>>63468425
I always manage to have anti climatic endings and I can't help it

>>63468519
making a lot of assumptions here but this is a common problem:

instead for spectacle, try to go for the feels. players won't care about explosions or big gory deaths. but they will care if the death of your villain (or however that arc ends) has some personal impact on their characters. really you don't even need to introduce a drama here, just give them a personal reason to care about and they will find the drama themselves.

>>63468565
It's not really that. For example recently I ran a one shot where my players were FBI agents investigating the Flatwoods monster case. They eventually found their way to an abandoned mine, and found their way to the bottom where they found the monster. They took a couple of pictures, and fled before they could find them. They then went back to HQ and called in the big guns.

The players had fun but when I brought up the game in other threads I got a lot of comments about how anticlimactic that was and hoe I should work on improving it. I also recently ran a Unknown Armies One shot that was similarly anticlimatic (Player got a crit, crits in UA means insta death, gibbed the terrorist on the plane meaning the session ended 30 minutes in)

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I've bitched about this enough on here that I won't go through the whole 9 yards, but in summary:

>DM was playing out of a module, did literally no preperation, just read straight from the book
>He attempted to get """creative""" when my character joined the game a few sessions in
>Kept railroading me into pointless sidequests that were specifically crafted for me and none of the other players could join
>they got to keep going in the main plot while I followed random clues that went nowhere
>only a single combat encounter over 3 6+ hour sessions

That and he was just a piss poor DM in the moment to moment as well
>"Okay anon you lift up the carpet and you discover a mysterious footprint"
>Okay, what kind of footprint is it?
>"Roll nature"
>I roll something low
>"You don't know what kind of footprint it is, it's mysterious"
>Alright, but like is it big? How many toes are there? Is there just the one or are there more that I can see?
>"You don't recognize it so I can't tell you what it looks like"

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>>63469234
>>"You don't recognize it so I can't tell you what it looks like"

>have a 5e group playing lost mines
>never been through this module before
>things go pretty great with the newb dm through the first couple sessions, have lots of fun with the cave
>hit Phandolin
>run around doing business, get a few quests
>one guy in the party really wants to go check out the house on the hill
>we find out it's full of bandits that we, coincidentally, have been asked to deal with by like five different characters so far
>decide to carefully loop around to there by the north trees, to avoid the inn full of bandits on the way there and get the drop on the house
>dm asks us to roll stealth
>fail miserably
>get spotted by archers on the hill
>they demand we turn back
>we try to persuade them not to shoot us
>DM cuts us off and says they're hostile
>we attack
>four dudes with swords pop up behind us, one of the archers runs to the Manor and blows a horn
>next round four crossbowmen come out
>round after that four more
>third round a fuckton of guys come out
>there are now two dozen bandits in total on the map
>they suicide charge us while we duck prone behind cover and pop out to shoot
>keep going down
>run out of spells
>run out of potions
>five hours later finally kill the last bandit
I feel like somehow he got off book.

>>63473533
>find out later that he was deeply confused because the module had a path for characters investigating a secret passage into the Manor, and for characters encountering bandits at the inn, but nothing for characters going through the trees to the house
>so he decided to scare us back to town so we could do it one of the right ways
>realized we weren't scared by three archers on high ground
>threw in a few dudes with swords between us and the way we came to make us run away (?)
>decided to add more archers until we decided to run, not realizing that the party would be reluctant to give up cover against a sea of ranged attackers
>"fudged" a bunch of rolls to make sure we made it through this alive
>still spent the remainder of the session playing out the aftermath of this attempt to force us back onto the rails

These are pretty minor, but only material I have right now.
>Be Forever-DM
>Designated That Guy decides to give me a break and run Edge of the Empire module "Debts to Pay"
>Party is hired by a Hutt to go out and collect some money he's owed
>On the way out, some gamorreans from a rival Hutt's gang show up to beat up the guards
>Not our fight, just here for a job
>Guards get beat up
>Gamorreans leave, satisfied that the message has been sent across
>This is clearly a rather pitiful Hutt
>Hutt gets angry at us for not getting involved
>DM tries really hard to make us feel like we fucked up through inaction
>On the mission
>Some behind-the-screen event triggers a bounty hunter to attack us
>The gunslinging bounty hunter charges right into melee, allowing us to steamroll him before the first initiative cycle ended
>That was supposed to be a hard fight
>We finally find the money we were sent to collect
>Holy shit, this is a lot of money
>This money would be better in our hands and the Hutt is too weaksauce to decree otherwise
>We report back that the money had all been spent on hookers and blow, but we disposed of the ones responsible
>Of course he doesn't buy it
>That's okay, our Force-user drops the ceiling on him
>The remaining force is hilariously outmatched
>DM seems to realize how pathetically easy this is for us
>Tries to make things interesting
"One of the bounty hunters to attack is... none other than Boba Fett! Roll initiative! Also, due to plot armor, you won't be able to actually kill him."
"I somehow doubt that the best bounty hunter in the galaxy would be in the hideout of a failing Hutt, let alone rush in to avenge him."
"Oh, okay. Well, I guess you just win then."

The only other dude to try to relive me of DM duty is great with stories, but seems to be terrified of letting us fail at anything. He will flat-out change dice results in front of you to ensure you succeed a roll.

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>>63469234
>hey DM brake the rules for me
>"no"
>LOL THAT GUY AM I RITE /TEE GEE/

>>63468425
I once played with a guy who thought he was a master of homebrew, but really just lazily rips off vidja he liked, and badly. My favorite example was this:
>Party NPC has been accused of murder, we're tasked with investigating it and getting them off the hook.
>We go around and question witnesses, CSI the scene, and look into previous interactions with the accuser. All signs point to this being a not so subtle attempt to discredit us as well as get revenge on an old enemy.
>Trial begins and we begin to prepare our opening statements and who will take what tactic based on varying social skill with persuasion, deception, misdirection, detecting lies, and cross referencing it with our investigation and notes.
>GM tells us that none of that matters and the last two and a half hours were basically pointless and he didn't bother telling us that. He gives us 6 cards with some info on them and says 'it's like phoenix wright'
>When the fact that nobody but him has played it comes up he gets flustered and says 'well two of you have seen the movie it's like that'
>Ask one of the other players 'so if I want to combine evidence 1 with evidence 2 *points to the cards on the table* what do I do and what does it mean?'
>'you moved the cards, that's wrong, you get penalized' GM interrupts, marking the "failure" as we all look at him like hes mentally deficient.
>Never actually explains rules but the two who had an idea took over actually doing things while we discussed the limited evidence present
>The whole time we were not allowed to make social checks in a trial.
The GM did stuff like that the whole game and still thinks we're the ones who messed up for not knowing how to play Phoenix Wright in an unrelated RPG without being given instruction and having our characters skills rendered useless.

>>63474185
I've got a few more from this guy, but only a couple truly spectacular ones. Another one that stands out is this:
>Attempting to infiltrate enemy territory and due to massive combat imbalance on the GM's part are decked out in the heaviest stuff in the system.
>This functionally means that infiltration is off the table for most of us as we're basically non-agility based characters blundering down a hallway like drunk refrigerators.
>One party members actually has skill in stealth and can sneak off to the side and do ambush tactics to great effect so we talk tactics.
>"Okay, so the rest of us will move up the main corridor, you can head into one of these side ones and provide fire support after we raise held, there's no way they'll hear you." "Awesome, this will let me use my stealth skills and ranged stuff finally. GM, I'll head off here while they go in front"
>"Great. Roll a team stealth check."
>"What? We just said how hes staying out of direct contact and we're the distraction not trying to be quiet."
>"I don't care, it's a team based attempt. Everyone make the check, its everyone or no one. "
>Our eyes all meet briefly and we promptly fail the check, another players skills functionally nullified by GM fiat.
I still don't know what the rationale was to this day other than the power trip of being a GM. This one didn't rustle my jimmies quite as badly as the 'no social skills one' partially because it happened after it was beginning to be expected and partially because I was one of the refrigerators so it didnt directly affect me.

>>63474328
>Raise hell, not held, cursed technology.
I probably have a few more stories of this guy if I think about it (and a couple of others from over the years) but for now I must sleep. If the thread is still here tomorrow I'll add a few more stories.

>>63474043
Don't even try to justify that.

>>63474433
Please do, anon. Those stories sound pretty entertaining; very angering if I was in your shoes, but funny.

>>63474328
>drunk refrigerators
Lol Im stealing that one.

Also your DM sounds kinda stupid. Maybe tell em to read up on some rules, or learn to RP COOOORECTLY.

>>63468519
I always see ending as less about the BBEG and more about closing the character's story arcs. For example, in one of my monsters vs humans campaigns, one of my PCs rolled a kobold who thought he was a dragon. At the end of the game, when they defeated the BBEG, I made him lord of the dragons and all the dragons from the surrounding area came and bowed before him.

If you think about it that way, it'll be easier to make a more satisfying ending for your players.

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>>63468425
Ok, tg/, This is the story of how an inssuferable edgy faggot turned into a halfway decent player, thanks to the DM superpowers.

>Be last year
>Be introducing first timers in role
>Be mastering D&D 3.5
>Chad as an elf ranger
>Grill as the halfling rouge
>That guy, which I can barely stand because of massive cringe, as an evil knight, or so he says

However, i had to tolerate and keep that guy because I found no one else to join the campaing and because Chad and Grill find him amusing, for some reason.

>>63473802
>but nothing for characters going through the trees to the house
The module straight up says that, if the PCs go straight to the manor, you should just skip the initial thug encounter.
So yeah, there IS something for what you did.

You literally didn't go off rails.

>>63474328
>people who aren't sneaking have to roll for stealth
>????????????????????????????????????

from what planet does your DM hail from? is it earth? doesn't fucking sound like it.

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>>63474836
>First, some contest.

All of us are classmates. I told Chad about role and he was really up to join; it´s the rare and chill kind of Chad, though.
Grill was invited because why the fuck not. An then, the horror. Edgy Fag, AKA That guy, overhears it. And because I couldn´t refuse without making obvious my disgust for him, he also join.

>FF 1rst role day

Chad and Grill were pretty good, actually. But that guy wanted to be the fallen angel of the story, and also came up with the most moronic of ideas every now and then.

That first day, for instance, tried to avoid a confrontation in the forest by climbing a tree. Which could have been smart except for the fact of being a heavy armored fuck.

Derailed the adventures for protagonism that lead nowhere. He even wanted to pretend to buy slaves from bandits while wearing his knight gear, with heraldy and shit.

>Is anyone reading this?

>>63468425
>play in all vampire campaign
>we gain the ability to turn into bats
>Keep we want to get to is across the lake
>"Okay, we turn into bats and fly over the lake"
>"You can't do that"
>"Why?"
>"Vampires can't move over flowing water
>"What if we're like 10,000 feet in the air when we fly"
>"Aren't we standing on top of aquifers and underground streams"
>"You can't move over flowing water"

The campaign ended about two sessions later.

>>63474474
Stop pretending please.
Out of character, you could know know what the creature was out of his description just by looking at the monster book.

His comment is so you don't know what the fuck you're looking at, (depending on how badly the guy failed the roll out of character) and in character. You're getting ass mad that meta gaming was blocked. Don't be so short sighted anon.

>>63474955
Eh, I'm kind of with the other anons on this one. It's not a huge mistake, but the DM could have said something like "it's a footprint from a large creature, that's all you can make out." That would give them some detail while keeping it ambiguous enough that it could be anything.

Low rolls doesn't mean you're blind, they just mean your information is more limited.

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>>63469234
Kek

For you, thank you anon.
But if you could tell more, would be awesome.

>New game, new group, made up of an old friend of mine and whoever they could find to play. Finds three newbies, me, That Guy, and the GM. We discuss it, I recommend 4e or a non-DnD system entirely, That Guy insists on 3.5 or 'he isn't playing'.
>GM is a bit of a doormat, the newbies don't care, we end up with 3.5.
>That guy declares that, as the only 'experienced' player in 3.5 (which he wasn't), he'll be an ASSISTANT GM and help (which he didn't) the GM run the game! GM agrees, for some reason.
>One person is playing a traumatized male drow rogue who ran away from the underdark because it's the fucking drow.
>Another playing a rogue/duskblade human, runaway from a pro-human racist organization
>Another playing a minotaur. Plays as a barbarian, essentially, despite having no class levels. Quiet roleplayer, and I'm still not sure what his backstory was.
>I was playing a Grey Elf Warlock, with a backstory about being shamed due to his lack of skill in regular magic from the rest of his magic-loving, magocratic society, so he delved into the Dark Arts and turned himself into a channel of power from the abyss. Started getting tons of sub-par abyssal feats because of it.
>That Guy was playing an undead... thing (Some kind of SPACE UNDEAD from a splat I've never heard of) who happened to have a class of Necromancer (Not the wizard specialization, but a homebrew Necromancer who had every necromancy spell in any class list able to spontaneously cast). Oh, and he had a STAFF OF POWER at level 3. You know, so he can save the party from TPKs and stuff.
>We do basic roleplaying stuff. Minotaur says 'moo' in a completely deadpan voice, the rogue flinches every time we pass by a female, and the undead's just there, privately messaging the DM.
>Eventually, get a job. Elven children have all gone missing all over town. Find tracks leading to a small shack that leads to the Underdark.

>>63475064
>We go down there, and fight some Drow! The rogue begins to get out some catharsis by murdering his once-enslavers, but the SPACE UNDEAD steps forward, raises his 200k gold-value staff, and says "I've got this. I cast DOOM."
>The GM nods, as if that's normal, and asks "So what does that do?"
>"Instantly kills the target if they fail a will save."
>I tell them it's bullshit, and what Doom really does. Since it's a first level spell and all.
>That Guy rewinds and says "Oh I got it confused with a different spell, silly me"
>Fight ends, SPACE UNDEAD grins, bends down, and animates all the bodies at once with an Undead Animal spell
>"What book is that from, SPACE UNDEAD?"
>He names a third-party book so obscure It later took me an hour to find a pdf of it.
>It's some 0th level 'animate undead animal' spell that animates a single, small, 1hd animal to serve as a pseudo-familiar for a few hours, didn't know that at the time.
>We tromp through the rest of the dungeon with nobody else playing but the SPACE UNDEAD, now winning encounters with our previous encounter.
>GM completely gives up, starts letting us auto-win encounters. We take a bit of a break, since the DM is struggling, I walk them through a battle with maybe a CLERIC! Drow have clerics, and they also have control over undead. Perfect solution.
>GM doesn't really know much about spells or magic (obviously), so I give them the general basics, and remind them about Rebuke Undead.
>We continue tromping through the dungeon, we start the fight
>Cleric Rebukes undead, rolls enough to Control a lot of undead. Can't get through the SPACE UNDEAD's turn resistance, so instead she controls a large portion of the SPACE UNDEAD's army.
>That Guy goes into a full nerd rage, breaks the staff of power, which again, was a CL 15 item that cost 200,000 gold.
>Everybody dies, including him.

>>63474955
Althought checked, wtf anon?

You see this >>63475039? you see this shit?

This is exactly what you do when answering to low rolls.

Could have said:

>Is as was as big as your hand
>You could say that there´s the mark of a talon
>Could be very heavy

And also point out things that are unnacurate or directly false or someway misleading.

>>63474955
>you could know know what the creature was out of his description just by looking at the monster book.
you know you can just trust people not to metagame. it's a thing.

>>63469234
in his defence, he was trying to stop you from metagaming, if he described it, only good will would stop you just deducing what the creature was.

I've actually had this happen to me, almost kicked the guy.

>players in the underdark
>open up to a cavern with a large amount of water
>monks passive perception beats aboleths stealth roll
>asks what he sees
>ask him to roll history
>fails by a large margin
>describe the pale squid-like tentacles moving though the water
>IC character he calls out to his party telling them there's an aboleth

wanted to punch the fucking guy in the face.

>>63474949
Everybody but your gm is that guy

>>63475124
The gm obviously could not trust anon that time. Anon is probably that guy

>>63468875
>The players had fun but when I brought up the game in other threads I got a lot of comments about how anticlimactic that was and hoe I should work on improving it
Should have stopped after four words. Different strokes for different folks. I let my players do stupid nonsense and only bring the consequences around on them when it will give them (or another player) a chance to shine. That would drive some players (including myself) insane, but my players like it and I don't mind as a GM.

>>63474949
you're a faggot, you're acting like he didn't think about this prior. if you can't move over flowing water you can't move over flowing water. skipping puzzles are for smart ideas, not bullshit like fucking "duhh we fly higher".

>>63475074
>New campaign. Last one was retconned due to TPK, and everyone gets to keep their characters. Except the necromancer. Because it's a homebrew class, also fuck him.
>That Guy makes a dwarf samurai, showing he has absolutely no idea how to play D&D 3.5.
>GM summarizes the last session as the cleric running away, the necromancer storming out instead of murdering everyone, and we all got XP from the last session.
>enough to take us to 3rd level. GM is still getting a handle on how much XP to give us over time, and auto-killing encounters also granted us XP for some reason.
>get another abyssal feat, thus powering up my other abyssal feats.
>That Guy, who is still assistant GM for some reason, looks at my sheet and starts harping on the DM about how my feats will become SO OVERPOWERED. (Thus proving for the second time that he has no idea how 3.5 works)
>Time passes, we save the kids, That Guy is being an asshole.
>Bring up that torturing and murdering surrendered enemies and keeping their severed heads on his belt is somehow dishonorable
>I MADE AN OATH TO HATE DROW SO IT'S OKAY
>Even that one drow who was a PC's sister who just wanted to talk to her little brother?
>ARGHLBKGLH IT'S LAWFUL TO KILL THEM.
>Next session a little girl hands me a magic ring for 'saving her' from the drow.
>Detect magic. Evocation enchant, no signs of any enchantment (mind control) or necromancy (Curse) spells.
>Pay wizard to identify
>ring that boosts my eldritch blast damage! And also not cursed!
>Put it on, all of my abyssal feats are negated as I'm now Lawful due to the super-cursed ring.
>just have to live with obeying the RULES. I fluff it as feeling extreme guilt for breaking the rules.
>But at least I've got a more powerful blast, right?
>That Guy gives off a smug grin.
>"You're not chaotic anymore. No warlock powers for you!"
>We argue for a bit, though I back down because I don't want to sour the newbies to the game.
>GM feels bad, and allows me to make a new character.

>>63475144
In that situation, I'd make the Aboleth something completely different on the spot, and have it focus on the monk for yelling out such an 'insult' to it.

Then probably made it perfectly civil to the rest of the party.

>>63475124
the damage meta gaming does the game is a lot more than the damage of missing a clue.
maybe anon should have asked if he could at least determine the size rating of the creature.
but you can clearly tell that he was trying to get as much information as he possibly could despite losing the roll, it's clear he was attempting to metagame.

>>63474955
If your player actually memorized the foot shape of monsters from the MM, then he deserves to know what it is. If you're so hung up on something have a skill roll that shouldn't even have a roll your emphasizing the absolute worst part of the game, not the best part. I don't care if I have to play twenty fucking question with the DM as we narrate a scene together, but if I have a pair of functioning eyeballs then I should be able to see the fucking shape, depth, and other qualities of the print. If the DM wants me to make a knowledge roll he shouldn't even tell me I failed, he should just be more vague about the description.

>>63475194
That's the first few sessions we played with this guy, and he was a lot more tolerable after he 'got back' at me, at least until the GM got the balls to actually kick him for being toxic after a few months.

Other things he did:
>Rape-tortured drow with a spiked dildo
>Constantly insisted his 'Kiai' worked as a taunt because he also 'shouted real loud'
>Didn't know the rules at all, constantly insisted on bullshit like having the sorcerer casting 'chain fireball' so that the AoE effect of the spell would layer on top of itself a bunch of times, destroying everything.
>Continued to advise the GM badly until they had enough of it and stripped him of that bullshit 'GM Advisor' position in the first place
>His character got so hated by the rest that he eventually had to leave the party and come back with a new character, who was just as terrible.
>Went out of his way to backstab me, regardless of which characters we were playing
>Continued lying about spells, to the point where the GM had a new standing rule about marking down page numbers and books for everything, eventually banning third-party splats (which I suggested long ago)

But it's fine, he's gone now. And later I got to bring that warlock back as a higher level character, this time missing a finger where the ring once was.

>>63475205
>the damage meta gaming does the game is a lot more than the damage of missing a clue.
You're confusing metagaming with strategy. You're also treating all low rolls as critical failures, which is a mistake.

Think about it this way, if you roll a 1 when opening a door, do you impale yourself on the doorknob? That's the kind of mistake you're making here. Conversely, if every door is as dangerous as disarming a trap, why would any player see traps as dangerous?

>>63475194
That guy sounds like a real piece of work. Please tell me you booted him or dropped out yourself.

>>63475271
Nah, the GM eventually got the balls to kick him. Sent him the equivalent of a 'dear john' letter, told him to find a game elsewhere to ruin.

>>63475285
Good. I don't know how you put up with him as much as you did. He would have been bullied and ridiculed off my table after the first autistic nerd rage.

>>63475256
It's shit DMing. The entire idea behind "observation rolls and disarm rolls" is terrible. Here's what a "good" DM does.
>Me: Hm this trail leading up the bad guy's hideout looks suspicious so I check the entire path thoroughly for raised mounds of dirt and wires!
>DM: Thanks to your careful searching you managed to see the nearly invisible string before setting off the unhooked grenade in the can, what do you do?
>Me: Ok, I cut the wire.
>DM: Alright the trap's been disarmed, as long as you don't fuck with the grenade in the can your gold, or so you think.
>Me: Cool!
Now let's try that scenario with that "DM."
>Me: Hm this trail leading up the bad guy's hideout looks suspicious so I check the entire path thoroughly for raised mounds of dirt and wires!
>DM: Ok, make an observation roll.
>Me: But I'm already looking I've specified a direct action...
>DM: Make an observation roll.
>Me: Roll
>Dm: You failed the roll
>Me: Ok, it would have been nice to here the results narrated not just told, so what happens?
>DM: You explode and die, thanks for coming over tonight man and wasting your weekend on my fat worthless disgusting ass! Hope you enjoyed my "story."

>>63475311
>The entire idea behind "observation rolls and disarm rolls" is terrible.
Sorry, I meant when have already specified those actions and found a way to disarm the trap in an interactive fashion.

>>63475251
I’ve read this before a few weeks ago. Is this an okd pasta, or you reposting the story ? Either way, it’s still an enjoyable read.

>>63475346
I think if you blunder into something you should need to roll to spot it, or if it's a mechanism and you want to "brute force it" you should be able to roll for that.

>>63475256
wtf are you talking about?
why ever play a loremaster if I can just play whatever I want and just use my meta-knowledge to figure things out.

I'm a forever DM and I usually always know what I'm fighting, the amount of hp it has, the AC, the special abilities and of course its resistances. most of the time I play a wizard, EK, AT or Bard if I want to know these things, if I'm not I just treat it as if I have no idea and allow their special effects to affect me.

the truth is Int rolls, Cha rolls and Wis roles don't act at all like physical rolls. being charismatic in real life doesn't mean you convince everyone, having meta-knowledge doesn't mean you can deduce anything and having RL survival knowledge doesn't make you Macgyver in the game. the same goes for the other way around so it's fair, if you can't RP then your high cha character isn't going to be optimum, if you have high Int and don't know shit for nothing from the MM or anything about arcane lore then succeeding and being told you're fighting an ettin isn't going to mean shit to you and so on

Our groups That Guy won't stop complaining how boring our campaign is. We've only just got to level 3.
>First character is military human
>Complained so much that the small starting town was boring, we decided to leave after the second session to shut him up.
>Get to the second town (slightly larger) to investigate cult and elf's backstory.
>After one session there complains it's too boring as well.
>Skins some bandits we killed along the road. (warned him that was a fucked up thing to do)
>Suggests to the party with two paladins that we should just murder the townspeople and leave.
>Next session in second town murders elf rangers npc brother just to spite the team.
>As one of the paladins, murder his pc mid combat.
>Next session, investigating the cults hideout sneaking through sewers and finding secret doors.
>GM has done a great job hand crafting dungeon tiles and objects to interact with.
>That Guy complains that this dungeon is trash and we should just leave and this adventure is stupid.
>Basically trashing the GM after he's put in this hard work making paper minis and things
>Have to step in and tell him to chill because GM was going to snap.

I don't know why he keeps coming back if he doesn't like it so much.

>>63475251
>>Rape-tortured drow with a spiked dildo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlaajNnjifo

>>63475372
Read the thread. I'm not arguing in favor of metagaming, I'm saying that if you're looking at a footprint and you roll low, you should--at the very least-- be able to determine its size. Like, that's something a toddler could do. Rolling a 1 on a basic ass skillcheck should not equate to "you're blind and you see nothing".

>>63475353
It's me reposting the story, after getting a few more accurate info from the GM.

Neither of us know what that bullshit Space Undead race was called, though.

>>63475425
Nice to know. Godspeed, anon. Don’t let the space undeads get you.

>>63475372
>meta-knowledge
>why ever play a loremaster if I can just play whatever I want and just use my meta-knowledge to figure things out.
You are mixing up role playing with meta gaming. Meta gaming is knowing what the DM's preferences are for campaigns and nigger rigging the narrative to your advantage. Getting an accurate description of a foot print or having a well thought out strategy bypassing several FATAL rolls isn't metagaming, it's playing the game well. Much like with charisma checks. If the PC can come up with a good or simple lie it should warrant a lower DC or none at all. If they outright tell the guard the sky is purple or he's their liege in disguise then the DM should have the guy dismiss them out of hand. In some cases the PC shouldn't even be allowed to make the attempt like if they're supposed to be mentally retarded or he's blind, then it's completely reasonable for the DM to forgo describing something to them outside of an abstract way fitting their disability no matter how well they roll.

>>63475234
>If your player actually memorized the foot shape of monsters from the MM, then he deserves to know what it is.
no
>If you're so hung up on something have a skill roll that shouldn't even have a roll your emphasizing the absolute worst part of the game, not the best part.
The nature check was to identify the creature. Depending on the context, it could be a massive reveal and a ways to prepare for a a fight. Mystery is a variable of what makes the game good.

>ut if I have a pair of functioning eyeballs then I should be able to see the fucking shape, depth, and other qualities of the print
Yes. This doesn't mean your character would identify it. You are pretty ass mad you couldnt get to meta game.

>he should just be more vague about the description.
So you're sperging about literally semantics. You're THAT guy.

>>63475496
No, you're a massive faggot. I and another person already clarified what we were talking about and I even typed up a fucking exchange above so KYS for trying this petty little splitting hairs bullshit with me. If you're that concerned about monster revelations or your players knowing that much than your group should be well past the need to even use the fucking monster manual.

>>63475496
>>63475508
No, YOU are That Guy!

>>63475508
>that spewl of assmad
Yea. That guy.

>>63475508
To add to this anon's point, if your group is at that level of metagaming, why not use homebrew monsters instead? It would be fresher and would be a genuine surprise for your PC's. All you'd have to do is make up a form and borrow stats from similar CR monsters.

>>63475516
I wouldn't even play with a cunt like you, and that isn't my story up above. Although, he's completely right about his DM being a faggot.

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>>63475535
>I wouldn't even play with a cunt like you
>"No, you're a massive faggot"
>" above so KYS for trying this petty little splitting hairs bullshit with me."

You literally sound like a nagging redneck wife after someone told you you're being childish.

>>63475531
>To add to this anon's point, if your group is at that level of metagaming, why not use homebrew monsters instead?
Because he's a fucking troll trying to stir up shit by having a purposefully shit opinion.

>>63475535
I’m actually a third anon, who hadn’t taken part in the discussion thus far. I just thought it was pretty funny that two dudes were calling themselves That Guy over a That Guy thread, as usual.

>>63475541
>>63475530
>>63475516
Same fagging and butthurt. KYS nigger.

>>63475531
everyone homebrews monsters. but its harder than using a template.your players refusing to stop meta gaming and forcing you to homebrew every new encounter the come across is fucking horse shit.

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>>63475554
>your players refusing to stop meta gaming and forcing you to homebrew every new encounter the come across is fucking horse shit.
Sweet Jesus man. If you're such a rut that vaguely describing a foot print will give your monster away to your players then they've already figured your ass out a dozen different times by that point. You need fresh material.

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>>63475551
You should give your DM something nice for Christmas anon. He puts up with an aspie like you and even blocks your meta gaming attempts very politely instead of telling you to fuck off. Sounds like it wasn't the first time you tried to pull that shit and he just shut you down with grace tbqh.

>>63475551
>call both sides of the argument out on the fact they’re calling each other That Guy
>get mistaken for one of the two guys arguing
Skipped reading comprehension on your way to shitpost class ?

>>63475467
if he describes a trolls foot, and you start preparing methods of attaining fire, you're meta gaming and you're a cunt.

besides what fucking difference does it make, why didn't you just fucking copy it onto a parchment and ask a friend?

lean into failure more instead of trying to turn a fail into a partial win just by reiterating your question to get as much knowledge as you can.

just from your attitude, I'm suspicious of your intentions and I suspect ill intent.

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>>63475554
>be me
>playing a 5th level barbarian
>has been a profesional "adventurer" for more than half of his life
>has circumnavigated the globe
>delved through ruins on 4 different continents
>fought beasts with the strength of ten men in countries he cant even remember the name of
>DUHHH, YOUR WISDUM LOW.
>YOU NO KNOW TROLL NATUV TO UR HOMETOWN WEAK TO BIG BURNS
>YOU AM METAGAMER
Check out the big brain on anon over here.

>>63474922
yes

>>63475575
>tl;dr
Just by your spacing i can tell you need to go back.

>>63475570
only forever DM's will understand.
it's not like I'd even handle the issue in the way the OP's post did, I'm clearly a better DM then the DM in the OP. I'm saying that the reasoning behind it was legit.

I'd do exactly what I suggested asking for, tell him the size of the footprint and the number of toes. besides there are two types of meta gamers, the "oh well I figured out what it is, might as well use the knowledge" people and the "oh shit wtf is this, better check the MM" I've had both in my party and I swear to god it sucks the fun out of it as a DM.

stop being the problem and be the solution, if your DM sucks, teach him to play, THAT DM isn't a BAD DM, it's a DM that refuses to get better and focuses on shutting down creativity. so far in this thread, all we've learned is some people are sensitive faggots who don't enjoy it when they fail.

>>63475572
Right, you're a same fagging nigger. KYS
>>63475571
Speaking of reading comprehension I'm not OP nigger, or the story poster.
This is me including this post.
>>63475570
>>63475467
>>63475311
>>63474474
>>63475234
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>63475575
You sound like an absolute torturous person to play with. Like some faggot that rips off century old literature and is angry when one of his players somehow saw his amazing "plot twist" coming because they read it before. >>63475581
Apparently common knowledge enemies that old wise women tell their children about can't be readily identified and counter by seasoned explorers. They're just that goddamn mysterious.

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>>63475587
Yeah but how mad are you, that guy? Seething would you say?

>>63475629
>mommy, the entire thread is samefagging against me, pls help me!
Embarassing desu

>>63468425
>DMPCs
Ho boy, I remember one like that.
Basically, in a common setting me and my friends made, we decided to each run a one shot in the setting. I passed first, than came the next DM on the list, who was a diehard Bloodborn fan and self proclaimed Lovecraft fan despite admitting he never read the actual books.

It all started well, we had some fun exploring a ruined city that would have been struck down by copyright laws had it not been a game among friends. But then the DM introduced his DMPC, and oh boy did it go downhill from here. Because it became obvious that, whatever the danger was, the "good monster" DMPC could trash it in an instant and completely ignore it. The game ended up being a succession of fight to be allowed to see his "totally awesome" DMPC in the next cut-scene while our characters stared from the side in awe of how powerful he was. The final fight, that he hyped for the whole session, was not even actually fought. We got brainwashed without a save roll, so during the whole fight the DM controlled us and had his DMPC dodge our attack while he fought the big monster.

And because it was a common setting, he essentially killed of in a one shot an entity we all had agreed it was to be used for a whole campaign. But he did not want to retcon his one shot, because he felt it was "the one that made the lore progress the more."

>>63475379
I don't know why anyone lets him come back at that point. It might be helpful to point out to him that if he thinks it's all so boring, he can find another group. He's clearly not interested in participating in the adventure.

>>63475587
Never attribute to redditism what can be attributed to autism, anon.

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>>63475629
I never said you were the guy that posted the image, aspieanon. All I said was that you're an aspie. Surely you play with a DM. You're too mentally deficient and emotionally fucked up to routinely DM yourself.

>nigger nigger nigger kys kys kys kys
TOTALLY a reasonable person IRL.

>>63475630
>>63475638
A minute apart and written in the same style. SAME FAGGOT!

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>>63475647
>Reddit spacing
>Offended by Nigger
>Badly same fagging

>>63475581
lol, what a seething shit you are.
an ability check doesn't determine how good your character is, it determines the conditions.

if you're a survival expert, maybe the footprint was smugged, maybe it's a partial foot print.
regardless of this is the case, if the word troll isn't mentioned and you prepare to fight a troll. fuck you.

>>63475651
I am also you. This entire thread has been a single poster since the very beginning.

>>63475660
>>63475647
Holy shit you are the unholy trinity of reddit tier niggers. The Son, The Father, and Holy Ghost of being a faggot.

>>63475234

>identifying the nature of a beast by its tracks
>this shouldn't be a Nature roll

What the actual fuck?

>>63475673
tell the truth anon, are you by any chance a virgin?
do you have a group you play with?
do you disappoint your parent?

>>63475688
>>63475683
>>63475683
Same fagging, again. You've got to go back to, reddit, you're people miss you!

>>63475711
>you’re people
big oof

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>>63475711
Answer the questions anon.

>>63475725
stfu libtard nigger kike

>>63475732
get it all out of your system

>>63475732
ebin ubermensch gonna save the white race, just waiting for a red-headed QT to knock on your door and fix your life, shave your neck and remind you to shower so you don't smell like dried shit and smegma I bet and most importantly rid you of your virginity.
I'd say that's gonna happen any day no anon. keep being based in the mean time.

>>63475587
>le reddit spacing

I know this has been a meme for a while, but people have always used spacing like this on 4chan, and I don't get why pretending otherwise caught on.

>>63475779
if I had to take a guess, double spacing is likely a result of people writing essays preferring the way a paragraph looks when there's a large amount of space between lines of text.

>>63475779
4chan users didnt line break after every sentence


They would type three or four sentences in a paragraph


They didnt need every sentence to be a separate line


It looks really ugly


And most of thentime sentence structure is broken and, punctuation, is misused


This isnt the way 4chan posts are formatted


>inb4 cant into green text

>>63475779

I mean, when I started posting here, this was the norm or what you're doing was the norm. I honestly didn't really notice when it shifted, and it simply looks cleaner to me. I'm still kind of baffled by this whole argument, but it looks like the guy that started it knows he's wrong and is just being stupid on purpose at this point.

I just don't understand what's complicated about 'you failed your nature roll. You don't recognize the tracks'. That's... literally the point of skill checks. It is the purpose they serve in the game, for better or worse.

>>63475779
Funny how you never see people get called out for Stormfront spacing.

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>aspie that guy accuses reasonable dm of being 'that guy'
>some person disagrees with him
>eventually, literally outs himself as a /pol/ brainlet and even spams unrelated containment board memes and shits on the thread
>literally because he was called out
let's remember this sperg accused someone else of being 'That Guy'

The absolute madman is going to show us all by getting himself banned.

>>63475801
Protip: there's a difference between "reddit spacing" and double spacing between paragraphs. Line breaking after a paragraph is proper english style. Line breaking every sentence is retarded.

>>63475809
>gets a 24 hour ban at worst
>wont get banned at all because lmao4chins
Dont you have somewhere to be, newfaggot?

>>63475812

Sure, but I've seen just the space between quotation point and text body called 'reddit spacing' before. If it had meaning as a term once, it's been muddied into nothing by now; the Mary Sue of line breaks.

>>63475854
Hitting the Enter key when you type automatically turns anything you write in a reddit post, this is a well known fact.

>>63475834
Are you calm down aspieanon? Better to stop now before your mommy sees your posts and deducts GBPs

>>63475884
>are you calm down [sic]
>cant even get through a sentence before his adhd forces him to open a new reddit tab
>LOLOL I TROL YOU
Tough tits for you you, pal. The only one giving me GBP's is my wife when i remember to feed her cats. Hows life with no job treating you?

>>63468875
Listen to your players, not 4channellers.

>>63475200
This so much this. If faced with a know-it-all just reskin threats and NPC. This is honestly why it's bad to play the same system and setting for 20 years. It's not wonderful anymore, just strategy gaming.

>>63474949
>A lake.
>Flowing water.

>>63468425
Had a GM run an encounter just for his character he insisted on having. Not like that character stole the show. That character took the quest with nobody else's knowledge, and he actually played out the encounter.

>>63476087
everything I dislike is niggers.

>>63474955
>If I fail my check it means the D.M will provide no descriptive element whatsoever.

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>>63475884
>aspieanon

>>63475234
>If your player memorized
>not the character
No

>>63474955
First of all, the only thing you “deserve” is a nuclear holocaust.
Second of all social games are hinged on trust. If you cannot trust your players not to meta game with readily available information, or if you’re so paranoid that you assume they will regardless of how they conduct themselves (which I am assuming is the case, given that there was no reason to assume that intent from >>63469234), then your group is inherently flawed.
There are plenty of ways to actually handle that situation. Maybe say the ground was so torn up it couldn’t be seen properly, or only give basic details with a better roll revealing things like minor claw/heel imprints, but saying a character is blind because they rolled low is retarded.

>>63474955
>DM: You come across a monster, it starts attacking you!
Uh, ok, what does it look like?
>DM: Stop metagaming. Roll nature.
Ok, uhhh... a 7... +2 for a 9. Probably didn't beat the DC. So what does it look like?
>DM: You don't know what it looks like because you don't know what it is.

>>63474898
I broke down and looked up the module a while back, I saw that bit and a neat little dungeon crawl under there, complete with traps and undead and bandits and whatever. I couldn't help but feel cheated, because his illiteracy cost me five hours of my life.

>>63476780
>the monster attacks!
>”ok, what sort of attack?”
>roll nature to see, you fucking metagamer

>>63475311
Now hang on. Apart from the obvious strawman, a player shouldn't expect success on an action just because they're focusing on that to the exclusion of everything else. Spotting and disarming a trap just because they're trying real hard to, regardless of how well the trap's hidden? That's like saying they can stealth past anyone as long as they're trying real hard not to be seen, or they can convince anyone of any lie because they're saying only the lie and nothing else.

>>63476920
>the thing of indeterminate origin approaches
>"what is it?"
>you don't know, roll a d20 and add the results for every individual knowledge skill
>"oh crap, a natural 1, that is a bad roll"
>you don't know what the thing is. it does something, take twelve damage and roll a con save
>"what'd it do?"
>you failed your knowledge roll so you don't know what it can do you fucking metagamer

>>63477161
>”ok, I move and strike the thing with my sword”
>sorry, you can’t do that
>”do you mean move, attack, what exactly can’t I do?”
>the last attack severed a limb
>”which one? What can I do?!”
>roll nature for each limb to find out how they’re doing... hmmm, low? looks like you don’t know how many limbs you have. Roll to stay upright as you try to balance your torso.

>>63474955
This
It wasn't good DMing bu considering he was using a module to facilitate your own adventure I'd say it falls in line with stand DM play. To say it was "that guy" is just flat ass wrong.

>>63475124
That's another story, and osmething that wasn't adressed in the original prompt. It's veyr well possible that he was a metagamer and considering the fact that he couldn't take "no for an answer" and made the DM a "that guy" for stopping him, I'd say its very likely he was prone to metagaming and feeling in control.

>>63477221
>not making them roll perception to realize they've lost a limb
Fucking metagamers everywhere, I swear. The correct response is,
>you can't do that
>”do you mean move, attack, what exactly can’t I do?”
>you don't know, roll perception

>>63477264
That’s a colossal leap of logic, and I wouldn’t mind if you outlined the parts of the post that made you think that, preferable with quotes to indicate them.

>>63477161
>>63477221
>"Okay I investigate the rap ot see how it works
>roll
>3/20
>You fail the check"
>Yeah but like is there a gun on the chest that will shoot me when I open it or some poisnous gas that triggers when I close it?"
>"I can't tell you that"
>"WTF SHIT DM THIS NEEDS TO STOP; I'M GOING STRAIGHT TO TEE GEE WITH THIS TALE OF ABUSE"

>>63477270
I’ll admit being a soft touch. Sometimes I don’t even require players to roll surgical tests to find out how much damage they took.

>>63474955
only on here could you find the most retarded metagamers who could identify all of the monsters by their footprints
the average player doesn't care and by extension everyone shouldn't

>>63477292
At least you tried

>>63477292
>"okay I check for traps"
>roll
>"it is a bad roll"
>you don't find anything
>"I open the chest"
>you take damage
>"from what?"
>you don't know, you didn't find anything

>>63477264
>he was prone to metagaming and feeling in control
wanting to know how a footprint that you found under a carpet looks is fairly important and a vague description like his DM gave him would never cut it realistically

>>63477292
movingthegoalposts.png

>>63477286
>I roll something low
>"You don't know what kind of footprint it is, it's mysterious"
>Alright, but like is it big? How many toes are there? Is there just the one or are there more that I can see?
What's a leap of logic? This whole scenario and the fact that he's posted it MULTIPLE times wreaks of butthurt over something tiny. If the player were good at roleplaying and playing fair, then the DM would trust the player to make good decisions, but based on how his post is written it was clear he had no respect for the DM or his game.

Was it good DMing? No, but fair play to facilitate a good game since it stops the player from metagaming (which is a much deeper problem than not having a description of a footprint)

>>63469234
That just sounds like an inexperienced GM trying to deal with That Guy from metagaming.
I usually just give poor descriptions based on the terrible roll.
>the footprint appears to be of medium size and oblong with no discernible toes
The character failed his check to identify the footprint so poorly he only identified the heel and entirely missed the rest of the lighter print on the floor.

>>63468519
>>63468875
Again? It's like you're cursed bro.
I'd say better planning or improvising could help things. Quantum ogre in an exciting finale. Maybe the players are caught by something while they sneak out. If the BBEG (Ugh) dies, maybe he wasn't the actual main villain. You need to run the game in a way that goes towards excitement and further action, not necessarily towards player success, if you want to have more exciting endings.

>>63477383
Yes, that’s a massive leap of logic, and you’re very oddly attributing emotions and thoughts that aren’t present.
The issue was clearly presented that seeing a footprint and being unable to see anything that identifies it as a footprint is just dumb. If he really couldn’t identify any features of it, then why the hell call it a footprint at all?
Respect is a two way street, and the DM as presented doesn’t seem to have earned it. It’s certainly possible the poster was lying, but that’s irrelevant to this hypothetical situation

>>63475809
He's not /pol/; he's a reddit tier retard pretending to be retarded now that he's lost the argument. Go to /pol/, no one talks like that.

>>63475806
Because Stormfront is a tiny fringe forum with <1000 regular users banned from all search engines, versus reddit which is one of the fifth largest social media platforms on the planet and a prominent, snarky, holier than though way of communicating like that.

>>63477341
>>63477330
>>63477350
Investigation != action
He has nothing to relate the information to.
If the original story included seeing multiple monsters, then sure. But asking for information as a player when your character doesn't understand the information to deduce the problem is metagaming.

In short he failed the trap check and is asking how to avoid setting it off

>>63477344
Depends on how he was running the game. The player doesn't deserve anything considering he got a bad roll.
He asked for DIRECT information and the DM didn't know how ot respond so he said no.
What a good player would have done was ask :"is there anything I can deduce from the prints?" If he was actually just wanting to get into the gamer head space, rather than trying to direct the DM how he wants "What's the size and depth" I mean come on.

>>63469234
I once rolled low on a perception roll in a walking dead style one shot and the dm told me i didnt see the other half of the party 10ft to my right as i climbed down from a roof

>>63477534
And you’re still moving the goalposts. The point here>>63469234 , that people are very bizarrely ignoring for reasons I can’t comprehend, is that failing a check made him unaware of basic visual abilities.
By your logic, the character in the original post that you’re running away from couldn’t understand the concept of basic numeracy because of a botched roll.
Disbelieve the poster was honestly recounting if you like, it’s probably good sense, but I cannot fathom how you can argue with the details as presented in good faith.
Is this truly the hill you want to die on?

>>63477570
But that’s a perfectly fine question.
If someone is mentally capable of measuring depth and distance, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to. Give them a penalty for having to wing it, assuming they have no measuring equipment, but flat out saying they can’t even hazard a guess is dumb.

Never thought I'd actually get to post in one of these threads, but my time seems to have come.

>be me
>been about two years since I could play in a long-term campaign
>poking around with a few friends to put together a group now that my schedule is calming down
>apparently this news makes it to a friend from high school
>haven't kept up with him in years, remember him being a bit of a sperg, but decide to talk about the campaign I'm planning to run a little bit with him, see how it'll work
>he seems alright, so I let it slide to focus on prep
>then my messages start blowing up at like two AM one night
>hes rambling on and on about how he's ended some friendships and is making a space for himself and needing to rant
>okay.jpg
>still have the contact info of one of these friends laying around
>give him a message to find out what he's on about
>find out what he's been doing while I haven't been paying attention
>apparently he legally changed his name a bunch of times
>his latest name is Raiden
>and he's obsessed with harem anime
>trying to groom one of the players in a game to be his girlfriend, and keeps asking her to fork over her address so he can come and meet her in real life
>apparently his dream is to go to E3 with a girl who he doesn't even know the name of
>he unironically talks about how he's "harnessed his edginess for strength"
>still lives with his mother and his grandmother, and starts flipping his shit as soon as he thinks someone is acting like them
>read: not letting him sit around on his ass like a retard

Never noped out of having a player that hard before.

>>63477451
>Yes, that’s a massive leap of logic, and you’re very oddly attributing emotions and thoughts that aren’t present.
This is what you've done by assuming his act was "bad DMing". Your defending your point of view because someone told you it was a bad DM without any evidence.

>The issue was clearly presented that seeing a footprint and being unable to see anything that identifies it as a footprint is just dumb. If he really couldn’t identify any features of it, then why the hell call it a footprint at all?

That's the argument at play; I think you're wrong and you have been unable to actually address why it is correct when there are plenty of reason why the DM should not tell the player details about the print when the player failed the nature check. As others said it's not about being blind, it's about not understanding the information provided for various reasons based on the circumstance.
THe point I'm bringing up is that the act itself was pretty neutral and a fair move to make as a DM. The fact that it wasn't received well is more on the player's relationship to the game, but he uses it as evidence as to why he was right and the DM was wrong when clearly it could go either way. If you want ot believe that he was a bad DM, go ahead, but as of right now the act of not describing pointed details to a player is a completely valid move and not evidence of THAT DM quality.

>>63477432

I like it. Give him what he wants but still leave him seething if he was actually trying to metagame.

>>63477592
>that people are very bizarrely ignoring for reasons I can’t comprehend, is that failing a check made him unaware of basic visual abilities
The DM allegedly said "I can't tell YOU that", meaning if I told you what the prints looked like then it would spoil the game. He didn't say the character can't see them, he said he wouldn't provide pointed details as to the nature of the prints. This post clearly illustrates why a DM would not give out clues to the players when characters do not understand what's going on:
>>63475144
A good player would get the details, maybe recognize it's a troll of something, and keep it to himself but understand that the character needs to figure out more shit and roleplay accordingly. We don't know if that's what this player is doing; we cannot simply assume that this player is great because he bitches about his DM sucking. Splitting meta-gaming and roleplaying is very difficult and it is wise to err on facilitating the separation between the two.
>By your logic, the character in the original post that you’re running away from couldn’t understand the concept of basic numeracy because of a botched roll.

If you're rolling for basic numeracy then there's probably a good reason your character shouldn't know the numbers.

>>63477432
This is good DMing

>>63477638
>This is what you've done by assuming his act was "bad DMing". Your defending your point of view because someone told you it was a bad DM without any evidence.
Telling someone you're not going to describe what they're looking at is bad GMing.
From the post in question:

>Okay, what kind of footprint is it?
>"Roll nature"
>I roll something low
>"You don't know what kind of footprint it is, it's mysterious"
>Alright, but like is it big? How many toes are there? Is there just the one or are there more that I can see?
>"You don't recognize it so I can't tell you what it looks like"

This is bad GMing. Even if a player rolls low to identify what the creature is, you still need to describe what the characters see.

This may be inexperienced GMing, since none of the simple easy tricks like "the footprint's not very clear" or "it's smudged" are used to explain why the footprint can't be understood, but it's still BAD GMing. It doesn't matter if the player is a metagamer or not.

>>63477638
Then allow me to elaborate.
There is no reason a character of reasonable intelligence or eyesight would not be able to make a guess for something as basic as size or depth.
That does not require any special skills unless details not stated were present, such as being on ground that had been trampled or tampered with, or the character being literally mentally retarded.

>>63477713
>The DM allegedly said "I can't tell YOU that", meaning if I told you what the prints looked like then it would spoil the game.
Pure conjecture
>not meaning the character can’t see them
Also conjecture, and very frustrating even if true.
>If you're rolling for basic numeracy then there's probably a good reason your character shouldn't know the numbers.
I’ll assume you’re being mistaken rather than dishonest, but the post specified a nature roll, not a roll to determine sizes.

>>63477762
You can go further than that and say that if you make a troll encounter and expect people to put up with going “oh wow he’s regenerating all our attacks i wonder what could this creature be weak to” until you in all your magnanimity go “you find some explosive barrels in the swamp with a drawing of a stylized troll skull with two crossed bones on it”, you are a bad gm.

>>63477762
>This may be inexperienced GMing, since none of the simple easy tricks like "the footprint's not very clear" or "it's smudged" are used to explain why the footprint can't be understood, but it's still BAD GMing. It doesn't matter if the player is a metagamer or not.

Based on that situation: Inexperienced because he couldn't parse the situation with grace? sure
Piss poor THAT DM certainly not, which is the original poster's claim. No

The DM's job is to facilitate a good game and that's what he was doing by not giving away pointed information to a player who just got a failed roll. The player was trying to wheel and deal to get information rather than taking what he got. Proper etiquette is to ask what you CAN discern, not ask for direct details that the character can't understand. Not knowing how to quickly make sense of a bad roll to describe details about a weird footprint without giving away key details isn't something many DMs can do. The real thing you should be bitching about is putting yourself in a situation where you cannot improvise your way out, but that's a completely different story. As it stands, holding key information away from a player who rolls poorly is completely valid.

Next game I run everyone will be a dirt farming peasant with no worldly knowledge
Nature checks on every monster or I get to scream about metagaming

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>>63468425
>Dark Heresy
>GM want the story to head in a certain way
>Has a NPC he wants players to interact with and lead them towards that railroad tracks
>PC decides to kidnap NPC and kill him if he resists
>NPC resists the attempt and fights back
>PC does everything, from shooting him , throwing grenades, Mind controlling the NPC to stick a chainsword to his mouth.
>NPC is a bullshit damage sponge, does not die
>DM tries his hardest to make sure his npc does not die and PC does not die either.
>PC goes, fuck this shit. I am jsut going to do one last attack and die
>He dies

Dm's and their immortal npcs are the worst.

>>63477779
The character, who cannot comprehend what he's looking at, will not or cannot make sense of the depth and size; those descriptors are irrelevant to him. That's what the low roll indicates.

The Dm failed to go into detail as to why this might be the case, but that is the hallmark of an inexperienced DM. You are, however, seeing the DM not describing the details of it as denying he character vision, which simply isn't the case. Rather he is denying the character the ability to make sense of what he sees and denying the player metagaming details that could give HIM the information me needs to make sense of it. The DM has the right philosophy but simply must work on his technique. That doesn't make him a piss poor that DM, but rather an inexperienced one for not being able to parse a tricky situation with grace.

>>63477926
Sounds like a fun game

>>63474922
continue

Also man up and just say no next time

>>63477889
This is simply ridiculous. Proper etiquette? Why must everyone hold their games to your standards?
DMs are human, and it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for details, something that shows willingness to engage incidentally, to get a better feel for the surroundings. Telling somebody that their eyes and brain don’t work is antithetical to that. And yes, that is what being unable to gauge a basic distance means.

>>63477939
Everyone involved sounds like a shitty person
>I’ll just kidnap him lmao

>>63477939
What was the group's reasoning for trying to kidnap the person?

>>63477940
Explain how somebody not mentally retarded or impaired could not comprehend measuring the distance of a footprint.

>>63477968
They are having trouble properly identifying the start and end of the print's features as they poorly identified the remains of the track.

>>63477968
Anon just because I have extensive knowledge of construction doesn’t mean my 8 Int orc can build a house

>>63477992
If they cant connect big foot=big creature the character would probably have to roll constantly a dc10 to not shit his pants while walking.

>>63477980
That ones not bad, and would have been a good one to use rather than a flat refusal.

>>63477992
That one is not. 8 int is dumb, not retarded. Even if he doesn’t know how to count, even a toddler could gauge via comparisons.

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>>63477967
Honestly it has been a lot of years. So cant remember it clearly.

>>63477960
Well when you put it like that it sounds really funny. But now that i remember it more clearly it wasnt actually dark heresy, it was black crusade. So being a shitty person actually makes sense in this instance maybe?

>>63474922
give pls

>>63478027
The real question is what then if they try to guess ooc. Do you have your player be completely unable to take any fire sources until they meet the troll, get chased for all the swamp until you decide they have suffered enough and have a lightning strike a tree and start a fire?

>>63468425
Years ago, I was dming my first 5e campaign at the LGS with my usual group + 1
Everyone was having a great time but the +1 was constantly rule lawyering and criticizing my dming, saying that i was doing it wrong. Eventually the whole group just ditched him and we played at my house.

This is the worst horror story ive got, how do people have such bad experiences

>>63477959
>DMs are human, and it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for details
Which is why you ask "what can I discern form the print"
Not "What is the length depth and diameter", since that could VERY easily trip up an inexperienced DM who's trying to keep the game steady

And read this:>>63477940
The DMing isn't saying he can't see, just denying the player the details he'd need to come to his own conclusion outside of the roll in order to avoid metagaming

>>63478199
I'd give a vague answer like "It's pretty big, seems bigger than a human footprint," and refuse to provide any more detailed info with a "You dunno." and a shrug.

I told this story a bunch of times and I've already forgiven the player for it but it's still so stupid.
>Player makes a lawful good paladin
>Campaign's setting is an Isekai
>After the players arrive in The new world
>Lost in a forest and have to find out where they are
>First NPC they meet is a Cursed human who is being turned into a tree
>Lawful good paladin punches his teeth in because "He just doesn't like trees" and thinks he's an abomination
>NPC is understandably not answering any of their questions anymore
>Players just walk away and keep roaming around the forest
>Have random encounter, players use him as a meatshield because he's the thoughest one.
>He doesn't like this, runs away first chance he gets and leaves them to die
Legend says he was sold by bandits as a slave but players haven't gotten to town yet. even though it's been 5 sessions after he left.

>>63474328
>>63474489
Well the thread is still here so I'm going to post a bit on the 'homebrew' below and how awesome he was at designing it.
>>63474489
You're more than welcome to! And yeah, he most certainly had a unique way of doing things, but any attempt to question was met with a brick wall since he's the GM and GM knows best always.
Okay so, some of the 'homebrew' that he was so proud of included moments like these:
>System has a crafting system that is fairly well defined based on rarity of materials, and difficulty of producing said item and how long it takes. All the GM really has to determine is 'how much success' you need to be able to produce the item and it ties directly into several crafting skills.
>Instead produces a mini game that we had to play to gather materials by playing 'asteroids' with a gathering component. We have to gather these components to buy upgrades that are vital to various new subsystems that he put in, upgrading vehicles, strongholds, and more. We are not allowed to use our skills to attempt to reduce the number of components needed nor are we told the rules of how this works ahead of time. Due to real world concerns like school and work at the time we aren't able to play said farming simulator, so the following conversation took place a couple of weeks later:
>"Okay, so how does this system work?"
>"There are 10 or so various elements that you have a random chance of collecting based on rolling on this random chart. If you are able to gather them successfully you can use them to purchase upgrades."
>"Can we also just buy them using the game mechanics? You assigned how rare they were so it would be easy."
>"No, you have to mine them. Also you're behind, you can only play once a week per player so you've already missed out on two weeks."
>"What? You never said anything about that when you brought this up. Can we at least have option of doing 3 runs a person this week to catch up?"
>"Nope, you're behind. Deal with it."

>>63477889
>Based on that situation: Inexperienced because he couldn't parse the situation with grace? sure
>Piss poor THAT DM certainly not, which is the original poster's claim. No
Bad GMing is bad GMing. It may not be INTENTIONALLY bad GMing, just due to inexperience, but it's still bad.

>holding key information away from a player who rolls poorly is completely valid.
You shouldn't withold information about what the character is able to sense from the player. That is not valid. If you're worried about your players metagaming, then find a way to do so that doesn't involve arbritrarily saying that you the player can't hear about something the character is perfectly capable of seeing.

>"Also any damage received here carries over into the normal game, so you can lose even more personnel and it'll cost even more. No, you can't avoid this by just buying the materials."
So yeah, great design choices here. If you're going to do homebrew make sure it meshes with the system rather than actively working against it.

>>63478531
On homebrew abilities he wasn't much better, he introduced special powers to everyone and they were pretty cool ideas, but some of the worse implementation possible.
>"Okay, so you all gain these powers, each based on something different. You manifest them by using a skill you all have."
>"That's kind of cool, what's this new thing mentioned here in the description?"
>"That's a new ability you'll need to defeat my homebrew monster's damage reduction. Also it blinds the party and circumvents the anti-blinding upgrades you've purchased and installed in your armor."
>"...Okay. Well at least we can use it reliably since it's a skill we have pretty high."
>"Oh, it's based off the primary attribute that the class I disallowed you from using specializes in and you all dumped. Also to improve the abilities you have to use experience."
>"Won't that just cause us to fall behind in every other area? What if you just gave us the upgraded powers at certain XP totals? And are you going to adjust encounter balance for this new cost?"
>"Nope, this is how it works, deal with it."
At this point we all kind of realized that the game was going to be an exercise in frustration but we still had hopes since he'd had some really awesome games in the past.

>>63475801
Recognizing tracks =/= looking at tracks
Saying paw print or 3 toed foot doesn't identify the track

That dm was being shitty

>>63478682
One of the final moments that caused me to leave the game before it was done was when he ran a one shot for friends that completely invalidated the entire premise of the game by having it tied into our own.
>Basic premise of the game is that we're trying to re-establish our people's presence and under scrutiny to make sure we're not being evil about it. Our saving grace is that we have more knowledge of these new homebrew threats than anyone else and because of that we basically bartered with a "We'll deal with this for you, you let us rebuild our power base" kind of deal.
>One shot that he runs has a group go and uncover old information about this threat, then deliver it to the people overseeing us and our progress.
>Comes to us asking about this and we respond as we usually do that we're experts (we're actually doing research in character to figure stuff out and have) and saying that we're on it.
>They throw the information recovered in our face, call us incompetent, and say we've offended their honor and will no longer treat us so nicely in the future (as though they were already).
>They're now only keeping us alive because...it's not explained. They no longer need us, don't like us, but if they just killed us the game would end.
>We express our frustration at this and bring up the exact point mentioned above, he is shocked, says that the information was meant to help us and it's our fault for responding like we always do. We attempt to illustrate how his antagonistic 'GM vs Player' mentality has been ruining our fun the entire game and he says that if we weren't botching our negotiations it wouldn't have happened.
>We bring up that's how he's had them talk to use the whole game and we had no reason to act otherwise.
>"Deal with it."

>>63478811
I'm hoping this ends with him raging at you quitting the game and you telling him to "deal with it". Please do elaborate either way, though.

>>63477161
>telling the player how much damage they take and what kind of save they should make
fucking metgamers, dude
>a thing approaches
>'what is it'
>roll something
>'what'
>just roll
>'what kind of dice?'
>one of them
>'uhhh.. i'll just roll this one, then. a 2.'
>you take damage

>>63479047
>letting the players know what they rolled
That only encourages metagaming, you should be rolling everything behind the DM screen to prevent players from deducing things like AC and save DCs that might impact future decisions.

>>63479241
If you replace the DM screen with an entire body hiding screen you will basically have orginial D&D.

>>63479241
The only kind of metagaming you should discourage is things the characters haven't learned yet. Stuff like "what are the stats of the monster" are evident, and once the players have encountered the monster ONCE you should freely be telling them to the players.

>>63479282
>>63479241
No, that's not how original D&D worked. The GM only rolled when the characters had a risk of messing up a tricky physical action.

There was no "I use perception to spot traps", you had to say "I look along the floor to see if there are tripwires or pressure plates" and if you don't do that you automatically trip them and get shot.

The GM described everything and you the player had to decide what to do. There was no metagaming because the characters weren't involved, you stated their actions.

It's one way to avoid metagaming, because if you knew it, your character knew it, and if you didn't know it, your character didn't either.

Not necessarily the best way to play, but it's a far sight from "I'm not going to tell you about something your character can see because otherwise you're going to metagame about it".

>>63479363
I actually had quite a few DMs in the early 80s that did all the rolls themselves.

>>63479409
How old are you?

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>>63468425
>That DM who retroactively builds a world
>My character slowly but surely becomes more of a weirdo because the DM keeps retroactively tweaking shit that makes him fit in the setting less
>Have to constantly revise his backstory with every nugget of lore the GM drops through handouts or NPCs that conflicts with some assumptions on my part
>Character is also seen as an idiot for not knowing stuff about the world that I don't even know OOC
>Whenever I try to have him act like he knows what should be the most basic things someone IC should know, I'm prompted to make a history or deception check
>Isn't just me either. One guy rolled a new character entirely because of how badly his last one stood out.
>Might as well be an isekai campaign if the party got out from the rocks they lived under instead of some portal

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>Regular D&D group switches over to World of Darkness, which only the GM has played
>We all do Werewolf, except one guy who INSISTS on doing a Mage
>The GM is non-confrontational and relents
>Everyone specs their characters different, gives them sensible backstories
>The one mage is the true heir to England and a secret billionaire
>Within three sessions he's given himself enough magical stuff to beat every single other person in the party, all of which he did offscreen, and he solves every single mission and issue by just pulling a solution out of his ass and saying magic made it happen
>Situations like:
>Me: "I have a drive stat of 4 so I'll drive."
>Mage: "WELL I take out my wallet and throw out my credit card which turns into an enchanted limousine that has the spirit of a horse in it so it drives itself and it can go into the Umbra through portals that it makes so it doesn't break when it crosses in and it also can..."
>Partymember: "These locals look kind of upset."
>Mage: "Well right then a bunch of brand new yachts all come down the shore and I say 'Everyone gets a new boat!' and they calm down."
>Partymember: "Alright, there are vampires, so we can-
>Mage: "I draw a sword that shoot sunlight from it out of my cane and it should immediately cause penalties to all the vampires that can see it!"
>Party regularly has to tell him to calm his shit down and let other people play too
>I eventually realize that 1) World of Darkness is a bullshit setting and 2) the GM will let me get away with anything
>After six sessions my werewolf builds a small atomic bomb that he carries in a briefcase
>I get the Mage to have a parlay with the vampire elders in the city, which he sets up because of all of his contacts in the world
>I detonate the bomb at the meeting, literally nuking the entire campaign
>We have a vote as to what game to play next
>It's literally everyone to 1 to never play World of Darkness again
I'm sure with a GM that actually enforces shit WoD would be fun.

>>63479409
Yeah, that's about what happened. You just say what your character attempts to do based on the information at hand, and the the GM rolls if you might fail at doing a task.

>>63479691
That sounds like a combination of the GM being a pushover AND allowing a mage in a non-mage game. Vampires and Werewolves can keep up with each other for the most part, but a mage blows them both out the water.

>>63479759
The player is a cunt even by the (very high) mage standards.

>>63479363
Any way to play that avoids the words, "but your character doesn't know that" is probably good. Anything is better than the verbal chore of either saying, "[my character] tells them that" or simply repeating whatever the DM just said out loud, but in character.

>>63475064
>>63475074
>>63475194
>>63475251
Damn you must be really mad, I've seen this story posted at least twice before.

Do you need someone to talk to, anon?

>>63478917
It was amicable at the time but later became a whole other can of worms which I can throw in later if you're interested, it's more interpersonal drama than anything else.
>>63478811
Looking back it's really easy to see that we were set dressing in a magical land of DMPCs. Here's a few of the highlights:
>Paired us up with a bunch of our mortal enemies who got a huge bonus to disguise based on homebrew penalties then had the oversight people make the checks without rolling to give us grief. Also never let us make the check again when they continued to act like our mortal enemies because...funny I guess?
>Oversight has a group working for them that is full of people who are actually evil and do evil things, but somehow are more trusted than we are.
>Oversight's pet evil people continuously try to rob us and bring us under their power, even had us forcibly take a huge loan from them at the start of the game (couldn't upkeep our stuff without it and didn't have a chance to explore other options). Used this to have them bully us into doing missions for them, which got us in more trouble with the oversight people though they never seemed to.
>Said evil people had homebrew gear and abilities that far outstripped the balance of the system, which he showed by letting us use it and decimating enemies like it was nothing.
I honestly think he really only did it to show what would happen if we tried to go against them.
>Every single time we attempted to deviate from the scripted mission or do something unexpected we were confronted with "If you do that your strongholds will be decimated and you'll lose personnel.", even if it didn't make any sense. (Like disease that we couldn't mitigate by appropriate medical checks or technical failure that couldn't be prevented with appropriate tech checks, or leadership failure that...well, the pattern has been established.)

>>63480214
>can't deviate from the script without getting threatened with murder
Why don't they just write a book instead?

>>63480323
You can't force people to read, but by gaining power over someone by GMing for them you can force them to listen to your shitty story at least for a while.

It's a good way to get a captive audience, when otherwise no-one at all would look at your shitty stories.

>>63480214
It was unfortunate because looking back the problems were very clear, the combative power dynamic was established from the start:
>You're the bitches of my DMPCs and there's nothing you can do about it.
The other frustrating part was that rules were modified to our detriment when it suited him and to his benefit when it suited him, and often were combined with the 'get on the rails' and 'player versus DM' mentality:
>Have an item in our possession that if we decide to use it requires resources to maintain operation but provides some cost saving benefits. It can be deactivated or simply not used, it would then just take up space but would otherwise not be an impediment. It can optionally consume a large number of resources at the cost of making a large area uninhabitable as a result then function for a long time without needing consumption or produce more cost saving benefits for the same period of time.
>Puts a timer on when it must consume said resources, if we do not constantly maintain it (and it goes down when used in the minigame for resources as well as in traditional RP setting) we have to use the secondary setting.
>The optional setting, clearly defined as optional in the rules.
>After getting bullied by our two DMPC wrangler organizations into doing missions back to back we aren't given the time to gather resources, though looking back we never actually had the choice, this was going to happen.
>Have to use the secondary function to wipe out a large area, making an enemy for life (the guy who framed our friendly NPC during the trial).
>Weren't allowed to buy material to consume it with our own resources, not allowed to modify the output with any technological/science checks, not allowed to find another area or bring it to the area under the power of something else.
>Not allowed to just shut it down, abandon it, replace it, or trade it in for something else.
The 'just as planned' moments like were many, because they were unavoidable.

>>63480323
The weird part is he had, in previous games, managed to figure out motivation without that. We had hoped there was a better endgame, but it was just abuse.
>>63480414
The really, and I mean really, frustrating part was that he would just flat out not give us information or change things without giving us a chance to figure it out and then be so proud of 'tricking us'.
>The DMPCs we interacted with were constantly shifting in attitude so that no matter what method we attempted to get them on our side we were always failing.
>When engaging in combat with things we did not understand got mad when we hadn't read the three books that are from a different publisher in the same universe that he pulled them from.
>He refused to tell us basic knowledge of what was and was not canon from the wealth of conflicting lore, then punished the wrong choice.
>(I wasn't directly here but heard later) During the final encounter in which the NPCs showed us up at every turn (they had a huge army, we had our small force and had we not engaged the 'big bad' they would have been more than capable of taking them out) he then throws in new mechanics that haven't been used before and says 'figure it out'.
>Group gets the snot beaten out of them, doesn't allow any applicable lore, detection, or really any skill to give them hints, just says 'wrong' or 'that won't work' until they finally realize that those superpowers we were given were the key.
>Or really, the one guy who had remade a character to specialize in all of them was key, because nobody could spare the XP to really get into them and be good at their other non-superpower tasks. (He would later claim that because someone hyper specialized into them and literally nothing else that the mechanics were perfectly balanced and sound.)
>Final encounter is lackluster and ends with, you guessed it, us still being indebted to the evil guys, being prosecuted by the oversight people, and still the whipping boys of the story.

>>63480550
What an ass. Glad to hear you got out early.

>>63480550
Any superpowers given should be on top of your build, not costing a shit ton of xp.

>>63480550
Finally, he changed events retroactively to our detriment. Before I left I set it up so that our people could eventually (and very soon comparatively) be free of at least the evil faction's bullying. Turns out he completely erased this action later.
>Open a grand and beautiful commercial area and invite persons of note from all over.
>Hold massive celebration and show booming business and development of our holdings to show how we're a good investment.
>Evil guy we owe money to sees it and I negotiate that all our interest will be a significant portion of the proceeds of this establishment.
>Use legal skills to include clauses that 'should it fail interest will not go back to traditional payments' and 'cannot be modified without oversight consent' and manage to out-lawyer their lawyer and hide it well in the contract.
>They sign, now we basically only owe the starting about borrowed which I intended in game to give them back as soon as we were done with the game.
>After I leave he has the evil guys rescue the party and as payment demand an increased interest rate on the loan or they'll just leave them here.
>Even though this means the loan won't be paid back as it was directly with the group, not the civilization at large.
>They are forced to barter and negotiate and wind up with a return to the original interest rate, which was so high that we would be eternally indebted.
>They then mock the trading hub as stupid and inefficient because their way of bringing the goods to the client is much better.
>They have a homebrew modification to their stuff that gives them the equivalent of millions of dollars just for showing up somewhere.
>This ability also makes it more difficult for players to find and sell things, but not anyone else.
I will say that none of the players remembered the contract or brought it up, but reinforces the selective rules as the NPCs who had copies didn't ever question them or help us (even our own logicians/lawyers).

>>63475571
>even blocks your meta gaming attempts very politely
who fucking cares about metagaming

>the villagers describe a massive red lizard attacking their town
"wow, I bet it's a fucking dragon. whoops, the game is now RUINED because a mild surprise has been spoiled"

>>63480616
I tried my hardest, I know how hard it is to DM and tried to work with it, but it was just a never ending stream of 'gotcha' moments that were born out of adversarial nature rather than organically developed in game. Like if he had had that guy whose area we destroyed instead be a member of Oversight who wasn't happy with our affiliation with the evil guys he could have framed us because of that. We could have had a staunch ally in Oversight who wanted to use our close relationship with the evil guys to overthrow them and lessen their influence, but they're his super special DMPCs so they will always be there, and had in fact through multiple games. It was just such a bevy of wasted opportunities and moments that could have been so great that got frustrating.
>>63480667
We attempted to explain this. I mathematically showed him that it would cost us roughly 25% of our total XP we would ever earn and cost us significantly in attributes, skills, and benefits. He even could have given them to us at certain XP increments, like what they would have cost summed up! I provided the numbers for that too! But....he was so convinced his homebrew was good that he refused to change it.
>>63480550
Forgot to mention, for the final battle they had to use special items that could only be upgraded through the mining minigame that were sub-par because of the initial misunderstanding. He didn't re-balance the encounter or let them use anything that wasn't the superpowers or said items. Literally nothing we did that wasn't homebrew was going to matter in the end.

>>63479759
>>63479790
It was probably a combination of both, honestly. I know it's possible to punish the fuck out of Mages for biting off more than they can chew, and he was clearly doing that regularly without consequences.

Well, I don't have a good story, but I can copy paste one of my former player's backstories for his third character in the game.

"I was chased from my home realm during the blood war. I fled to this realm to help regain my full strength and to get stronger then I ever thought I could be before returning and punishing those who drove me from my home. For now I turn to the mortal realm who's weak pray will make for easy targets. While the human champions will prove a decent challenge. For now I need to find some friends iv been reduced to my lesser strength (caugh negative levels). So for now I need to fight I need to build my strength. A party of like minded people may prove to further my goals for now. I approach threw the woods and marsh to find a road and a wagon that seems to be heading back from town. Maybe I'll follow it see what they are made off
At least I have my chains with me they stay strong when I can not. I will keep them with me to gain my strength
Slushing threw the swamp I don't believe any of the other devils managed to follow me threw the portal I made to get here. I damn near died in the fight to get out. But I'm here now. And hah the smell of sulfur is about the same here as it was down below. It was hell down there litterly. At least for now it seems I have some peace. But it's slow going and it's making my chains are getting all wet I hope they don't rust. But my pets are getting restless."

The first one was just as bad, but I have it printed out, this one was saved in a text file.

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>>63480799
Tell me you played this when you were in your early teens

>>63480799
Oh, I should mention he was playing a Chain Devil/Kyton from Savage Species in 3.5. Showed up with 3 20's in his stats, which is possible but requires some pretty fucking good rolls with the dice to do. Of course he rolled at home, so they were all legit.

>>63480828
Ha, no. The guy was 22.

>>63480684
The other thing that was just a twisting of the knife was that when we failed (and we failed often thanks to the ruined XP progression and 'only for us' situational modifiers) we failed in the worst way possible.
>Failed a vehicle check of some kind: Well good job fuckup you re-enacted the Titanic and killed hundreds of your people.
>Failed at a social check: Good job fuckup he think's you're a fuckup and will never think otherwise.
>Failed a technology check: Good job fuckup it's broken and will never work again.
>Failed a survival check (this one pertains to the 'footprint' discussion taking place alongside my posts): Good job fuckup you don't know what anything is on this planet and you'll never again get another chance to know.
>For scientific skills: You're not in a lab or library? You can't make the check, you have to have the appropriate references. Good job fuckup.
We talked about the last point for a long time about how that wasn't sensible since half the skills directly related to exploration. I managed to get him to admit he was wrong by more or less tricking him. I told him that by his logic I wouldn't know standing here that the quadratic formula is (b+/-ROOT(B^2-4AC))/2a and intentionally left the - off in the front. He corrected me and I said "So by your game logic you realize you wouldn't have been able to correct me without a math book present?"
He begrudgingly let us use skills like "Wildlife Identification" and "History" outside of the library after that.

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>>63480847
>The guy was 22

I hope he gets well soon, anon. Clearly he's taken one or several hard blows to the head.


I like coming to That Guy threads because it puts my groups minor antics into perspective. Sometimes it's tough GMing for them, but there's no ill intent and very little plot-destroying activity.
Reading all the shit /tg/ has put up with makes me love them. I'm 99% sure none of them would count as That Guy.

>>63468425
>everyone’s picking their classes
>we have a barbarian, ranger, bard and Druid
>everyone but the Druid is all set
>hold on guys I have to choose my spells first
>meticulously combs over every square inch of the players guide spell list
>20 minutes actually pass and he’s only chosen 1
>”Anon, can you please just pick two more already, choose the shit that helps us since no one chose a healing role.
>this stupid fucking idiot chooses jump, longstrider, and produce flame
>DM asks him if he’s really sure about his choices since his choice of spells are pretty fucking useless
>has the balls to say “I”m going to play my character however I want”.
I can’t even begin to comprehend how he managed to even learn to walk on two legs

>>63481007
Produce Flame isn't the worst thing, and Jump has some use. But Longstrider? Especially taking it alongside Jump

>>63480905
In the end the game was a great teaching moment. Like with the 'you don't know what the footprint looks like' thing posted above, that's the way this GM would have handled it and I always try to do it differently.
If a character fails it's not fun to hear "Well you just fucked up". Finding a good reason and giving a piece of the information that anyone could glean is usually a better way to go. Like with the survival to ID the footprint:
>"Well I rolled a 2, total 7 to ID it"
>My GM's response: Good job fuckup you don't know about wildlife at all. Anyone else want to try at a penalty since he's spewing incorrect nonsense and not fuck it up as bad?
>My response: "Based on the tracks it looks like an X-legged creature with paws/claws/talons. You're not sure exactly what kind, the terrain is too muddy/dry/overgrown to provide an accurate footprint. The trail is unclear from this footprint but if you orient yourself you might be able to follow it (giving a bonus to the next roll).
Both are completely legitimate ways to respond to that roll, the difference is that the first tends to make a player feel like they have little impact on the world and attempts to do stuff will be punished. The second gives minimal information that anyone with skill in the task would notice and tends to make the player feel like their character is actually contributing to the world. It also progresses the story while the first bogs down the session in meaningless rolls until you can continue.
That's the major points from that game but I do have some other 'gotcha' moments from other games that I've both played in and heard about. I can also go into what will, forever more, be the 'dumbest discussion I've ever been a part of' that involved the people from this group.

>>63481042
One of my other GM's was psuedo-adversarial.
The difference is that his gotchas were legit and he loved creativeness. The first line alone will probably color some perceptions.
>First time playing a GURPS game, bounty hunters in the future traveling the galaxy and capturing/murdering people for money.
>Decide to make a ship and have to put boatloads of points into money due to prices, will pay off in the long run since we don't have to pay for a ship with a cut of profits.
>Wind up with less skill points everywhere else so focus on piloting and mechanics to keep the ship running.
>GM helps make the character and when I ask if character is good to go, says it is.
>First session, urban planet, driving around while someone tails the bounty. Get message he's going inside. I pull over to park and follow.
>"Make a Navigation (Land) check to find a parking garage"
>"Wait, that's a skill?"
>"Yeah. Roll it."
>"I don't have it, can I still try?"
>"The Default is IQ-5"
>"My car has GPS, can I just use that?"
>"Okay. You can move to intercept."
The fact that he neglected to tell me that navigation (land) would be important was kind of a dick move, but he won back the points for immediately saying 'oh, yeah, that'll work' when I said I had a GPS.
He did however get a few minus points later when we met a contact who was an 'off the grid' informant who wanted a comm frequency they could use at a public unit.
>"Okay, so I guess I'll write one of my burner comm unit's numbers on a sheet of paper and give it to him."
>"Did you buy a paper and pencil?"
>"Those actually have prices and stats? My character is literally worth 500 million dollars can we say that I've purchased some with the millions of dollars I had left over and I'll retroactively deduct it?"
>"Unfortunately you don't have it so no."
>"I guess since he's off the grid and we're near a dumpster I'll find a piece of cardboard and ask to borrow a sharpie."
>"That'll work, moving on..."

>>63480943
Supposedly he had an inoperable brain tumor. Which I think was a lie, because he used that as an excuse for everything from "I haven't submitted my backstory for 4 weeks." to "I want to play a new character now that we have played one session with my previous one."

I mean, I've had plenty of That Guy's in my group. Hell, in the same group we had a chick who kept screaming shit in a bad Russian accent and a guy who demanded I rewrite an entire chunk of the setting because he misunderstood the meaning of cabal and thought that because he was the son of someone in it, he was somehow royalty.

>>63481231
>>63481231
The big difference between him and that first GM is that he wanted us to find solutions and move the game forward however and was generally pretty cool about it. He also let me rebuild my character after the first session since I understood the mechanics much better. He also let me just spend a half million dollars for 'incidental' items like office supplies and little stuff like that in a shipping container on the ship because he realized that it would be a logistical nightmare to track it all. That got rid of all of the frustrations from the first sessions and showed that he was willing to work with us. Since he was one of my first GMs it really showed me how to properly handle when things like that come up and be willing to admit "huh, you have a point, I was wrong." It might also have colored my conceptions of that other GM a bit too.
That's not to say there weren't a couple of missions that didn't favor a technical rules understanding that made us groan later.
>Dealing with a 'haunted' space station that took inspiration from Space Station 13 in that one guy had cut a bunch of improvised access panels to vacuum that somehow flawlessly lined up with the ship's multiple bulkheads (applied a needlessly high penalty) that somehow never messed with pressure differential.
>Read the swarm rules and attacked us with a giant cloud of bees due to difficulty of repelling them, which really only wound up hurting the one person who wasn't environmentally contained.
>Originally saying it would be more hard Sci-Fi then adding in Gravity Plating a la Dead Space. This would have saved me millions of dollars in ship construction and allowed for a lot more options and space but while it existed he never mentioned it until months after I had spent millions on a major ship overhaul, was frustrating to find out after the fact.

That was a fun game on the whole but had a lot of rules technicalities which could get frustrating.

>>63475194
>>New campaign. Last one was retconned due to TPK, and everyone gets to keep their characters. Except the necromancer. Because it's a homebrew class, also fuck him.
Retconning is always gay and stupid.

>>63481505
Generally yes, but I'd rather see newer DMs say "yeah I made a huge mistake" than double down and sink an entire session.

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>>63481505
>>63481582
I had a campaign, the players begged me to retcon an encounter that went poorly.
>Fighting a Flesh Golem half of them died to a trap on the exit door, the Sorcerer fled and died to another trap in the dungeon, and the Fighter wasn't even using a magic weapon against it.

Took it back to when they all got hit by an AoE trap and fluffed it as a nightmare illusion. That was my biggest mistake. Now everything because a shitshow. One player purposefully setting off every trap he could to show how "unbalanced" the dungeon was, arguments over how monsters worked and why the Flesh Golem was too high level for them to fight even after I had retconned away the encounter, etc.

I eventually just had enough of their shit and quit.

>>63481643
What I was more referring to was incredibly bad DMing decisions like >>63473533 >>63473802, where my DM doubled down onto a panic decision to force things back to where he wanted it, as opposed to "we died please un-die us instead." Your group was a bunch of little shits.

>>63481264
I pray you'll find better groups in the future, anon.

>>63481643
DnD is dumb and hard to balance especially with the mundane weapons resistance everybody and their mother has

>>63481503
From an experience one of my friends had with him he comes off as much worse than this.
>Playing Battlelords, fun but crunch heavy system but has some interesting lore to go with it.
>Player is playing an Eridani, which are basically space samurai and super honorable about melee combat.
>Another player is a Phentari, basically a space Illithid that loves to eat not just brains but entire other sentient species.
>They get pinned down when attempting to extract after an operation and take up firing positions, the dice turning against them.
>As they get close GM asks friend "What do you do?"
>Not wanting to leap into the barrels of dozens of weapons he sensibly holds position.
>Phentari player charges forward, not wanting to go out like a punk.
>Dice begin to turn in their favor, weapon malfunctions and creative use of explosives and environment turns the tide in their favor, but they're still pinned down and the Phentari has taken a decent beating.
>Eridani player is again asked what he wants to do, continued to do an excellent job providing covering fire.
>GM asks "Are you sure?" but doesn't explain why. Neither does Phentari player who knows lore of the system. He continues to choose life over probable death.
>End of the mission the after action report goes out and the campaign wraps up. Everyone gets an 'after credits' scene except the Eridani player, who is informed that they are executed for cowardice upon returning home.
>In the lore the Eridani are super honorable and would never allow a Phentari to show them up in melee combat, but neither of the two who knew this told the player. The GM then punished him for an action that he wouldn't have taken had it been explained what his character knew and understood.
That's probably the most 'that GM' moment I've ever heard from him, it's the quintessence of 'gotcha by being obtuse' that just doesn't feel fair. It colored the perceptions of the player and he's never played with him again.

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>>63469234

>>63481721
It wouldn't be so bad if some things were at least non-resistant to something particular. Like sure, have flesh golems resist arrows and hammers, but they're covered in stitches and made of flesh. Have slashing weapons do better against them

>>63481807
I feel in that case, a damage threshold would work better.

i.e. the Flesh Golem could soak up 90 points of damage in it's slashing resist pool with any damage dealt in one time exceeding 10 coming through. After the 90 points has been exceeded, the stitches are ruptured or something vital like a muscle is cut and a small movement debuff such as Slow is applied.

In my case, the players literally ignored everything that told them how to defeat the golem, including the notes in the study of the guy who made the thing, and hit it with lightning four turns in a row, healing all the damage they had dealt to it.

>>63481785
>he's never played with him again
This is a good decision.

>>63481799
My DM does this all the time and I hate it.
>yep, that sure is a tree
>yep, that water sure is sparkly
>yep, you're in a cave alright
It wasn't funny the first time, and we're well past the first time.

>>63481856
I do like how resistance is a simpler mechanic. A flesh golem only has like 120 HP anyway. The bigger thing would just be giving a reason to use different damage types as well as ensuring mundane characters can have a way around those sorts of creatures.

The players outright ignoring the capabilities of such a creature is a separate issue though, since even knowing that it has a weakness doesn't do anything if they let it get zap-healed over and over.

>Multiple players have lost family members to cancer. Recently.
>GM is aware of this, he was at the funerals.
>Perfect time to have the party fight a cancer mage and have him aggressively attack the most recently bereaved.

You know what makes it worse? It's not like it was a random encounter he overlooked or anything. He had that shit written down in his notes. He wrote it down, presumably read it back to himself at least once before running it and then again during the session, and not once did it sink it that it was a monumentally shitty thing to do to people you call a friends. It's just a level of oblivious self centeredness that I find impossible to comprehend.

>>63481785
Okay, one final story then I have to take care of other stuff: The stupidest conversation I've ever had.
>Bunch of friends discussing 40kRPGs, specifically Rogue Trader Xenos races and they're lamenting that Tau won't ever be officially playable (weren't at the time).
>Me: "You know there's actually a couple of ways they could get to that side of the galaxy."
>Them: "It's not possible, their engines are too slow."
>Me: "True, but there's the possibility of warp malfunction with the integrated Tau Human Fleets..."
>Them: Bullshit! Those aren't a thing!
>Me: If you just google it you'll find it.
>Them: "Don't need to it's not a thing."
>Me: *sighing* "There's also the webway which could bring them there, Dark Eldar raid all over and bring back to their bases in the Expanse. Then there's the worst kept secret in the 40kRP, the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate. Inquisitors have been known to work with Tau canonically and could bring them through that way, and that's just three off the top of my head."
>Them: "Well shows what you know because it's impossible and it'll never happen."
>Me: "I just gave three ways it's possible..."
>Them: *Proceed to tell me I'm wrong and stupid and know nothing of 40k for 20-30 minutes and I drop it.*
Several weeks later The Soul Reaver is released and includes, on page 128, a "Brutalised Tau Fire Warrior" who was taken by Dark Eldar raids and dropped in the Expanse.*
>Me: "Hey, did you guys see the new book? It's got a Tau captured by the Dark Eldar!"
(Bear in mind that my tone is not "fuck you you're wrong!" but, "check it out! It's hillarious that this happened so soon after we were discussing it!")
>Them: "WE FUCKING KNEW YOU WOULDN'T LET IT GO! YOU WERE STILL WRONG BECAUSE IT WASN'T PRINTED YET!"
>Me: "Thats...not how reading comprehension and deductive reasoning work, I figured it out based on context and lore..."
>Them: "YOU. WERE. STILL. WRONG."
>Me: "That's just not how that works but okay."
(continued in next post)

>>63475144
>In his defense
Nah it's absolutely retarded to not be able to give a player a general description of if a footprint's size, shape, and things like if it's got toes or cloves. Not being able to obfuscate what it actually is while giving a description (or refusing to do so) just makes you a shitty DM.
Don't come back with "the numbers don't match and that's what the rules say" if I wanted that I'd be playing one of those single player RPGs.

>>63482010
>was right
>YOU. WERE. STILL. WRONG.
lel

>>63482010
Them: *Proceed to literally start yelling at me about how I'm an imbecile and don't understand lore and that I was wrong because my conclusion hadn't been printed in anything yet.*
Me: *Tries to explain that just because something isn't specifically printed doesn't mean there aren't overarching themes you can draw on*
Them: *Get more and more hostile and keep it going even after I've tried to drop it*
And that was the dumbest conversation I've ever had regarding gaming. I wound up getting heated too by the end of it because it was so difficult to comprehend how basic logic and deduction was escaping these people, some of whom were studying to be engineers. That and any defense I mounted was yelled down which gets REALLY old after the first few times.
It was a really fascinating and terrifying exposure to actual Orwellian Groupthink, anyone who had a varying opinion was literally shouted out.
Another example is when they tried to mirror 40k munitions to real world ones. I pulled up a picture of a guardsman with an autogun that is clearly an M16 (5.56 rounds normally) and the scale models of the weapons they have around Games Workshop which easily disprove what they were saying. They had attributed 5.56 caliber to (I believe) human bolt weapons. They did not take kindly to my input and yelled me down, even with photographic evidence supplied. Anyone who saw and conceded I might have a point was treated to an attack on my character and intelligence from multiple people.
Groupthink is a hell of a drug I suppose. And please note this isn't me saying "All 40k fans are like this", this is me saying "These particular fans are like this about everything they read, including Star Wars, Lord of the RIngs, and anything else." They frankly try ruin things for others if they don't enjoy them EXACTLY the same way they do, it's depressing.

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>>63477161
You know what, I want to run an encounter where the creature is blanking the parties mind as they fight so that this actually happens. I could have it so that their ac and saves against this thing are lower the next turn when they fail to percieve what it is.
>it does something, you cant percieve what though you feel great pain in your arm. Your mind feels hazy as you cant comprehend the nature of the wound.
I think it would really freak the players out making them wonder how terrifying this creature is, that may actually be a little guy with mind powers.

>>63482229
>5.56 is a bolter round
The fuck? Have these people ever seen 5.56?

>>63482307
My point as I showed the autogun guy next to a bolter guy was basically a nicer way of saying that:
>"This guy's actually using an M-16, and you can see the rounds the bolter guy is using are much larger, definitely much bigger than anything but really large modern munitions.
Which being Gyrojet rounds makes sense.
Guess what that was met with?
>>63482038
It's a shitload funnier looking back at it but this wound up being how they treated literally everything I said after a while, just because I didn't follow 40k lore EXACTLY the same way they did.

They were also not great at running games themselves, one ran an Only War game and did like the first GM I mentioned in that he tweaked rules to try and kill as many of us as possible. Another literally can't improvise and must have a script. We used to have a competition for 'who can gm best on the spot', you got 3 words, had to make an adventure, then run it and incorporate all 3. They wanted to participate but said 'we should have a day to prepare'. Think they missed the whole point. Another one never grew past 3.PF and Monty Hauls their games and has issues balancing encounters (partly due to who they played with I imagine). The GM later said they were going to stop running because, and I quote:
>"I don't have any more stories to tell."
Which, seeing the railroading in the rearview, makes a lot of sense. But how in the hell do you run out of stories in a literal GALAXY of stories? Say what you will about 40k, there's a limitless well to create stories, explore tropes and ideas, and create characters. It's just kind of...disheartening.

So yeah, that's the kind of people who were in that dysfunctional group, we've gone our separate ways and I've fallen out of touch with them but I honestly hope they're doing well. We don't game or see things the same way but they taught me something valuable (even if it messed me up for a few years in the process).

>Be weaker than the rest of the party
>GM doesn't acknwoledge this
>Fall unconscious evertime
>Party has to wait for me to recover for injures in cities everytime
>GM in some encounter focus fires me and kills me
>He seems visible happy, guess I complained a little about my condition of comical relief
>Next sessions when he realizes I was the only one keeping the main plot going on and everybody else literally starts to do random shit, going to random places and avoiding the main plot
It was really satifying, also I hid the macguffing, they didn't even bother to find it though. GM tried to retcon everything but my death but that out him even more of that GM and players outright told him no.

>>63483061
>killing the only player who was going along with your railroad

Karma is lovely sometimes

>pretty much TPK over pretty unfair and unavoidable battle that enve yielded anything good (we didn't save the civilians)
>2 PCs, best friends of my PC, died
>My PC lost an arm
>RP heavy depression, PTSD, etc from there
>GM acts like I'm a cunt avoiding his plot hooks etc
Yeah, clearly someone who lost his two best friends and an arm, which literally reduced his combat capabilities a 80% (archer), yeah, clearly he should keep looking for enemies and shit and not drown his sadness in liquor

>>63468875
None of those things are really your fault. The first story, well it was the players' choice to flee. I guess you could have forced the confrontation with some contrivance, but to me that seems inorganic. If the players want to go get the big guns that's up to them. Now, you could always have had said big guns be otherwise occupied, I'll touch on that later.

As to the second, maybe having only one enemy was a bad idea considering the mechanics of the crit, but is it your fault they critted?

But hopefully you've learned some lessons and can figure out how to roll with the punches. There's nothing really wrong with deciding after the fact that -Oh shit, there's more than one terrorist-"

By the same token you could have done that with the flatwoods monster and have the monster's cohort take down your "big guns" in a surprise attack forcing your players to improvise.

Basically, if you feel like something was short and unsatisfying for you and your players, feel free to spice it up. You didn't do anything wrong, but there were things you could have done to turn it around into something your players would like.

>>63483187
This. Bad dms need to take a page from game design and understand what risk-reward cycles are. A game is not fun if it's all risk with no reward. That should be fucking obvious. But apparently it's not to like half of the random dms out there.

>>63483187
I would say at that point you should just say the character retires, takes up drinking with his meager spoils, etc. rather than just keeping him around to not do anything with, but that's making a lot of assumptions.

Better to just reroll with the other players rather than stick with a depressed cripple

>>63483255
I had been playing that char for years, the game started as more heroic and happy ending kind of game and slowly, wihtout we noticing it, GM turned it into grimderp shit. Also similar to what another anon said, we were tied to the plot and retiring my char, the only one left, would mean the story ended there. If you're going to do that start a new game don't keep the same.

>>63483289
Fair enough, though it might still have been better to sink it and show the DM that it was his encounter that really ended the campaign

>>63483289
That's not true, you just have your character find a promising group of disciples (the next characters you all roll) and he becomes their mentor and trains them to finish what he started with the story. It's the perfect hook. Why haven't you thought of this? Why hasn't your DM thought of it?

>>63483370
>Hey guys, yes, you, you have to save this girl who is my friend, yeah I know you don't know her because her only family it's me and my two dead friends, so go save her.

>>63483768
That's still really easy to write around, you have to be more creative than Rian Johnson to do it though. For example:

>Mentor your new character
>New character sees your old character as a father figure
>New character becomes capable fighter
>Old character finds location of friend he's trying to save
>Huge confrontation with BBEG
>BBEG kills girl AND the old character
>New character survives and wants revenge for death of old character/father figure

There you go. You now have the same essential plot hook with a brand new character.

>>63483768
>plot is to save girl
>DM has gone full grimderp

She's already dead

>>63475673
Literally the try-hardest ineffectual insult I've seen all week. So much childish shrieking for so little an effect.

>>63475732
>flailing out blindly like an child lost hopelessly in a blind rage
Holy shit, this is a goldmine of laffs

>>63476920
>>63477161
>>63477221
>>63477341
CoC is a fun system

>>63482257
>>63484427
This shitpost actually would make an unironically good mechanic for horror games. Is this horseshoe theory at work?

>Running 3.5e
>New campaign, new players
>That Guy makes his standard "hit things with a stick" dwarf
>Constantly derails any chance of conversation with NPCs, always doing stupid shit to fight guards and makes the others get him out of jail, is ALWAYS trying to drink or eat fucking anything he finds
>Ale, unidentified potions, fucking giant spiders, everything and anything
>Attempts to make him fuckin knock it off never work, his character dies every 2 sessions and he just makes a vaguely different one or rotates between a coward monk or the fucking dwarf
>Never does anything except just try to fight shit
>Only time he wasn't a fucktard was when he played a half-orc "bigguneggi", which was a shitty google translate result for "big green onion"
>Lawful Neutral, never backed down from fights but wouldnt just randomly start shit, had fuckall charisma and would speak in-character with a comically thick japanese announcers voice
>Actually made sense and fit his crap playstyle
It was me.
I was that guy for so long.
I regret so much.

>>63484580
Ive certainly commited myself to running it sooner rather than later. The players are just starting to get away from the horror side of the campaign so maybe a sudden yet brief dunk in the cold water would be good

You know, I think a lot of 'that guy' players can be solved if you have one of your players become a "check" of sorts to them to make sure they stop them IC if anything dumb happens.

>>63484923
>3.5
Nothing good will follow.

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>>63484923
You are forgiven, anon. Go forth, and sin no more.

>>63485187
>be playing 5e
>everyone is having good time
>no problems whatsoever
>very rp focused, with a little combat
>DM switches to 3.5 after reading the rules
>suddenly, everyone is 'that guy' and is rolling up furry characters that run around naked and kill people
>the DM starts eating the players
>everyone has a fist fight and 3 of our players are sent to the hospital, one dying of injuries days later
fucking 3.5

>>63469234
what's the problem? you failed the roll, so you don't knos what it looks like.

>>63475124
no you can't.

>>63486255
well, I can trust my players

>>63475234
he doesn't deserve to know shit, i don't care if he memorized the full stat block for every monster that's ever been published in every game ever made

>>63475256
if you roll 1 to open a door, you fail to open the door
if you roll 1 to id a print, you fail to id the print

>>63482501
Why are you friends with them, again?

>>63475581
you failed the roll, you don't know the lore. stay mad :)

>>63475668
ability check determines how good you are

>>63475721
yikes

>>63475753
t. nigger

>>63475854
mary sue's meaning has never been lost

>>63476055
as long as at least one molecule is moving, it's flowing

>>63476271
correct

>>63476780
should've passed the check if you wanted to know what it looked like

>>63486321
>I move to the tavern door and open it
>"roll perception"
>crap a natural 1
>"you don't see any way to open the door"

>>63477221
only mistake is the player forgot to roll intelligence to see if they were able to decide to think about their injuries

>>63486604
Too precise a definition to be practically thematic, it's clear folklore sources are referring to running water such as rivers and streams not still bodies like ponds and lakes, hell Dracula even crossed the English channel.

>>63486617
Do you think that's absurd?

>>63477869
metagaming fagggot

>>63477926
why aren't your games already like that? there's no other way to play

>>63477959
because my standards are objectively correct.

>>63483768
Nah dude, you continue to show your lack of creativity. He mentors them because they want to become stronger and he's known to have been very skilled before losing his arm. In time he opens up and tells them about what happened and his unfinished business. If they don't offer to help them there he tries to do it himself, gets mortally wounded, and his last request to the party is to avenge him and finish his quest. If they still don't want to do it, it wasn't meant to be.

>>63478496
>he just doesn't like trees
based and dwarfpilled

>>63478531
DM is in the right

>>63479341
wrong

>>63479671
Deal with it.

>>63476780
This is so sad that its true, but it makes it very funny

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>>63468425
>that guy who only plays white hetero male cis human characters

>>63477161
>which direction does it come from?
ok roll to see if you remember which way is north
>wat?

>>63486641
Nothing wrong with that if there is, for some reason, a need to roll that check.
It's silly. It's a game anon. It's meant to be fun and light hearted.

>>63481042
I don't give a fuck what's "fun to hear". if you wanted to have fun you shouldn't have failed, bitch.

>>63475311
lets be real here this is how a good GM would do it.

>Me: Hm this trail leading up the bad guy's hideout looks suspicious so I check the entire path thoroughly for raised mounds of dirt and wires!
>DM: okay make an observation roll
>Me: But I'm already looking I've specified a direct action...
>which will grant you a bonus to looking for that specific type of trap and a penalty if there is a trap of a different kind, please roll.
>ME: Roll
>DM: looks like you do manage to spot a few wires presumably attacked to traps. you're gonna disarm them, right?
>Me: yeah totally
>DM: cool also you catch a wire at chest level which you only just barely notice.

>>63487023
>I order a drink in the bar
>"Roll con"
>nat 1
>"a natuRAL 1!? THAT NEVER HAPPENS! You go blind because the alcohol was really strong hahahahaHAHAHAHA"

>>63486972
>roll unmodified wisdom to see if you can remember which direction your character was facing before trying to remember which way was north to try and figure out which direction the creature you were trying to figure out the origin of did something you couldn't figure out that might have hurt you

>>63487095
don't be a nigger faggot. one is anti-fun and just holds up the game, the other is pro fun and allows you to recover from failure