You can self publish on Amazon, put your crappy writing there like other hack authors who sell ebooks for like $1 apiece. Someone will pay for it, the abundance of shitty """romance""" stories on there show that all too well...
And 50% gazing longingly at the fun section of the monster manual, wistfully waiting for when, in 9 months, the party will finally have a high enough level where you can finally start to break out the cool stuff instead of just more bandits, zombies, orcs, and goblins. Assuming the campaign doesn't end. Assuming your players are still around. Assuming their characters don't die. Because you're sick and tired of narrating fetchquests and basic encounters on the Sword Coast and really wish you could take them on an epic campaign throughout the planes, but you know they'd get wiped on the first round by literally any encounter you can construct, assuming that they wouldn't just die the second they got there, not that they can use anything to travel the planes yet, so you're stuck with the same handful of monsters, places, and challenges until they can finally go somewhere interesting and fight something cool.
@@boid9761 Let's just say that if you're a sexual deviant and want to play a tabletop RPG (and don't mind using the most boring and irritating to learn system imaginable), then F.A.T.A.L is the game for you.
I'd say one of my most memorable DnD experiences was when the DM made this kind and endearing necromancer who used to be a priest, but became a necromancer because adventurers kept raiding his temple and stealing all of his artifacts and sacred tomes. He raised undead minions to serve as guardians, housekeepers, and people to keep him company. He was meant to be a recurring NPC who would offer the party sagely wisdom and aid. Instead the chaotic stupid rogue stabbed him and stole all of his artifacts and sacred tomes.
I still have no idea how to deal with a non-player. Especially since I'm not sure if he actually *feels* like he's not participating enough, because to some extent, his character is built to not be a very lively action-driven adventurer, but a pretty down-to-earth and somewhat socially awkward guy...which isn't really the best character to play I guess, but what do I know...
@@kasane1337 Some people just want to be there and not necesarilly be in the spotlight. If they are fine and don't seem visibly bored (like looking on their phones or making dice towers) then they just enjoy that, let them have their fun in their own way, each person enjoy the game for diferent reasons. If the person is getting bored because the character doesn't allow them to participate, just let them change that part of their character or to make a new one but don't ask, just let them do so if they decide to change character by themselves.
Just let the part do whatever they want for one round. Just let them get the jitters out of their system. You can then give them a finely crafted story. I would even allow them one day to rebuild their character. Have them run a low stakes dungeon at the first session where their character build can be tested. Keep in mind that you are actually being a game designer, and not a story teller, which means that you have to wear your story teller hat in a bit of a different manner than you would if you were just writing a novel. You are basically writing a kids Saturday morning cartoon, (lots of action scenes, maybe the occasional divine intervention depending on how hard core your party is) not a Victorian novel. You will finally need to allow the party to make pit stops. This means they need to sell all of their crap, get whatever items re-stalked that they have depleted, Craft things that they feel like crafting. also to get those vital rest points that they need in order to reset their health after hard core missions.
My “that guy”. Everything mentioned in the video, literally everything. But the final straw was during a bathroom break when “that guy” sat on my toilet, broke it and explosively shit on my walls, then didn’t wipe and went back to the game... without telling me he’d just nuked my bathroom. ...F’n Tony
Or the love triangle between the well-adjusted player, the well-adjusted player's girlfriend who's trying out D&D for the first time, and the incel player who's character becomes a sexual predator towards the girlfriend's character?
@@andrewlance3898 Surely it's the fault of the well-adjusted person for playing DnD in the first place? How dare he taint the incel paradise with his existing social and love life
Or the accidental love triangle of a player, his wife, and his evil clone? Seriously, this was something that happened totally by accident in the campaign I''m in right now. It involved rolling a 1 on a magic in-game die.
"Why are the PCs delving into long-forgotten dungeons? For the treasure!" "Why are there so many monsters in these dungeons? To guard the treasure!" "Who built these dungeons? Why, the ancient peoples who made the treasure!" "Why did all these ancient peoples go extinct? Well, obviously because they hoarded all their treasure into over-designed dungeons full of high-maintenance monsters rather than reinvest that back into their economy." No joke though this actually sounds like a hilariously fun campaign setting. XD
No need for a campaign setting, we have a historical example! The Abbasids had a secret chamber underneath their palace, massive in scale and guarded by elite troops, where they stored gold and treasures they had collected for the last 500 years. When the Mongol Prince Halugu took Baghdad, he mocked the Abbasid Caliph Mustasim for doing this, and even served him gold as food after starving him so the Mongols could tell him "if you cannot eat it, what did you hoard it for?"
@@Dudebox64 This is a really good RPG setting, imagine the amount of playable classes and sheer amount of enemies to fight. Playable classes like the Cavalry Archer, Cavalry Lancer, Chinese Engineer, Persian Engineer, Archer, Spearman, Swordsman and even Handgonners since its the late 1250s. And having them go up against Abbasid Handgonners and Abbasid Levies armed with various weapons. Its honestly gold. If your wondering why its edited its because I corrected myself.
Gotta admit, a deconstruction of that sounds awesome. You could either make it humorous or dramatic. Either way, even if players are munchkin, that can be awesome. "Well, that dungeon you ran through was shitty because the empire that maintained it finally ran out of money, and the monsters remained unfed and the traps unmaintained for several weeks now."
@@LeriHunter There's an amusing webcomic strip where a group of adventurers are going through a dungeon and come to an empty room with the word OVERTHINKING written on the wall. Then they start musing amongst themselves whether overthinking is the trap, the trigger for a trap, or the concept of a trap. The punchline is one group member saying "It better not be a conceptual treasure, like friendship or some shit." and another party member says "No way, I can honestly say I hate all of you."
Not wanting to be rude, but you do not belong behind the carboard screen, if that's a one shot maybe it'll work but as a campaign setting it'll lose it's shine in about 2-3 sessions and than the game either grows out of it or goes caput.
> Hentai Guy in the party, doing typical Hentai Guy shit > Ban him from making female characters in an effort to curb his degeneracy > He finally makes a fairly normal, unremarkable male character instead > thankfuckinggod.png > He immediately tries to seduce or rape every single female NPC the party comes across > TFW you just can't fucking win
@@mindriz2 on the contrary, It so carefully crafted and so complex that even the slightest change would make it crumble away. It going to be fun seeing nat 20 get crushed under the all mighty hand of the DM.
Bram Lastname That’s called joining a Roleplay server on Discord. Everyone is allowed to make changes to the world on the fly without any silly regard for lore. And if you’re lucky, you’ll run into a Mary or Gary Sue. Very similar to the standard writing variation, but now if you question it then you’ll be lectured on how it fits their backstory and how you’re ruining their fun. Obviously when this happens, it’s because you’re in the wrong.
@@eddiemate well the way I see it, At any given point in time, You are either GM or player, Never both. Your character simply disappears every time you switch to GM status. As such you cannot make a Mary Sue without at least 1 other person contributing.
Got to say I identify with the Joker mostly. Though instead of chaotic actions I just say stupid stuff instead. Though I partly blame my DM for tricking me into thinking this was a short-joke campaign instead of the 2+ year long irl adventure it's become. It's been rough turning Ned Flanders the Necromancer into a semi-serious character.
4:10 "The best method for dealing with an out of control Joker, is to call Batman." That's actually not a bad idea. Picture this: a player character wanders off and starts doing evil in a moderately large city when suddenly, out of nowhere, a powerful but strange figure appears and confronts them. Que the chase sequence!
Edgelords do tend to develop a lethal habit of threatening old guys that are actually one of the following: -16th-level Fighters that may be retired, but can still bend them into a pretzel -Wizards with Save-or-Die spells (or the potentially even funnier Save-or-Suck brand) -Bahamut
I did just that, LV 999 Lancelot who was so rich, that every time they took a crit on the "luck" dice, they would find him selling top notch equipament(that the Joker was way too much poor to afford) and flexing his LV 999 powers. It was effective for some reason.
Funny story: the one time I was going to be a Dungeon Master, I had prepared a comprehensive and detailed town with complex characters and neat mythology. The idea was to build up tension and show the cast that even after all the monsters have been defeated, they still have demons to face: other humans. Then they just ignored the entire town and asked me to just skip to the dungeon. It made a lot of the things in that dungeon a lot more edgy instead of emotional.
That's why it's really important to know exactly what each player wants from the session before building your campaign. If you have a bunch of powergamer hack-and-slashers, that's not necessarily a bad thing... unless you've already built a heavily story-built session, with less combat and more character interaction. Then everyone's frustrated, from the DM who can't stand their story constantly being avoided, and the players, who just want some action. (The reverse can also be true, btw, it's just less common.) And if you have a mix of players, it can be just as hard to balance every "need" of the group in a satisfying way. (This, of course, does not apply if you do not know the group you are playing with whatsoever. But usually people DM canned campaigns for that kind of situation.)
Allen Holloway i believe a good way of introducing story to hack and slay players is to have snippets of exposition at the end of dungeons for an interesting story. This should be exposition that leaves mysteries open. Once the players seem interested you can delve into story more. I.e explain who Built the Dungeons and say that one day they disappeared without a trace leaving only the dungeons behind or something generic like that.
Don't forget to totally disregard the elaborate, carefully-written backstories of your players' characters and leave it out of the narrative entirely. Or better yet, totally change it! Who cares what the players have to say about their own characters?
My DM does that - she doesn't change backstories though. I just have yet to see any PCs with an actual goal accomplish that goal, except one guy who actually managed to get married during a 40 year time skip, but only so he could get replaced by his son cause the player wanted to switch to a different character. The rest of us literally got told our characters did nothing of importance for 40 years...
You've made a grievous error. The idea of a civilization that collapses due to its own greed and hubris in its efforts to hoard treasure is far too engaging and dangerously opens your game up to possible, interesting connections to the overarching plot meaning more work for the DM! My husband and I just spent several minutes discussing such possibilities and now our players may be doomed in the future to a campaign that actually encourages them to explore the world we're supposed to create!
Wait. They killed our inside guy in the royal court that we’ve planted there years ago and that took thousands of hours of planning and training to gain their trust... I mean... all according to plan?
Actually its the truth. My players screwed over my plans so much that I simply stopped planning. I just say etc etc happened how u gonna solve it. Ever since then they kept calling me the greatest DM ever with the most intense story exile I haven't actually done shit!
I play RPG’s once in a blue moon, but I love listening to RPG horror stories. RPGs do a great job at mixing the creativity of a person’s imagination with their personality. Good way to get to know people.
In our like 6th grade DnD club I was the one female and had a crush on the DM. One of the other (more chad like) players had a crush on me. This literally happened to me.
Set a campaign during the time when the empire is crumbling and raiding the dungeons is the last-ditch hope to get the resources you need for your people to survive
The dragon empire of the past is falling to their own hubris and greed, now you must save your vassal nation from the collapse by fighting the systemic corruption that threatens to drag your people down with it
What you expect as a DM: "Yeah, this campaign will be as fun and engaging as it gets. Players will LOVE this!!" What you actually get: "You have tried to seduce the talking fish for the last 30 minutes and it didn't work... just cross the god damn river, I beg you!!"
I will not sleep tonight because of the flashbacks...I never thought seducing talking animals (or that fetish, apparently) was so common before I started playing RPGs...
Lol in our campaign our DM had to construct an entire backstory for this one random NPC soldier that we were supposed to kill because someone wanted to go on a date with him There was also another guy who stored an entire pocket dimension in his belly button...
One of my favorite things about TWA is that, when the advertisements say "To Be Continued", they actually mean it. It's not a joke after a sarcastic cliffhanger, like you see so often. There is actually a story in the advertisements.
"The biggest mistake a DM can make is giving deeper context to any aspect of the game! Why are the PCs delving into long-forgotten dungeons? For the treasure!" Did Egoraptor write this?
@@Ricardo57492 It's a reference to his video on Ocarina of Time. He goes on this rant about how he thinks the context OoT's story provides distracts from the player's drive to explore dungeons, kill monsters, and get the loot (not that he's paying attention to the story). He asserts that any larger context or story is unnecessary because he wants the game to tell him he's a hero just for doing what he finds fun.
@@Eyewarp yeah pretty much, dude infamously hates games with any semblance of a story and so takes that feeling to mean any greater context or plot is boring and unnecessary just cause he prefers more arcadey advantures arin hanson is not a game designer and any advice he has on it should eb taken with a grain of salt
"When it comes to dangerous creatures, there is only one that is so ruthless, so conniving, cruel, and dangerous that it will spend every waking moment dedicated to nothing short of ending your campaign in its tracks." Scheduling conflicts? "I, of course, speak of the players themselves." ...close enough.
Day 1: I started playing with my friends. My cousin's boyfriend is the DM. We are a weird group, and we are all newbies, but this should be fun enough to last a while. Day 10: /Leonor/ was eaten by a monster. "Probably shouldn't have slept in that abandoned camp full of knight corpses", says the dungeon master, shrugging.
3:57 The joker can be good. My favorite was when one of our older friends, who was the DM in his other groups but not this session, semi-derailed us all into a woods because his negative INT character saw some flowers. The whole session was just shenanigans from being lost in the woods. We all hurt from smiling and laughing too much, especially our DM.
I’ve dealt with the drama queen type plenty of times. At one point she brought her boyfriend along so they can have some “couples time” and the whole time she’d have her character speak passive aggressive dialogue and make passive aggressive decisions based on little shit her boyfriend would do that she was annoyed about (“ooh my character rolled a d20 and got a 17! That’s how many of my messages **a certain someone** claimed to have missed last night) The relationship didn’t last long.
I actually like playing a evil character who corporates with a good aligned party. Someone who can do the "terrible sh*t" no one else is whiling to do.
I have "evil-aligned character with command word that activates a good-aligned alter ego... which the party learns immediately" and "I will do anything for my friends. Yes, that includes murdering strangers and stealing all their money to buy nice things for y'all, but you don't need to know about that. It would make you sad, and we can't have that!" I haven't gotten the chance to play either of them yet.
I played an Ork once in our campaign, only following along to find out who messed up some of our boyz. We came to a part where our party discovered that Orks wiped out the town that one of our members had resided in and burnt it to the ground. Immediately, my response was: "Sounds like a roight good lot they do!"
One of my favorite characters was an "evil" aligned necromancer who did monstrous things to people and built up an army of undead not because he wanted to rule the world, but just because he didn't understand the dangers of necromancy. He just assumed it was "bring people back from the dead with literally 0 consequences" magic
The author should make the guards either completely incompotent or cardboard cutouts that only slightly waste the protagonists' time to cover up the fact that an actual prison break would be neraly impossible without many, many more military resources than are available to the protagonists.
This sounds like a campaign I left recently, down to a T. The only difference is that the edge lord could never kill the friendly npcs, because literally every one of them could one shot us except the dm of course.
I wish that would only apply to one specific DM rather than every other "that guy" that make you play through their glorified stories. The kind of guy that makes you say "Fanfiction.net is a thing, post your story there thank you see you never."
I like how the info block for "that guy" has basically no info on what he is. I like to think that there IS more info on him but its a memetic hazard and is purposely being kept from the eyes of anyone who doesn't already know.
I once got into a Dnd Discord server, and I think one of the mods (Who, thankfully, got booted out when everyone got fed up with his 💩) took this advice seriously -_-
@popocot popocot eh, fingernails are good, but they're best with salt (they're WAY too tough and chewy to just be eaten plain), and you need a beverage with that. hence, blood.
When I run the game I have a timer for taking your first action. If you don't do anything by the time it's up, I can and will skip you. I like tricks that speed up combat.
@@Mortablunt I do that too. I have a few small hourglasses for 30 seconds, 1 minute, and 3 minute. I use them a lot. Helps to stress the players a bit in combat if they can see the sand falling. Its combat, you dont have all fuckin day. Act now or get slotted.
"the hentai guy will try to force his horrible fetishes into the game" Yes very true "this is bad because it conflicts with MY horrible fetishes im trying to force into the game" VERY TRUEEEEEEEE
@@TheWampam I went to a Bible college. It was less about banning the game and more about "warning" us about the "dangers" of a fantasy roleplaying game.
First and only time I played DnD, I kid you not, me and another player were just messing about while the DM was setting up. And my character tried to seduce the other player's character, before the game had even started properly. One and only time I've rolled a natural 20.
7:58 I would actually like to see a show about these collection of kooks trying to actually have an adventure together. The furry and the Hentai Guy might become friends. The Role Player and the Edge Lord talking about their back stories.
I have actually seen this work...except The Guy and the Rules-lawyer. With proper planning (and discussion before campaign) you can get them all to work, except those two.
The rules lawyer can actually be very useful, if they're not a confrontational jerk but act more like a teacher, f.e. reminding the DM of rules (without starting an argument) and helping them with stuff (great DM assistants, as they're well-organized, exact and always willing to look up rules for you) and by teaching their fellow players the rules (works well as a tutor for newbies).
The furry in the video is the snowflake. I assume they don't work with people as well. Wouldn't know. I don't let snowflake types into my games. I can deal with a group of players who are a bit OP, and players that want to have their backstory matter, but once a player decides that each session is about them specifically, and start telling me how to build my world... thats a problem.
Yeah TAZ actually strikes an incredible balance between emotion and laughs when it counts, it starts out pretty silly but they find their stride quickly enough. Amnesty and Graduation are even better in that regard, although unfortunately most people just stopped after Balance.
The job of a DM is like a drill sergeant. You're suppose to break each individual down and pressure the players so that they put aside their differences with each other and team up against you. Once the players build an optimized synergistic party that uses tactics and teamwork to beat your insanely overpowered homebrew lich fiend elemental super house cat that's 10 CR above the party level, you know your job is done.
I have a D&D friend EXACTLY like this. 😂 I honestly don't mind because I find it fairly amusing to have a sparkly multi-species super-powered magical girl in our otherwise normal D&D game.
IT is actually very generic. It a character where the actual character is substituded by a fuckton of gimmics and stupid power ups. Everything devolves into "I use my xy superpower" and that's it. And there is no such thing as not showing your character sheet to the DM. Anything only exists in a dnd champaign if the DM allows it. No exceptions.
@@Limrasson Sadly, that is what my bard has devolved into because the DM and two of the players pre-wrote their roles in the story...so when I got sidelined, I just did whatever. The upside of being a bard is that I got my revenge. Prior to entering a room for negotiations critical to the plot, I insulted one of the players with the connection, giving him 4 psychic damage and disadvantage on his persuasion role...the whole group laughed when he rolled a 19 and a 1. Vicious Mockery is one bitch of a cantrip.
@@samuelzuleger5134 HAhaha, it's a support cantrip actually, because it helps mitigate damage. Also extremely good roleplay opportunities with vicious mockery.
Their character is even more generic than everyone else. Less is more and all that. They keep thinking their character is special because it's an outlandish color and has an instant solution for every problem in the form of a spell with a crazy name. Every single mary-sue ever
"solve every problem by murdering it." Reminds me of a campaign I ran where the players ran past the storyline I had planned to go murder and rob the town citizens.
Also always remember to "Take Inspiration" for your campaign from movie's and TV so much your world basically transforms into crappy LOTR or Witcher just with a different coat of paint. I mean everyone knows that all you need to get a hot red convertible is to just dump your old crappy ford in a pool of paint and rip off the roof just say that you never drive fast for safety concerns. Also just like your lifehack dream car your player's will never notice it is just a crappy rip off with a coat of paint and just wonder why did you not just use the real thing. It is not like I have easy access to a worldwide database with easy to access sites and videos about entire worlds that I could literally access on the toilet. But whatever you do never take Inspiration from the real world. The huge and complex history and culture of the real world are to boring to bother looking into. They may be filled with awesome Monsters, Stories, Gods and deep philosophy but I am to busy watching anime and writing my DM PC 100 page backstory to Even look at them. When has real world history, myths and legends inspired fiction (LOTR, Witcher, Percy Jackson, Avatar The Last Airbender)
I started playing D&D over Discord a few weeks ago and my experience has been very very positive. I had no idea the game could be so much fun, but I can see how that's dependant upon the flexibility and the cleverness of the characters. Almost all of us are writers but this is a good exercise in thinking on our feet!
The party when I just show up with a hastily sketched small dungeon and a list of a few encounters I want to try having so everyone can get a chance to do one thing this session but I'm otherwise going to play off what the party does: "So, DM, where's the story taking us this week?" Me: "Fuck." The party when I've spent 8 hours plotting out in detail a huge dungeon with alternate routes, a complex puzzle, a little character arc with a side villain, and some moral choices that will influence the larger plot: "Let's make this one-armed gnoll we half chopped to death our mascot and spend 2 hours arguing with the inkeeper about them not letting us have him in our rooms." Me: "Fuck."
I was just rewatching all of the episodes yesterday what a coincidance. Also J. P. have been oficialy quoted by historical channel on youtube known by having great sources several months back, congratulation.
I was curious... so I looked it up. Initial Reaction: Oh Dear Next Reaction: Oh... oh no. Gosh, gosh no. NOOOO! Final Reaction: HAHAHAHAHAHA Honestly, I've been going through a lot of the manual. It's absolutely hilarious if you ignore the fact that this was an actual system intended to be played.
"While every character is capable of urinat- ing, it requires skill to urinate accurately or to maxi- mize the distance of a stream of urine. Generally, this skill is for males, though under certain circum- stances females may exercise their Urinating skill. This is best left to the discretion of the Aedile. Whenever a character attempts to urinate on a tar- get, and urination requires accuracy or distance, a Urinating skill check is made."
I'm currently leaving a campaign because of that... 😑 Plus, though I like everyone as people, I can't deal with them (DM and some players) in game/their playstyle.
I once ran a game where one of the characters seduced the leader of one of the city's largest guilds. Unfortunately, their relationship came to a violent end when the party discovered the guild's illegal drug lab...
I've met a lot of Those Guys, and a lot of their problems generally come from some kind of developmental disorder. Kicking them out makes it better for you, but makes them worse. I'm _almost_ a That Guy myself, but after years of people giving me a chance (and a little therapy), I'm more self-aware. I think I graduated to Rules Lawyer.
I need some of that Lovecraft Light. I kid you not if you just sold packages of relabeled grape Fanta as Lovecraft Light I would buy that for every session I GM.
I was surprised to learn about how edgelords behave. See I often played edgelord loner types myself, but then I generally helped the team out, since being a team player was kind of important to the goals of the game. I understood that the lone wolf was how the character behaved socially, but disregarding teamwork was not conducive to survival, and the character's social awkwardness and walling others out was a character flaw, not a character goal.
My favorite dnd story is how my party decided to make a companion npc (that was supposed to die in the 1st or 2nd dungeon) the protagonist of the campaign. They gave him the magical sword, best armor, and forced me to make him an actual interesting character because he just wouldn't die. And ya know what? He just might be the best character I've ever designed. I've put him into a couple short stories I've put out and he's an instant fan favorite whenever he's on screen.
Me: okay, I don’t really write in the genres TWA talks about and when he does i don’t really write the tropes he discusses, so I should be fine- TWA: {writes an episode about DMs} Me: *oh no*
It always bothers me when people complain about railroading and praise letting the players come up with how the story should go. Because the people who do so are often the same people who say that RPGs are cooperative games for the entire group and that everyone should get to have fun. Here's the thing, it's not fun as a GM to have a plot and setting you want to share with your players and end up with them completely ignoring it because they've memed one of the secondary NPCs into being cool and want to only do stuff with them. I'm not saying that the players shouldn't be allowed to actually like, play the game as active participants who make decisions, nor that the GM should just brute force them into only doing what he wants. But I do think that it's not unreasonable to expect the players to meet the GM halfway, and that a GM that wants to have an overarching story and put time and effort into the setting get to show it off and let the players experience it. Hell, I wouldn't even necessarily mind a more linear experience. I play plenty of video game JRPGs and I enjoy them plenty *because* of the interesting stories, settings and characters, I don't see why you can't have that in a tabletop RPG too. As long as everyone knows what they're in for and is okay with it, I don't think there's much wrong with railroading then.
Yeah, that's one of those things which really should get discussed among the group from time to time. I've played with some extremely railroady GMs and had a great time, because they made an excellent railroad through beautiful scenery, and everyone was on board for it. I've also played with extremely sandboxy GMs who mostly improvised everything in reaction to the players, and had a great time making shit up as we went along. And I've had games all along the spectrum go bad or die because the various people involved had different ideas of what they wanted in the game, and either couldn't reconcile them, or just never brought it up until it became a problem. Like with so many other things in life, communication is far more important than following a checklist of good or bad elements, when playing an RPG.
Looks like Pathfinder would be a good fit for you. No, I'm not being snarky (entirely); if I want campaigns that double as good stories in a good setting then Pathfinder's my first pick. : )
If the DM doesn't have fun the game will suffer for sure. Railroading can be very useful when done sparingly, mostly to speed things along with passive and inexperienced players. That said, you seem to have a very flawed idea of what the medium of TTRPG is good at. Most RPGs are a terrible medium for telling stories. However they are great at emulating a world and generating history. Story is emergent from that. I don't go camping and hiking for the story but rather because they are enjoyable activities by themselves. But boy do I have a few good camping and hiking stories. I have this same attitude towards DnD. I know the frustration of sessions getting completely derailed and plot hooks being ignored very well but it's not my friends fault when my sales pitch isn't good enough. What sounds really cool in my head and might be great in a JRPG, fanfic or short story might simply not come across at the table because the medium isn't well suited to it. The depth, investment and realism that comes from multi year play in an open ended sandbox world is much more rewarding than interacting with a setting which is merely a stage for the DMs pre-written play. Some DM's can pull it off and some players really enjoy that style though. However, running games becomes a lot more fun and a lot less work when you stop trying to force your story to happen.
Everyone is confusing "railroading" with "linear story". Linear story involves a plot hook in which the players engage with and tries to overcome the problems involved. Railroading is when there is ONE way to solve the problem and the GM shoots down any other ways to do it. It's all about player agency. And yes I agree with some commenters here that an unspoken rule is the players meet with the GM halfway. If there is a hook about a Duke kidnapping children, it's completely inconsiderate for a player to go "Eh I don't want to deal with the duke I'm just gonna go start a mining company instead lol."
If they blow off the main plot try a few times to get them back on course but if they outright refuse then let them do their thing for a few in game days then have a wave of dark magic kill them all, "whoops, looks like that Duke sacrificed the children in a dark ritual and killed everyone that could oppose him, really should have checked that out earlier." Obviously this should only be done if they are really being that obstinate about following the plot, if they refuse to play with you then you refuse to play with them.
I didn’t become a DM just to let Players ruin my perfect story. I became a DM because otherwise no one would read my stories
You can self publish on Amazon, put your crappy writing there like other hack authors who sell ebooks for like $1 apiece. Someone will pay for it, the abundance of shitty """romance""" stories on there show that all too well...
@@Shenaldrac Clearly, he was joking...I think...
This is all too relatable.
@@Shenaldrac
If I publish my text-based roleplay, can I "thank" my players as uncredited ghostwriters?
@@Shenaldrac There was even a minecraft romance story on Amazon, I believe.
DMing is 10% writing and 90% improv and 100% insecurity about your DMing skills
Truer words have never been spoken 😂
I hate that I feel you're right.
And 50% gazing longingly at the fun section of the monster manual, wistfully waiting for when, in 9 months, the party will finally have a high enough level where you can finally start to break out the cool stuff instead of just more bandits, zombies, orcs, and goblins. Assuming the campaign doesn't end. Assuming your players are still around. Assuming their characters don't die. Because you're sick and tired of narrating fetchquests and basic encounters on the Sword Coast and really wish you could take them on an epic campaign throughout the planes, but you know they'd get wiped on the first round by literally any encounter you can construct, assuming that they wouldn't just die the second they got there, not that they can use anything to travel the planes yet, so you're stuck with the same handful of monsters, places, and challenges until they can finally go somewhere interesting and fight something cool.
Oryaam L i agree even thought im not one
and 69% Dick jokes " I raise my Long and Steady sword "
The Hentai Guy's avatar is the scariest thing you've ever drawn.
Yeah. The buckler is just frightening! :O
I think writing that anyone *likes* F.A.T.A.L. is more terrifying
What is FATAL again? Been a while.
@@boid9761 Let's just say that if you're a sexual deviant and want to play a tabletop RPG (and don't mind using the most boring and irritating to learn system imaginable), then F.A.T.A.L is the game for you.
@@QuartzJones I'm interested, not because I'm a deviant, but because I never really heard of it until now.
oh boy I gotta write this all down
Crossover when?
Jocat!
And now you know how to write a dnd game you’re welcome
is this a crossover episode?
I feel your pain JoCat. I am reminded of my many mistakes I made as an early DM. I got some editing to do now.
I'd say one of my most memorable DnD experiences was when the DM made this kind and endearing necromancer who used to be a priest, but became a necromancer because adventurers kept raiding his temple and stealing all of his artifacts and sacred tomes. He raised undead minions to serve as guardians, housekeepers, and people to keep him company. He was meant to be a recurring NPC who would offer the party sagely wisdom and aid. Instead the chaotic stupid rogue stabbed him and stole all of his artifacts and sacred tomes.
*Cue wah wah music*
Should've brought him back as a lich
It'sa me, Malaria! That would be a great idea considering he was a necromancer and all.
@@eldara3 A vengeful lich
Lmao yeah I would do that I'll kill anyone if I get bored enough
Edit: in the game I don't kill people when I'm bored in rl
The Non-Player is not affected by a rock fall. He's just that oblivious.
Except when he screams because he completed a world in Candy Crush and then he is driven into the world by the other players.
I still have no idea how to deal with a non-player. Especially since I'm not sure if he actually *feels* like he's not participating enough, because to some extent, his character is built to not be a very lively action-driven adventurer, but a pretty down-to-earth and somewhat socially awkward guy...which isn't really the best character to play I guess, but what do I know...
It's like how in the Hitchiker's guide books, people can fly because they forget to hit the ground when they fall.
@@kasane1337 Some people just want to be there and not necesarilly be in the spotlight. If they are fine and don't seem visibly bored (like looking on their phones or making dice towers) then they just enjoy that, let them have their fun in their own way, each person enjoy the game for diferent reasons. If the person is getting bored because the character doesn't allow them to participate, just let them change that part of their character or to make a new one but don't ask, just let them do so if they decide to change character by themselves.
The played a game with a non-player and the DM forgot about them and he breezed through a dungeon with 0 DMG because of it
I'm a terrible dm, so this must be relatible
Edit:
Okay, even I am not that bad
fien nope Welcome to the channel
Just let the part do whatever they want for one round. Just let them get the jitters out of their system. You can then give them a finely crafted story. I would even allow them one day to rebuild their character. Have them run a low stakes dungeon at the first session where their character build can be tested.
Keep in mind that you are actually being a game designer, and not a story teller, which means that you have to wear your story teller hat in a bit of a different manner than you would if you were just writing a novel. You are basically writing a kids Saturday morning cartoon, (lots of action scenes, maybe the occasional divine intervention depending on how hard core your party is) not a Victorian novel.
You will finally need to allow the party to make pit stops. This means they need to sell all of their crap, get whatever items re-stalked that they have depleted, Craft things that they feel like crafting. also to get those vital rest points that they need in order to reset their health after hard core missions.
Congratulations, now you have 666 likes
You could never be that bad
@@idontexist2959 Congratulations,if you would exist , now you would have 4 likes, in Japan, that means bad luck.
My “that guy”. Everything mentioned in the video, literally everything. But the final straw was during a bathroom break when “that guy” sat on my toilet, broke it and explosively shit on my walls, then didn’t wipe and went back to the game... without telling me he’d just nuked my bathroom.
...F’n Tony
The story of what he ate must’ve been more deep than the one in the d&d session.
Have you considered submitting any of those stories to people they do neckbeard stories?
He what
@@skyfallshome6179 He nuked the bathroom!
@@elmeromogollon I want the alternate timeline where he rolled a nat 20.
You talked about everything, but you didn't talk about the love triangle with the player, a NPC and the princess?
What about the love triangle among the two biggest flirts/horndogs of the group and a hapless cultist NPC?
Or the love triangle between the well-adjusted player, the well-adjusted player's girlfriend who's trying out D&D for the first time, and the incel player who's character becomes a sexual predator towards the girlfriend's character?
You mean the love triangle of the dm npc, the princess and the demon lord who is a girl because love triangle
@@andrewlance3898 Surely it's the fault of the well-adjusted person for playing DnD in the first place? How dare he taint the incel paradise with his existing social and love life
Or the accidental love triangle of a player, his wife, and his evil clone?
Seriously, this was something that happened totally by accident in the campaign I''m in right now. It involved rolling a 1 on a magic in-game die.
"Why are the PCs delving into long-forgotten dungeons? For the treasure!"
"Why are there so many monsters in these dungeons? To guard the treasure!"
"Who built these dungeons? Why, the ancient peoples who made the treasure!"
"Why did all these ancient peoples go extinct? Well, obviously because they hoarded all their treasure into over-designed dungeons full of high-maintenance monsters rather than reinvest that back into their economy."
No joke though this actually sounds like a hilariously fun campaign setting. XD
No need for a campaign setting, we have a historical example! The Abbasids had a secret chamber underneath their palace, massive in scale and guarded by elite troops, where they stored gold and treasures they had collected for the last 500 years. When the Mongol Prince Halugu took Baghdad, he mocked the Abbasid Caliph Mustasim for doing this, and even served him gold as food after starving him so the Mongols could tell him "if you cannot eat it, what did you hoard it for?"
@@Dudebox64 This is a really good RPG setting, imagine the amount of playable classes and sheer amount of enemies to fight.
Playable classes like the Cavalry Archer, Cavalry Lancer, Chinese Engineer, Persian Engineer, Archer, Spearman, Swordsman and even Handgonners since its the late 1250s. And having them go up against Abbasid Handgonners and Abbasid Levies armed with various weapons. Its honestly gold.
If your wondering why its edited its because I corrected myself.
Gotta admit, a deconstruction of that sounds awesome. You could either make it humorous or dramatic.
Either way, even if players are munchkin, that can be awesome.
"Well, that dungeon you ran through was shitty because the empire that maintained it finally ran out of money, and the monsters remained unfed and the traps unmaintained for several weeks now."
@@LeriHunter There's an amusing webcomic strip where a group of adventurers are going through a dungeon and come to an empty room with the word OVERTHINKING written on the wall. Then they start musing amongst themselves whether overthinking is the trap, the trigger for a trap, or the concept of a trap. The punchline is one group member saying "It better not be a conceptual treasure, like friendship or some shit." and another party member says "No way, I can honestly say I hate all of you."
Not wanting to be rude, but you do not belong behind the carboard screen, if that's a one shot maybe it'll work but as a campaign setting it'll lose it's shine in about 2-3 sessions and than the game either grows out of it or goes caput.
So what you're saying is: instead of two teaspoons of Mary Sue, I should add *50 GALLONS OF MARY SUE!*
Don't "add" Mary Sue, let it only be Mary Sue.
Just 2 cups of Mary sue *glug glug glug*
TWO SHOTS OF MARY SUE
*glugglugglugglugglug*
And a cup of edge
@@nukiradio bowl of nails for breakfast.
yea so?
and I spilled the milk. all over my 3-page backstory; character sheet
oh right this way.
'The Joker' and 'The Hentai Guy' are surprisingly common; or maybe I just have terrible luck.
I have (very fortunately) not yet encountered a hentai guy. I tend to meet a lot of snowflakes and jokers, though. Perhaps an edgelord or two.
@@Newfiecat Fortuantely, I haven't yet met 'Hentai Guy' myself, or 'That Guy.'
@@tomilayjr Tell me more....
> Hentai Guy in the party, doing typical Hentai Guy shit
> Ban him from making female characters in an effort to curb his degeneracy
> He finally makes a fairly normal, unremarkable male character instead
> thankfuckinggod.png
> He immediately tries to seduce or rape every single female NPC the party comes across
> TFW you just can't fucking win
Sad truth is that we all have some of that guy inside
Yes! Perfect for my new campaign, “The world’s worst campaign!”
The name is misleading.
Telling the tale of the most poorly planned out war ever!
@@mindriz2 on the contrary, It so carefully crafted and so complex that even the slightest change would make it crumble away. It going to be fun seeing nat 20 get crushed under the all mighty hand of the DM.
I low-key wanna play a game where everyone is the GM
Bram Lastname
That’s called joining a Roleplay server on Discord. Everyone is allowed to make changes to the world on the fly without any silly regard for lore.
And if you’re lucky, you’ll run into a Mary or Gary Sue. Very similar to the standard writing variation, but now if you question it then you’ll be lectured on how it fits their backstory and how you’re ruining their fun. Obviously when this happens, it’s because you’re in the wrong.
@@eddiemate well the way I see it,
At any given point in time,
You are either GM or player,
Never both.
Your character simply disappears every time you switch to GM status.
As such you cannot make a Mary Sue without at least 1 other person contributing.
Got to say I identify with the Joker mostly. Though instead of chaotic actions I just say stupid stuff instead. Though I partly blame my DM for tricking me into thinking this was a short-joke campaign instead of the 2+ year long irl adventure it's become. It's been rough turning Ned Flanders the Necromancer into a semi-serious character.
“Ned Flanders the Necromancer”.
Long have I waited for this and only now do I realise it.
I laughed at this way more than I should
It’s hard work raising the diddly-dead
@@o__o.6212 The ding dong diddly dead, God bless em!
@@beezeejo OH GOD U SMITED THEM WITH YOUR BLESSING
I think my friend was watching this while writing his adventure.
came at 69 likes
*nice* joke
I watch this when I'm writing and just do the opposite
Or I use some of the good ideas that he ignores for comedy purposes
i know i am
He is actually writing down his adventures? I see this as an improvement.
4:10 "The best method for dealing with an out of control Joker, is to call Batman." That's actually not a bad idea. Picture this: a player character wanders off and starts doing evil in a moderately large city when suddenly, out of nowhere, a powerful but strange figure appears and confronts them. Que the chase sequence!
Edgelords do tend to develop a lethal habit of threatening old guys that are actually one of the following:
-16th-level Fighters that may be retired, but can still bend them into a pretzel
-Wizards with Save-or-Die spells (or the potentially even funnier Save-or-Suck brand)
-Bahamut
@@DoctorSpacebar sometimes they threaten old guys when there just happens to be 4 lvl 5 fighters from the town guard walking by...
@@andrewgreeb916 I had an NPC that was secretly an ancient silver dragon once that the party threatened
With the Benny Hill theme, as is the main theme song of Jokers.
I did just that, LV 999 Lancelot who was so rich, that every time they took a crit on the "luck" dice, they would find him selling top notch equipament(that the Joker was way too much poor to afford) and flexing his LV 999 powers.
It was effective for some reason.
Funny story: the one time I was going to be a Dungeon Master, I had prepared a comprehensive and detailed town with complex characters and neat mythology. The idea was to build up tension and show the cast that even after all the monsters have been defeated, they still have demons to face: other humans.
Then they just ignored the entire town and asked me to just skip to the dungeon. It made a lot of the things in that dungeon a lot more edgy instead of emotional.
And that's why I'll never fully develop my town
Never put effort into your writing if you don't know who you're serving.
That's why it's really important to know exactly what each player wants from the session before building your campaign. If you have a bunch of powergamer hack-and-slashers, that's not necessarily a bad thing... unless you've already built a heavily story-built session, with less combat and more character interaction. Then everyone's frustrated, from the DM who can't stand their story constantly being avoided, and the players, who just want some action. (The reverse can also be true, btw, it's just less common.) And if you have a mix of players, it can be just as hard to balance every "need" of the group in a satisfying way.
(This, of course, does not apply if you do not know the group you are playing with whatsoever. But usually people DM canned campaigns for that kind of situation.)
Allen Holloway i believe a good way of introducing story to hack and slay players is to have snippets of exposition at the end of dungeons for an interesting story. This should be exposition that leaves mysteries open. Once the players seem interested you can delve into story more. I.e explain who Built the Dungeons and say that one day they disappeared without a trace leaving only the dungeons behind or something generic like that.
Dude, have you ever written a comment like this before? I could have sworn i read this before
Don't forget to totally disregard the elaborate, carefully-written backstories of your players' characters and leave it out of the narrative entirely. Or better yet, totally change it! Who cares what the players have to say about their own characters?
My DM does that - she doesn't change backstories though. I just have yet to see any PCs with an actual goal accomplish that goal, except one guy who actually managed to get married during a 40 year time skip, but only so he could get replaced by his son cause the player wanted to switch to a different character. The rest of us literally got told our characters did nothing of importance for 40 years...
Oh thank god you’re not dead
- yet. 😈
He actually did die, the author just REALLY liked the character and just resurrected him without any consequence or lesson learned.
👏👏👏👏
Oh no, he's dead! You should feel bad!
You cannot kill that which has no life
You've made a grievous error. The idea of a civilization that collapses due to its own greed and hubris in its efforts to hoard treasure is far too engaging and dangerously opens your game up to possible, interesting connections to the overarching plot meaning more work for the DM! My husband and I just spent several minutes discussing such possibilities and now our players may be doomed in the future to a campaign that actually encourages them to explore the world we're supposed to create!
Ancient conspiracy: believe me, I didn’t plan this out. This is completely in the way of our plans
The best plan are the one who take in consideration that everyone will make terrible decision being made in your story
Wait. They killed our inside guy in the royal court that we’ve planted there years ago and that took thousands of hours of planning and training to gain their trust...
I mean... all according to plan?
Actually its the truth. My players screwed over my plans so much that I simply stopped planning. I just say etc etc happened how u gonna solve it.
Ever since then they kept calling me the greatest DM ever with the most intense story exile I haven't actually done shit!
I actually did not know anything about D&D and I still found this funny.
I play RPG’s once in a blue moon, but I love listening to RPG horror stories. RPGs do a great job at mixing the creativity of a person’s imagination with their personality. Good way to get to know people.
Same!
I always thought D&D would be fun, but I don't have any friends to introduce me to it and have no idea where I'd find some
@@dreamingblue3939 just go to some comic or collectors store, they usually have DND meetings in the back
@@nulolove Thanks for the advice. I was actually able to find a group about two months ago :D
And the only love triangle you have to worry about is between That Guy, The DM and the one female at the table.
In our like 6th grade DnD club I was the one female and had a crush on the DM. One of the other (more chad like) players had a crush on me. This literally happened to me.
“Favorite game system is FATAL”
O h n o
@David Silverman **panicked screaming in grox**
Roll for circumference B I T C H
????
On par with VTNL and RaHoWa.
I don't get it. Could somebody explain? Thank you. :)
Ngl, the ancient civilization that destroyed themselves by being way too focused on treasure, is a great idea for a one shot
Set a campaign during the time when the empire is crumbling and raiding the dungeons is the last-ditch hope to get the resources you need for your people to survive
The dragon empire of the past is falling to their own hubris and greed, now you must save your vassal nation from the collapse by fighting the systemic corruption that threatens to drag your people down with it
Hmmm.... kobolds in the tunnels could be the remnants of the ancient cursed civilization that moved into the tunnels to deal with their new curse...
I believe it was referenced in an episode of Duck Tales
What you expect as a DM: "Yeah, this campaign will be as fun and engaging as it gets. Players will LOVE this!!"
What you actually get: "You have tried to seduce the talking fish for the last 30 minutes and it didn't work... just cross the god damn river, I beg you!!"
I gather this isn't a game for CK2 players
I will not sleep tonight because of the flashbacks...I never thought seducing talking animals (or that fetish, apparently) was so common before I started playing RPGs...
This is why I don't play things like Dungeons and Dragons and such. It's just....this.
Lol in our campaign our DM had to construct an entire backstory for this one random NPC soldier that we were supposed to kill because someone wanted to go on a date with him
There was also another guy who stored an entire pocket dimension in his belly button...
@@samuelzuleger5134 ...Where the heck you find these people because I've never seen that happen?
Ok, to be fair, at least there’s no forced love triangle
That's what the Hentai Guy and That Guy were trying to start with the one female PC before they ragequit
@@TheLuckySpades oh no dont EVER mention the hentai guy.
Hes lucky i havent found him yet, because im going to burn him with my almighty Flammenwerfer
Yet
Or is there?
Vojta Janda 👀
8:11- What does the DM win? Don't forget- you also win the *entirety* of the pizza bill when they all storm off without chipping in. Victory!
Truly the most Pyrrhic victory of them all
D&D geeks unite! We must all collaborate to use this -terrible- *amazing* writing advice and make our campaign!
Why an adventure on RAILS is practically DEMANDED!
Our campaign will be memorable...*IN NIGHTMARES!* (cue evil laughter)
Ok since we’re all DM, we all need our DMNPCs
Campaign Idea #1356 All DM Party with one player. Every DM gets a DMPC and full controll over the narrative and the final say on rules.
$prinzluc§ Ooh now we’re talking
One of my favorite things about TWA is that, when the advertisements say "To Be Continued", they actually mean it. It's not a joke after a sarcastic cliffhanger, like you see so often. There is actually a story in the advertisements.
"The biggest mistake a DM can make is giving deeper context to any aspect of the game! Why are the PCs delving into long-forgotten dungeons? For the treasure!"
Did Egoraptor write this?
Why him? Sorry I dont know lol. Did he say something like that in a video?
@@Ricardo57492 It's a reference to his video on Ocarina of Time. He goes on this rant about how he thinks the context OoT's story provides distracts from the player's drive to explore dungeons, kill monsters, and get the loot (not that he's paying attention to the story). He asserts that any larger context or story is unnecessary because he wants the game to tell him he's a hero just for doing what he finds fun.
@@Eyewarp Tell him to play generic hack'n slash games...or just watch isekai animes.
@@ShionKenobi souka
@@Eyewarp yeah pretty much, dude infamously hates games with any semblance of a story and so takes that feeling to mean any greater context or plot is boring and unnecessary just cause he prefers more arcadey advantures
arin hanson is not a game designer and any advice he has on it should eb taken with a grain of salt
"When it comes to dangerous creatures, there is only one that is so ruthless, so conniving, cruel, and dangerous that it will spend every waking moment dedicated to nothing short of ending your campaign in its tracks."
Scheduling conflicts?
"I, of course, speak of the players themselves."
...close enough.
The knight commander in the sponsors sounds like the youngling who says “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?”
I thought he has the same speech impediment as Elmer Fudd.
@@louisduarte8763 I fail to see how you two said anything different.
Day 1: I started playing with my friends. My cousin's boyfriend is the DM. We are a weird group, and we are all newbies, but this should be fun enough to last a while.
Day 10: /Leonor/ was eaten by a monster. "Probably shouldn't have slept in that abandoned camp full of knight corpses", says the dungeon master, shrugging.
Classic Leonor.
What happened to everyone else who wasn't Leonor?
@@ArcanineEspeon They all slept at the camp full of monster corpses
@@XerneX127 So a knight ate them?
1:10 For some reason, he looks genuinely happy. I think that's the most wholesome image of JP in this series (excluding the text).
but it's *SERIOUS BUSINESS*
Everyone likes serious business.
3:57 The joker can be good.
My favorite was when one of our older friends, who was the DM in his other groups but not this session, semi-derailed us all into a woods because his negative INT character saw some flowers. The whole session was just shenanigans from being lost in the woods. We all hurt from smiling and laughing too much, especially our DM.
I have just realized that I am the joker, but it's okay because our DnD group is mostly a comedy routine anyways
Can be good. And if they are mature enough to know when not to derail a scene, they can be a great boon to the group. If...
I never thought you'd do this topic J.P.
Nothing is Sacred
But we're glad he did!
I’ve dealt with the drama queen type plenty of times. At one point she brought her boyfriend along so they can have some “couples time” and the whole time she’d have her character speak passive aggressive dialogue and make passive aggressive decisions based on little shit her boyfriend would do that she was annoyed about (“ooh my character rolled a d20 and got a 17! That’s how many of my messages **a certain someone** claimed to have missed last night)
The relationship didn’t last long.
I actually like playing a evil character who corporates with a good aligned party. Someone who can do the "terrible sh*t" no one else is whiling to do.
I have "evil-aligned character with command word that activates a good-aligned alter ego... which the party learns immediately" and "I will do anything for my friends. Yes, that includes murdering strangers and stealing all their money to buy nice things for y'all, but you don't need to know about that. It would make you sad, and we can't have that!" I haven't gotten the chance to play either of them yet.
I played an Ork once in our campaign, only following along to find out who messed up some of our boyz. We came to a part where our party discovered that Orks wiped out the town that one of our members had resided in and burnt it to the ground. Immediately, my response was: "Sounds like a roight good lot they do!"
One of my favorite characters was an "evil" aligned necromancer who did monstrous things to people and built up an army of undead not because he wanted to rule the world, but just because he didn't understand the dangers of necromancy. He just assumed it was "bring people back from the dead with literally 0 consequences" magic
Ah , that's Nihilists and Minecrafters in a nutshell for you
@@arpitakundu8133 minecrafters?
Can you do a “prison break story” terrible writing advice?
Yes, or Heist, since they are basically the same thing in reverse.
@@wjzav1971 Or the chapter 2 of a heist that goes wrong. :P
What about Time travel?
The author should make the guards either completely incompotent or cardboard cutouts that only slightly waste the protagonists' time to cover up the fact that an actual prison break would be neraly impossible without many, many more military resources than are available to the protagonists.
Nich White That or sheer amount of luck and preparation that will probably take years of pleasure out of it is a high risk prison or something.
The best advice I have ever received as a DM was to ask the players after each session what they liked and what could be improved.
This sounds like a campaign I left recently, down to a T. The only difference is that the edge lord could never kill the friendly npcs, because literally every one of them could one shot us except the dm of course.
I think that JP probably had a specific DM in mind when writing this.
Dont even mention it, this is already cursed enougj
"That guy"
I wish that would only apply to one specific DM rather than every other "that guy" that make you play through their glorified stories.
The kind of guy that makes you say "Fanfiction.net is a thing, post your story there thank you see you never."
I like how the info block for "that guy" has basically no info on what he is.
I like to think that there IS more info on him but its a memetic hazard and is purposely being kept from the eyes of anyone who doesn't already know.
I read that last paragraph in JP's voice.
It’s an infohazard. We need the SCP Foundation.
Wait…DnD and the SCPs…perfect
Well. Its that guy! We all know who that guy is-
Wait a second. Is that what he does? You just understand who he is instantly?
I once got into a Dnd Discord server, and I think one of the mods (Who, thankfully, got booted out when everyone got fed up with his 💩) took this advice seriously -_-
The real story here is Terrible Writing Advice revealing himself as a /tg/ poster.
as an ad hoster. :) boom gotteem.
Which part reveals that?
What
Never bring Cheetos to a session, unless you want to attract... that guy.
Oh no! it's SCP682! th-cam.com/video/iYPYFhNe9kA/w-d-xo.html
Choose a more responsible snack.
@@grenien4109 Like the blood of your enemies?
@@epikitee2186 no....EVERYONE LOVES YOUR ARMS!
@popocot popocot eh, fingernails are good, but they're best with salt (they're WAY too tough and chewy to just be eaten plain), and you need a beverage with that. hence, blood.
you forgot about the guy who takes a super long time to take his turns
When I run the game I have a timer for taking your first action. If you don't do anything by the time it's up, I can and will skip you. I like tricks that speed up combat.
@@Mortablunt well this also means the guy who never ends his turn he just looks through all his spells and asks the dm a shitload of questions
That's the power player. He will always spend long ass time to calculate the most OP move
@@Mortablunt I do that too. I have a few small hourglasses for 30 seconds, 1 minute, and 3 minute. I use them a lot. Helps to stress the players a bit in combat if they can see the sand falling.
Its combat, you dont have all fuckin day. Act now or get slotted.
You misspelled Wizard
A dungeon’s better than a love triangle.
What about a dungeon which requires a love triangle to solve?
TheSpectre ‚Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?‘ in a nutshell.
@@thespectre4627 NO! LOVE TRIANGLES MUST BE IN A EPISODE AND IT HAS, LOOK AT JP'S DM SCREEN, IT'S A LOVE TRIANGLE! LOOK AT IT!
You can never escape the love TRIANGLE
@@PiratesRock C o r r e c t !
"the hentai guy will try to force his horrible fetishes into the game"
Yes very true
"this is bad because it conflicts with MY horrible fetishes im trying to force into the game"
VERY TRUEEEEEEEE
Do even want to the story?
Last time I was this early, my teachers were telling me D&D was satanic.
of course D&D is satanic
those two devils ruined game of thrones
@@darkservantofheaven I understand your reference despite not seeing Game of Thrones.
@@zacharygadzinski3147 i dont
I still don't understand how that can be a valid argument in a society that claims religious freedom.
@@TheWampam I went to a Bible college. It was less about banning the game and more about "warning" us about the "dangers" of a fantasy roleplaying game.
You know, in DnD you don’t use he love triangle, you use the love decahedron
Good one
First and only time I played DnD, I kid you not, me and another player were just messing about while the DM was setting up. And my character tried to seduce the other player's character, before the game had even started properly. One and only time I've rolled a natural 20.
The Love Pentagram is also common.
4:52
This picture honestly hurts to look at.
🐙
You know something hurts to look at when even Moon Lord acknowledges it.
@@viktor7536 Basically any of the weirder fan drawings of moonlord
Nuke it from orbit, just to be sure.
7:58 I would actually like to see a show about these collection of kooks trying to actually have an adventure together. The furry and the Hentai Guy might become friends. The Role Player and the Edge Lord talking about their back stories.
I have actually seen this work...except The Guy and the Rules-lawyer. With proper planning (and discussion before campaign) you can get them all to work, except those two.
All while fighting a DM who wants to kill them all for derailing his story.
The rules lawyer can actually be very useful, if they're not a confrontational jerk but act more like a teacher, f.e. reminding the DM of rules (without starting an argument) and helping them with stuff (great DM assistants, as they're well-organized, exact and always willing to look up rules for you) and by teaching their fellow players the rules (works well as a tutor for newbies).
The furry in the video is the snowflake. I assume they don't work with people as well. Wouldn't know. I don't let snowflake types into my games. I can deal with a group of players who are a bit OP, and players that want to have their backstory matter, but once a player decides that each session is about them specifically, and start telling me how to build my world... thats a problem.
"The real reason to be a DM is to forge a pact with the forces of darkness and gain real magic powers."
Bakura: *Triggered*
The Joker:
Pros: Can bring a certain lightheartedness into the game
Cons: Even during the serious scenes
So everyone involved in The Adventure Zone?
There’s some emotional breaking moments in TAZ, though
To be honest though. Nobody continues watching TAZ after the first episode if they were looking for gripping and emotional storytelling
Yeah TAZ actually strikes an incredible balance between emotion and laughs when it counts, it starts out pretty silly but they find their stride quickly enough. Amnesty and Graduation are even better in that regard, although unfortunately most people just stopped after Balance.
"The best method for dealing with an out-of-control joker is to call Batman."
Was that frickin Dread Gazebo reference?
You mad lad.
I want to DM a game and play in that game only
I have been informed that this is called writing a book...
Perfect for this channel!
As a Text-based Roleplay DM, the list of players hit hilariously close to home. Especially the Hentai guy, Holy heck.
The job of a DM is like a drill sergeant. You're suppose to break each individual down and pressure the players so that they put aside their differences with each other and team up against you. Once the players build an optimized synergistic party that uses tactics and teamwork to beat your insanely overpowered homebrew lich fiend elemental super house cat that's 10 CR above the party level, you know your job is done.
The sarcasm when you talked about "that guy" makes up for all the times I ever had to talk to "that guy".
I'm going to have to make my DM watch this, and it won't be fun.
5:48 Yeah, that's pretty accurate. At least their character isn't completely generic.
I have a D&D friend EXACTLY like this. 😂 I honestly don't mind because I find it fairly amusing to have a sparkly multi-species super-powered magical girl in our otherwise normal D&D game.
IT is actually very generic. It a character where the actual character is substituded by a fuckton of gimmics and stupid power ups. Everything devolves into "I use my xy superpower" and that's it. And there is no such thing as not showing your character sheet to the DM. Anything only exists in a dnd champaign if the DM allows it. No exceptions.
@@Limrasson Sadly, that is what my bard has devolved into because the DM and two of the players pre-wrote their roles in the story...so when I got sidelined, I just did whatever. The upside of being a bard is that I got my revenge. Prior to entering a room for negotiations critical to the plot, I insulted one of the players with the connection, giving him 4 psychic damage and disadvantage on his persuasion role...the whole group laughed when he rolled a 19 and a 1. Vicious Mockery is one bitch of a cantrip.
@@samuelzuleger5134 HAhaha, it's a support cantrip actually, because it helps mitigate damage. Also extremely good roleplay opportunities with vicious mockery.
Their character is even more generic than everyone else. Less is more and all that.
They keep thinking their character is special because it's an outlandish color and has an instant solution for every problem in the form of a spell with a crazy name.
Every single mary-sue ever
"solve every problem by murdering it." Reminds me of a campaign I ran where the players ran past the storyline I had planned to go murder and rob the town citizens.
Also always remember to "Take Inspiration" for your campaign from movie's and TV so much your world basically transforms into crappy LOTR or Witcher just with a different coat of paint. I mean everyone knows that all you need to get a hot red convertible is to just dump your old crappy ford in a pool of paint and rip off the roof just say that you never drive fast for safety concerns.
Also just like your lifehack dream car your player's will never notice it is just a crappy rip off with a coat of paint and just wonder why did you not just use the real thing. It is not like I have easy access to a worldwide database with easy to access sites and videos about entire worlds that I could literally access on the toilet.
But whatever you do never take Inspiration from the real world. The huge and complex history and culture of the real world are to boring to bother looking into. They may be filled with awesome Monsters, Stories, Gods and deep philosophy but I am to busy watching anime and writing my DM PC 100 page backstory to Even look at them. When has real world history, myths and legends inspired fiction (LOTR, Witcher, Percy Jackson, Avatar The Last Airbender)
I mean, real world probably inspired anime too in many ways
I started playing D&D over Discord a few weeks ago and my experience has been very very positive. I had no idea the game could be so much fun, but I can see how that's dependant upon the flexibility and the cleverness of the characters. Almost all of us are writers but this is a good exercise in thinking on our feet!
I love how he still uses a 2000’s meme as the face of his channel
The "That Guy" segment had some grade A salt right there, I laughed my ass off.
Is it weird that this is the best explanation of "that guy" I've seen? Everywhere else just seems to talks about them as if they're a known thing
I'd never thought I'd live to see the day to hear TWA say "hentai."
It's also one of the only times he actually pronounces an h
@iexist1300 huh. Neat.
Wait a minute. I go on a three month long dive into DnD, then suddenly JP has started in the trend as well?! SUSPICIOUS...
You think that's a coincidence?
I just finish reading the PHB
I decided to be a DM yesterday :O
@@camilocuadrado3454 What's that?
@@zandbergx9747 The Players handbook
I'm about to start playing in a new campaign. So many coincidences.
"How to prepare for your ttrpg"
You can't. You will never, ever, be prepared.
What the heck is ttrpg
@@zandbergx9747 Table Top Role Playing Game.
The party when I just show up with a hastily sketched small dungeon and a list of a few encounters I want to try having so everyone can get a chance to do one thing this session but I'm otherwise going to play off what the party does: "So, DM, where's the story taking us this week?"
Me: "Fuck."
The party when I've spent 8 hours plotting out in detail a huge dungeon with alternate routes, a complex puzzle, a little character arc with a side villain, and some moral choices that will influence the larger plot: "Let's make this one-armed gnoll we half chopped to death our mascot and spend 2 hours arguing with the inkeeper about them not letting us have him in our rooms."
Me: "Fuck."
My players love most my off the cuff improv more than my prep
@@TheCinderfang Most of my games have been just that: little to no prep, and off-the-cuff improv based on a prompt. XD
I was just rewatching all of the episodes yesterday what a coincidance.
Also J. P. have been oficialy quoted by historical channel on youtube known by having great sources several months back, congratulation.
What channel?
@@BonaparteBardithion Military History Visualized. In video on what general is the best.
9:11
Half of all elder scrolls and fallout dungeons sad to say
I sware, the phrase "another settlement needs your help, I'll mark it on your map" still haunts me to this day.
An aasimar on one arm and a tiefling on the other, living the dream.
"Hentai guy's cons: Favourite game system is FATAL." ... ...Oh shit no
Saying this game should be burned is an insult to fire.
I was curious... so I looked it up.
Initial Reaction: Oh Dear
Next Reaction: Oh... oh no. Gosh, gosh no. NOOOO!
Final Reaction: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Honestly, I've been going through a lot of the manual. It's absolutely hilarious if you ignore the fact that this was an actual system intended to be played.
"While every character is capable of urinat-
ing, it requires skill to urinate accurately or to maxi-
mize the distance of a stream of urine. Generally,
this skill is for males, though under certain circum-
stances females may exercise their Urinating skill.
This is best left to the discretion of the Aedile.
Whenever a character attempts to urinate on a tar-
get, and urination requires accuracy or distance, a
Urinating skill check is made."
ROLL FOR ANAL CIRCUMFERENCE.
Negative five? Just hope that your enemy don't manage to slash your prostate without somehow hitting your intestines!
"Rules Lawyer, I can't show you it because I'm still arguing with him over the definition of Rules Lawyering" Sums up the first campaign I ever ran.
"fun is a zero-sum scenario" is a terribly great assertion.
Seriously someone needs to cut out the sponsorship sections and make a whole playlist of them. I want to see the full story
#1 advice is to make sure every decision the players make feels meaningless in the long run
I'm currently leaving a campaign because of that... 😑
Plus, though I like everyone as people, I can't deal with them (DM and some players) in game/their playstyle.
My friends:* watches video*
Me:No no, i'm totally NOT guilty of any of this
My first DM in college did all of this.
I'm impressed that you continued playing after that first DM
"if a group is toxic then get out!" Okey, I will be deleting my Reddit account soon, don't worry.
Time to delete my Twitter.
Deleted all social media 10 years ago...
Social media in general is toxic
And that why I deleted my Twitter account
I'm going at the bottom of the ocean tomorrow and unplugging the internet cables down there.
Please no love triangles at the DnD table. Actually, no romance, ever.
Unless it involves a monstrous race. Like a goblin, kobold, dragon, or mimic.
Yes, this is ALWAYS a terrible idea^^
@GBProductions84 if youre not rolling for seduction then you best not be rolling at all
I once ran a game where one of the characters seduced the leader of one of the city's largest guilds. Unfortunately, their relationship came to a violent end when the party discovered the guild's illegal drug lab...
@@polarknight5376 Found the Hentai Guy.
nay, good sir
adventurers aren't mere Murder Hobos, they are actually Homeless Hitmen, for they take commissions
I'm watching this when I should be writing my fantasy story...
Same.
Yup, me too
Technically, I'm doing a fantasy western, but same
It counts as research!
@@paolo2763 I'll tell myself that... It's not the first time I've gotten distracted by TWA's great videos.
I've met a lot of Those Guys, and a lot of their problems generally come from some kind of developmental disorder.
Kicking them out makes it better for you, but makes them worse.
I'm _almost_ a That Guy myself, but after years of people giving me a chance (and a little therapy), I'm more self-aware. I think I graduated to Rules Lawyer.
I need some of that Lovecraft Light. I kid you not if you just sold packages of relabeled grape Fanta as Lovecraft Light I would buy that for every session I GM.
DM: You shouldn't make a Cavalier for this campaign, we are doing many dungeon crawls.
Me: Gnome mastiff cavalry engaged.
Group: Nooo! Yu cat'n make hyumin fiter!
Me: Haha mace go smash
My badger riding goblin Druid approves
My dwarf bard with unlimited vicious mockery and charisma up the ass approves!
I was surprised to learn about how edgelords behave. See I often played edgelord loner types myself, but then I generally helped the team out, since being a team player was kind of important to the goals of the game. I understood that the lone wolf was how the character behaved socially, but disregarding teamwork was not conducive to survival, and the character's social awkwardness and walling others out was a character flaw, not a character goal.
My favorite dnd story is how my party decided to make a companion npc (that was supposed to die in the 1st or 2nd dungeon) the protagonist of the campaign. They gave him the magical sword, best armor, and forced me to make him an actual interesting character because he just wouldn't die. And ya know what? He just might be the best character I've ever designed. I've put him into a couple short stories I've put out and he's an instant fan favorite whenever he's on screen.
4:53 So this is what armor that gives a -4 to AC looks like.
I love how his openings background slowly more chaotic as it fills up with absolutely perfect characters
Cool to see that I’m not the only one who watches this for dnd advice/ideas.
Wait did i just stumble on a secret video?
Yes
I’ve seen that happen a few times!
Some times people make a comment an hour or more before a video is released.
@@Jessie_Helms 6 days
Please-please-please-please, keep doing D&D videos.
This is everything I wanted.
Remember: optimal fun is best achieved when the DM and the hentai guy work together to implement the sexual fetishes they have in common.
Me: okay, I don’t really write in the genres TWA talks about and when he does i don’t really write the tropes he discusses, so I should be fine-
TWA: {writes an episode about DMs}
Me: *oh no*
It always bothers me when people complain about railroading and praise letting the players come up with how the story should go. Because the people who do so are often the same people who say that RPGs are cooperative games for the entire group and that everyone should get to have fun. Here's the thing, it's not fun as a GM to have a plot and setting you want to share with your players and end up with them completely ignoring it because they've memed one of the secondary NPCs into being cool and want to only do stuff with them.
I'm not saying that the players shouldn't be allowed to actually like, play the game as active participants who make decisions, nor that the GM should just brute force them into only doing what he wants. But I do think that it's not unreasonable to expect the players to meet the GM halfway, and that a GM that wants to have an overarching story and put time and effort into the setting get to show it off and let the players experience it. Hell, I wouldn't even necessarily mind a more linear experience. I play plenty of video game JRPGs and I enjoy them plenty *because* of the interesting stories, settings and characters, I don't see why you can't have that in a tabletop RPG too. As long as everyone knows what they're in for and is okay with it, I don't think there's much wrong with railroading then.
Yeah, that's one of those things which really should get discussed among the group from time to time. I've played with some extremely railroady GMs and had a great time, because they made an excellent railroad through beautiful scenery, and everyone was on board for it. I've also played with extremely sandboxy GMs who mostly improvised everything in reaction to the players, and had a great time making shit up as we went along. And I've had games all along the spectrum go bad or die because the various people involved had different ideas of what they wanted in the game, and either couldn't reconcile them, or just never brought it up until it became a problem. Like with so many other things in life, communication is far more important than following a checklist of good or bad elements, when playing an RPG.
Looks like Pathfinder would be a good fit for you.
No, I'm not being snarky (entirely); if I want campaigns that double as good stories in a good setting then Pathfinder's my first pick. : )
If the DM doesn't have fun the game will suffer for sure. Railroading can be very useful when done sparingly, mostly to speed things along with passive and inexperienced players. That said, you seem to have a very flawed idea of what the medium of TTRPG is good at. Most RPGs are a terrible medium for telling stories. However they are great at emulating a world and generating history. Story is emergent from that. I don't go camping and hiking for the story but rather because they are enjoyable activities by themselves. But boy do I have a few good camping and hiking stories. I have this same attitude towards DnD.
I know the frustration of sessions getting completely derailed and plot hooks being ignored very well but it's not my friends fault when my sales pitch isn't good enough. What sounds really cool in my head and might be great in a JRPG, fanfic or short story might simply not come across at the table because the medium isn't well suited to it. The depth, investment and realism that comes from multi year play in an open ended sandbox world is much more rewarding than interacting with a setting which is merely a stage for the DMs pre-written play.
Some DM's can pull it off and some players really enjoy that style though. However, running games becomes a lot more fun and a lot less work when you stop trying to force your story to happen.
Everyone is confusing "railroading" with "linear story". Linear story involves a plot hook in which the players engage with and tries to overcome the problems involved. Railroading is when there is ONE way to solve the problem and the GM shoots down any other ways to do it. It's all about player agency.
And yes I agree with some commenters here that an unspoken rule is the players meet with the GM halfway. If there is a hook about a Duke kidnapping children, it's completely inconsiderate for a player to go "Eh I don't want to deal with the duke I'm just gonna go start a mining company instead lol."
If they blow off the main plot try a few times to get them back on course but if they outright refuse then let them do their thing for a few in game days then have a wave of dark magic kill them all, "whoops, looks like that Duke sacrificed the children in a dark ritual and killed everyone that could oppose him, really should have checked that out earlier." Obviously this should only be done if they are really being that obstinate about following the plot, if they refuse to play with you then you refuse to play with them.