming, plus eating, drinking, jokes and bullshitting. Both are fine if that is what the group wants. If you get a mix you get conflicts
yeah, but sometimes real life happens, and you miss sessions because of work or emergencies or whatever. It's really unavoidable when you are a group of adults trying to all schedule something at the same time
Meh, I think it's not reasonable to assume that the rest of the table is collectively being alwful. I mean, is it more likely that the table of 4 to 5 people is being alwful? Or is it more likely that the DM is kind of a control freak that wants the campaign his way over anything else. I think the latter is way more likely. Notice how instead of formulating reasonable rules with the table he wants to play with, the DM just imposes these 44 immutable, inflexible arbitrary rules to even begin playing. It might sound ok when you're taking 3 or 4 hard rules but 44? They expect players to have these in mind at all times or else he stops playing? This has entered delulu territory long ago.
The take on Rule 5 is where I cock an eyebrow. It's a roleplaying game, not an improv class, and there are dozens of ways to "roleplay" without being a character actor. Letting players describe their approach in third person is a fine compromise between not describing anything and requiring them to be verbally eloquent to make a Charisma check.
There's still a line there. For instance, you could say something like "[Character name] flashes his badge at the bartender, attempting to persuade him to lower the prices." as opposed to "i try to persuade the bartender for a discount *proceeds to roll*"
See the thing is, i dont have god level intelligence, or charisma, or whichever other stat. I shouldnt have to sit there and threaten my DM until hes spooked enough to give in@SkyBlade79
@@SkyBlade79 How many gold is the right amount to bribe a galuvian guard with and should you use your left or right hand? Because I don't know, but my character would. When I say I attempt to bribe the guard, I am leaning on my characters knowledge of the area. Sure, given enough time I might pick up on the fact that 5 gold will get me into the city without an aggressive search and that I need to hand it over with my left hand, but my character grew up with this stuff. Many normal situations are easy enough to describe what your doing, however, sometimes people will have a hard time with that for any number of reasons.
The key word in Rule 5 was "not even trying". The whole point of a role playing game is to, well, roleplay your character. The important note is that you do not have to *simulate* your character for roleplaying to be effective. If you are playing an 18 Charisma bard you don't have to give an 18 Charisma-worthy persuasion. Just do your best, have a laugh with your buddies if it's terrible, *then* roll. If it is a Nat 20, no matter if you just said the dumbest speech of all time, the *characters* will still perceive you as the greatest orator there ever was.
So, after a bit of digging, I was able to find out a few things. TL;DR, everything here was absolutely the players fault because almost every bad player behavior listed here was intentional. This set of rules was a response from the DM to the players trying to get the DM back so they could bully him some more after their hiatus. When this post originally came out, a lot of people noticed that this sounded like a very angry, but very HURT DM. A few people were curious to see if there were any other stories like this from the OP. Turns out, OP had previously posted many times about gameplay behavior and the DM. However, it was the player bragging in other subreddits that they and their group had been bullying the DM intentionally for some time. Begging for or demanding more and more powerful magical items, smoking often, cheating, complaining, arguing, gaslighting, and the works. They continued to go out of their way to give the DM a bad time. This claim is also supported when you look at the number of rules that SPECIFICALLY mention Reddit. People started calling OP out on this, and that is why they not only deleted the post, but they deleted their account. Getting into speculation now. This looks like the DM took a hiatus/break with every intention of trying to just break up the party. However, the party was likely trying to get the DM back into playing with the group, hoping to be able to abuse them some more. So in response the DM decided he'd lay down a law for everything they'd done to wrong him as something of an ultimatum. "If we're going to be playing together, these are my terms. I'm tired of all of this. You will either fix your behavior, or I will stop playing with you and you will hate playing with me." A lot of people also mention the language and how aggressive this DM Seems to be given the profanity shown. I have a few theories on this. Firstly, is that given that this isn't the DM, but the OP who posted this, it's possible that they just punched up the language to be worse than it actually was. This is supported by the OPs previous language and posts on Reddit as well. Secondly, given some of the specific language used, we can assume that this group is either in the UK, or Austrailia. If they're in the UK, particularly on the northern side(Scotland and the like), they have quite liberal use of various swear words, so there might not even be the same amount of spite we here in Northern America might attribute to it. Often times, we in the US/Canadia make the bad assumption that UK = Polite and posh British. But don't forget, the UK includes Britain, Wales, N Ireland, and Scotland. Even further, if this was in Australia, then this would be a *polite* response to this group, given the lack of the use of the C Word. There's also a small chance he's military as well,(Former military myself,) and really, swear words just become interrogatives and common adjectives at that point, though prior service is much less likely. With that in mind, It's entirely possible then that this DM isn't actually as rude as we give him credit for. With all of this in mind, this was a DM that was tired of the bullshit, and likely wanted nothing to do with this group given their behavior. With everything here, the players were obviously the bad guys here, and OP at the very least knew it. It seems like the DM caught on as well and was basically saying: "Okay then. If you want me back to try and play your fuck-fuck games, I can play back." So OP Used that to try and get some extra Reddit Karma, but instead got some real and proper karma in return.
I’m an old school player and back in the 90s, when this hobby was really niche(and I was a young one without a car). I had a very small number of like minded people to play with. So you kinda were stuck with that and games with people you didn’t like. I feel like in 2024 with the internet and the popularity of TRPGs these days, you don’t have to put up with Smokey Joe and Cat piss guy at your table because they are the only people you can find to play.
Respectfully disagree on #5 ( the Roleplaying thing), at least partially. Yes, this is a roleplaying game, and it is extremely boring for players to just describe their actions in the driest, most mechanical way possible, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to act out everything in a real-time 1:1 fashion. A lot of people just aren't comfortable with that, and making them auto-fail if they don't act things out or say the wrong thing in the encounter will not encourage them to roleplay more, it will just encourage them to focus more on mechanical problem-solving methods that aren't so heavily penalized by the GM; which is to say, combat. Remember that your character is very likely much better at stuff than you are in real life, this isn't penalized when a character is better with a sword or better at sneaking or at all able to do magic than their player. The alternative to long, in-person roleplay scenes where the things you say are exactly what your character say isn't "I roll persuasion. I got a 27. The guard lets me pass" its "I am going to chat amicably with the guard for a moment to get them less defensive. Family, weather, current events. You know. Then I'm going to tell the guard that the Duke sent me. I know the duke didn't give me anything to prove I'm working under their direction, but I'm hoping to get him to let me by anyway." Now, this guys party, judging from context, was almost certainly just going "I roll persuasion. I got a 27. The guard lets me pass". But that doesn't really effect my point here.
I had the same thought, but it all kind of depends what they mean by "if you don't act". Everyone seems to agree that not acting it out *at all* ("I make a Persuasion check") is bad, but how much roleplaying is expected? Is "I give the crowd a rousing speech, referencing the terrible battle from last year and reminding them of what's at stake tomorrow" enough? What about "I tell the prisoner "give us the information or I'll... really mess you up!" - except, you know, I say something scarier than that because Ragnar can intimidate someone in his sleep." I'd say either of those is great. Saying just "I make a persuasion roll" is like saying "I make an attack roll" - you don't have to get up and swing a sword around, but you do have to describe what you're doing. And bear in mind the person who wrote these rules never said you have to act *well* to affect the roll - just that you have to do *something* or you don't get to make one.
Glad I scrolled and found what I wanted to say! I'd go along the lines of: Player announces intent "I want to try to persuade them to let us past." GM sets the conditions: "Sure, they're in a good mood, so we'll only need to beat a 15 Persuasion for success. It'll take a few minutes whatever you roll." Players rolls and succeeds. "Hey, looks like they believed me!" GM confirms success and prompts for the action description: "Okay, you spent a few minutes chatting to the guard, do you want to tell us how you convinced them before you go by?" (and other players can help here if the player doesn't know what kind of line would've worked, including the GM) Mix that with players being able to be fully first or third person describing actions of their character, prompting wouldn't always need to be done or only done by the GM... Overall, same point from a different angle, as everything seems to be in the TTRPG space!
My ruling on it is typically the bare minimum is describing how exactly you plan to convince/intimidate/etc. the person or creature. Something like "I want to pull on my warrior's experience with the guard, being that he was a town guard before he was an adventurer, to convince the guard to let use pass" is fine because in general our characters are a lot smoother, cooler and more well spoken than we are. That's what the dice are there for to determine how your character is interpreting the instructions the player is giving to them. Typically if you actually RP a well crafted argument or whatever I'll hand out big bonuses or sometimes even skip the check.
@@drakinkoren This is exactly how I handle this in my games. There are times where my players and I will act out a full conversation but a lot of the time they won't entirely know what to say and I don't expect them to improvise an actually convincing argument. Its great when they do legitimately improvise that and get creative, but it isn't essential in most cases. I think the only time I'd actually say "no" to resolving things more abstractly would be when specific information or plans are involved, like for example I wouldn't allow a player to roll intimidation in order to blackmail someone without telling me what blackmail material they are using. Or, of course, if the player just refused to elaborate on their action at all and just demanded "persuasion roll to get what I want" or smth.
We do not play with persuasion rolls. I might roll a 2d6 reaction for the guy reaction of some fool but this is an option for me when I have no idea. You are not required to be a good actor or that social but I need to know roughly what points they push. Make up a plan together, you must plan for a con. You can send a sort of social point man/recce dude who only observes and interacts with public areas. You can observe and dig up procedures. Approach people outside work, when they are not firmly in their professional role. You can try to bribe people, build a history, push them using contacts.
10:12 I can see, how it can be hard for a player to act bold and daring, while being a shy nerd. I don't think you need to act to make things interesting: a vivid description could do just fine, while not forcing the player out of their comfort zone. Not acting ≠ Not participating. Speaking from a charismatic player's perspective (according to my group). »I'd like to talk the guard into letting us in, using friendly language and some inside jokes I've picked up while being in training«
Yeah, like, you can give something and explain your thought process without needing to stop and act. I can see acting being a fun thing, if it's something the whole table has agreed to, but I wouldn't expect it to be the default in a given table.
yeah, this. hard disagree that players should be expected to act things out and roleplay 100% of the time, not every table can be all theater kids and even in tables that can, not all of them are gonna be Good at the theater stuff and certainly not at the level of, say, the Critical Role or Dimension 20 crews that are made up of literal professional entertainers with years of experience and that are playing for an audience as opposed to just each other
"I want to roll to intimidate the guard." "Sure. Give me an idea of how you go about doing that." Or, sometimes even better, is to wait for the roll first. "Okay, give me any idea of what you say that caused that success/failure."
@PassGoGames my group has been experimenting with this, and I really like it. It's more fun to improvise a failing conversation than it is to give a rousing speech only to roll poorly.
from what I heard from other videos talking about this, the player that posted the rules on reddit made clarifications in the comments that (iirc) made it known that the players were harassing the DM IRL to try and force them into DMing again despite stopping for reasons made clear by the rules, and that the rules were the "Fine, you want me to DM for you freaks again? Here's how it'll be. Still want that?" sort of thing, where the DM didn't want to be there unless the players overhauled who they were (I saw it compared to how a contractor will sometimes give an exorbitant cost estimate if they just don't want to do a job, so they either make out like a bandit for shitty work or get away with not having to do it without saying "no fuck off" to a customer's face)
Regarding rule 5 (acting out persuadion checks) I think having to talk in character can actually HINDER some players' roleplaying, in a Colvillian sense. Roleplaying is about imagining your character as a complex person, then deciding what they would do; some players find it harder to do that when they're also trying to string together a sentence that sounds natural (and maybe also do a character voice). I'm generally one of the more showy players at my table, and even I sometimes like the breathing room that speaking out of character gives me
RE: rule 5 I am autistic. I don't have the talking ability or charisma to do the real life equivalent of a nat 20. I also can't cast a fireball in real life or do acrobatics. The point of the game is to play make believe and do things that I am not capable of in real life. Just because talking can be done inside at a table vs. climbing a tree doesn't mean that my real life ability should have any baring on my rolls. Nobody would agree with a DM who wouldn't honor a strength roll just because they've never seen me climb a tree. As long as a player is engaging with the narrative and paying attention, actual speaking ability should never have any bearing on gameplay. I've literally never heard of a table comprised of 100% neurotypical people, so it feels especially egregious to have a (possibly unintentional) ableist rule.
This is pretty much my complaint about that rule too. Even with nurotipical folks there is no reason to expect the ability to act. As long as you can give some direction to the check, not saying I am going to persuade the gard could work if you gave direction like, by appealing to their since of justice I will persuade...
Just give a bullet point third party description of the flavor of your attempt. “I try to convince him to let me by, referencing our mutual cousin and our recent acts as heroes of the city.”
Given the other rules, this seems to be in response from a dm absolutely mentally finished with an awful group and not a reflection to a typical table and individuals. Vast majority are fine telling what you’re going for in a social encounter: what are you trying to get from the interaction, how are you approaching it, and any other clues/tips that might affect a roll. We don’t expect the barbarian player to benchpress the sofa when rolling, i think there is grace for social characters
Strongly disagree with the take on rule 5. Acting out checks requries a level of confidence that some people just dont have, but they still want to play the game. Obviously as they play the hope is eventually they get comfortable enough to try acting things out, but demanding someone act when they are still uncomfortable is not cool.
Just depending on how much is being asked. I've also seen some groups where the opposite problem cropped up. A player who roleplays well and is very charismatic getting away with things without rolling any dice even though their charisma skills are awful.
Again, in moments like these i ask the player to explain the action instead of acting it out. Saying "I roll Persuation" and rolling dice isnt fun nor will help on the shyness. If you need to persuade a guard i would ask "What are you saying to him?", "Whats the plan?", "How do your character express that?", the player himself doesn't needs to act the scene but the description plus the roll is more than enough for me and also helps on at least talking to the table and showing creativity
Okay, so rule 12... I think rather that the hallmark of a good GM to predict their players and guide them without railroading. This of course requires the players to WANT to do the adventure you make. Ask them between sessions "With what you know, where are you heading?" If they do something completely unexpected, improvise to a certain extent. If it is completely off the track, the best response is "Well, this was not prepared for. We end here and I will prep more."
Let's not forget judicious use of magician's choice. If the players choose to travel north into the woods, they will encounter my planned encounter #1. If they instead head west into the swamp, they will encounter my planned encounter #1. Give them the illusion of choice and they will think your world is much deeper and mysterious than it really is.
I think some level of railroading is fine, as long as it forces the players to continue along the story you've made. Good railroading is like: "You hear the cavern collapse behind you. You fear the only escape from this place is forward." Bad railroading is like: "You were knocked unconscious by a drug in your drink. You awaken in an evil dungeon." Basically, anything that doesn't prompt the question: "I don't get a save for that?" is probably fine.
Some improvisation is definitely good on any dm, but I see this as a "different styles" issue. Not everyone is up for every game or right for every dm. That said, I mostly prefer to imagine the world and have stat sets up for quick reference, then just kinda cobble together whatever on the fly. Asking a few questions after session just speeds it up and lets me add detail. I'm essentially just playing a lot of characters and having them do what I think they'd do (many are less complex than others)
@@PassGoGames Absolutely valid strategy. Great time saver. If you want to be spicy you might even offer the choice as a way to "flavor" the encounter by altering small bits like environment or generic npc presence. It furthers the illusion while adding agency, but on a much more manageable effort scale
@@PassGoGamesI mean, go to the swamps or to the forest and encounter same goblins or whatnot makes sense. Going to the swamps or to the forest and encountering a forest anyway (vice versa is fine), or finding wolves in swamps or a whole bunch of oozes in the forest (with no way to find an explanation) is kinda weird
To be honest, my initial reaction to "you should not be treating me like an enemy" especially whem followed up with "if you can't separate the game from reality" seems to me like the dm was trying, poorly, to say "when i am roleplaying strahd,i am not your friend, i am strahd. Please do not take the things he says and does out on **me**, personally"
I appreciate someone tackling this who is capable of reading the subtext of what is going on with this list. You are far and away my favorite ttrpg youtuber, ever. For people automatically siding with the players, I have to suppose they have never had the misfortune of playing with absolute fuck-offs. The real rule here is just don't play with fuck-offs; no game will ever be worth it.
Yeah cuz I gotta wonder how many times the DM had to stress this shit before he made a literal list. A lot of it sounds like the group was too used to mmorpgs and this DM wasn't having it.
Odd take on #5, no everyone enjoys the same play style 🤷♂You get skills so your PC can do things you can't Honestly (like most reddit D&D "issues") most of these could have been solved with a session 0 and better communication Sounds like they all need to find new groups lol Thanks for the vid! :D
It's insane how many times the solution to someone's interpersonal issues on the internet is "just talk to them" 💀 I get wanting advice in advance so you don't look silly when posing a question, or asking what's the polite way to ask something, but most of the time that's not the case, they already have all the information they need, they're just talking to strangers instead of the people they should be talking to 💀
I disagree on certain rules, but fully agree with the "everyone here sucks" conclusion. Even the rules that _are_ fairly reasonable are undermined by the tone and phrasing. So many of these sound like the DM being mad about a particular player, or a particular incident. Honestly, I feel like the vast majority of these problems could be resolved (or have been avoided all together) if these people would just _talk_ to each other about this stuff, or had had a session zero to set some expectations.
5:35 unless you're first in the turn order, and the combat just started, so you have had NO time to plan anything. Or if you had been planning something during the last few turns, and the last player changes something that means you need to entirely change your plan on the fly, or gives you a new idea. Or you need to test things, like AoE of spells, or if you have questions about how the DM would rule something, or you want to use something in a creative way. Right off the top of my head, I can think of several reasons why having an absolutely hard-line 1 minute timer only stresses people out and doesn't improve the health of the game.
I agree on everything, but I feel like you're off on the timer one specifically. Not that having a timer is necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like implementing it as a response to someone who takes too long would create an antagonistic relationship between that player and the rest of the group. I would only implement that at session 0 with a group of people I've never played with before, and I would only do so as a precaution.
The acting rule seems contentious in these comments, but I'll say I somewhat back it, on the assumption that by "acting" they dont necessarily mean impromptu thespianism, but actual roleplaying. Aka, "tell me *how* you persuade theme", "tell me *what* kind of things you're saying". Because I definitely think just saying "I roll to intimidate him. 18. Does he tell me everything about the BBEG?" is not fun nor interesting.
That's what I thought. Even something as simple as like, "My character bares his teeth and flexes," or "I tell him how useful it'd be for the mayor to have skilled bodyguards," along with the check adds a lot of color and doesn't involve putting on a voice or anything. Surprised by the intensity of responses to the #5 segment.
At the end of the day, having seen this argument from a number of sides. I can say one thing. I don't want to play with these people. I've been with the same group for 14 years now. We know each other well that these kind of gripes don't apply. This doesn't sound like a group of real friends. It sounds like people who want to form a D&D group, but aren't friends first. Or maybe they are, but spending all the extra time together made them realize they aren't.
The issue with this is a lot of the rules are contradictory. > Only one person gets to roll against any skill check. > You're not allowed to talk about meta stuff. Talking about who should roll the skill check is meta conversation. Resulting in instant damage.
No it's not, in-character conversations about who's good at what as in skills they've learned isn't meta. Key example being "Hey, (char) is better at doing these things than me, I think they should be doing this" which isn't meta
I'm convinced that the GM just snapped after dealing with crappy players for too long. For one thing, this was explicitly mentioned in the original post as happening after a break, so the GM and players definitely already knew each other. That, combined with the fact that he needed so many rules, means that the players were almost certainly already doing those things (getting high, randomly rolling dice and then retroactively claiming they were casting a spell if the result was good while pretending they were just randomly rolling if it was bad, etc). 90% of these rules are things you would never just make at random, you would only ever make them if someone was already acting this way.
I wonder how much rule #3 actually has to do with the GM hiding rolls. I actually eventually ditched a GM screen because the trust when the players can see that no, that enemy/trap/whatever did legotimately roll really well made up for giving them more information. Like, there's still many ways I can cheat if I want, but at least players can accept that it's honest rolls.
Typically as of the last couple years I've been using a hybrid system. I roll openly most of the time but have a big sheet of d20 rolls prepared and the party knows I do. This is kept near me and it's understood I use these for times when the players seeing me roll would ruin a surprise or just give away something. I personally can't go back to a screen. I just hate how much it obstructs my view of the other players and don't like how it makes me feel like an unequal participant in our game.
I feel like a lot of those rules were reasonable but poorly worded. To me either the DM is fed up with the players not listening to his complaints or doesn't know how to talk to them in a healthy way. Either way must be horrible to play with this group
The draconian punishments are all stuff on the scale where if the player is doing something where that punishment isn't disproportionate, the correct response is to kick them out of the group
@@zigmenthotepI'm actually totally convinced that everyone here is in high school. There's a reference to a "Samson from ... Secondary" and in commonwealth countries high schools are called secondary schools. It also explains the vibe of a whole bunch of people spending large amounts of hangout time together even if they don't all like each other that much or even want to participate in the main activity, they're only there because their friend is one of the more involved players
@@zigmenthotepI'm actually totally convinced that everyone here is in high school. There's a reference to a "Samson from ... Secondary" and in commonwealth countries high schools are called secondary schools. It also explains the vibe of a whole bunch of people spending large amounts of hangout time together even if they don't all like each other that much or even want to participate in the main activity, they're only there because their friend is one of the more involved players. Only kids have free time to waste like that.
considering this was after a "hiatus" I think this list was the result of a dm who didn't want to run for this table anymore being badgered about it and this is what it would take to do so hoping no one would want to play anymore
number 24 is hilarious for multiple reasons. like, random encounters are kindof the bread-and-butter of what seems to be the oldschool beer&pretzels type of game this DM seems to be running for one. For two, random events are not a thing in BG3, nothing about that has any relation to BG3 and random encounters are MORE of a D&D thing than a video game thing. Asshole DMs like this dude always seem to have a negative obsession with video games, and it's all the funnier when they're just straight up wrong about how games work.
Your takes were right on the money for this one IMO. Some fun context from the post - everybody's assuming these guys are Brits. They're Aussies, and probably teenagers - they mention Bundoora (in Melbourne) in the post and talking about school there. Classic teenagers trying to figure out the social contract combined with D&D.
The only problem I have is forcing roleplay for persuasion and intimidation. My character has 20 skill points in the skill. I do not. My character has 15 charisma, I do not. Roleplaying extremely skilled characters is just as hard as playing a character that's extremely unskilled, or has really low stats.
"Yeah, no. If you INSIST players act out their social interactions then I insist on hitting the DM with a wiffle bat to see if my barbarian hits the goblin.
Re: Rule 5. I agree with XP to Level 3's take on this one. It's a tabletop RPG, not a LARP. I'm not interested in LARP, won't participate in LARP, don't care about LARP, just roll the damn charisma check or I'll shove my entire dice collection in-to your out-of. That said, if it was supposed to be a LARP and people aren't participating... piss off, you're not doing the thing everyone else was looking to do. This is something that needs to be agreed on well before the game starts though. Super situational whether or not this is reasonable.
I assume you're talking about role-playing charisma checks? I agree with you. Wanting to play an RPG doesn't mean Wanting to pu a shitty performance to get 20 percent off on a healing potion
Our DM gives us a chance to do either. If we're feeling quiet or shy, we're allowed to roll charisma, but if we want to play the character, we're allowed to play it in-character.
i mean i have a player that has a high charisma character but doesn't quite match that himself, i ask him to try to explain HOW the character says whatever he's saying, explain then intent, the idea, what he expects to happen etc. I can't force someone to act, make voices or even a logical argument most times but i need to understand what they are trying to do and use that and their rolls to bring out the appropriated result.
@@AthenisOculi I'm with you on this one: the player should be able to do the things that suit them best. That doesn't mean they are free to slack of too! An explanation or a plan could be an interesting part of the game.
I think it's important to recognize there's a spectrum of roleplaying. On the one end, they player rolls a die and the DM announces the result. Very mechanical, very video game. On the other end there is standing up and acting out in first person for multiple minutes of back and forth. Either of those are okay if that's how the group rolls. Most games take a middle road where the player narrates some kind of action associated with the roll. "I intimidate him by implying that I know where his family lives." That middle road is a reasonable request of your players to not make the game feel lifeless and mechanical.
Number 5: Yes, it's a roleplaying game. No, I won't scream in your face to roleplay intimidation. As someone dumb as a rock who enjoys Spellcasters, I physically cannot be as smart as my academic wizard. It's the gap between the person and the character. It's a problem of the *game*, of the system, not of the player.
I don't agree with you on point 5, roleplaying isn't necessarily acting. It is perfectly reasonable for a player to role-play in the third-person, and many will be more comfortable doing that. More comfortable players will role-play better. I will say though, that you should be saying how your character does things, and not just how they do them, though.
I feel like, assuming these rules were written with genuine intent and based on real problems, that lot of them are more problematic for how they're phrased than the substance. So it overall feels like a group in need of an entitlement check and some discipline and a DM who needs some people skills.
Instant death traps can be fine but only if they are avoidable. Don't stick your hands into holes just because they fit. An undetectable instant death trap is just shitty though and should never be done
wow, pretty much my thoughts exactly. i'm not surprised that plenty of other videos are trying to take one side or the other on this crap, it's why i haven't really checked out any of them until taking a chance on you right now. it's almost like junk tends to be nuanced or something, weird? rock solid video.
I imagine that he's banned guidance because since it never goes past a d4, and it doesn't specify once, every party member could easily take a multiclass into 1 level of cleric and then have every player(including the one making the roll) cast guidance on a single player and get 3/4/5+d4 bonus onto a check. And guidance specifies that you can add the d4 before or after the roll, so with 5 instances of guidance on a player, they can roll, fail it by 1 or 2, then choose to roll a d4 for guidance. Then they'd still have 4 more instances of guidance to use. And it specifies that it stays until the d4 is rolled or concentration is lost. And 1 of the feats available (war caster) gives you advantage on concentration checks. So it's highly unlikely that they'll ever fail a concentration check.
Roleplaying doesn't mean literally acting everything out. If a person isn't comfortable trying to play out a seduction or intimidation or whatever check, then they should be perfectly fine just describing how their character does it, if even that much depending on the table. Persuasion and intimidation are *skills*, a character may have them, the player may not, and forcing the player to try to act them out may well just make them feel stupid and take them and everyone else out of the game because they can't actually sound intimidating. That's like handing someone a real lock so their character can pick one in the game. D&D is about using your imagination, not your acting skills.
“The ceiling collapses, burying you under thousands of pounds of debris. Roll to see whether you’re crushed instantly or whether you die slowly of dehydration over the next few days.” “20” “Critical success. There’s a small trickle of water running into the area where you’re trapped. You have enough water to survive until you die of starvation in a few weeks.”
I wish things like friendship and communication were easier really. Because, as easy as it is to say to talk things out like adults like I want to say, that would be dishonest to the struggles I've had over the years as both a GM and player with certain groups, friends or otherwise. Not even friends can always understand one another, come to compromises, or see eye to eye on decisions. And as much as it is the GM's prerogative to set the rules and tone and challenge level, having happy players that are having fun is just as important as the players respecting the GMs decisions. And as much something like, "You players want to minmax and powergame, but I don't want to run a game like that. Maybe you should find a different GM." can sound reasonable for both sides, it just as often means neither side having any game at all and frienships becoming strained. Ideally, friends or not, the GM and players can work together to find something everyone enjoys, or at least a compromise where there's some give and take. But unfortunately or not, we're not perfect reasoning machines, and sometimes adults can be emotional, unreasonable, stubborn, or have issues they have to live with physically or mentally. Or... people are just different. For those of you out there who have good, fun gaming groups where there are no major problems or disagreements that can't just be reasonably worked through? Treasure them. After my last TTRPG group broke apart due to things we just couldn't reconcile in the end? I know I would.
Its hard to make the correct judgement without contextm and for sure the players are at fault to some degree judging by the rulings, but coming back from a hiatus and setting up 44 rules amounting to "you will submit to me if you want to play, or you will not play with me at all" rather than just saying you don't want to dm for the group is just shitty.
I'm just going to write this as I go. 1 - I don't like the idea of a literal timer, though I do feel that making sure it is known that if you're dragging your feet, you will be skipped. Also, it is 1 minute to state what you will be doing on your turn, not 1 minute to enact your turn. I am assuming that if you use a complicated spell that requires a bunch of dice rolls, the DM isn't going to cut you off halfway through. Overall, my biggest thing against a literal 1 minute timer is that sometimes stuff happens and maybe the wizard does need a couple minutes to figure out the exact placement of their fireball, especially if your playing with fancy rules on how it spreads out if blocked by a ceiling or wall. If you then let them go over the time on that? Others will keep trying to push it, even if not on purpose. 2 - My DM loved me because I played the healer. That was my preferred role and I optimized it to hell and back. This in turn meant the DM could be a bit looser on how strong a fight was because I could keep the party alive. 3 - The whole "and you won't be riding home with me" is too far. 5 - No. I don't have my sorcerer's 18 charisma. I also have autism and sometimes playing out such things is hyper uncomfortable for me. I am willing to talk about the kind of things my character is trying to do, but I'm not always going to be able to act it out. I should still be allowed to play the game. 6 - I've DMed once or twice and I swear, players would not be able to find a quest even if you make a literal trail of gold pieces to it. However, that's okay, especially for side quests. If there is a main quest and they just head straight towards it? Well, they're heading in a direction. If instead you threw the players into the middle of a town without any clue on where to go or what to do? That isn't very realistic. The characters have a background so starting by either giving them a goal or at least directly telling them a couple possible hooks that they picked up before they got dropped into their characters lives is a good idea. 7 - Agree with you on the good till you take your hand off. And given rule 1? If they did it the stupid way, well, there might be a reason for that. 10 - As long as the divide between in character and out of character is respected, I'm fine with this. If you try to say some guy joking about the tin can with a stick up where the sun don't shine was telling the guard that to their face? We have a problem. 12 - Combined with 6? Well, it sounds like that if the players can't find what they're supposed to do, they're stuck in town until they do. This could suck. Also, a DM can run an open exploration game, it just takes a more fluid approach to world design. If you prepare a dungeon for the group to run and they head in the opposite direction? Well, what do you know! The dungeon is now over there instead. Don't give the players a map like they just climbed a radio tower. Have a couple things ready. Oh, and talk to them. Let them know the limits of exploration. If you haven't even drawn up a second city, tell them they're currently limited to the one they're on right now. 13 - Keep out of game stuff, out of game. If you have a person who is always late, maybe stop inviting them. If occasionally people are late and they have good reasons? Well, life happens sometimes. Hell, if the group orders food as a group, have the person who is late chip in an extra portion towards the bill. 14 - Ditto the above. If they do it a lot, kick them, sure. The problem is more with what my work would call a "no call no show". IE, when they don't call ahead that they won't be showing up. Even just a quick text to one of the people in the group that they'll not be making it will at least let the game go on. 17 - The DM really just does not want to give the players a single clue on what to do 18 - You don't know your perception check failed so the other players won't know they need to roll their own check. 21 - Yeah, when my group was still playing at an LGS and not at one of our homes, we had a guy that would cheat on rolls. I can understand where the DM is coming from, but at the same time the solution is to not play with a person who does that all the time. 23 - Depends on the setting. If you're in Eberron, there are minor magical things all over the place. But yeah, the game is balanced around players having a certain amount of magical loot. There are monsters that require magical items to hurt. 30 - Do they all just speak different languages? Because seriously, so much of this would be resolved by talking to one another. My group switched between a couple of houses over the time I playing and whether we would be ordering food or having something fixed up there was constantly changing and yet we managed to figure it out. 35 - If you can't trust yourself to remember your character sheet, leave it with the DM because if they can't remember to bring their stuff, you aren't playing D&D anyway. 37 - Yeah, I get the vibe they aren't actually friends 38 - Given earlier mentions of death traps, I can see why they might have a problem out of the game. While yeah, bagging on the DM when a goblin manages to kill a character is stupid, but there are limits. If the player's character was magically no-save with no chance of detecting it, teleported into a hole full of goblins ten levels higher than them, they're going to have a problem with you. 39 - So uh, I just always had a generic list of prepared spells I used by default? I only changed it up when I knew the situation was going to change and would make a point of noting it. 44 - Yeah, they aren't friends
in roleplay communities with less structure their attitude would get u booted out for countering the collaborative spirit that any good roleplay should have. so would the players if the GM is to be believed, like... ppl CHEATING & why they do that is so far beyond my understanding
I tend to roll in the open, so fudging rolls is impossible for me, it also feels incredibly dishonest everytime I've done it so it makes me uncomfortable.
So, about rule five. What's up with you gatekeeping? I get that people consider the role-play important, but when I'm not socially skilled nor quick-witted I am only allowed to play physically gifted characters? Noone calls for player competence or ability when physicality or magic ability are called for in-game.
The reasonableness of the request really comes down to what the DM is actually asking. If he's asking for first-person roleplay with a lot of back and forth, that's unreasonable unless the group is specifically a roleplay-centric group. If he's just asking "Okay, give me an idea of what you're doing," then that's very reasonable to ask.
"Bloke" and "mate" being used casually and mention of Bundoora leads me to think the group is Aussie, not Brit. Honestly neither side seems terribly innocent, assuming the rules come from a place of honesty. The party seem to be half-assing through the game and complaining whenever they suffer consequences of such. The DM seems to lack the nerve to assert himself and only knows how to react by either storming out or punishing characters as a proxy for responding to the players.
Maybe I'm just to Warhammer pilled but the idea of breaking somebody else's miniatures being in any way okay is just fucking insane to me. Like yeah there's like servo skulls or whatever that snap off if you look at them funny but anything that can't be fixed with plastic cement in fifteen seconds? We kill people for that shit, get the fuck out
There is only one rule for any table top RPG and that is “everyone have fun”. Part of this comes from the fact that sometimes people who play D&D together are not really friends in the traditional sense. It should be a social gathering first and foremost. I get that sometimes this makes the game not happen or not much gets done but if everyone is happy who cares. At least that is how I see it.
To me it sounds like the biggest issue is that the DM and the group want different games. I get the feeling that the group wants a fun power fantasy to hang out with each other at, and the DM wants the game to be taken seriously and be a legitimate challenge throughout (or an unfair challenge from rules such as instant death traps, as you pointed out with the old school style DM comment). Neither is wrong per se, but they are definitely contradictory and the clash of wishes does not promote a healthy game environment.
I don’t think a lot of these rules are wholly unreasonable, but the DM’s tone puts a stink on the whole thing that sort of taints them. And a lot of the punishments seem unfair/overblown.
Have to disagree with you on persuasion checks, some of my friends have social disabilities and sometimes we're just too tired to engage at the tailend of a game, I generally never police how players act because I think that's really annoying.
I think it's people assuming this is the DM forcing this mode of play, and not the players asking for it and not preparing appropriately. It could be either tbh this GM sounds like a dick/so overworked their temper is lost
This is a pretty classic case of players saying they want hard, skin of their teeth fights without actually wanting the increased risk of character death that comes with it. Now there are other ways to deal with this issue ('only consensual character death' is not a new concept), but 'bring spare sheets/hirelings' isn't a bad one. Honestly a lot of GMs should be more willing to inflict consequences other than death, but having the sheet for 'Dave the Wizard, Geoff the Wizard's suspiciously similar apprentice' isn't a bad idea. Troupe play isn't for every group, but it still helps if the player's punishment (sitting out of the game) is minimal.
@@jinxtheunluckypony Forcing a high mortality game on a group that is highly attached to their characters and wants them to live to see the end of the campaign is a scumbag move. Likewise, forcing a group that is looking for a character meatgrinder and forcing piss-easy encounters on them is just wrong. DM and group should be on the same page about this. But in this case, I am inclined to agree with some other commenters, in that the players seem to have asked for a meatgrinder and then whined when they got meatgrinded.
I feel like a lot of the more reasonable complaints the GM has gets lumped together with the more childish/arrogant ones simply because of the whole vibe the post gives. The language used and how frequently the GM seems to be lost in some power trip is pretty selfish and petty, which just makes even the understandable requests come off as "I want this because I want this and you have to listen!" like they are shouting at their table every time anything happens. I'll give them something though, if this is all based on a single table, they group as a whole sound awful. Everyone intoxicated, missing from sessions or just being an ass all the time, yeesh. But (making a big aassumption here, I know) I do feel this is more the GM lumping many experiences with different groups together and kind of dumping it all on the current one because they just happen to be there Edit: I think the word I was looking for before is "antagonistic". There is such a level of animosity and antagonism this GM presents towards their players that really de value a lot of his arguments, because evem reasonable stuff is filtered through language and acts that make it seem like the GM just want to punish their players for anything they can think of
Geez...whoever wrote this list...his game sessions sounds so uninviting; either cuz of the DM , players or both. I liked the voice you used to read these rules, but after a while, I started hearing these in Cartman's "screw you guys, I'm going home" voice
On skill check not being re-rolled. This I think is part of the bad legacy from DnD. What you really want is concurrence for making skill checks. If you fail, you should at least lose time and such. If there is no consequence, just have them auto succeed. The time it takes based on how good or bad the roll is. But making roles without consequences is just dumb. Once you start to add some sort of consequence to it, if just losing time, then people start to think a lot more about making those rolls. No need to just ban retries. In the real world, you can try and try again until you give up or there is a consequence that makes you have to change your plans.
I've always had some kind of chart for that... Be it difficulty goes up or there is a limited number of tries before something breaks or the PC needs to get it done before an NPC accomplished some other task.... But yes concurrence. Good usage there.
Rerolling a STR check to break open a door? Reasonable. Rerolling a CHA check to convince an NPC of something? Might allow but the DC will increase each time, and the NPC might get angry if they keep trying too many times.
@@Cythil I got to a point where I was comfortable just winging it and improvising in the moment but I always had a little pregame where I tried to trouble shoot anything my chaotic ass party might end up doing. It was a campaign I was writing. I've actually used that to host several different groups over the years and it goes over well as far as that goes but yeah when I first started running games I came with a flow chart and spread sheets. I got into RPGs from the og baldurs gate on PC and I tried to run my game as close to that level of immersion and randomness... I worked out travel distance and time and would make rolls for random encounters... Worked out how often those rolls were made based on the over all threat level of the area the party was travelling in... Every NPC has a whole character sheet not just a stat block... I was going through a nasty break up and DND may have saved my life.
@@joeydurant6267 Yeah. My aim is more with how to improve game design and teaching GMs how to run thing smoothly. A lot of games actually do re-rolling quite well. Making it a risk reward thing. And if there is no risk, then just auto success it. I am sure that for us that has played a fair bit of games we have always had that moment whee it feels like pointless repeated rolling. And that something one can design away.
The thing that gets me is that a lot of the rules are perfectly reasonable, but he's clearly fed the fuck up with his players and that makes his tone super harsh, which makes him come off as just a hard ass who hates fun. It makes me wonder why the DM continues to play with players he clearly doesn't like playing with. If it's gotten to the point where he's had to lay out his expectations like this, his players clearly suck at adult communication. Are these people even the DM's friends? Is the DM being forced to run DnD against their will? What is the context here?
Honestly, I don't get people's viseral hatred for Guidance and Silvery Barbs because 1) I more often than not want my players to succeed on their rolls; 2) counteractions to abuse seem pretty obvious (like, your Silvery Barbs wizard gets only one reaction for round, just give your enemies multiattack). But maybe I only feel this way because in every group I'm in people were very normal about those spells.
Silvery Barbs is more powerful as an out of combat spell, or as an offensive combat spell, than a defensive combat option. For defense, Shield is much more powerful, the only thing Silvery Barbs does better is negating crits. For offense, you can make enemies reroll saving throws. THAT is powerful. Imagine an enemy succeeds against Feeblemind. Oops! Now the enemy needs to succeed the save AGAIN. Out of combat, you can sabotage people on ability checks. Which can cause all kinds of havoc. Personally, I might be tempted to lock the offensive uses of Silvery Barbs behind a higher spell level with some homebrew, but I would absolutely allow people to use it defensively as is.
I've always felt like the dislike for guidance comes from a place of not considering it's cost. People look at it and see getting +1-4 on most ability checks without any kind of cap as god tier powerful. What they're overlooking is: 1) you're giving up one of your decidedly finite cantrip slots for it so you deserve value and 2) it's a concentration spell, so you can't maintain one of your potentially quite important buffs or otherwise and use it freely. It also takes an action to cast. So what you're really looking at is a fairly balanced cantrip imo. Players are just far worse at judging the value of non-damaging things, I feel.
@@thebadshave503 I would effectively forbid the use of Guidance on CHA checks. If an NPC sees you cast magic in the middle of a conversation, they're not gonna trust you, and might even scream for help. Even if they know it's just a Guidance cantrip, they'll be inclined to tell you off for the attempt. If you pre-cast the spell before you even start the conversation, however, then it might work.
@@theuncalledfor the problem with sabotaging other player's ability checks is a problem with player-to-player hostility, not any spells specifically. And the npcs roll ability checks mainly for: 1) contested Athletics checks; 2) Perception against Stealth checks; 3) Insight against Deception checks. Silvery Barbs has verbal components, so it would automatically fail the player's attempts at a check, unless used with Subtle Spell metamagic (which is another resource). I would say its use for ability check rerolls is situational. The saving throw aspect is problematic, I agree. But I also yet to meet people irl that would abuse it this way (or any way).
9:50 My character is charismatic. I'm not. I also dont see in the dark or shoot spells. 24:30 in 5e magic items are a lot more common. There's a whole rarity system, and multiple sub classes start off with self crafted magic items at level 1 or 2
Anyway, as a DM, a lot of these requests are pretty valid but it's written like Byron Hall of F.A.T.A.L. His tone is awful. There's also a lot of punitive crap in his stuff. He wants to punish characters in-game for personal problems with his group. As you stated, they seem like they hate each other. I would say that I have had a lot of issues with some of these including players not knowing what they are doing/putting in little effort. I consider some of these people close friends but awful to DM for... though I trust people I don't know even less. My solution was tolerance until the game needed to end because the effort I needed to put in was so much more than they returned.
Soo, em, I have to disagree with you on the "role-playing game". Because, you know, there is a continental billion of definitions what "role-playing" means in this context and only part of them says it means "acting improv" game. My experience was always its "you have to play your role, a.k.a. character", so make decisions that have a sense for that character and try to be consistent with that. When I was younger, I was also in "play the social scene" or even "solve that puzzle instead of rolling INT" camp, but now I'm older (or rather, old) and I saw a lot of different players. Some never addressed their characters in the first person, some "leaked" the game outside session, some fell somewhere on the spectrum. "I talk the guard out to make us pass" has a sense, as long as the character is the one who would do that. You can be shy and play the bard (and I know, "Immersion", but not every group plays immersive game). Ofc, there is a special case -- when you visibly see the player doesn't make an effort, but declares "I cut it" watching YT in the meantime. Then, we're on the same page.
tbh, the late rule I understand absolutely, also a bit the timed turn rule, I run a COC Campaign with friends on discord, small party of 3 players, I am WAY too generous, and tbh fudge constantly, anyways: one player is CONSTANTLY 5-20 minutes late, which is very annoying, he also, some days, never pay attention to what is happening and we have to retell him what is happening. doesn't mean that I agree with what the DM in that post wants, just that this is true that timed turns will make players more attentive.
Yeah, a lot of these rules aren't actually that outrageous, provided the DM and the players talked about and agreed on them before the game. It's just pretty obvious that in this play group DM and players aren't equal parties at the table. Personally, I'd prefer some rules to be handled differently at my table than they are presented here. Acting out every social skill check for example can slow down the game significantly for no real benefits, just describing how your character handles the situation can be better at times, or outright banning spells from the PHB also strikes me as a weird choice to balance the game, since those spells were given as an option to a class for a reason.
This is my first reaction to the whole set, I've seen one video mentioning it before hand and it was incomplete. So i have some thoughts about some of the rules and your explanations For rule 1, i was against it at the start, but thinking about it it could be usefull at some tables, for the reasons you mentionned. Though a bit more leeway with it would be better of course, but overbearing rules are part of the deal with this reddit post. And sometimes, some things can change the situation of the combat suddenly and make it so it takes more time (a enemy dying early, a new enemy or ally approaching, some environmental changes, whatever else) may make you want to change what you've been thinking and reading in between turns. Like, you've read clarifications for a spell to make sure it's correct on your turn, but now the situation has changed and you want to cast a different spell, so you need to read... Might sound like cherry picking, but it could likely happen i think. So just having some leeway would be better, but the rule can be usefull when you have problematic players who are lost on their turns, every turn about rule 5 : "I walk to the guard and use my charms to distract him, letting my friends slip away" can be an appropriate way of doing it, instead of acting it out? I wouldn't necessarly ask to rp it, or expect to be asked to, and sometimes rolling before acting outa social interaction makes sense. Like, with most other actions, we usually say what we wanna do, roll the dice, and then narrate the resolution. And sometimes we don't go in a lot of details (for exemple, attacks, spells, or general stuff like pushing something or an acrobatic feat) Like yeah, maybe saying "i distract the guard" sucks, but like, in my earlier exemple, there is care put into imagining an action, a scene, and playing a role, without acting it. And players might not want or care about roleplaying, or more accurately acting out, every interaction. And i feel like that would work at most tables, and a lot of dms would be fine with it being done this way. rule 19 could be very stupid. Like, you can't talk about hit points and spell slots? Are these considered meta? Talking about long rest/ short rest? talking out of character about tactics and decisions, instead of rping them out entirely in character? Is "look guys the dm prepared this so we should take a look at it" meta? Like, all of these are important part of the game, dnd is not just a roleplaying machine, it's also a game with mechanics that you have to know. And metagaming is sometimes really important. Just depends what you consider meta. Like, i could consider "i've read the entire monster manual and this extremely rare and weird monster has this specific set of weaknesses and strengths" as unacceptable meta, as your character couldn't know these kind of things, and they can hurt the game. But other "meta" things people could talk about are important for the game to go well about rule 20, if dm just decides that something you do mid game isn't how it works without an explanation to you when the rules would argue in your favor, i think the player should be owed an explanation, not told to fuck off. This is a bit petty. though it sounds it probably was caused by annoyances the dm had beforehand. (really a messy group) 29 is weird, bc like, it seems to go against how the dm wants the game to be played? yeah the rule is fine, but weird tone. "Don't be disrespectful we are here to have fun AND play dnd" is fine, but like he seems so serious at the game. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the rule, if it's meant to represent a mean comment meant to imitate and parody the dm's intention, then yeah totally get it, being mean is bad 39 is pretty good. Prepared spells need to be prepared at the start of the day, and if you expect proofs on honesty of your players, then it's fine to ask to see what spells they have prepared. Just like it's fine to ask for rolls in the open, showing character sheets, tracking spell slots. Although, as usual, the consequence is exagerated I think plenty of these rules could be explained by a large lack of communication. Like, this list of rule is written in a very agressive way (might be bc a angry player transcribed it, but we'll take it at face value), and really seems like the dm has been angry at a couple of things, never spoke about it, and just yelled them out in a overreaching rules docs. If the dm just talked about infuriating before hand, and players talked about the parts of the game they get confused. These people needed to communicate before that
Also, wanna say that i play online, i use a character sheet on a .txt file bc i don't pay for online character sheet services, and roll without a camera. Despite that, i don't cheat rolls, i remember to take care of my spell slots, and prepare my spells properly. And my dm trust me with this (i do send my character sheet when something changes bc it's just nice for the dm to know what the characters have) When everyone communicates and trusts eachothers, a game can run smoothly without a need of a 44 rules doc, only expectations of respect of rules and eachother, and discussions of limits and dissagrements.
Based on these rules, The DM does indeed suck. But I can’t imagine a bad table not being what pushed him. Also, some of these rules are reasonable, but the way they’re written is aggressive and makes the DM come across as an ass.
I know yr trying to play both sides here but if the players were ACTUALLY this slow to work together I doubt they'd A) be running a game for this long (I guess unless it's just a rotating door of players) and B) not at a level anywhere high enough for major item stealing and level reduction to be getting dished out . These rules sound like they're based off of heavily exaggerated encounters
You are, of course, 100% wrong about the "must role-play social skill checks" things. This depends entirely on the group and the individual player. Punishing a player who is not personally good at that sort of role-playing but who is playing a very charismatic character is absolutely a dick move. The CHARACTER is in the world, not the player. Just as characters can be far better than the player at say, swinging a sword or breaking down a door, so can they they be much better at persuasion and intimidation.
Some of these retaliatory DM actions come right out of the Gary Gygax advice for terrible DMing. Fudging dice rolls takes away from the game and de-legitimizes the game and the player's accomplishments. A DM can do so, but that DM is not competent, they are a coddler. The whole point of the game is risk that makes the rewards worth while. Smart players learn to mitigate the risks, bad DMs coddle bad players making dumb choices. And this is coming from a DM using an much deadlier, less forgiving edition of the game where even death can be overcome. I do not fudge dice rolls because I don't want to take anything away from my player's actual accomplishments. It is not the DM's function to keep the character's alive, nor is it the DM's function to unfairly kill them. The function of the DM is to be a fair (not cheating) arbiter of whatever rules have been agreed upon and to make sure everyone is having fun (DM included). Manipulating the game to keep PC's alive is coddling and again, takes away from any achievements they accomplish. Nothing is worse than hearing someone so proud of what their character accomplished only to be told that their DM cheated their guts out to make it happen. Might as well claim their character punched the sun out of the sky creating an eternal night, it will be just as credible. A good DM can run open sandbox *if* they have enough supporting material. This is how I run my game because the edition it is based from provided enough material to make this possible. This allows the players to decide what they want to do in the game world and the game world to seem much larger than just themselves. Overall, sounds like either a bad DM or one that is burnt out and needs to take a break. Most of their rules are petty and exactly how not to DM. They should just step down...
Assuming that this list was actually printed out and brought to the table, that's enough to conclude that the DM is an unreasonable baby, i think. There's something so childish about refusing to have an adult conversation to the point that you have to corporatize a game and hand out passive aggressive memos. I'm sure the players are bad too, but this is childish to the extent that i don't really care to explore that tbh.
Yes, but you probably still want to give magic weapons so that the martial can fight creatures that are resistant or immune to nomagical slashing, piercing or bludgeoning damage.
Typically players enjoy getting treasure though. I think that design decision was a mistake and they would have been far better off designing with magic items in mind. Especially when magic classes outshine martials so much. I could buy in to a game with no magic items, but I don't want to see any wizards, sorcerers, or anything like that then. Otherwise, why would anyone want to be punished even further for playing a martial? We could all play casters, but at that point, what's with the DM not wanting to hand out magic items? We'd be individually way more powerful than the items in the game.
0:45 "GM enforcing the rules"? I'm already out of the door. Dude, either we're friends and we AGREE on terms, or we're not friends and so why should I play with you?
i do think that its a bit of both the players are push the gms buttons and the dm is tired of it so he put down some rules but in a shitty way and i can see some in person game where you get togeth and people spend a bit of time shooting the shit like if it the only day of the week that everyone can get to at that time ive been in some games where we played bi week or once a month where we got together spent 3 of the 5 hours we had together shooting the shit and catching up cause we develop friendships and it was more about getting together as a social gathering and dnd was the thing that help facilitate that it ment to be a social activity had one gm that treated the game like it was a job you if you were late for any reason you would get fussed at if you had to leave early for a reason you were getting a talking to the game started at 7pm if your werent there and setup and ready to got exactly at 7pm on the dot you were being nuisance he couldn't accept the fact that were all adults with our own lives we play for fun and things happen just cause he can get off 5 hours before the game and go to the gym come home shower cook eat play on his xbox for like a hour but other players he was like in his early 20's and every one else was in there late mid 30's to early 40's and all work later then him and dont have that luxury and had families like the one time i had to bail out of session cause i was on my way home and got into a car accident had to goto the hospital right at the time the game normally ends he reached out to say it was very rude of me for not showing up or even saying i couldn't make i told him what happen he goes so are you going make on time next week i just told him no i cant make it next week or any week going forward if you want to treat this hobby i do for fun and relaxing and just hanging out as a job and cant even give people a little bit of leeway then i dont want to play in your games he later joined one of my games and i gave a 10 min grace period cause i knew most players that were in the group either are just getting in the door or just finishing dinner with their family so i set the game for 7 but aim for a 715 start after recap and he got annoyed cause he would show up at 7 on the dot and we always had one person who was showed up like 705 or the one time i had to work late and i didn't get home till 730 but i told everyone we not going to start till 730 he dropped the game cause of that and he reached out to me a month later and said he missed playing in my game and he over reacted to something so small
I'll just say on the "rules lawyering" thing, encouraging it between players is keeping up with a theme I'm seeing where he's turning them against each other. This group really just needs to split entirely. None of them are right for any of them, cut it off, it's kinder that way
1: Absolutely reasonable. Unless you did not pay attention as a player you should have an idea what you want to do. As a player I always think "OK what will I do next turn?" the moment my turn is up. 1 minute is a hit harsh though. As a slow speaker and a wannabe theater kid I often want to be flashy with my descriptions.
To be fair, by default 5e magic items are even rarer than they were in 3.5. The rules balance aren't even built with them in mind, which goes with what the DM is saying. You can absolutely give players magic items, but then be prepared to do a lot of rebalancing monsters for combat to match their new strength.
Magic items are best earned by giving them to the enemies and using them against the players. Then the players can take the items from the defeated enemies.
Just as an update on why, going by some of the other comments reddit did its thing and dug up the fact that the players were literally harassing the DM on purpose and when they went on "hiatus" they decided to try and bully the DM into running the game again. There was posts of the players literally coming out and saying that nonsense. When this was pointed out, the guy deleted his account to try and hide it.
