Gotta be honest, this doesn't exactly sound like "mild" main character syndrome to me. Mans over here havin a full on hissy fit over not being the center of attention constantly
Sadly, this IS mild. He was not DEMANDING up to fifteen hours of one on one roleplay with the DM between each and every session, with full XP rewards for such "because obviously I should be much more powerful than the other characters, but it wouldn't be fair for you to just do what you realistically should and give me 600% XP compared to them, so instead just give me five times as much time in the spotlight and we'll be fine".
The fact that he wanted everyone to treat him like a baby because "am smol" is very funny to me, because I play as a tiny barbarian who wants to do the opposite and carries around one of the other party members (they're also short, but slightly taller than my barbarian)
I remember in one campaign I was in I was a large homebrew barbarian/druid. I carried our tiefling rogue on my back. Eventually I carried two more party members on my head 24/7. I was then carrying the majority of the party through journeys and combat. Only leaving the dragonborn off. It was hilarious and one of the best campaigns I was apart of.
@@Nyghtking tiny chaos barbarians are the best >:D our DM allowed the use of hombrew races as long as they were reviewed by him prior to session 0, so my barbarian is a tiny bipedal cat who carries around our paladin
I’ve been wanting to make a Goliath Barbarian that gets cursed to become a Kobold, in order to “learn some humility”, with the curse eventually being lifted off of him, only to end up as a Dragonborn. Yea, he’d have this giant weapon he’d refuse to let go of just because he’s a kobold, because that’s his hammer! No one touches his hammer but him!
Hey! This is the DM from this all. Forgot to add, for the first session, I took the approach of, "everyone meets by accident and works together because combat," to double as introductory, see strategies, and to get the main plot rolling. Combat was rough, I was still trying to figure out Roll20, and so OP (a lovely artist, thanks Lemon) for sketching up a combat map. It was simple, fun, and straightforward. After wrapping up, they left the area and was just heading back. There was very little on skill checks (because combat took up most of the session) and he tells me, "I wanna see more skill checks!" I was baffled at such, because of how little was done at the time. He also made me sketch up not one, but THREE towns just for his backstory. Whole towns, not just little hamlets or villages. He also wanted me to use a lot of the feywild, I don't know how to run the feywild and had to do serious research on just that to make it appropriate, and as it tied into his backstory and homebrew race, I didn't wanna skimp out. So when I told him to just homebrew some lore, he came back with those homebrew stats too. We weren't gonna post this originally, I felt it was a bit tame and uninteresting. Turns out I was wrong. Hindsight on it all, I should have done it sooner. First time I was playing in two years, first time DMing in three, sorry guys. But thank you all for the support! OP and I appreciate it! Thanks Critcrab for the read! Stay saucy everyone!
Thank you for, at the very least, telling him to fuck off with that magic resist nonsense. It almost sounds like he was the only/golden child in his family and, as a result, got his way a lot and was spoiled. He sounds insufferable.
I was legitimately shocked to hear this guy was playing a Lalafel with the whole main character syndrome thing going on... aaaand then I remembered how most male NPC Lalas are written in FFXIV. That said, the whole "am smol uwi" and "carry me!" bs is absolutely not what ANY Lala does, PC or NPC. They're always independent and are just as capable of dealing with the same shit as the rest of the races in Eorzea.
I feel like this was partly the DM's fault for not controlling the problem player. Whenever a player or one part of the group is engaged in rp for an extended period of time, I keep an eye on the excluded players. If they start to look like they're losing interest, then that particular situation has dragged on too long, so I either subtly hurry things along or pivot the story back to the others for a bit and start switching back and forth instead of focusing on one for too long. The DM is the director of the game, it's up to them to keep player engagement as balanced as possible. I also feel like main character syndrome is pretty easy to spot, and should be shut down as early as possible to avoid potential breakdowns when things are too far along.
Sounds like our "main character" was playing their Lalafell summoner from FFXIV, so they had the creativity level you might expect from their kind. He was even playing it wrong since Lalafell are easily capable of interacting with human-size stuff due to being stronger and more agile than they look, they don't generally need help from taller races.
Reminds me of my first character being a Lalafell who started out as Gladiator lol. Set her to the lowest height possible while my friend was playing alongside me as a male Roegadyn Thaumaturge set to max height. The size difference was amazing and we even managed to take screencaps that made it look like the Roegadyn was sitting on my Lalafell’s lap. It was also funny to go into the emotes and make my Lalafell look fed up with the Roegadyn’s shenanigans while the Roegadyn looked giddy as all hell
I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of Main character syndrome in the past and although it was unintentional once I realised I was doing so, I spoke to my group apologised and now im constantly striving to do better. Sometimes we can get absorbed in our characters and thats okay but just be aware of the other players at your table. A character moment is more fun when everyone can enjoy it not just you.
See i have the opposite problem. I try my hardest NOT to be a main character, but somehow always get picked to be leader or speaker or some important main role.
Playing a "I'm tiny and get carried" character can be fun, but it's only fun when everyone else around you decided "THEYRE SMALL I GOTTA CARRY THEM" rather than demanding they do so.
Yeah. like I have a small Kobold character I played in a group, who occasionally rides on the shoulder on one of the other characters. BUT... that was discussed with that player when we made our characters, so it was consented, and worked into our characters. Also it wasn't a constant thing as my Kobold was perfectly capably of walking by herself, she mostly just "hitched a ride" when needing to reach higher stuff, or if she was tired and the friend was okay with it, or when tagging that character along into the academy, because then i got in easier due to his "she's with me" sorta thing. So yeah, it can absolutely work, if done in a way that is okay with everyone at the table. :3
We have a wizard like that. He's human and our Goliath carries him around, but less because "I'm small" and more because he's basically a walking bomb with his build and the Goliath thinks he'll explode if not carried.
Funny isn't it, how "homebrew" so often ends up really meaning "I wanna be the OP thing from that game/anime/etc" ;p It's a pity because homebrew can be so much fun, when it's done with heart and creativity.
What's crazy is that out of all of the races in FF he picked the one who is very strong and fast despite their height then played it like they couldn't do much cause of their height.
homebrew doesn't have to be original it just has to be something that's not in official dnd source materials... betting their character is just their lalafell black mage though.
First time GM's typically don't know better and a lot of veteran GM's have conflict averse personality types because they're principally storytellers, which when taken to an extreme can lead to them being doormatted by players with more forceful personalities, especially if the other players at the table similarly don't stand up and stick up for the GM. It's been a long long time since most GM's coming to the table are doing so from a wargaming or other competitive background, most GM's in the last fifteen or so years are principally story builders and that doesn't always lend itself to being confrontational or even assertive with problem players.
You're right but assertiveness and the ability to stand up for yourself and others are not skills everyone comes with and when people try to learn how to be a good DM, there's not nearly enough focus given to needing to learn assertiveness if you don't already have it. The group management part of DMing is not given that much focus in stuff designed to help DMs and these horror stories are great examples of why that's a problem.
@@BlueTressym Honestly I completely agree. A lot of people get into being a GM because they want to tell stories, but being a GM is as much organisational management, record keeping and handling interpersonal issues within a group as it is creating a compelling story. You also have to create an environment in which stories actually can be told at all. You make very good points.
@@BlueTressym always give credit where credit is due, if everybody did, the internet would be a better place to be, rather than a festering hellscape lol
We had a player almost EXACTLY like this in my first campaign. He begged to join, then took every opportunity to take the spotlight, even if it meant inserting himself into a scene he wasn't part of. He once tried to sphincter a gun into a brothel and whined when he rolled bad and was going to take a bullet up the butt, lmao
Had a guy in our group that was basically excommunicated after not only being a self-centred player but also a controlling DM. He just couldn't let other people have the spotlight apparently. Everything had to revolve around him and he tried to control other people's actions constantly. Severe main character syndrome. He was a good friend but a terrible person to play D&D with.
Playing a little guy with a massively overinflated sense of self importance can work well if done a little tongue in cheek. Pretty sad this guy wanted to do it unironically
I’m playing this type of character here and it’s very funny. He’s a little shit incarnate which makes it so much funnier when he suffers the consequences of his actions(ie: getting donjon from the deck of many things)
OP here; there's a lot of context that my Dm added in the comments of the original post, though I'll paste his main message here after. We can both agree that all of us as a group lacked a lot of communication in the beginning, and this has 100% been a learning experience. A big reason why we all kept quiet on this guy's behaviour is because we all kind of had that 'maybe I'm just being dramatic' thought, and no one wanted to be the one to stir the pot if there was no real issue. Along with that, pretty much all of us were new, and it was the first time our DM had run a game in three or so years. Our other players at the time were, and still are, very much on shy/quieter side, so they didn't really wanna stand up to someone as overbearing as this player. Here's my DM's main comment: "Hey! DM here! Lemme add to this lil' fiasco. My player here pretty much covered all the bases, her and I chatted about it afterwards. The kicker is that atop this all, he's complaining about the pet shop elsewhere. I've seen it, I haven't said anything to him because I thought we parted on at least semi-decent terms, but I apparently was mistaken. For the scheduling part, he flipped his lid when I told the party, of my online game mind you, "Hey folks! I missed the bus or it didn't show, we can either call off the session or reduce the three hour session to two! What sounds best?" Most folks agreed calling it pff would be best, and he did not like that. As I stated prior, he's still angry over the pet shop. The party enjoys their pets, and I really had to come up with it out of the blue as they asked and I improv'd the Hell outta it. He made me make three towns, three whole towns, and the pet shop was in just one. But, I just had the party fight a Wonka styled candyman boss themed off Roadhog from Overwatch mixed with Chef Antionne from Dead Rising and using modified hill giant stats. They're never gonna see Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory the same way again. After all, "The fun's over HERE!"" I should also add; this guy (the ex player) still complains about that pet shop session to this day on his account. In fact, he specifically complains about something I had done within that session as well!
I'm curious as to why your DM allowed That Guy to play a FFXIV race homebrewed into the game. I play a Lalafell in that MMO, and I'm pretty sure he probably would have had a similar experience just going with a normal Gnome or Halfling. Or even a Dwarf with a Gnome parent or something. I can assure you that Lalas, or Lala NPCs at least, aren't going around being all, "am smol, pwease pwotecc." They're more likely to foreclose on your house and raze the earth with a Megaflare while cackling like Mephiles.
Oh my god, this dude sounds exactly like someone I used to play games with, like I've seen this person do almost everything you described, just in a different game
We had someone like this in our rp group for a few months, constantly trying to control other player's actions and even going as far as to try killing off their characters if they were getting the spotlight or if he thought there was a chance they might become cooler than his. He was told to stop multiple times but never changed so we ended up just ignoring or talking over him during rp until he ragequitted. You'd be surprised how well the silent treatment works against narcissists who crave attention like a drug addict suffering from withdrawal.
Horror story aside, can i just say that i want to be in the seaside backgrounds crit uses? It looks like such a nice and peaceful place to listen to horror stories to
For the very first session of a new campaign, my DM pulled me aside and said that my character would be the first one introduced so the opening POV would be mine. He told me about how he DM'd for a different group and didn't like it when people would act like the main character just cos their character was the first one introduced. I told him I understood completely. When we went back inside to the rest of the group, I greeted them by exclaiming, "What's up, extras? 😎"
Our group recently tried out Pathfinder. We all made small characters. There was: -an Ant Gnoll Alchemist; -a Fey-Touched Gnome Sorcerer; -a Gutsy Halfling Rogue; -a Pixie Sprite Witch; -a Rock Dwarf Wizard. It was fun.
I once had a friend invite one of his friends to our game, we had been playing since level 1 and were now around level 15, and one of his first questions was "Can I be the leader of the party?". He also wanted to be the new owner of the tavern that belonged to the party so he could put his name on it, and when he heard we'd been travelling via an airship for a couple of days he asked if he could be the captain, we didn't even own the airship, it belonged to some kobolds we were friends with. Main character syndrome at its best xD
@@nocount7517A Mary Sue is a character with no flaws or weaknesses, what does that have to do with him wanting his character to be at the forefront of everything?
@@PaladinGear15 Because one of the traits of the Mary Sue is they always get their way, even if the universe literally has to bend and twist to accommodate their will.
@@nocount7517 But he was just asking to get this stuff, none of us agreed, the universe certainly didn't bend to his will, he just wanted to be the centre of attention/most important character. AKA: the main character, hence main character syndrome.
Waystar kinda just makes me think of Starfinder. Not much else to say. Player with Main Character Syndrome whines and whines and throws man baby tantrums when whining doesn't work. Implodes on exit when they don't get their way. With a side serving of "nice guy" according to OP.
As the firbolg of the party, I am used to people dumping their extra gear they can't carry onto me. I love the pack mule look, big bags hanging off my shoulders, a backpack, other pouches and pockets everywhere. Also, wildshaping into something and having the halfling paladin ride me into battle with her lance is pretty fun.
I'm just reminded of how I asked a DM about a homebrew race. They were a bird type race and were fast and small hunters. The DM agreed to my homebrew race and even gave a wonderful setup for the race as a whole. Instead of having to build settlements and things around the race, we agreed that my character was the last of their race seeking to plane walk to another plane in search of more of her kind. This gave her an immensely important role for her motivation, and allowed me to build a good backstory that wouldn't derail the campaign setting. The benefits of the race were the bonus to +2 Dex, +1 Int, +10 Speed, and natural feather fall. The downsides were Light sensitivity, Weakness to hotter environments(Double exhaustion), and -2 Str. The only advantage I had at the start was the DM giving me a magic item to tell them if another of her kind was nearby. It only said yes or no about if another of her race was in the plane she was on.
Dang, that sort of attitude's messed up. One time in a group we had a shy, new to D&D player so the DM had a flyer for a knight tournament get handed to us, with new guy being the only knightly tank in the group. We all spent the tournament being supporting cast to make him the group hero that session and his confidence just visibly slowly built up. It was one of my favorite sessions ever to be part of.
If this guy wants to be the main character and center of attention, he needs to go back to being the Warrior of Light in FFXIV, since that’s where he stole his homebrew race from 🤷♀️
"I'm that first person they talk about, in all the books. I'm that perspective you cannot doubt, see how I look. Control the narrative reliably, baby it's all about me. And I wrote the book, about throwing the book at those who don't do it by it." - The Main Character, song and lyrics by Will Wood.
Lalafell in this game: Hewp me, I'm too smaww uwu Lalafell in FFXIV: -Can catch up to anyone even with their tiny legs- -Can climb as well as anyone- -Blasting down the gate of Ala Mhigo with fire and a general with impeccable hair- Yes, they are smaller and yes, roleplay-wise you can be not so swole. But like...Sakes. This is insufferable
Im just waiting for an episode where either dm or other players finally snaps at "That Guy" and just starts flaming everything they and their character stands for.
i rmember playing a online game that had a guy like that, he demanded all the loot in the treasure pool, demanded all the healing (i was power leveling the party as a white mage) and he called me "lazy, useless trash in a candy cane sweater" because i had to recharge my MP. I lost my temper after that, i worked HARD to get my white mage artifact (this was final fantasy 11 , a old online game but a great one!) armor and i wasn't going to let some arrogant upstart of a simpleton get my goat, so i told the party leader "I'm afraid i can heal the others and you, but that rude little shit gets no healing" he told me "Shut up, you waste of space and heal me! I'm not paying you for your opinions!" HE wasn't paying me, the leader and a friend of his was paying me around 1.3million gil as commission (i gave them a discount for 100K instead, because i am a kind person.) and ol' grumpy mc gee got no healing or a revive until he humbled up and apologized to the party.
Love to see people tale iniciative. Although i do like playing the safe game, keeping to myself or analyzing the situation(until i snap :) seeing people take iniciative is good aswell.
As a FFXIV player, the second the OP brought up Lalafell, that explained so much. It could've been any FFXIV race but the point being I feel like the narrative of that game and does NOT carry over well into the TTRPG scene considering it may well practically ENABLE Main Character Syndrome for those unprepared or inexperienced. Now I love FFXIV, been playing it for over five years now, and no game has my character of over 17 years felt more at home as far as video games go. BUT, I feel MCS may be a risk for any video game involving a created character made out to basically grow into The Ace of the narrative, which is fine WITHIN said games' narratives. But again, that's not a good mindset or trait to carry over into completely different kinds of RPG's. And hell, as far as Lalafell go, I think they're a bigger victim of the playerbase's potential banality of the standard tropes applied to them than friggin' Miqo'te/Cat Girls. I'm past hating any one player race, but every other Lalafell players thinks they're being subversive and funny picking the race. I play a HIghlander Hyur (the human race albeit the taller more muscular variety), but the biggest part of that is from just the fact that my character was always human even before incorporating him into FFXIV. The more stock a player has to put into their race to feel "unique" the more blase' that character is fated to be. That said there are negative stereotypes one can make about all the player races' players, but to accentuate the negative would be simply diggin oneself into that same hole with them
Mine is a male Roegadyn Monk, I made him as big and muscular as I could because I thought the idea of a fridge with legs doing Jackie Chan moves was hilarious, but I turned out to end up liking playing Monk XD
Really? I keep finding the, "original character donut steel," curse tends to be bigger around the Miqos/Au'ra/Viera triad than other Lalas. I'm not saying this out of any Lala bias (playing one myself, I refuse to claim this schmuck), considering that I don't really interact consistently with other Lalas, but that must be some really bad luck you keep running into. Keep spreading the Highlander spirit, y'all are cool, and femHighlanders got the best default dance.
Everyone has different experiences with others in FFXIV. On my Lala alt (a shy bookworm SCH) I get "jokes" about eating/punting/etc Lalas, or discussions on how they're evil... and the people who /pat me. It leans heavily towards the former. People hate lalafell. At this point it seems to be mostly memetic. I find it interesting that you said that playing to race tends to make the character boring. I... agree and disagree? My main is an Elezen, born in Ishgard and who managed to escape to Gridania for a time. That's not something you can really divorce from being Elezen due to Ishgardian homogeneity. I think he's relatively interesting, but ymmv. Regardless, I would posit that the more people lean into the stereotypes or surface traits of their race, the more boring they tend to be. Race is not a good indicator of much, but the persons concept of their race is pretty telling imo.
I feel this story. We had an artificer that most of our sessions were basically “the artificer show”. He’d continuously argue against a plan we had unless he was either the center of the plan or he got to do “his” plan. The campaign just recently ended and he actually died against the BBEG and we didn’t revive him til after the battle was over because there was one instant one of us took out a bad guy and he just obliterated the body like he did it.
Speaking of main character syndrome: I lucid dream. Sometimes that is just me watching a dream like it's a movie, sometimes that means waking myself up (like the other night when I had a sleep paralysis hallucination of a fae kind abducting my kids or when I was a kid before the zombies could eat my face off...again,) sometimes that means changing things up as they go. My brain usually cuts me out when things get cool because I'm a loser (and I agree.) But over the last few months Dream Me has had some serious main character syndrome. Dream Me will decide to not be spirited away and will insist on being involved and I'll be like trying to force Dream Me to stop and go away or to stop interfering and whatnot and they just...Refuse to do as I say. Like I'm literally fighting them for control so much that I give myself really bad headaches that I can consciously feel while I'm asleep. I can also feel the heavy hand of them trying to keep control over me. Like it literally causes a heavy pressure in my head. They insert themselves and sometimes make it worse sometimes it goes okay, but they will rewind my dream so they can change it and either insert themself into the scene or make themselves more prominent. Dream Me has been rebelling and I'm not sure how to regain control of them.
considering you already described yourself as thinking of who you are as "kind of a loser" maybe the whole control issue is just a metaphor for an internal struggle. perhaps the image you have of yourself is subconsiously not enough or acceptable to you anymore and rightfully so. you shouldn't undersell yourself over your own potentially false perceptions, in fact, a baseline of self-respect is warranted for all people. perhaps a bit more self-appreciation can mend the schism, which can be done without immediately overflowing into arrogant, if that is something you worry about.
Some of the most fun and hilarious events I've seen are from the other players at our sessions, despite my character not being there with theirs at the time. Just watching events unfold, knowing what my character would be in for once they found out, made it all the better. Guy was really missing out on some fun.
It's generally because they've never learned how to be assertive. If you had the kind of upbringing that enabled you to build assertiveness skills, or you learned them later, great, but not everyone did. It's something that MANY people don't seem to realise: that not everyone learns to be assertive as a matter of course - some of us were actively discouraged, in fact - or even that it's something that needs learning and isn't automatic. Also, the majority of guides and help for DMs out there tend to focus on how to make a good story, which is great, but they don't tend to focus on the people management side of being a DM or even explain that people management skills are necessary. I had to learn ALL of the aforementioned the hard way and it's still a struggle.
As much as I love these Reddit stories, many of these stories could have been prevented by calling a "main character" out on their narcissism or telling them to leave if they continue to act shitty. But I also pity "main character" players because often they are a nobody outside of D&D. So many of these type of peoples daydream and D&D is the only time they feel like a protagonist in their life. I dunno man, just teach eachother to be better selves but don't put up with shitty behavior. If you see it, say something.
The formatting of this video feels different than your usual stuff, CritCrab. I don't mean the content covered, but the way you narrated it. I'm not used to the numerous pauses throughout. Is everything alright?
Since the 2 foot wizard is misusing his familiar in the story, let me tell you how you could do it instead: Our rogue/wizard has a spider familiar who he calles "günther". When günther does something and it fails due bad rolls our rogue goes "günther, are you high during work again?". When he finds out that he can't do something with his familiar, he roleplays that his familiar "is against it because it isn't in his employment contract". I like how he implies the failures into the roleplay and we all love the relateable worker sipder günther at our table.
I know it was probably frustrating in the moment, and bad for the game in general, but asking your DM to describe 7 different Lizards, and then going "I'll take the lot" is objectively funny.
I blame the DM for a lot of the problems here. As a DM, if he left the area and tried to insert himself on another players conversation, I would just say, "You're not there."
OP and the DM of this game both commented, the players were all mostly new and the DM hadn't run a game in a long time. I don't think it excuses it all, it was still their responsibility to stop things like that instead of going so far as to make 3 whole towns just to accommodate someone who was already taking over the game for other players
But they seem like a pretty nonconfrontational group, and as imo annoying as it is when people don't stand up for themselves, or do stand up for themselves and aren't supported, the onus is ultimately on the person who was doing the harm and not just the people who didn't do enough to stop it. They did kick him eventually, and they were still getting their DnD footing, so even though I think it's annoying they can't be faulted too much. Groups like this often hang on to asshats for way too long and according to the DM this guy only lasted like 4 sessions, so honestly kudos. Got him out and had to deal with almost 4 sessions of that bull
I will never understand why people NEED to be unique and special. My character for my current campaign is a variant human champion fighter with a soldier background. Appearance wise, he is as typical as you can get: brown hair, blue eyes, light skin, strong bodied, and in his early to mid 30s. What makes him unique is his background story of being locked in a jail by elves with a full blooded orc, fighting him to a standstill and learning enough orcish to talk to him so they could then work together and escape. Infinitely better than this "lalafell" with a napoleon complex. I wouldn't even pet you.
Does anyone else listen to this as white noise for sleep. The ocean noises relaxing me and following along with the story just REALLY helps me sleep. It's nice.
I played a gnome wizard, and people kept trying to carry me around like a baby. It was uncomfortable, but I did have to be hauled up like a backpack a couple times when athletics (climb) checks were needed.
I used to play D&D years ago, and I was lucky, all the games were super fun, we didn't take ti too seriously and had so much fun. Makes me sad when I read these stories but guess lucky didn't have to deal with this stuff.
I once made a character who was notably the 'am smol' type. She was 2'1" tall, and her size affected her character a lot. She had an inferiority complex that drove her to 'prove' herself. "I can still do stuff even if I'm short!" kind of thing, and it wasn't only limited to size related things. She wasn't about being better than everyone, just proving that she's as good. Or maybe better. But it was at the same time her weakness. She was very sensitive about the topic of her size, and sometimes (often) too competitive for her own good. She had anger issues stemming from it too. In her words "Imagine getting a doll for your 7th birthday, and then being told no, actually you got clothes, dolls are just the only way to get clothes that fit you."
Problem player: I cast fireball! DM: are you sure? The dungeon is clouded in VERY FLAMMABLE GAS! Prob Player: I SAID I CAST FIREBALL! DM: you’re now taking burn damage, along with physical damage from the rest of the party Prob Player: WHAAAAAAATTTT!? THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!!
It's kind of silly to throw a fit about this kind of thing. I mean a good story will make it so that each character is the main character from their perspective and take actions that would best serve them. That's not to say there isn't a main character or we don't primarily follow one character, but all characters should feel as though they're their own agency and make choices that are inherent to their experiences. Even side characters can have deep character arcs and at times be more interesting than the protagonists
Is my duty as a fellow Lalafell to disown this sussy imposter! Lalafell are FFXIV's mix of Dwarves & Halflings, and as such, a true Lalafell is to accept "I am smol, uwu" treatment when given, while being the first and fastest to inflict due insults, and depleting ale stores as the bartender wonders how it all fits in there; NEVER underestimate Lalafell because they're cute; Eorzea's ancient civilization of Mhach, which was primarily Lalafell, used the demons of hell like batteries, AFTER exploding them into submission... Imagine a grand army of primarily wizards, specifically Megumin from Konosuba, AND the demons from Doom... yeah, that was Mhach... Potato Gang rise up! Where was I going with this...? oh yeah, this dude ain't it!
I've run into these types before. I try subtle corrections to their behavior at first including talk sessions OOC, but if they don't pick up on it then I just tell them to shut the F up and let everyone else RP their character. They often get pouty and stay quiet for the rest of the sessions and don't do it anymore or sometimes they have left the game. Good riddance I say.
I've been listen to these a lot less lately and it's mostly to blame that I've been worried one of these videos would be about me. This one came the closest to how I imagined my old group to imagine me. I never wrote the story of my side as I don't know if they even watch your videos (I barely knew them at all). If they did...I don't know if my side would make them unblock me on EVERY social media or secretly loath me more. It was all a misunderstanding, but the person who tells the story first is the person that is believed. I'm sorry for the long rant. I'm just hurt and miss the people who I thought were my friends.
I cannot comprehend enjoying being the only player doing things. Listening to other people doing things and interacting with them is the fun of the game.
This video had some unusual pauses in between statements where he stopped to read. The affect in parts is flatter than usual, too. It overall came off as less rehearsed, less polished than usual. You doing okay, CritCrab?
My take away is that this is polished. It’s a way to extend the videos length and profitability. It may not be the right take, and if Crit wants to do that, it’s their choice completely. The story is still interesting, but I’m not a fan of the delivery.
I care less about whether or not he's a mary sue/main character syndrome(as a fan of the show/games, I can definitely say he is, or either has seduction powers like Zeus cuz idk how he gets so many girls), and more that it's boring to always use him or shadow for edgelords. Not that they're bad picks, but just boring to see every time imo. Would like to see some variety if that makes sense.
am i the only one who got the vibes that the ‘uwu i’m so small carry me uwu’ thing was more of a weird kink of him? wouldn’t be the first time i’ve seen it.
if this OP considered this dude's actions as a case of MILD main character syndrome, wtf did she potentially witness in other games (or maybe actions in everyday life off the table) that she considered severe??? seriously, for her to consider this "mild" whereas everyone else here believes otherwise, shes either seen some shit or shes really, REALLY patient
Did this dude legit homebrew in a Final Fantasy Gnome.... into a world that already has gnomes? Also, generally speaking Lalafells are taller than Halflings by a good few inches (which when you're that small, is quite the difference). For relative sizes a full grown Lalafell is about the size of a 9 year old, while a Halfling is about the size of a 5 or 6 year old.
To the problem player: Main characters are for books, movies, TV shows, and video games, not tabletop roleplaying. Consider working on one of the above alternatives if it is such a burning necessity for your character to be the prima donna. To the DM: What the fuck? Why did you just let the problem player do this? It is your job as the dungeon master to put your foot down and say no when one player is compromising the rest of the party’s fun. Grow a spine already.
As someone who usually dms this shit gets shutdown day 1 session zero is great to see how people act as dm I have the right and responsibility to say no or to call for a player kick
The thing with that argument, and it's one that is mentioned often because it seems so obvious to anyone without MCS, is that people who have MCS don't just want to be The Coolest, they also want other people to be witness to their coolness. They need the group of players to get what for them is the real benefit of being The Coolest; everyone else being LESS cool.
@@BlueTressym when they copy and paste there back story from anime it's usually a sign of mcs which I do like anime and do take ideas for it here and there and wanting to get all these free buff and stat sticks shows his hand fast
I remember when I did a D&D game with some now long time friends, I played a Paladin who had broken his oath and sought to reclaim it (all while lying to the party about not being an Oathbreaker). Well when it was discovered (in character) the DM asked me in private if I wanted to have an MC session about my Paladin reclaiming his oath, I declined because I knew it was unfair to the others and wouldn’t allow for us to have proper closure. And so with his secret uncovered and trust broken we continued, with my Paladin slowly regaining the trust of his friends and embracing his potential for good rather then evil, ironically though about 3 sessions before we finished the campaign, I ended up reclaiming my oath by nearly dying while protecting the Cleric of the group, still one of my favorite moments to this day and the best outcome for the character.
Bro some guy from my group literally thinks he's the mc, his lore Is that he's from some kind of super OP group that could easily take out the BBG but they don't cuz u know, reasons, oh and did I mention he's the son of the literal devil and the goddess of balance?
It makes me sad that there are so many people like this, and how a lot of them are just seemingly sexist in some manner or another. Of course I know none of these people so I won't judge, I just hope God heals their hearts.
Just a note, when someone is "like that to everyone, but more so towards me" nine out of ten times that "more so" only exists because you're more sensitive to it when it's directed at you. I don't doubt, however, this story is one out of ten. Yes, because OP was the only female. On the other hand, I suspect it's less sexism on his part and more, being the only girl, she'd be perceived as the biggest threat to all attention being on him.
The image at 8:48 made me laugh out loud: two folks having a real heart to heart and the overbearing wizard just randomly popping up to slide his familiar illustration across the table like “heyyyy, looooook”
Uh, waiter? My serving of crab's not only still alive, but it's kinda freaking out a fair bit at the beginning of the video.
Okay good. I thought it was just me
don't worry about it
@@recitationtohear 🤬🤬
@@recitationtohear wow I almost fell for this bot
They’re evolving
Critcrab please don't fix
Gotta be honest, this doesn't exactly sound like "mild" main character syndrome to me. Mans over here havin a full on hissy fit over not being the center of attention constantly
Thought the same thing
Sadly, this IS mild. He was not DEMANDING up to fifteen hours of one on one roleplay with the DM between each and every session, with full XP rewards for such "because obviously I should be much more powerful than the other characters, but it wouldn't be fair for you to just do what you realistically should and give me 600% XP compared to them, so instead just give me five times as much time in the spotlight and we'll be fine".
This has already transcended MC syndrom.
He is now... a Mary Sue.
@@CritCrab
That turd came across as a covert incel narcissist to me.
@@FreedomAndPeaceOnly Oh god
The fact that he wanted everyone to treat him like a baby because "am smol" is very funny to me, because I play as a tiny barbarian who wants to do the opposite and carries around one of the other party members (they're also short, but slightly taller than my barbarian)
Omg I love that so much
I would be happy to play a kobold barbarian and be a vicious little lizard bastard.
I remember in one campaign I was in I was a large homebrew barbarian/druid. I carried our tiefling rogue on my back. Eventually I carried two more party members on my head 24/7. I was then carrying the majority of the party through journeys and combat. Only leaving the dragonborn off. It was hilarious and one of the best campaigns I was apart of.
@@Nyghtking tiny chaos barbarians are the best >:D our DM allowed the use of hombrew races as long as they were reviewed by him prior to session 0, so my barbarian is a tiny bipedal cat who carries around our paladin
I’ve been wanting to make a Goliath Barbarian that gets cursed to become a Kobold, in order to “learn some humility”, with the curse eventually being lifted off of him, only to end up as a Dragonborn.
Yea, he’d have this giant weapon he’d refuse to let go of just because he’s a kobold, because that’s his hammer! No one touches his hammer but him!
Hey! This is the DM from this all. Forgot to add, for the first session, I took the approach of, "everyone meets by accident and works together because combat," to double as introductory, see strategies, and to get the main plot rolling. Combat was rough, I was still trying to figure out Roll20, and so OP (a lovely artist, thanks Lemon) for sketching up a combat map. It was simple, fun, and straightforward. After wrapping up, they left the area and was just heading back. There was very little on skill checks (because combat took up most of the session) and he tells me, "I wanna see more skill checks!" I was baffled at such, because of how little was done at the time.
He also made me sketch up not one, but THREE towns just for his backstory. Whole towns, not just little hamlets or villages. He also wanted me to use a lot of the feywild, I don't know how to run the feywild and had to do serious research on just that to make it appropriate, and as it tied into his backstory and homebrew race, I didn't wanna skimp out. So when I told him to just homebrew some lore, he came back with those homebrew stats too.
We weren't gonna post this originally, I felt it was a bit tame and uninteresting. Turns out I was wrong. Hindsight on it all, I should have done it sooner. First time I was playing in two years, first time DMing in three, sorry guys.
But thank you all for the support! OP and I appreciate it! Thanks Critcrab for the read! Stay saucy everyone!
Oof. That just makes him sound even worse.
I had someone like this too when i started to DM, the first problem player is kinda hard to grasp the whole vibe if you had not dealt with one before
Thank you for, at the very least, telling him to fuck off with that magic resist nonsense.
It almost sounds like he was the only/golden child in his family and, as a result, got his way a lot and was spoiled. He sounds insufferable.
And he was a home brew Lalafel. As a massive FFXIV fan, I’m embarrassed.
@@TexMeta Ditto. The moment I heard "lalafell", part of me died of embarassment.
The bit about "he was particularly rude to me" screamed "op is a woman and main character guy is a sexist nerd" well before she revealed that.
Or an incel
@@ZackShark1 well all incels are sexist nerds so
@@ZackShark1 the two kinda go together ngl
Legit like ⅓ of the way through I was like “op is probably a woman”
Question, what's with reddit nerds hating on women as if its running in their blood now, they're like male counterpart to Tumblr femcels
I was legitimately shocked to hear this guy was playing a Lalafel with the whole main character syndrome thing going on... aaaand then I remembered how most male NPC Lalas are written in FFXIV. That said, the whole "am smol uwi" and "carry me!" bs is absolutely not what ANY Lala does, PC or NPC. They're always independent and are just as capable of dealing with the same shit as the rest of the races in Eorzea.
I dunno, Teleji Adeleji seems rather humble for a male popoto. He takes up half the screen time!
“homebrew” and “Lalafell” in the same sentence. That caught me off guard.
The most capable Lala is Pipin and he would beat this little shit’s ass.
All Lalafel are evil. /s
Honestly i think they were trying to make a Nanamo knockoff
0:03 I'M SORRY FOR THAT CRAB OK STOP PUNCHING ME
I saw this before I actually started the video
Such violence 😭 The crabbiest crab 😭😭😭
Crab king was off the shits in the first few seconds lmao
The side effects of cringe.
In my defense, I thought it'd be funny
@@CritCrab It was funny.
As a bonus, definitely got my attention.
"Wait... what the hell?"
@@CritCrab and you were so right
@@SotheX I had to restart the video to see what everyone was talking about lol.
Cons of only listening to the video
"He made a homebrew race (I think they were called 'Lalafell')"
Me: "Uh oh."
Male lala? There's so many layers of red flags there.
I feel like this was partly the DM's fault for not controlling the problem player. Whenever a player or one part of the group is engaged in rp for an extended period of time, I keep an eye on the excluded players. If they start to look like they're losing interest, then that particular situation has dragged on too long, so I either subtly hurry things along or pivot the story back to the others for a bit and start switching back and forth instead of focusing on one for too long. The DM is the director of the game, it's up to them to keep player engagement as balanced as possible.
I also feel like main character syndrome is pretty easy to spot, and should be shut down as early as possible to avoid potential breakdowns when things are too far along.
its really not that hard to say "ok let's see what the other characters are doing now, we'll get back to you later" every 15 minutes or so
@@mayag8469 I kind of agree. But what if we're talking about the most narcisstic man alive? It'd be way easier to just kick him outta the game
@@Vodka6329 "Oops, looks like Mr. Dick Wad Wizard fell of his horse, broke his neck and died. What a shame."
@John Smith Most people say that's toxic, but I think its funny AF. Get petty if someone is awful, makes good comedy
Generally yes, but it's a first time DM that's still learning how to handle the group.
Sounds like our "main character" was playing their Lalafell summoner from FFXIV, so they had the creativity level you might expect from their kind.
He was even playing it wrong since Lalafell are easily capable of interacting with human-size stuff due to being stronger and more agile than they look, they don't generally need help from taller races.
@hope
This reminds me of one of those fake videos that bait you
@@dizzyheads looks 100% like a rickroll
Reminds me of my first character being a Lalafell who started out as Gladiator lol. Set her to the lowest height possible while my friend was playing alongside me as a male Roegadyn Thaumaturge set to max height. The size difference was amazing and we even managed to take screencaps that made it look like the Roegadyn was sitting on my Lalafell’s lap. It was also funny to go into the emotes and make my Lalafell look fed up with the Roegadyn’s shenanigans while the Roegadyn looked giddy as all hell
Here’s how you DON’T use finally fantasy in dnd.
@@ItsCreaidan I know it's a typo but "Finally, Fantasy." sounds like a fun game to play
I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of Main character syndrome in the past and although it was unintentional once I realised I was doing so, I spoke to my group apologised and now im constantly striving to do better. Sometimes we can get absorbed in our characters and thats okay but just be aware of the other players at your table. A character moment is more fun when everyone can enjoy it not just you.
See i have the opposite problem. I try my hardest NOT to be a main character, but somehow always get picked to be leader or speaker or some important main role.
Playing a "I'm tiny and get carried" character can be fun, but it's only fun when everyone else around you decided "THEYRE SMALL I GOTTA CARRY THEM" rather than demanding they do so.
The "im small" can be used once.
Only once a little fun joke but never again
Yeah. like I have a small Kobold character I played in a group, who occasionally rides on the shoulder on one of the other characters. BUT... that was discussed with that player when we made our characters, so it was consented, and worked into our characters. Also it wasn't a constant thing as my Kobold was perfectly capably of walking by herself, she mostly just "hitched a ride" when needing to reach higher stuff, or if she was tired and the friend was okay with it, or when tagging that character along into the academy, because then i got in easier due to his "she's with me" sorta thing.
So yeah, it can absolutely work, if done in a way that is okay with everyone at the table. :3
We have a wizard like that. He's human and our Goliath carries him around, but less because "I'm small" and more because he's basically a walking bomb with his build and the Goliath thinks he'll explode if not carried.
@@Reineerus_The_Rat thats fucking awesome, till the Goliath chucks 'em at the dragon
@@ASF77 Nah, more along the lines of point him like a damn railgun.
His homebrew race doesn't even have an original name. 'Lalafell' are Final Fantasy
The post doesn't actually say they're called that, tbf. It says they're based on them. Our crab overlord narrated it strangely
Funny isn't it, how "homebrew" so often ends up really meaning "I wanna be the OP thing from that game/anime/etc" ;p It's a pity because homebrew can be so much fun, when it's done with heart and creativity.
What's crazy is that out of all of the races in FF he picked the one who is very strong and fast despite their height then played it like they couldn't do much cause of their height.
homebrew doesn't have to be original it just has to be something that's not in official dnd source materials... betting their character is just their lalafell black mage though.
Total number of "however"s in this story: 7
Timestamps 1:55 3:24 5:05 5:17 13:26 15:29 16:08
Please say you do a « however » count on every single video
@@bluepearl4624 I will work on that
YOU ARE THE UNSUNG HERO OF THE COMMENTS BROTHER, SHALL YOU'RE WORK GO UNHINDERED AND MAGNIFICENT!!!
Lol nice
dang that's cool
Dude thought he was a king when he was just a jester
Mordeccai and Rigby: OOOOOAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
jesters are actually fun to hang out with and they have self awareness
Please, any jester this intolerable would have been executed before they even reached the royal court.
Nah he was a low-life peasant
Dont insult jester's
Why didn't the GM try to spread out the focus? The GM really dropped the ball hard if they allowed a "Main Character" to suck up that much time.
First time GM's typically don't know better and a lot of veteran GM's have conflict averse personality types because they're principally storytellers, which when taken to an extreme can lead to them being doormatted by players with more forceful personalities, especially if the other players at the table similarly don't stand up and stick up for the GM.
It's been a long long time since most GM's coming to the table are doing so from a wargaming or other competitive background, most GM's in the last fifteen or so years are principally story builders and that doesn't always lend itself to being confrontational or even assertive with problem players.
You're right but assertiveness and the ability to stand up for yourself and others are not skills everyone comes with and when people try to learn how to be a good DM, there's not nearly enough focus given to needing to learn assertiveness if you don't already have it. The group management part of DMing is not given that much focus in stuff designed to help DMs and these horror stories are great examples of why that's a problem.
@@BlueTressym Honestly I completely agree. A lot of people get into being a GM because they want to tell stories, but being a GM is as much organisational management, record keeping and handling interpersonal issues within a group as it is creating a compelling story. You also have to create an environment in which stories actually can be told at all. You make very good points.
@@josephpotter5766 thank you!
@@BlueTressym always give credit where credit is due, if everybody did, the internet would be a better place to be, rather than a festering hellscape lol
We had a player almost EXACTLY like this in my first campaign. He begged to join, then took every opportunity to take the spotlight, even if it meant inserting himself into a scene he wasn't part of. He once tried to sphincter a gun into a brothel and whined when he rolled bad and was going to take a bullet up the butt, lmao
Had a guy in our group that was basically excommunicated after not only being a self-centred player but also a controlling DM. He just couldn't let other people have the spotlight apparently. Everything had to revolve around him and he tried to control other people's actions constantly. Severe main character syndrome.
He was a good friend but a terrible person to play D&D with.
Playing a little guy with a massively overinflated sense of self importance can work well if done a little tongue in cheek. Pretty sad this guy wanted to do it unironically
I’m playing this type of character here and it’s very funny. He’s a little shit incarnate which makes it so much funnier when he suffers the consequences of his actions(ie: getting donjon from the deck of many things)
0:05 Well the crabstarts the raves on with the story, but not for good reason nor without a sponsor break
OP here; there's a lot of context that my Dm added in the comments of the original post, though I'll paste his main message here after. We can both agree that all of us as a group lacked a lot of communication in the beginning, and this has 100% been a learning experience. A big reason why we all kept quiet on this guy's behaviour is because we all kind of had that 'maybe I'm just being dramatic' thought, and no one wanted to be the one to stir the pot if there was no real issue.
Along with that, pretty much all of us were new, and it was the first time our DM had run a game in three or so years. Our other players at the time were, and still are, very much on shy/quieter side, so they didn't really wanna stand up to someone as overbearing as this player.
Here's my DM's main comment:
"Hey! DM here! Lemme add to this lil' fiasco.
My player here pretty much covered all the bases, her and I chatted about it afterwards. The kicker is that atop this all, he's complaining about the pet shop elsewhere. I've seen it, I haven't said anything to him because I thought we parted on at least semi-decent terms, but I apparently was mistaken.
For the scheduling part, he flipped his lid when I told the party, of my online game mind you, "Hey folks! I missed the bus or it didn't show, we can either call off the session or reduce the three hour session to two! What sounds best?" Most folks agreed calling it pff would be best, and he did not like that.
As I stated prior, he's still angry over the pet shop. The party enjoys their pets, and I really had to come up with it out of the blue as they asked and I improv'd the Hell outta it. He made me make three towns, three whole towns, and the pet shop was in just one.
But, I just had the party fight a Wonka styled candyman boss themed off Roadhog from Overwatch mixed with Chef Antionne from Dead Rising and using modified hill giant stats. They're never gonna see Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory the same way again.
After all, "The fun's over HERE!""
I should also add; this guy (the ex player) still complains about that pet shop session to this day on his account. In fact, he specifically complains about something I had done within that session as well!
What was his reasoning for wanting the Paladin's helmet? Or was he just like "LULZ AM SMOL AND QUIRKY!"
I can’t even remember. I think he just wanted it because he thought he could
I'm curious as to why your DM allowed That Guy to play a FFXIV race homebrewed into the game. I play a Lalafell in that MMO, and I'm pretty sure he probably would have had a similar experience just going with a normal Gnome or Halfling. Or even a Dwarf with a Gnome parent or something.
I can assure you that Lalas, or Lala NPCs at least, aren't going around being all, "am smol, pwease pwotecc." They're more likely to foreclose on your house and raze the earth with a Megaflare while cackling like Mephiles.
@@TigerheartFire Yeah, Lala's are like "I may be small, but if you attempt to pick me up, you'll be picking up your entrails off the floor."
Oh my god, this dude sounds exactly like someone I used to play games with, like I've seen this person do almost everything you described, just in a different game
We had someone like this in our rp group for a few months, constantly trying to control other player's actions and even going as far as to try killing off their characters if they were getting the spotlight or if he thought there was a chance they might become cooler than his. He was told to stop multiple times but never changed so we ended up just ignoring or talking over him during rp until he ragequitted. You'd be surprised how well the silent treatment works against narcissists who crave attention like a drug addict suffering from withdrawal.
Horror story aside, can i just say that i want to be in the seaside backgrounds crit uses? It looks like such a nice and peaceful place to listen to horror stories to
I genuinely hate water and the ocean, it’s scary how much shit there is down there, but I cannot resist a good beach
@@N0M0PH0B1A no one can resist the lull of a beach.
No One🤣
Protip: don't open up about your anxieties with the stranger who is ruining your D&D game.
For the very first session of a new campaign, my DM pulled me aside and said that my character would be the first one introduced so the opening POV would be mine. He told me about how he DM'd for a different group and didn't like it when people would act like the main character just cos their character was the first one introduced. I told him I understood completely.
When we went back inside to the rest of the group, I greeted them by exclaiming, "What's up, extras? 😎"
Our group recently tried out Pathfinder. We all made small characters.
There was:
-an Ant Gnoll Alchemist;
-a Fey-Touched Gnome Sorcerer;
-a Gutsy Halfling Rogue;
-a Pixie Sprite Witch;
-a Rock Dwarf Wizard.
It was fun.
Please tell me there was a good party name to go along with this?
I once had a friend invite one of his friends to our game, we had been playing since level 1 and were now around level 15, and one of his first questions was "Can I be the leader of the party?".
He also wanted to be the new owner of the tavern that belonged to the party so he could put his name on it, and when he heard we'd been travelling via an airship for a couple of days he asked if he could be the captain, we didn't even own the airship, it belonged to some kobolds we were friends with. Main character syndrome at its best xD
That's Mary Sue syndrome...
@@nocount7517A Mary Sue is a character with no flaws or weaknesses, what does that have to do with him wanting his character to be at the forefront of everything?
@@PaladinGear15 Because one of the traits of the Mary Sue is they always get their way, even if the universe literally has to bend and twist to accommodate their will.
@@nocount7517 But he was just asking to get this stuff, none of us agreed, the universe certainly didn't bend to his will, he just wanted to be the centre of attention/most important character.
AKA: the main character, hence main character syndrome.
🗿
Waystar kinda just makes me think of Starfinder.
Not much else to say. Player with Main Character Syndrome whines and whines and throws man baby tantrums when whining doesn't work. Implodes on exit when they don't get their way. With a side serving of "nice guy" according to OP.
The ending is straight silly
Waystar also being advertised when Spelljammer just released also might be a oops in marketing
As the firbolg of the party, I am used to people dumping their extra gear they can't carry onto me. I love the pack mule look, big bags hanging off my shoulders, a backpack, other pouches and pockets everywhere. Also, wildshaping into something and having the halfling paladin ride me into battle with her lance is pretty fun.
"Tell him to eat shit johnny" is genuenly all I could think when hearing that guy
"Tell him yourself"
"EAT SHIT ASSHOLE! FALL OFF YOUR HORSE!"
I always look forward to all of critcrab’s stories.
Me, too! He's my favorite.
I'm just reminded of how I asked a DM about a homebrew race. They were a bird type race and were fast and small hunters. The DM agreed to my homebrew race and even gave a wonderful setup for the race as a whole. Instead of having to build settlements and things around the race, we agreed that my character was the last of their race seeking to plane walk to another plane in search of more of her kind. This gave her an immensely important role for her motivation, and allowed me to build a good backstory that wouldn't derail the campaign setting. The benefits of the race were the bonus to +2 Dex, +1 Int, +10 Speed, and natural feather fall. The downsides were Light sensitivity, Weakness to hotter environments(Double exhaustion), and -2 Str. The only advantage I had at the start was the DM giving me a magic item to tell them if another of her kind was nearby. It only said yes or no about if another of her race was in the plane she was on.
Basically this character was only as capable as she is mainly in the sense she did all of this out of desperation
Brian gang, rise up and know that even though the thought of being the main character is appealing, everyone at the table should be equal!
thanks brian gang
Dang, that sort of attitude's messed up. One time in a group we had a shy, new to D&D player so the DM had a flyer for a knight tournament get handed to us, with new guy being the only knightly tank in the group. We all spent the tournament being supporting cast to make him the group hero that session and his confidence just visibly slowly built up. It was one of my favorite sessions ever to be part of.
That is so wholesome. Welcome the new guy in with fanfare and glory.
If this guy wants to be the main character and center of attention, he needs to go back to being the Warrior of Light in FFXIV, since that’s where he stole his homebrew race from 🤷♀️
"I'm that first person they talk about, in all the books. I'm that perspective you cannot doubt, see how I look. Control the narrative reliably, baby it's all about me. And I wrote the book, about throwing the book at those who don't do it by it." - The Main Character, song and lyrics by Will Wood.
Lalafell in this game: Hewp me, I'm too smaww uwu
Lalafell in FFXIV: -Can catch up to anyone even with their tiny legs-
-Can climb as well as anyone-
-Blasting down the gate of Ala Mhigo with fire and a general with impeccable hair-
Yes, they are smaller and yes, roleplay-wise you can be not so swole. But like...Sakes. This is insufferable
Lalafell in story: uwu am smol pls carry me owo
Lalafell in canon: *YOUR LONG LEGS CANNOT SAVE YOU, PATHETIC CREATURE*
Im just waiting for an episode where either dm or other players finally snaps at "That Guy" and just starts flaming everything they and their character stands for.
i rmember playing a online game that had a guy like that, he demanded all the loot in the treasure pool, demanded all the healing (i was power leveling the party as a white mage) and he called me "lazy, useless trash in a candy cane sweater" because i had to recharge my MP. I lost my temper after that, i worked HARD to get my white mage artifact (this was final fantasy 11 , a old online game but a great one!) armor and i wasn't going to let some arrogant upstart of a simpleton get my goat, so i told the party leader "I'm afraid i can heal the others and you, but that rude little shit gets no healing" he told me "Shut up, you waste of space and heal me! I'm not paying you for your opinions!" HE wasn't paying me, the leader and a friend of his was paying me around 1.3million gil as commission (i gave them a discount for 100K instead, because i am a kind person.) and ol' grumpy mc gee got no healing or a revive until he humbled up and apologized to the party.
Love to see people tale iniciative.
Although i do like playing the safe game, keeping to myself or analyzing the situation(until i snap :) seeing people take iniciative is good aswell.
I love your videos and I stuck through to the end of this one, but the pace you were reading the story was KILLING me
As a FFXIV player, the second the OP brought up Lalafell, that explained so much. It could've been any FFXIV race but the point being I feel like the narrative of that game and does NOT carry over well into the TTRPG scene considering it may well practically ENABLE Main Character Syndrome for those unprepared or inexperienced. Now I love FFXIV, been playing it for over five years now, and no game has my character of over 17 years felt more at home as far as video games go. BUT, I feel MCS may be a risk for any video game involving a created character made out to basically grow into The Ace of the narrative, which is fine WITHIN said games' narratives. But again, that's not a good mindset or trait to carry over into completely different kinds of RPG's.
And hell, as far as Lalafell go, I think they're a bigger victim of the playerbase's potential banality of the standard tropes applied to them than friggin' Miqo'te/Cat Girls. I'm past hating any one player race, but every other Lalafell players thinks they're being subversive and funny picking the race. I play a HIghlander Hyur (the human race albeit the taller more muscular variety), but the biggest part of that is from just the fact that my character was always human even before incorporating him into FFXIV. The more stock a player has to put into their race to feel "unique" the more blase' that character is fated to be. That said there are negative stereotypes one can make about all the player races' players, but to accentuate the negative would be simply diggin oneself into that same hole with them
Mine is a male Roegadyn Monk, I made him as big and muscular as I could because I thought the idea of a fridge with legs doing Jackie Chan moves was hilarious, but I turned out to end up liking playing Monk XD
My friend is a lalafel who mains support. They looked at this story and said we don't claim him.
Really? I keep finding the, "original character donut steel," curse tends to be bigger around the Miqos/Au'ra/Viera triad than other Lalas. I'm not saying this out of any Lala bias (playing one myself, I refuse to claim this schmuck), considering that I don't really interact consistently with other Lalas, but that must be some really bad luck you keep running into.
Keep spreading the Highlander spirit, y'all are cool, and femHighlanders got the best default dance.
@@TigerheartFire I'm a Roegadyn bro, I like my big bois
Everyone has different experiences with others in FFXIV. On my Lala alt (a shy bookworm SCH) I get "jokes" about eating/punting/etc Lalas, or discussions on how they're evil... and the people who /pat me. It leans heavily towards the former. People hate lalafell. At this point it seems to be mostly memetic.
I find it interesting that you said that playing to race tends to make the character boring. I... agree and disagree? My main is an Elezen, born in Ishgard and who managed to escape to Gridania for a time. That's not something you can really divorce from being Elezen due to Ishgardian homogeneity. I think he's relatively interesting, but ymmv. Regardless, I would posit that the more people lean into the stereotypes or surface traits of their race, the more boring they tend to be. Race is not a good indicator of much, but the persons concept of their race is pretty telling imo.
I feel this story. We had an artificer that most of our sessions were basically “the artificer show”. He’d continuously argue against a plan we had unless he was either the center of the plan or he got to do “his” plan. The campaign just recently ended and he actually died against the BBEG and we didn’t revive him til after the battle was over because there was one instant one of us took out a bad guy and he just obliterated the body like he did it.
Speaking of main character syndrome: I lucid dream. Sometimes that is just me watching a dream like it's a movie, sometimes that means waking myself up (like the other night when I had a sleep paralysis hallucination of a fae kind abducting my kids or when I was a kid before the zombies could eat my face off...again,) sometimes that means changing things up as they go. My brain usually cuts me out when things get cool because I'm a loser (and I agree.) But over the last few months Dream Me has had some serious main character syndrome. Dream Me will decide to not be spirited away and will insist on being involved and I'll be like trying to force Dream Me to stop and go away or to stop interfering and whatnot and they just...Refuse to do as I say. Like I'm literally fighting them for control so much that I give myself really bad headaches that I can consciously feel while I'm asleep. I can also feel the heavy hand of them trying to keep control over me. Like it literally causes a heavy pressure in my head. They insert themselves and sometimes make it worse sometimes it goes okay, but they will rewind my dream so they can change it and either insert themself into the scene or make themselves more prominent.
Dream Me has been rebelling and I'm not sure how to regain control of them.
considering you already described yourself as thinking of who you are as "kind of a loser" maybe the whole control issue is just a metaphor for an internal struggle. perhaps the image you have of yourself is subconsiously not enough or acceptable to you anymore and rightfully so. you shouldn't undersell yourself over your own potentially false perceptions, in fact, a baseline of self-respect is warranted for all people. perhaps a bit more self-appreciation can mend the schism, which can be done without immediately overflowing into arrogant, if that is something you worry about.
The crab before 0:11
Having a stroke 😭
*GMOD RAGDOLL NOISES*
Some of the most fun and hilarious events I've seen are from the other players at our sessions, despite my character not being there with theirs at the time. Just watching events unfold, knowing what my character would be in for once they found out, made it all the better. Guy was really missing out on some fun.
Currently watching this on a plane, thank you for this time-killer blessing 💖
Bruh it gets in the way of their signals unless ur using paid Wi-Fi in that case it’s fine
the pacing of the reading ... just can't
Bruh
Weirdly slow in this vid fr
In 5th edition, a good Bard could destroy just about any Wizard.
"Wizards are the best class"
Sorcerers and Warlocks: "and I took offense to that."
With all these kind of stories, I can't understand why the DM doesn't step in when it is obvious that this shit is happening
It's generally because they've never learned how to be assertive. If you had the kind of upbringing that enabled you to build assertiveness skills, or you learned them later, great, but not everyone did. It's something that MANY people don't seem to realise: that not everyone learns to be assertive as a matter of course - some of us were actively discouraged, in fact - or even that it's something that needs learning and isn't automatic. Also, the majority of guides and help for DMs out there tend to focus on how to make a good story, which is great, but they don't tend to focus on the people management side of being a DM or even explain that people management skills are necessary. I had to learn ALL of the aforementioned the hard way and it's still a struggle.
As much as I love these Reddit stories, many of these stories could have been prevented by calling a "main character" out on their narcissism or telling them to leave if they continue to act shitty.
But I also pity "main character" players because often they are a nobody outside of D&D. So many of these type of peoples daydream and D&D is the only time they feel like a protagonist in their life. I dunno man, just teach eachother to be better selves but don't put up with shitty behavior. If you see it, say something.
The formatting of this video feels different than your usual stuff, CritCrab. I don't mean the content covered, but the way you narrated it. I'm not used to the numerous pauses throughout. Is everything alright?
I've had to increase the playback speed up to 1.5 to enjoy the video to be honest.
yeah, I ended up just ignoring the narration and reading the text by skipping through the video.
Ah, a perfect night for a perfect video from Crab while painting Marvel Crisis Protocol figures. Thank you, Crab. 🦀🦀🦀
Since the 2 foot wizard is misusing his familiar in the story, let me tell you how you could do it instead:
Our rogue/wizard has a spider familiar who he calles "günther". When günther does something and it fails due bad rolls our rogue goes "günther, are you high during work again?". When he finds out that he can't do something with his familiar, he roleplays that his familiar "is against it because it isn't in his employment contract". I like how he implies the failures into the roleplay and we all love the relateable worker sipder günther at our table.
I know it was probably frustrating in the moment, and bad for the game in general, but asking your DM to describe 7 different Lizards, and then going
"I'll take the lot" is objectively funny.
I blame the DM for a lot of the problems here. As a DM, if he left the area and tried to insert himself on another players conversation, I would just say, "You're not there."
OP and the DM of this game both commented, the players were all mostly new and the DM hadn't run a game in a long time. I don't think it excuses it all, it was still their responsibility to stop things like that instead of going so far as to make 3 whole towns just to accommodate someone who was already taking over the game for other players
But they seem like a pretty nonconfrontational group, and as imo annoying as it is when people don't stand up for themselves, or do stand up for themselves and aren't supported, the onus is ultimately on the person who was doing the harm and not just the people who didn't do enough to stop it. They did kick him eventually, and they were still getting their DnD footing, so even though I think it's annoying they can't be faulted too much. Groups like this often hang on to asshats for way too long and according to the DM this guy only lasted like 4 sessions, so honestly kudos. Got him out and had to deal with almost 4 sessions of that bull
I will never understand why people NEED to be unique and special. My character for my current campaign is a variant human champion fighter with a soldier background. Appearance wise, he is as typical as you can get: brown hair, blue eyes, light skin, strong bodied, and in his early to mid 30s. What makes him unique is his background story of being locked in a jail by elves with a full blooded orc, fighting him to a standstill and learning enough orcish to talk to him so they could then work together and escape. Infinitely better than this "lalafell" with a napoleon complex. I wouldn't even pet you.
Needing to be "Unique and special" describes the people that have infected DnD over the last 5-10 years.
Reminds me of one anime where a character got an existential crisis and became a villain when it turned out he wasn't the only one isekaied
Ah yes, Kirito. The poster boy of MC Syndrome, and the only thumbnail that fits this condition. This trend will never stop making me giggle.
I love your videos! I watch while I'm eating my lunch on lunch breaks from work, keep it up crab king!!!
"I think it was called a lalafel?". Ah. That explains it
Does anyone else listen to this as white noise for sleep. The ocean noises relaxing me and following along with the story just REALLY helps me sleep. It's nice.
You doing okay Crit? This video seemed pretty slow compared to the rest of your videos. Make sure to take care of yourself yeah?
Awww this is so sweet
I played a gnome wizard, and people kept trying to carry me around like a baby. It was uncomfortable, but I did have to be hauled up like a backpack a couple times when athletics (climb) checks were needed.
I used to play D&D years ago, and I was lucky, all the games were super fun, we didn't take ti too seriously and had so much fun.
Makes me sad when I read these stories but guess lucky didn't have to deal with this stuff.
I once made a character who was notably the 'am smol' type. She was 2'1" tall, and her size affected her character a lot. She had an inferiority complex that drove her to 'prove' herself. "I can still do stuff even if I'm short!" kind of thing, and it wasn't only limited to size related things. She wasn't about being better than everyone, just proving that she's as good. Or maybe better. But it was at the same time her weakness. She was very sensitive about the topic of her size, and sometimes (often) too competitive for her own good. She had anger issues stemming from it too. In her words "Imagine getting a doll for your 7th birthday, and then being told no, actually you got clothes, dolls are just the only way to get clothes that fit you."
You know it’s going to be a special one when the Kirito thumbnail comes up.
Problem player: I cast fireball!
DM: are you sure? The dungeon is clouded in VERY FLAMMABLE GAS!
Prob Player: I SAID I CAST FIREBALL!
DM: you’re now taking burn damage, along with physical damage from the rest of the party
Prob Player: WHAAAAAAATTTT!? THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!!
It's kind of silly to throw a fit about this kind of thing.
I mean a good story will make it so that each character is the main character from their perspective and take actions that would best serve them.
That's not to say there isn't a main character or we don't primarily follow one character, but all characters should feel as though they're their own agency and make choices that are inherent to their experiences.
Even side characters can have deep character arcs and at times be more interesting than the protagonists
Why would a wizard want a helm? They can't even wear one.
Ah the crab overlord gives us content.
Love how these DND games start with the party uniting to fight away a great evil, really bonds you together 🤣
Is my duty as a fellow Lalafell to disown this sussy imposter!
Lalafell are FFXIV's mix of Dwarves & Halflings, and as such, a true Lalafell is to accept "I am smol, uwu" treatment when given, while being the first and fastest to inflict due insults, and depleting ale stores as the bartender wonders how it all fits in there; NEVER underestimate Lalafell because they're cute; Eorzea's ancient civilization of Mhach, which was primarily Lalafell, used the demons of hell like batteries, AFTER exploding them into submission... Imagine a grand army of primarily wizards, specifically Megumin from Konosuba, AND the demons from Doom... yeah, that was Mhach...
Potato Gang rise up!
Where was I going with this...? oh yeah, this dude ain't it!
He played a Lalafell. One of the most common characters in Final fantasy 14 and wanted to be unique?!
I've run into these types before. I try subtle corrections to their behavior at first including talk sessions OOC, but if they don't pick up on it then I just tell them to shut the F up and let everyone else RP their character. They often get pouty and stay quiet for the rest of the sessions and don't do it anymore or sometimes they have left the game. Good riddance I say.
“I’m not an Edgelord”
-That’s what she said
I've been listen to these a lot less lately and it's mostly to blame that I've been worried one of these videos would be about me. This one came the closest to how I imagined my old group to imagine me. I never wrote the story of my side as I don't know if they even watch your videos (I barely knew them at all). If they did...I don't know if my side would make them unblock me on EVERY social media or secretly loath me more. It was all a misunderstanding, but the person who tells the story first is the person that is believed.
I'm sorry for the long rant. I'm just hurt and miss the people who I thought were my friends.
I cannot comprehend enjoying being the only player doing things.
Listening to other people doing things and interacting with them is the fun of the game.
This video had some unusual pauses in between statements where he stopped to read. The affect in parts is flatter than usual, too. It overall came off as less rehearsed, less polished than usual.
You doing okay, CritCrab?
My take away is that this is polished. It’s a way to extend the videos length and profitability. It may not be the right take, and if Crit wants to do that, it’s their choice completely. The story is still interesting, but I’m not a fan of the delivery.
Knowing the dude was a lalafel makes this whole thing a thousand times funnier XD
Another day, another main character video, another Kirito Thumbnail. Lastly another army of SAO fanbois arguing he is not.
Only together, can we face the Kirito stans. Floraclaw is now the crab in chief of the crabs against weirdos for kirito
Crustacean special forces
I care less about whether or not he's a mary sue/main character syndrome(as a fan of the show/games, I can definitely say he is, or either has seduction powers like Zeus cuz idk how he gets so many girls), and more that it's boring to always use him or shadow for edgelords. Not that they're bad picks, but just boring to see every time imo. Would like to see some variety if that makes sense.
am i the only one who got the vibes that the ‘uwu i’m so small carry me uwu’ thing was more of a weird kink of him? wouldn’t be the first time i’ve seen it.
if this OP considered this dude's actions as a case of MILD main character syndrome, wtf did she potentially witness in other games (or maybe actions in everyday life off the table) that she considered severe??? seriously, for her to consider this "mild" whereas everyone else here believes otherwise, shes either seen some shit or shes really, REALLY patient
I have a half orc but instead of the other half being human its elf and its a tempest cleric
Did this dude legit homebrew in a Final Fantasy Gnome.... into a world that already has gnomes?
Also, generally speaking Lalafells are taller than Halflings by a good few inches (which when you're that small, is quite the difference).
For relative sizes a full grown Lalafell is about the size of a 9 year old, while a Halfling is about the size of a 5 or 6 year old.
A lalafel wizard...I'm surprised the party didn't just yeet him like a football when he got uppity.
To the problem player: Main characters are for books, movies, TV shows, and video games, not tabletop roleplaying. Consider working on one of the above alternatives if it is such a burning necessity for your character to be the prima donna.
To the DM: What the fuck? Why did you just let the problem player do this? It is your job as the dungeon master to put your foot down and say no when one player is compromising the rest of the party’s fun. Grow a spine already.
As someone who usually dms this shit gets shutdown day 1 session zero is great to see how people act as dm I have the right and responsibility to say no or to call for a player kick
The thing with that argument, and it's one that is mentioned often because it seems so obvious to anyone without MCS, is that people who have MCS don't just want to be The Coolest, they also want other people to be witness to their coolness. They need the group of players to get what for them is the real benefit of being The Coolest; everyone else being LESS cool.
@@BlueTressym when they copy and paste there back story from anime it's usually a sign of mcs which I do like anime and do take ideas for it here and there and wanting to get all these free buff and stat sticks shows his hand fast
This is the first time I've not been able to pay attention to your video.. I'm still stuck on wanting that space monkey plush!!
This is why I could never play D&D. I'd have either talked so much shit to that guy or hit him. I don't have the patience for this type of thing.
I remember when I did a D&D game with some now long time friends, I played a Paladin who had broken his oath and sought to reclaim it (all while lying to the party about not being an Oathbreaker). Well when it was discovered (in character) the DM asked me in private if I wanted to have an MC session about my Paladin reclaiming his oath, I declined because I knew it was unfair to the others and wouldn’t allow for us to have proper closure. And so with his secret uncovered and trust broken we continued, with my Paladin slowly regaining the trust of his friends and embracing his potential for good rather then evil, ironically though about 3 sessions before we finished the campaign, I ended up reclaiming my oath by nearly dying while protecting the Cleric of the group, still one of my favorite moments to this day and the best outcome for the character.
Bro some guy from my group literally thinks he's the mc, his lore Is that he's from some kind of super OP group that could easily take out the BBG but they don't cuz u know, reasons, oh and did I mention he's the son of the literal devil and the goddess of balance?
Every time I see a comment somehow triggered the pauses in the video…I laugh at it and respond with only “Bruh”
WAYSTAR IS BEST STAR! bit.ly/3c0McV4
Which star, the star way over there?
These are always great stories, relatively mild, always entertaining, and this one is no exception.
It makes me sad that there are so many people like this, and how a lot of them are just seemingly sexist in some manner or another. Of course I know none of these people so I won't judge, I just hope God heals their hearts.
Why did I just get haymakered by a crab repeatedly at the beginning of this video?
Just a note, when someone is "like that to everyone, but more so towards me" nine out of ten times that "more so" only exists because you're more sensitive to it when it's directed at you.
I don't doubt, however, this story is one out of ten. Yes, because OP was the only female. On the other hand, I suspect it's less sexism on his part and more, being the only girl, she'd be perceived as the biggest threat to all attention being on him.
"Remember, you're perfectly unique. Just like everyone else." Is a quote that comes to mind
>Lalafell
Heh. XIV strikes again.
I love XIV
@@CritCrab as well you should.
The image at 8:48 made me laugh out loud: two folks having a real heart to heart and the overbearing wizard just randomly popping up to slide his familiar illustration across the table like “heyyyy, looooook”