DM Kills First Time Player in their First Session!! | Reading D&D Reddit Stories
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
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What was your crazy moment the first time you played a TTRPG?
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Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:13 1st Story: 5e Player goes to Pathfinder
5:09 Sponsorship
6:34 1st Story (Continued)
11:37 Fun Story: The Door
12:47 2nd Story: First time Playing D&D
25:35 Fun Story: A proud sibling
26:24 Outro
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You already had the door story in another one of your videos. Why are you repeating it?
What is the link for the Reddit page? I couldn’t find it in the description for the video.
On the strength thing I always think a farmer who can wrestle a cow to the ground but is skinnyish it
The immediate, "it's fake, he said he has a girlfriend," is exactly my kind of humor, and I'll be laughing to myself about it the rest of the day
Yep. I immedeately thumbsed up for that one XD
@@st3vorocks290 immediately*
No, no. It's immedeately. 😝
@@Sarkhan69 Stawp makkin fawn o mah akkscent!!! XD XD
Well yes it may be fake but its still a learning experience for us
My seven year old son, the first time he played D&D, they came across a crocodile. He said 'I climb a tree and shot at it" I was so proud of him for thinking about such a thing. After all, crocs can't climb trees.
Nice story... but if you look on youtube you can find many videos of crocodilians climbing trees. lol
@@acephantom903the real question is, what CAN'T they do?
@@grandmasta0079 write with a pen and paper? We know they are very intelligent. I wouldn't put writing past them if they were trained, but they probably can't hold a pen and have the finesse to write with it.
Your son would sadly be croc chow...
@@romulu7673You're not taking his armor class into account, nor any reactions.
I would never leave a player out of the game for 5 hours. You roll up a new character and find a way to introduce them in to the party.
yeah same, and I can't really imagine anyone doing it differently tbh although I might also just be lucky enough to never have met a weird dm that would do it differently.
so maybe op really just wanted to sit there and do nothing for whatever reason, who knows 🤷♀
The only time I haven't introduced the new character right away was when we were about 30 minutes from ending the session. So introducing the new character was first on the agenda next session. 5 hours feels excessive, and possibly like punishment.
Or give them a quick cheat-sheet for some NPC characters or something...
Honestly, sometimes it's fine to just like... have that character be there now. depends on how serious your group is.
Indeed, when someone comes and it's clear to me it's their first game, I will go out of my way to give them the spotlight that session to show them the highs of dnd. If they're a cocky sh!t I might kill em once to prove a point and explain, that's not how you should play, but then, hoping they learned from it, turn back time so they never died and move on as originally intended.
I once had to kill a level one Barbarian player but I gave him a mission to complete in the afterlife that impacted the world the living players were in. I thought that was good mediation.
Even in death, choices still matter.
i had a game where we all died in the first session but we were all turned into ghouls and thats where the story started.
I have a mechanic in mind I'm still working on for a homebrew setting, which is a sort of "underworld"/"limbo"-like dimension for dead players to wake up in; allowing them to try and venture back to their bodies on the material plane. Almost like the Hunter's Dream of Bloodborne, if you will, but it's perpetually the twilight hour with the skies looking...off...and random "ruins" and weird landmarks dot the bizarre landscape. There are hostile denizens on that plane to be weary of, and it's recommended to not engage at low levels (especially without appropriate equipment-which dead players waking up on that plane won't have, because their equipment was left with their bodies). Fortunately, useful items can be scavenged as players survive this plane, and the party can explore to find an ally (who's kind of like the Grim Reaper from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of Underdark). Finding them allows players to choose whether to return to their bodies on the material plane, or to move on to an Afterlife...and while most players would not be ready to retire a character to an Afterlife, it can be tricky to return to the Material Plane if one's body was completely destroyed-so this Afterlife option could offer the chance of reincarnation, if a player (whose character's body is completely gone) is interested in exploring the option.
Although I can see how the "I want to be THE class" situation could happen, I was in a campaign where my character and someone else's were both Sorcerers. It started off as a friendly rivalry and turned out to be a partnership where we built our characters to support one another where the other might fail.
and each class can be player quite differently, that's what subclasses are for. and especially for fighters, they also have fighting styles.
I remember in my first campaign, I was playing a rogue alongside a experienced player who also was a rogue. We had sort of a mentor/apprentice dynamic with them showing me how to play the game. It was a lot fun and put thieves cant to good use. I was so sad she had leave the campaign due to the quarantine 😢
That happened to my xd my first time there hole party was killed by goblins that there hiding in bushes as we where travelling and we couldn't hit then lol they kept shooting us and hiding
My sister ran into this recently where she wanted to play an Artificer and another player wanted to be an Artificer in the same campaign. In the end they both chose to be Artificers but one of them was a Warforged/Autognome or something that implied they were once one of sis's constructs and sis made her character a Reborn with amnesia so there was plenty of leeway and time for the other player to create a background where they could write plenty of things that didn't involve her or her background at all.
On a oneshot, we somehow ended up with two variant human battlesmith artificers with pretty much identical builds. They immediately decided one was the grandfather, and the other was the grandson, only the grandfather had slight dementia and thought his defender was his grandson, while the grandson was absolutely DONE with his needy grandfather. We couldn't stop laughing most of the oneshot.
But i can see how having two functionally identical character could be jarring to some on a long winded campaign.
Story 3 sounds absolutely viable. I've heard of and personally seen similarly crappy social groups that behave like what was described. Being completely led on by the entire group only to have them betray and mock you really really sucks.
i had a group of 5 players who were clerics & paladin split lol. 3 clerics and 2 paladins, our party was called Amen
That's hilarious
Did you bust down Tiamat's door and give her a swirly?
@@Tcrumpen game did die, so no, but before it did we ended up with a warlock so the group became Amen & the Heathen
@@midnights2631you beat me to it 😆
@@ResidentEvilFan686 Incredible band name
Always love the intro of “I’m Duke and this is Wife” “I am Wife” it’s so wholesome and it always brings a smile to my face when I hear it
@@Midori_Seabreeze Amy goes along with it, if she wanted to she could say something to Duke as his partner about how she feels uncomfortable about it. It’s not like Duke is forcing her to say it or forcing her to be in the videos, there’s nothing wrong with the intro and there’s nothing anti-feminist about it. If Amy feels uncomfortable saying it, then she’ll talk to Duke about it. They are married and from what they’ve presented online, they are happily married and actually communicate with each other.
@Midori_Seabreeze everything can be dangerous but this is not one of them. Unless you are the age where Santa is real then you should have enough experience in life to understand this is a bit special since more kids watch TH-cam and know what internet personalities are
@Midori_Seabreeze No, but it is the age where you can tell what's real and what's not. My point is that children should be able to tell this is not how they talk, that is a bit, their brain is malleable but they have the means to counter ideas with their own
@Midori_Seabreeze and if that's how you see it, you need some help because that's a dark twist on something extremely light
@@Midori_Seabreeze wtf? and this is why nobody takes effenists seriously. i'm guessing you either never married, or are divorced and bitter. seriously what is so wrong about being a wife?
I totally believe the 2nd story. I had a friend who wouldn’t play dnd with us for a long time, one day he was over while a session was going and I whipped out a backup character and (with the DMs approval) peer pressured him into joining us. Needless to say he had an absolute ball, until the end came and the DM had my friend’s character horrifically slaughtered by the DM. At first it seemed fine since my friend had no intention on joining the group but after we talked I learned he was actually extremely upset that his character died and he was hoping to be able to make guest appearances at times even if he wasn’t a permanent player. He became very turned off from the game because he didn’t enjoy the feeling of a DM being able to complete shutdown/destroy a character.
(Note: we actually managed to get him to play again 2 years later after promising he won’t be killed)
That just sucks! You’d think the DM would be a bit nicer (I get not breaking or bending rules, but… come on)
I mean, I could see the DM thinking it would be cool to kill that Character, so that your friend would come-up with their own character and join with that. - But keeping in mind this was YOUR BACKUP, I'd rather say it was a dick-move either way.
@@MikaeruDaiTenshi Its never "cool" to kill a character unless it happen by real dice rolls in which case everyone to include the DM should be sad, or the DM and player has conspired to remove that character from play. The DM is not God and its not his story. Its everyones story with the rules are the physics and dice the randomness.
@@greghamilton9505 Uhhh, first of all, don't twist my words. I said I could see how the DM would think that, NOT that it was.
That being said, IF the player would say, "hey, you know what, I don't want to play this character anymore, so, can we have them die in a certain way" If the DM would go along, then I woulds "killing a character could be cool" if it's done right.
Second, yes, the DM is not God. Their power is far greater than that.
Yes, the story is supposed to be everyone's story, I'd never deny that. But if the DM created the World they play in, than they decided the world's rules, not the players.
According to the Rules, the DM has the last say in everything, which proves the power of the DM. - Now, that doesn't mean they shouldn't cooperate with their players, since DnD is not DM vs Player.
It's still a fact that the DM can allow players to forgo a dice-rolls.
There are even a lot of great DMs you say "you may fudge a roll or stats for the purpose of the story" Meaning, if a player did something amazing, but they did not enough damage by just 1 point, you just reduce them to 0 anyway."
And that's coming from someone who's all for going with Rules as written.
Tbh I don’t see the dm badly in this case. It sounds like he had no idea that the player wanted to make guest appearances and just thought this would be some time thing so the character was killed to up stakes or smth. I mean yeah it sucks but it didn’t sound purposeful and at least unlike the second story, the character wasn’t killed at the beginning of a 5 hour session.
To be fair to the second story and your Devil's Advocate story, their first time exposure to D&D wouldn't have these "This is what D&D players usually describe in their reddit posts" and five hours waiting for your girlfriend's sake is important to some.
It's less the wait and more that nothing seemingly happen in that period.
Yes op didn't know the rules yet, and so the DM could have definitely manipulate things, and i can see the girlfriend trying not to make waves in her group and regretting not saying anything later on.
In the fighter story, it makes sense that no one healed them or that maybe there weren't death saving throws if the entire group had already come to the decision that the character would die. Why waste healing on a character that's already sentenced to die?
Also about the 17 not being enough, if the DM was deadset on killing the character, it wouldn't surprise me if they just said it wasn't enough even if it was.
Ok, but a poison that just kills you for failing a single save throw? At lvl 7?
No, something's fishy about this story. No other player got hit during the encounter? If they did, all of them rolled above 17 on the save? Was that bandit the only one carrying a poison dagger? There's too many details out of place here. It's either made up, or like the girl said, he was actively avoiding specific details to not risk being called out.
@@SchrollShepard I find it funny that you think a DM who already decided to kill this character would bother playing fair. There's been so many other stories of DMs being like "yep, you just die" or "yeah you rolled a 38 but that still fails". There's plenty of normal DMs who just ask people to roll checks and saves even though they know it won't do anything or that there isn't anything to find or that the PC can't save with their bonus, just because they think they're supposed to or to try and trick the players so they can't guess the DC. The DM already decided to kill the character and they could've just gone the easy way and said "yeah the poison is an insta-death one, boom you dead".
@@Lycaon1765 I know, I know, that's probably what happened. I'm just saying that some things don't add up; also it's always good to remember that these stories are always told from the perspective of the person sharing it, so for all we know, it could all be biased to hell and back.
@@SchrollShepard it adds up when you bring a dude who only researched about dnd and made a character accordingly only to be shut down by the gm in every turn. He might of "neglected" to tell him about deathsaves as well since he was in foul play with the entire table before OP arrived. Moreover, his girlfriend didn't know about this much later so she would of brought that up in their discussion after the game only to find out that he intentionally put deathsaves off the table for only this purpose. DM/GMs can override quite a few things especially if it's story related so it can happen.
I am not surprised this happens in a LOT of DnD games , a lot of the time. And I find it kinda sad that Duke is saying this could be a made up story because this person has clearly become numb to any positive feelings towards the gamd and MIGHT try and get back into it. I had a DM who absolutely hated me playing a wood elf Gloomstalker but he never mentioned this to me . Till the day we started our campaign and in session 0 we discovered that all Elves in that kingdom were either death by genocide or fled because of prosecution. And here was my group stuck with a wood elf ranger at session 0 . DM had as rule no one could make a new character till level 3 and if you made a new character you could not make it the same class. Needless to say my character died session 0 because our group got caught trying to sneak carefully through the town that was filled with patrols of "Point Ear Hunters" and on top of that there checkpoints at every t-crossing and armed guards standing guard at every shop . I refused from then onward to play with that DM and the rest followed quickly after session 0 and the guy still complains we can't deal with "fantasy racism"
As someone with pretty bad social anxiety I would have hung around for those five hours because I would feel too awkward leaving. I know that doesn’t make sense to someone that doesn’t experience this specific type of social anxiety. I don’t know if the story is true or not, but I do want to at least point out that some of us would feel worse for leaving than for staying, especially if it meant someone else had to stop as well.
and besides, it sounds like the gf was their ride. it's not like one can just walk home in some cases. so if the ride stays, the person is stuck there too.
not all of us have the luxury of easy transport, ya know.
I kinda experienced something like the last story.
Had a group that i seemed to vibe with, was excited to play with them and they asked if after i finished my first playthrough if BG3 if i wanted to do fun coop runs.
Then day of session 0 they ghost me, and block me.
While it does seem like its fake, there are people that pretend to be on the new players side then immediately screw them over for some unknown reason.
First - Last Session seems sadly plausible. There is likely some embellishment, and the poster may be enjoying the spotlight, however, those core details feel true. I've seen groups / played in groups where I thought we were friends, and been excluded in similar ways. There is a deep and lingering question on why they couldn't be healed, which points to that exclusion. The slow lingering death comment may be an inexperienced player's way of describing death saves.
His girlfriend was contrite about the situation, did she not try anything to heal him either? Run up to him and shove a potion down his mouth or something?
My first ever session was ridiculous. I’ll leave it to you to decide if the DM was a hero or mistaken.
I’d never really played a TRRPG, I’d always spent my time with the likes of 40K, and I finally found the courage to join a beginners one shot at the local game store.
I had devoured movies and novels over the years, so had a reasonably solid repertoire of tropes and archetypes for inspiration, and with the DM’s help, we set up an Elf Ranger for my first character.
As we started, the party was manoeuvring across a mountain path, and needed to make a Dex save to avoid falling rocks. At last, my first ever D&D roll… a Natural 1.
My character lost balance, so the DM offered me another Dex save to regain my balance and avoid falling down the mountain side. Another Natural 1.
Another Dex save to avoid the boulders at the bottom? Natural 1.
The DM clearly didn’t want me to feel bad as a new player, and this just kept happening as my player’s fall set off enough noise to start another rockfall which he again failed to avoid.
A total of 5 consecutive Natural 1s were my first rolls in D&D.
Plenty of DMs would easily, and rightly have let that PC die of the fall damage but what that DM did was to make this a farcical comedy sketch, fleshing out in detail the slapstick befalling my character, to my enjoyment and that of my party. He also made it very clear that the character should by all rights have died there and then, and had played it off the cuff to make it a fluke event - as the sheer volume of consecutive Nat 1s was unreal.
As a player, I’d have actually been fine had my character died, sad but I’d have been OK. What I gained was the flavour of what spontaneous interaction between a DM and their players looks like and using the rules as tool to tell a story for all to enjoy, not as the be all and end all of the game.
Every character I have ever played since I have always constructed with their death in mind - their inevitable end, and indeed on the few occasions it has transpired, I’ve enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed the journey to it.
I learned so much from that first session, not only in meeting new people who I still play with two years later, but how to roleplay a character at a table, how to interact with other roleplay characters but also how to be flexible in using the written rules as a starting point for what can happen.
I also learned what I might do as a DM in that situation, like prepare the player for the possibility however unlikely that their character may die, and how they could participate in the session if that happened. I have been DMing myself for a few months and taken those lessons to heart and each and every session has been a joy.
That first session got me hooked on D&D despite what happened to my character - because the people around me just wanted to have fun and tried hard to include me. Perhaps too hard, but we can all look back now and laugh about it together
"The sheer volume of consecutive Nat 1 was unreal"
No joke. There is a 0.00003125% of that happening. I'd have handed you a different d20 to use because clearly _that_ thing was *_cursed._* Or weighted. Either way, *_nope._*
The DM did give me another dice to use, which did break the streak. That original dice is still in my bag. Never used but more of a memento
Ya, if I was your DM, I would've done the same as him. Giving a chance that you could die is fun, but the number of unlucky rolls, just what? It definitely was the best what he did, especially on the first session. Like a few sessions in, maybe let the character die, but the first, that's no fun
What a story!
You guys are nuts for thinking OP is crazy in the 2nd story. I have absolutely played in a game that my gf invited me to join, and the guys in their group (DM included) obviously all had a crush on her and had issue with me showing up. She took the time at the table and in character to get me up to speed, and it caused obvious jealousy from the other guys at the table. Needless to say I didn't stay a part of that group for long. I didn't get outright murdered since I was playing a Dhampir Bladesinger, but it was clear that I was being targeted by gnolls and bandits more than the other players, and not once in the entire session did the healer help me. I had to resort to using all my potions (3 greater healing) in a single session to stay alive. Human jealousy can absolutely transfer into DnD, and that sounds like what happened to him.
But again, OP did not put in any specifics. We have no idea what even the gender of all the other players were, let alone if they actually had feelings for the gf. The entire thought that it was jealousy is just a theory made up from a lack of information so you can’t just apply it to the situation as though it was truth. All in all I think it’s completely fair to say OP could be in the wrong considering how lacking this story is.
My friend who was our DM asked right before we started his new game whether any of us had any intelligence and my tiefling fighter was the only one in our group with even a +1. We just rolled with it and it has been a blast playing our smooth brain characters
That's kind of standard though. For most classes you want your main ability, possibly two, than dex and con are good on any character, and wisdom has a lot of nasty saving throws + perception. Intelligence just doesn't do as much as other stats
Reminds me of my first experience with Dnd. Got forced to play a barbarian, named by the dm, who died to a fountain right at the end of the session. Needless to say it didn't leave the best impression.
how do you die to a fountain? Drowning?
@@shadowman484 what if the fountain was a mimic?
I had a barbarian die in one hit to a bugbear in a session-it was my second character that campaign (and the second session of that campaign).
I had spotted the bugbear in the distance and I rolled stealth to get right up on it for an ambush. Got a nineteen on the roll and had high DEX because, you know _barbarian_
DM rolled a 2 on the bugbear’s spot check. I get right up on the bugbear, then another player goes “doesn’t he have a weasel familiar?”
DM goes “oh, yeah!” Makes a hidden roll, with a +10 spot check modifier (in a level one encounter), and says bugbear spots me as I sneak up and gets a free attack.
Another hidden roll, it’s a critical, and my barbarian goes from full health to -20hp in a single strike. I die instantly.
The DM complained that he didn’t like that my barbarian was trying to be sneaky. You know, because a hunter/gatherer of the steppes would _never_ sneak up on prey to get a kill.
In three sessions, I went through three characters. And was consistently the only player to die. I quit because there was no point playing if I wasn’t going to get a chance to actually play.
@@Xenobearswhy didn’t you yell at the DM as well as that other player?
@@notproductiveproductions3504 what would have been the point? I just left the group as it wasn’t a good fit and I wasn’t having fun.
Besides, it felt like messing with me was becoming the purpose of the group and I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me frustrated.
a cool idea for a series is where ad-barian go on an adventure and every episode uses sponsorships to overcome obsticalse like maybe he uses scent bird perfume to calm an owlbear or something like that. Thogh it would be very hard to exicute the potential is there. (srry for bad english its my second language)
In that case, it just should be avoided, that the beginning of the next ad depends on the end of the previous one, so we can avoid another mistake like the one with the scottish title thingy.
But otherwise, I totally love this idea!
Best for a group of players and DM who already work well together, because it would require a lot of cooperative creativity, but it sounds like a ton of fun. I’d love the challenge of that as well as the hilarious payoff.
Second Story: If Player 4 is the partner/SO of DM, that could be enough pressure for DM to kill the character off, I seen that kind of tension on the table, specially if both "control/move" the group, is weird but plausible. It also may be real but sprinkled with enhanced drama
Or even if the DM and Player 4 were like life-long friends who always play together, that could be enough leverage as well. Especially if Player 4 is a "that guy", in where they'll strat trouble the moment things don't go their way. The DM is then caught between apeasing their friend who's a bit of a "diva" and trying got get someone new into the hobby, but ultimately siding with their friend to avoid "drama".
I've been insta killed in a 1st time game by an exes friend because they were jealous of the person they liked (DM) and i had common interests outside the game. No romantic intentions or touchiness, we were just the same age and liked alot of the same hobbies and subculture. The exes friend or the ex never came to me to communicate discomfort or talk so i was oblivious they had issues at all. When i asked the table for help to make a new character for fun and not to play, the exes friend pressured them all into shunning me out to the excuse of "if i really wanted to play id learn it myself". I was poor at the time and didn't have money or access to alot of resources outside the library they played at (i only got to go there for 3 hours alone every other Saturday for an anime club that was at the same time they hosted games) and outside that time couldn't have much time away from home due to family medical emergencies ( grandpa with severe head injuries in recovery and my mom who had been suffering constant blood sugar lows) and school.
I think its real for the last story.. most of your "red flags" are tied to the DM being a shitty person: Not telling OP about the conflict, and possibly being a "No death save" dm(they do exist)... The 5 hour wait is understandable too.. if he cares about his GF and these are her friends hes not about to start any problems
It sounds like a fairly shitty set of friends. If someone did this to my SO I would get up and leave with my SO and probably never play with that group again based on how shitty they treated someone so important to me.
I think the major red flag for me, is that the entire party agreed that it was okay for a first time player to die in the beginning of his first game. I really struggle to imagine an entire group signing off on that, but having an "evil group conspiring to kill me in the beginning of the game" sounds like the 'poor victim' kind of story someone would make up for attention.
indeed. I had one simmilar table too ass*hole minmaxer + GM that were palls. Same dynamic.
13:30 I'm convinced Wife had that one in the chamber locked and loaded. She chose violence and I'm here for it
💀💀💀
For the 3rd story, that group sounds toxic; I'm so sorry for the OP and the girlfriend
For the second story, I think it would've been as easy as to tell them "Hey, we already have a fighter, would you mind changing class so the group is more balanced" and I'm sure OP would've changed their class and put that effort into cosplaying and (That being said, having two fighters isn't all that bad). But let's just say, if you see someone so excited about playing the game, I think it's really cruel to do that, like, if they hadn't gone all out with the whole deal, I might have thought that they didn't think too much about it and didn't expect them to take it so badly (even if it would've been extremely petty still, like, there can be two fighters without any problem), but after seeing someone who has taken so much effort in their first character, not only for the excitement, but for the money that they have put into it, like, it's the same as killing the character of someone who has just commissioned art of their character without any input on their part whatsoever (because it's not the same if your character dies due to unfortunate reasons, like a series of bad rolls or an idea that went badly, compared to unavoidable death because the DM wanted you gone.)
Your second story... I brought my girlfriend to a friend's game. They'd swapped out to a different DM and were reforming the group with some experienced players. Apparently they traded DMs every once in awhile.
They had some weird table rules, but whatever. My spouse had played D&D longer than any of us at the table - her dad had the original books.
This was a 2nd ed Advances game - when 3e was out - so... My spouse likes silly characters. So she made a halfling pugilist. The first battle was with a manticore. They have a flying set of attacks and a ground set of attacks, and the DM screwed up and used the ground attack sequence with the flight sequence. So the DM rolls who gets attacked - my spouse's character comes up. He does the full attack (plus the sting) and she rolls a 1 and takes the death saves. She rolls another 1 and... Well, 2e was pretty harsh. Her character is dead.
The group *loots* her character, and we continue on... And she sat for awhile, then we went home. We didn't go back, but they invited us back. I watched them, played a little, and it seemed that they looted the new characters all the time. I just couldn't stick around. My friend apologized for his friends. (It wasn't the last time he was apologizing for them.)
He shouldn’t be with people he has to apologize for 😅
With the Fighter insta-dead situation, I believe they where telling the truth. There are some players/people out there that favor brutal harshness in games. So that group specifically may not have "Death Saves" and may not have healer types in the group.
My dad knew a lady like that, she was brutal. From what my dad told me, she met the guy who made DND.
People prefer my dad being a DM because he's not that brutal.
They were envious of his relationship with their (ttrpg group) female friend.
They also did mention that the group had privately discussed that they didn’t care about killing him off so if they did have a healer (or healing potions) in the group, they probably just decided not to heal or revive him
It was his first game and played less than an hour before getting killed. And if the DM was against him, he could have forced his death etc
I mean, the whole "died slowly" wording could have been in reference to death saves since they were a first time player without experience in the weight of the mechanical terminology of things. Especially true if that bandit attack continued to play out as an actual encounter and the OP was sat at the table waiting to make a death save each turn while everyone ignored their character dying on the ground. Hard to say for certain, though.
The whole having high strength while not looking like it reminded me of Jester from Critical Role's Mighty Nein. This little, sheltered Tiefling with a 16 strength.
What's really wild is that in Pathfinder, having a higher intelligence means you get more skill points per level. So he could easily offset a lower wisdom with skill points in perception, but that DM didn't seem to think of that at the time.
I was in a group and one of the other player was extremely upset that I was playing a rogue also. "So I hear you're trying to out rouge me." I tried to nicely explain that my character was a rouge multi-class focused more on sniping and had no intention in trying to make it a competition. They chose to play their character as immediately hostile. They were in a relationship with the DM and it was clear that the DM wasn't going to intervene. After two sessions of playing I stepped away from the group in favor of not causing problems. I hate to say it but this experience and some others has made me hesitant to play in a game with DM and player relationships at the table. I played with a group from level 9 to 20, The DM's wife also was a player at the table and it was managed extremely well. But so far from my experience it has been the exception.
Giving the 2nd story the benefit of the doubt I would say it is real but missing some details and coming from the person who got the worst of the situation.
I would imagine the rest of the group thought of it as more light-hearted and was like "He is gonna get killed and we will be like Yeah that is DnD your character you spent lots of time on can get killed and you just gotta move on" and assumed he would see the humor in it and then make another character.
And the reason I could see sitting around for the whole session afterwards would be some kind of hope that the DM would revive his character at some point. In a kind of "All right we messed with ya but here is your character back now so we can keep going" way.
I think another reason why the player wouldn't write up a new character is that they may not have a full grasp of character creation yet and needed some help that might have been withheld for reasons unknown. One would think if they did need help making a new character that the GF would have stepped up, but perhaps the rest of the group was being a tad bit petty and putting up resistance to the notion, not to mention the shock of a betrayal that would be if the story was true.
coem on, the DM killed him on purpose and then purposefully excluded him. It was a total set-up
@@ToothpickSamuraiCreating a character on the spot can be hard especially if you’re new..so sitting waiting for the session to end makes sense if you had no backup 😅
So... One of our group this is his 2nd time playing D and D. First time was in person with a gate keeper. "Oh, you're playing an elf. You have to speak in a British voice." type stuff, not the point of this story. So he noped out. Fast forward, he and I are friends, he found out I play, dropped hints he wanted to play. I asked the group "Hey, buddy of mine wants to play." I explained to them about the gate keeper and our DM was like "WTF, way to gate keep" and we welcomed him to the group (it's an online campaign ). So he's a circle of the spore druid/rouge. (the spore thing comes in handy when he missed a few sessions early on due to IRL stuff, and for when we do holiday themed on shots) He played his char as perpetually stoned (back story reasons why, not relevant to this story), we enter combat and his catch phrase is "Am I high or is that _____". So when he's not there, we play is a he's having an LSD flash back and looking at the colors on the wall. Even if there is no wall. Especially if there's no wall. So, early on, we're in combat with a vampire (dont remember the flavor of vampire at this point, but a lower kind) and it bites him, takes some HP. So, me trying to help him out, I ask the DM "Since druid is so high all the time, does the vampire get stoned from his blood?" DM looses his Sh!t laughing. "Druid, make me a check (i dont remember if it was medicine or nature or what). The DM used that as a DC for a con save for the vampire to see if it got stoned. It failed. So the vampire, had disadvantage on all checks. Now we had to end the session mid combat, and next time we play druid missed. Since I brought him into the group, group decided i get to control druid. We kill the vampire before Druids turn (thank you disadvantage on dex check because vamp was stoned). On Druids turn, I dont want to do anything that would endanger Druid, DM agreed with me, and there were no other enemies around druid... but Vampire and drained some of druids health, so i had druid come to the conclusion that he needed to milk the vampires fangs to get his blood/HP back. This would use Druids Turn and keep him out of danger. DM laughed, "Roll me a nature or survival check (i dont remember which) and DM decided I'd rolled high enough that Druid now had 4 vampire fangs, which we could use to craft into a Vampire tooth Dragon for Druid. I told Druid's player about it later and druid was like "That's awesome, I totally would have done that myself! thank you!" and now, its cannon that any time a creature bites druid, it has to make a con save or get stoned.
that. is. Awesome! XD
My first time playing D&D was similar with being super excited and then immediately killed. My character was unceremoniously run over by our horse drawn cart right after introducing myself to the other characters. Some DMs just get really agro for no reason. The worst part was than he knew how excited i was to finally play, then kept the session going for over an hour.
Why didn’t you throw hands?
@@notproductiveproductions3504 I really didn't see the point of that. I just went outside and smoked a few cigarettes to calm down.
@@Skully8998 you let them win
@@notproductiveproductions3504 I guess, but at least now I have better friends.
For the first story, i would understand if that kind of character dosent fit the games overall tone like backstory and personality wise, But Instead having a problem with How they optimized there character and how they looked!! Thats actually insane to me. I think he just dident like the character and thought this was somehow a better way of trying to get them to change or something
Especially implying that the player is stupid for wanting to play a character in a fun way. These aren’t uncommon tropes either. The well schooled idiot, and the unassuming person with massive strength are classics.
When you have current issues with your former DM in a completely different campaign 😅
on the story of fighter it could have been true, the DM could been excited but him and player 4 were closer and player 4 might have threatened to quit to DM if he didn't kill him off.
In the first story: How dare you tell a player that their character cannot be what they want them to be, in a game of IMAGINATION. Even in real life it is extremely immoral.
Cool so I can come play a goldfish in a bowl with robotic limbs in your game?
How about a halfling named tripod who uses his club as his weapon?
The story is pretty ridiculous, but there reqlly is a point where some character ideas just aren't going to work in the world/group
I'd allow it. It sounds like a fun character!
@@oxylepy2 Sure there are limits to what is possible as you have to work it into the story. But what was described there wasn't that crazy. Basically just personality and cosmetics.
The issue is he wasn’t being ridiculous! He was just trying to make a character that WOULD be cool but the DM wouldn’t have it because it “didn’t make sense.” IT IS A FINE CHARACTER, HOW DOES IT “NOT MAKE SENSE?!”
@@oxylepy2 No, there isn't. The only "point" is "what do players want to collectively play". And yes, you can absolutely play those builds. In tthe story from thsi video, the DM was purely against the player. It wasn't a group of 4 players saying "we're trying to be edge lords in this game, and your name is pwnz0r2000? No way"
Wife seems so sweet and nice, but she is BRUTAL in this one! 😂
Oh hey, it's Amy and Husband! Hello again!
I believe the insta kill story quite a bit. A lot of your disbelief is coming from a place of what you'd expect an experienced player of TTRPG's to do and say and recollect. But this person mentioned this being their first time and as someone inexperienced myself it sounds pretty close to the kinds of experiences that have put me off D&D in the past. Where experienced players pretend to be excited about you joining but then either sideline you or refuse to give any guidance.
Y'all sound like the dream people to do a first campaign with but you aren't the norm in the community
And when inexperienced you aren't gonna memorize all these details especially when you're kinda just in shock about how cruel people have just been to ya
The first story makes me think of the character I'm playing in my current campaign. They're a skinny, cranky, half-elf wizard born to a family of barbarians. They're very intelligent, have average wisdom, and due to having been raised in this family of barbarians, value stength very highly. They somehow acquired gauntlets of ogre power, so even though they are the squishy wizard of the party, they are also, technically, the strongest. 😂
Ok. That's brilliant.
I love odd quirks, Dwarf Rogue who is not strong and such or my favourite, my honest Rogue.
Glass cannon
I have a glass cannon of a character and idk how I did it. Phyrra is my first character, an Eladrin Druid. Theyre soft, small and feminine, they actually wear a formal dress most of the time. I built them on the D&D app without actually really knowing what everything means, I just clicked what it let me click. I have higher max damage on some of my actions than our Barbarian. In our first session we were all shocked with the damage so our dm tried upping the enemies but forgot I still had TERRIBLE health stats and needed to drop them down again and just accept that I was obliterating them.
The new guy wouldn't know about subclasses but the DM would and if he was a good DM he should have pointed this fact out. That could have potentially changed the entire game and the problems could have been solved.
The first story: I don't play TTRPGs, and I'm unfamiliar with what goes into making a character. When the poster described their character as being strong while looking like a twig I immediately thought about wrestlers (I'm a HUGE college wrestling fan!).
Agreed, there a clear difference between training for buffness through fitness lifting and just being proficient in strength related skills.
I worked at a bakery and the owner, who was a scrawny dude, had massive power in his underarms due to him having done this job for almost a decade.
When I was in high school I had a classmate, that was on the small crawny side, but did competetive rowing and was ridiciously strong.
I still remember one game where there was 3 rogues in a party, and we still manage to not step on each other's toes very much. It's mostly meshed in my mind, but I remember one went Arcane trickster and disarmed enemies at a range before combat.
I feel for that first time player story. That happened to me as well with my very first session of D&D. This was years ago when my husband and I first started dating. My husband has been a huge D&D nerd since middle school and tried for months to get me to try it. He had been in a group filled with our coworkers (we worked at the same company) and one time he finally convinced me to give D&D a try. The group was level 5 so I would hop in at that level. I was excited as I made my Dwarf Cleric alongside my husband and bought my first set of dice. Then the day came for my first session with the group. The group consisted of a Barbarian, Rogue, and a Wizard. All was normal at first, my character was introduced to the rest of the party as someone looking for help at the local chapel. The party agrees to help me and we go off. In the chapel, we find out the "priest" of the chapel was actually a Mind Flayer. Keep in mind, we are all level 5 with the exception of the barbarian being at level 6.
The DM proceeds to mind control our barbarian, who failed his saving throw, and has him rage then goes for a reckless attack on me. Our barbarian player then proceeded to roll a natural 20 and crits me with reckless. My level 5 Dwarf Cleric was one shotted. I had spent so much time making my first ever character, creating backstory, picking out spells, and deciding what she would look like. All of that time went down the drain when I died within the first 5 minutes of my very first session of D&D. I visibly got upset and so did my husband and the other players. My husband told our DM that was a dick move. The DM simply shrugged his shoulders and said "suck it up" with a shit eating grin on his face. The rogue and wizard of the group had no choice but to kill the barbarian and the Mind Flayer ended up killing both the rogue and wizard for a TPK. This whole battle sequence took 30 minutes. 30 minutes that I spent just on my phone for the rest of the session because there was no reason to pay attention anymore as I was dead.
Turns out the DM was done being the DM and the rogue of the group had a campaign ready to go. So the DM decided to get a TPK to end his campaign so he can be a player for the new campaign. Hence why he had a level 15 Mind Flayer attack us. He planned for this in advance and knew that this session would be the last. The DM was well aware this was my first ever session. He would later tell me that he sent the barbarian at me on purpose because I was the Cleric and wanted the healer taken out. He just didn't expect our barbarian rolling a Nat 20 and told me to get over it and grow up.
This experience put a sour taste in my mouth for D&D and I refused to play again. Even when my husband begged for me to play with them again. I would not try D&D again for a year and a half until the rogue from that party made a new campaign and asked if I would join. The rogue and the DM are brothers and he apologized on his brothers behalf and said his brother is known for being an over the top DM, causing TPK's when he grew bored of his own campaign, and was not new player friendly. For the record, this is something my husband did not know about as that campaign was the first time playing with the DM. I would join the rogues campaign and I played that campaign for about 2 months before the group dissolved. I had fun with that campaign but that sour taste from my first ever session still lingers in my mind. I'm hesitant in joining D&D groups that my husband wants me to join ever since.
17:30 If that story is true ( and I don't have any reason to assume otherwise), then that DM and the other players are basically sociopaths. It has nothing to do with D&D, that's just how it played out.
There's a silver lining there though : at least he and his girlfriend found out they these were absolute jerks in a fairly benign way. You wouldn't want to find that out in a more serious situation
Both stories are great examples of bad DM/Groups that drive people away from TTRPGs. As for the stories "Red Flags" about missing mention of saves it's 100% possible because he doesn't know the rules and if they were trying to off him they might have not healed or told him about. My first game of D&D back in 3ed I had inspiration for my character as fryer tuck from Robin hood as the Drunk Cleric on wagon with beer. And since dwarves are fantasy race often known for loving beer so I choose to play as one. When we went around the table to describe our characters to the DM he didn't seem to thrilled with it.
So First session we start in a Tavern. My character gets a beer at the bar, after a few drinks the DM tells me I pass out, no save no nothing. After the rest of the party finish asking around the tavern we skip to the morning. The DM tells me I wake up naked in alley with a tatto on me and heavily implies I was violated while unconscious which got a laugh from much of the table. I don't know if this was some twisted hazing of the new person or what as I know some college frat groups can have some weird hazing rituals. But I'm a bit of a rules lawyer and had read the PHG and DM guide cover to cover before that session so I knew he was railroading my character and should have gotten a save on that drink, plus all the other BS with implied assault. While I did stay the rest of the game I basically just waiting till the night was over and didn't try much with my character at all.
For a bit of context I told my friend I was interested in playing D&D when he mentioned he was in a group. The group was all people I had never met aside from my friend and I met up at my friend's house where one of the other players who could drive picked us both up to meet at the DMs house. So I couldn't just leave as I had car pooled there with one of the other players. After we got dropped off back at my friends house I just went straight home as it was late and didn't tell my friend until the next day that I didn't think D&D was a good game from me. It wasn't until many years later I gave TTRPGs a try again with another group. As for how I know I was a rules lawyer before playing TTRPGs, me and my friends played a bunch of CCG, 40K, and few other miniatures games and pretty much any time a rules question comes up they ask me cause I had them memorized, so I figured learning 3ed would be easy too which it was just ended up with a bad group.
I've had some good groups and bad groups over the years since and ventured into other TTRPGs besides D&D. Some of the things you see as Red Flags I feel more could be simply skimming over to keep things short as saying you died is just easier and faster than saying I ended up failing all my death saves and then died as it's kinda implied in the I died, or potentially the party just trying to screw the person over as he mentioned the other fighter taunted him before he died thus imply the choose not to help him. I've had greedy players in groups refuse to share heal potions unless they were "compensated". Heard stories from friends of Healers refusing the cast healing on party members they didn't like. There are be all sorts of drama at the table and assuming something is a red flag because the party isn't displaying proper teamwork is a bit of a high standard.
For me the texting at the table was a red flag though. I don't know about that group but ever group I've played in since cell phone came out and texting became a thing have had a strict NO TEXTING rule. Basically the DMs I've hadd stated if your not interested enough to be here to the point you can't put your phone down then GTFO as we are here to game and it's disrespectful to everyone else holding up the game because you missed something due to not paying attention. But I have heard some of the younger crowd are too addicted to their phones and due it during game so it could of been happening in his game.
Most of the groups that's I've been in have no rules against having our phones, but it's not because we are "addicted". Not all of us have quick and easy access to a printer for physical character sheets, and there are a lot of really good apps for quickly and efficiently organizing all your character information, spells, inventories and features. Not saying that the no phone rule is a bad thing, but it's not strange to have access to your phone during a game for the above reasons.
In my first ever DND session, My character died in the first half hour of play to a challenge that I had absolutely no way of beating. My dad was DM and I was a youngling at the time, maybe tween?
Anyways, yeah, I got upset at being forced into such impossible odds as a newbie and left the table and never played DND with my dad again, nor DND at all for like a decade. Many years later while talking about that game with him, I found out that my character was supposed to die, but that the game was supposed to continue post-death as part of the plot, but my dad didn't know how to react to me being visibly upset and leaving the table, so he decided it was better to just not push me and not force me back to the table.
So yeah, after that, I had a pretty low opinion of DND for awhile. Even to this day, I have a hard time actually building attachments to characters because I expect them to die quickly, even though it rarely ever happens. Was a pretty shit adventure to run for someone who didn't even know what a D20 was.
Yowch! I DMed for my sister's kids ranging from 5 to 15 (3 oldest played separately from the younger 2) and I would never have actually planned for their characters to die. As a matter of fact, I generally was very soft on them. My goal was for them all to have some fun and play exciting adventures. Unless the kid has the right mindset, character death has the opposite effect. I can see maybe doing that for the an older teenager, but not a kid under 13.
that 2nd story had the possibility for being such a cool dynamic between characters with two fighters who were rivals without directly fighting each other? Zoro and Sanji type vibes lol
I am a really emotional person so when it comes to stories about someone losing passion or anything they love really it hurts and is hard for me to find fake
So when I first got into D&D was trying to get into a group that my two best friends were part of. That already had several people. I went ham and scratched that itch real hard. First couple of games. I sat and just watched and listened and then when I wanted to play when I made a character tied it in with a NPC that the party had just fought to give me away to connect with the other players and I made this character. Told my character to the DM. The DM said ah cool. I really didn't want to bring that hag back but that's not a bad idea. You know what I'll introduce you and I'll bring you in and I'll write you into the story however, several sessions went by. It was about one session a month and even when one of my best friends ended up having to leave the game because of personal issues and they were a player down and I could have taken his spot instead they brought in somebody else who is more experienced and then several more sessions go by and it's been about a year by that point from when I tried to get my character in and had been going to the sessions and I ended up becoming their tech guy for streams while they were streaming on twitch and not being able to play which hurt a little. So yeah I've been the guy who's gone to several sessions each lasting about 4 hours or more cuz I think we'd start at 9:00 and ended about 12:00 1:00 in the morning and I was just sitting there having to play on my switch or watch the stream or be on my phone because I was not pulled into the game that I wanted to play with and I couldn't leave because one of the players was my ride.
So if the guy in the bad story number two that may or may not be true was sharing a vehicle with his girlfriend or with another player and he he wanted to let his girlfriend have a fun game but he also couldn't leave because she would have been stuck there. I understand that
Honestly the second story reminds me of my group’s last session but without any actual malice behind it. Basically we had a new member join our party and within 10 minutes of starting the session we TPK’d to clowns. Our DM decided to let the new PC live since they had just joined us but unfortunately the rest of our characters got the axe. A bit of a shame and slightly questionable IMO but not too big of a deal as our deaths were sort of on us. Anyway now that we’ve made new characters there’s at least ONE person in the party that can heal... you’re welcome guys.
I believe the second story. My very first DnD session ever (though the circumstances were very different) was so outlandish and thoroughly unenjoyable that I didn't touch it again for over a decade. All because the DM was on a power trip and was pissed at party because we could legally drink (this was in my early 20s back in 2009 and in the Air Force where underage drinking can be a career killer). He was under 21, all the rest of were over. As a result, he threw a massive temper tantrum. We were a level one party and our VERY FIRST encounter was with a red dragon; we never stood a chance . He ended the session after we were all killed. Everyone was visibly upset and left shortly thereafter. I can't speak to everyone else's experience because I was brand new, but this DM also did not let me make a character. He assigned me a character sheet. He knew I was brand new, and when I asked what I needed to do to prepare for the first session he told me 'don't worry about it,' and 'he'd take care of everything.'
I think because I've had one of those "this has to be fake" experiences in real life, I tend to give OP the benefit of the doubt.
"fake because he has a GF" im alone at work, the echos of my laughing 😂. Idk what's sus about the story... an easy fit for the poison. Damage is taken after death from lingering poison therefore, you auto fail from taking damage still. Considering that they railroaded him in literally the start that would fit
As far as strong people and buffness: I'm a rock climber & I've met a lot of other climbers. Most of them are pretty lean while being able to do some incredibly powerful climbing moves. Like, holding their entire body weight on the tips of their fingers of one hand while grabbing another hold. I have another friend who's a pretty good martial artist (their words), but they have a very lean, defined build instead of bulky. The idea that strength = a bulky muscle builder type body is so incredibly stupid and (in this scenario) controlling to me.
Fun fact: a majority of power lifters can’t do a single push-up even though they can bench 4x their own body weight for reps
I had a similar experience to your last story, just not as 'all out', all because of 'bad vibes', I'm a really nice guy and even worked my butt off helping one of the members of the group move all their belongings to their new place in a matter of a few hours and then they all suggested I join them for DnD because I seemed like a cool guy (my gf at the time was friends with them hence why I got asked to help them move) but then about an hour before I was to join them in a session they told my gf I was no longer invited because I gave them 'bad vibes'... so much for my flower picking barbarian dreams...
So, I had a character that made it into one session and died in that one session. But I told the DM how I wanted to go out.
Something came up suddenly, and I was leaving the state, so I told my DM could keep him as an NPC or if he wanted to kill my character, then do it in the most dramatic way possible.
Later that week I got a text from the DM. He gave me a typed pdf file of my character's dramatic death. It was so incredibly funny that I gave him a 👍🤣. It fit my character so well, I was sad that I wasn't there to see it.
Stay frosty and roll for initiative!
I believe something like that could happen (story 2). There’s a whole saga that happened to me, but tl;dr I had a friendly breakup with someone, she invited to play with her new group later, which was DM’d by her new partner. Said DM took the opportunity to make me miserable at every turn and succeeded in driving me away by having my character get r***ed in graphic detail when I had to miss a session.
When an insecure DM is interested in/dating a player in the group and senses competition, they can do some HEINOUS shit.
That’s why I’m a forever DM now. I’ll only play one-off sessions as a PC because that experience completely soured me on giving someone else any control over a character that I connected with.
You should’ve broken the 4th wall to accuse the DM of jealousy
I literally just ran a prison break-themed one shot for my D&D group last week utilizing the Pathfinder 2e system, and it was really fun! I highly recommend people to try other systems here and there, even if it's only a one shot.
I only have experience with Pathfinder 1e, not 2e, but my most recent character is a sorcerer, who started out with a Perception skill of -2 (by now, up to a solid 0). I even gave him some traits to lower that perception - Naive and Oblivious. It was a conscious choice. Was/is it a weakness again and again? Yes. Does he miss things? Yes. Do I regret it? No!!
It's hilarious and that character has been immensily fun to play. A very sheltered sunshine of a sorcerer who just wants to create some art in the form of constructs. His charisma skills are through the roof and he can talk his way out of almost any situation, but he will not catch on ever if anyone is lying to his face.
So i am a dm for pathfinder 2nd edition for like 3 years now and i have been building multiple characters with my players and people who were just interested in making characters. And i myself have kind of an obsession and made like... 300 characters in the system (most of which being pop culture and fantasy references).
What i do all of the time is tell the players that they CAN do whatever they want with thwir characters BUT.... they have to be aware of what it means to have a low stat X. E.g: low WIS would mean low perception which means low initiative in p2e. Low str means low melee dmg. Low dex means low AC for most classes.
As long as you are aware of and fine with the decisions you make im good too. Because we all want to have fun in the game... but the fun will leave very quickly if your character performs poorly due to the decisions you made.
As long as you are aware of your characters weaknesses and play them out you re golden. But if you cant cope with being last in initiative every time and being easy to manipulate if you have negative wisdom... well you should have listened.
As a DM who loves Sword & Sorcery I'd be overjoyed at having multiple Fighters in the party, since the less magic in the party the weirder I can make OTHER magic in the adventures.
And if a player said "UGH they're the same class" I'd tell them to grow up or get out.
Some people: I absolutely CANNOT SHARE MY CLASS. I would loose my use in the party!
The sorcerer of one of my campaigns, fully stepping up to attempt to teach my swashbuckler rogue how to magic after she showed interest in it:
(The sorcerer died a little later in the campaign. She learned a little magic from him, and continued to practice what he taught her. She is now fully multiclassed into a homebrew subclass the player, my dm and I whipped up together.)
The first story: As a DM I often felt bad about "influencing" my players' choice of stats, but this made me realize I was doing pretty okay. I simply told them what abilities they are going to need, for example I didn't want to let a sorcerer put everything into Intelligence and dump their Charisma when that would literally make their spells useless. I feel like this DM loved the idea of the good oL' "DM against players" mentality so he didnt want him to have a low perception cause he loves making things hard on them.
The nightmare story about the first session death is definetely suss, either it was what you said that they purposefully left out a loot of details to make themselves feel like a victim, or it's just made up. Too many things that are important just didn't get mentioned in the story xd.
ayo the fighter one is just dirty, it just exposed the group's personnality, 100% i've met people like this ffs, if it is true it just mean they either had something against the dude or their communication isn't really working
if it's not then it's very convincing to me
When it comes to the second horror story I think their are a couple of reasons I think it might be true. The lols and smiles in their messages could be a form of trauma response. They are making light of the situation to hide their true feelings on the matter I've done the same thing. Another possibility is that they where actually player 4 and knew they were the bad guy and were happy about it.
When it comes to leaving out details I think it's most likely what you said they knew the rest might see the story and wanted to leave out a chunk to remain hidden. This was an in person game so they might live close enough to them to cause problems for them IRL. Weather be because they lied in the story or the other players could be vindictive.
So for the SUS video, honestly I have seen groups like this. Its unfortunate but there are often cliques of people, that just burn through guest players because they treat them like crap. It can be hard to find a DM you can trust.
Why didnt the DM talk to the player?
He was prob "Excited' to just fill in the two player seats. And was actually giving minimal effort. I've seen many "excited" DM's flake on an entire campaign because when got time to do the work, they couldnt be bothered. So likely this person only wanted to drive his friends narratives, and its possible they wanted the girl at the table to be weird too. Because that happens too.
Question on Death itself: He mentions dying of a poison, if the damage is ticking damage, he would auto-fail his death saves, there wouldnt be a death save being rolled, additionally, if this DM was playing Adversary, they might not have even said the player was dying, till he was already fully dead. If what the person said to believed, this was intended to kill him, so there was likely no save on the poison, and the DM prob just calculated how much it would take to drop him and just said it.
This also sadly happens, and why I do all rolls in view and 9/10 will tell the player the DC they are trying to beat. So the stakes are on the table. I feel gives more tension than not knowing if the goal is even possible.
Players Reaction to player waiting around: This is actually pretty common too. Ive seen people have to hang around for like 5 hours after they got killed or because DM focuses on different section of the party.
I once had a DM, trap my character in a room, with the hallway outside full of blades, the room was just a small cubicle, and he said if I left I would instantly die, no damage roll, no save. So I sat aside for 8 hours. (I used that time to learn how to play a simple version of Demons by Imagine Dragon and said thats what my character was doing when they finally found him.
While I do believe that situations happen where new players are outright killed and bullied out of their first experience, I agree that we are missing something vital in story 2. I'm willing to bet something dumb happened leading up to the death. Another wrinkle in the story is that the only in book poison that has a higher than a 17 DC save is the Purple Warm Poison which would be absolutely insane to run for level 7 characters. If this is a long time campaign I doubt the DM is that much of a novice to run something that insane even if homebrewed against a new player. I'll go the opposite direction and say OP was being jealous and said some things to get his character nuked by the DM.
Assuming the story is true I agree with the theory there was jealousy at the table. It would be the only reasonable explanation for the sudden 180 on everyone's attitude assuming OP is being honest.
the one thing of the DM Should Know - When players start you should NEVER assume that the player knows how the game works even if they say they Know; you should give them every thing that will teach them the game, and Never tell players how there character should be (except them being a murder-Hobo) - but i always get the players to create more than one Character because Death is always a possibility and this enables them to get on if they Accidentally get their Character killed.
I’m inclined to believe the second story could have a morsel of truth. It does sound like there’s exaggeration and there’s some stuff left out. I can see the others being excited to share the hobby with OP, especially the girlfriend. The switch in attitude is certainly very sudden and the fact that the whole group seemed to already know that OP’s character was going to die feels like OP trying to paint everyone as being against them.
I can very much see OP getting super into everything because it’s the sort of thing that I do on occasion (not to this extent) and I know others who have done similar things. The gf saying that they can leave and OP refusing so as to not get in the way of something their partner enjoys is pretty reasonable. I think the 5 hours could be an exaggeration though.
Alright, in response to the red flags:
1. It's possible that the issue the 4th player had didn't arise until AFTER the OP's character had been made. Alternatively, I'm not 100% against the girlfriend theory. ™️Nice Guys within the D&D circle will 100% pull shit like that, I've lost groups over it.
2. "Dying slowly" could have been referring to the Death Saves. After all, he was brand new and had his first session sabotaged; he likely didn't know all of the terminology. It's also not uncommon for groups to just outright not have healers. I'm in 4 campaigns actively, one of which I DM, and two don't have healers, and one required TWO FULL PARTY REVISIONS to get one healer.
Game 1 (my game): Horizon Walker Ranger, Divination Wizard/Barbarian, Vengeance Paladin (is a smiter).
Game 2: Monster Slayer Ranger, Eldritch Knight Fighter/Djinn Warlock, Beast Druid (knows Cure Wounds but it literally never not a bear so can't cast it until we're resting anyway)
Game 3 (Midgard/Kobold Press):
- First Revision - Sworddancer Fighter, Hexblade Warlock, Gunslinger Ranger, Still Waters Monk, Justice Paladin (immediately shattered his oath and can't cast), Shadow Druid (does not know Cure Wounds), White Necromancer Wizard (does not know Cure Wounds, only Spare the Dying).
- Second Revision - Legionary Fighter, Unerring Arrow Monk, Eloquence Bard (doesn't know Cure Wounds), Gunslinger Ranger (different player), Still Waters Monk (same player), White Necromancer Wizard (same player).
- Third Revision - Legionary Fighter (same player/me), Totem Barbarian, Illrigger, White Necromancer (same player), Serpent Cleric (FINALLY a fucking healer).
3. It makes complete sense for the guy not to want to drag his girlfriend away from the game if she still enjoys it, and if this stunt has destroyed his interest he probably just... stopped paying attention to what happened after that. At that point, if you have 5 hours to kill, you're probably just going to be on your phone the whole time rather than pretend you're invested in something that you'll never look at again after today.
4. I agree than negative attention is a helluva drug, but so is validation. It could be important to OP that he know other groups aren't like this because it might affect whether he gives the game another shot.
4.5. No. No. I don't care what dipshit thing your player did, you don't let a brand new player waste their fucking time making a character and kill them off in the first session. Give them a scare, mayhaps, knock 'em to low HP or death saves to get them in the right mindset, but don't outright kill them. You can display to people that their actions have consequences without just stripping the fun away.
Is this story made up? Mayhaps. But should that take away from the fact that this is 100% something that COULD happen? That probably HAS happened? I don't think so.
I remember my first D&D experience in college. Created my character, sat down at the table, was told we found ourselves in front of a river of lava and needed to cross. My roommate wanted to be helpful so his character activated stone skin, picked mine up, and carried me across without thinking. He was informed that after crossing he was holding a big lump of charred remains that used to be my character and I spent the rest of the session trying to keep myself entertained because I wasn't interested in asking the DM to stop the session that literally just started so I could roll up a new character.
For the third story, I feel like we assume it's a Dnd 5e. But it could be an older version or so much homebrew that it's called DND.
I remember getting into my first pvp duel. Except it wasn't a duel, my 6'5 320lbs dragonborn jester ran up and hugged a 5'3 half elf and he didn't appreciate his hug for some reason. After lowering tensions we fought some werewolves. It was really funny.
I played a game with all 4 of us being Barbarians and it was so much fun all being the same class. Every encounter started with us putting our hands together and shouting "WE RAGE". It was a blast.
17:47 I've experienced something very much like this. My friend at the time was running GURPS for us - written up to be in the Halo universe. He wasn't a very experienced DM or GM or whatever it's called with GURPS, but we all decided to give it a try. Each of the players created their own Spartan 2, and for the first two sessions, we started out as kids, being trained on Reach. We had a blast, right up until the third session.
My Spartan had been written up very much to be focused on being an amazing sniper. We had ridden down to a planet's surface to fight the covenant (as Spartans are wont to do), and before jumping out the back of it with the others, I had decided to have my Spartan scan the area for any enemy snipers, or to see if he might be able to pick off any enemy scouts or anything early. It wasn't even five minutes into the session, and despite having an insane perception score, and rolling decently (all our stats were set really high because Spartans are super-human), the DM told me I had seen nothing, but then immediately had me roll another check without telling me what it was. I rolled low, and was informed that my Spartan had been sniped in the head, and had died.
I was beyond pissed off because this was the first time I had ever tried to participate in an RP, and I really loved the character I had created, and the relationship and in-jokes he had already become a part of.
After that, I lost all desire to RP at all.
I see the DM went with the jackal sniper approach.
@@Aredel he did. I lost all desire to rp after that. Why would I want to spend that much time creating something if a dm is just going to destroy it in the first 5 minutes of playing?
I ran campaign for two people playing bard and rogue which both had only 7 constitution, they have yet to get themselves in combat longer than 5 rounds
7 Con? 💀
@@overlordb1989 yep, they just run and work their way around battles or just guve them obstacles and then run away
I'm playing a campaign in which we've all lost some aspect of ourselves.
I decided my character lost his sense of humor. Everyone _LOOKED_ at me, as my characters tend to wisecrack left and right.
In the first session, everyone was amazed that I was able to deadpan the entire session
Talking about story #2
I had my first dnd campaign a few weeks ago and there were all first timers besides 1 in our group of 4 we were all barbarians lmaoo and it was super fun and they were really supportive and it was really fun 😊
Was that a season one SpongeBob reference?!? Much respect, Mr One-Shot
I've been introducing my friends to Vampire: the Masquerade and the Alien (Xenomorph) RPG. I grew up with the Vampire computer games and bought basically all the books of the Requiem edition, so being able to actually introduce others to the new Masquerade edition is really cool for me. The Alien one is a great space horror game, so both games bring variety to our nights so we don't have 5e forever.
I have been fortunate enough to have run with the same core group for more than a decade across multiple systems. Our common go-tos are 5e, Pathfinder 1e and 2e, Shadowrun 5e, and Legend of the Five Rings. Guys, because it got brought up, don't gatekeep systems, we are all gathering for the fun of it.
I love how you make your sponsors and ads so entertaining. It makes them worth watching l. Thank you for all your jokes and references.
Honestly while the fighter story sounded a bit suspicious I would point out that the fighter class I've always found it to be the noob-friendly of classes do to it being a well-rounded vanilla class, meaning it can handle quite a lot of situations without being too squishy without being overly complex and confusing new players. Plus I would point out the fighter class is like the "Eevee" of the dnd world in that depending on it's build and sub class it can pretty much evolve into anything.
Excellent point! You can start as a fighter. Spend two levels being impressed by the wizard, and then just multiclass into either sorc or wizard and you’re not even that far behind or unable to have a totally optimized build.
@@Lyscian420 honestly whenever I use a fighter class in DND I usually end up going the Spellblade (fighter/magic user) route or a Shadowblade (fighter/rogue) route.
You two give me life...and total relationship goals. Thank you for this week's stories!
At my table our DM let's us go for whatever we want for our characters within source material and imagination. A party of nothing but fighters? He's fine with it so long as we all got with a different approach in terms of RP. One of us would be the fave if the group, doing the meet and greets, another would be a stoic quiet guardian, etc.
I play in a 5e campaign and my character has a perception skill of 5. It comes up a decent amount, but it’s always funny when the fighter has to turn my character’s head to face the threat, or when the DM starts describing something everyone notices, pauses, asks for my passive perception, then describes how everyone except my character sees the threat.
I did the Fastball Special in a game too!
We were playing that frosty WOTC 5e adventure, I forget its name. There was me with my human fighter, there was a kobold wizard, and I forget the rest of the group... but we were trying to get into a castle, and instead of throwing a noisy grappling hook up to the ramparts my character suggested trying to throw the wizard up there since they were the strongest and the smallest, respectively. Wizard consents to the attempt, DM tells me to roll my check with disadvantage.
Double.
Nat.
Twenties.
😁
The universe wanted us to succeed at doing something awesome that evening.
"It's fake he has a girlfriend!" I should probably tell my future brother in law that 😅 also love seeing the pillows
One of my favourite and most memorable games early on in my DnD journey was a party of all bards with different backgrounds and subclasses. This was a party of five players and it was spectacular. So much chaos ensued. We definitely detailed the one shot but we kinda ended up where we were supposed to by the end. Definitely one of the better experiences I had while learning the game.
Currently in my Wednesday night campaign, I and another player are both rogues but she’s slightly more of a classic build while I’ve gone for a more Wizard-esk build with a hint of fighter. My character is also built to be more up close while they are better at a distance. We make it work and have even began to cause chaos together (I.e. the group kept talking over us so we texted the DM and stealthed so hard that it took the group five whole minutes to even realise our characters had disappeared). 🤭
that bit about not wanting multiple of the same class, i feel that, but in a different direction, like i wanted to make a cleric in my current game, BUT there is already a cleric and i don't want to step on toes.
Somewhere OP of story 2 is sitting around not knowing that they just dragged online after a really bad experience, it could be a fake but if it ain’t, that’s some next level cruelty right there.
When we started my current campaign, we showed up to session 0 with a party that consisted of two rangers, two rogues, and a wizard. The DM brought up concerns about us not having a tank, asking if anyone wanted to change classes. One of the rangers offered to be a paladin instead and it ended up working out.
I haven't been playing D&D for a long time but I have known about D&D and I've seen people playing for a really long time. I grew up with a father who (still is) a massive nerd and he played D&D when i was younger, live only had a DM asked me to change my class not even my character idea because we we're doing a magic school campaign that was more centered around the role play aspect and he asked me if I could change my class cuz there was already another sorcerer two of them, and if I wasn't fine with it just to change the.
I ended up becoming amon the rage filled tortle, it was a war cleric, and i loved it.
Imagine an alternate universe where instead of a spear, Harold tries to launch his party member into the door.
I always go lightly on players for the first 5-10 sessions or so, this way they get to get a feeling for the game flow. Past that point, their consequences are their own.
Thank you
for the first story, the thing about perception in Pathfinder 2e is that it IS your initiative 90% of the time. He went about explaining that terribly so he's still an assholr.
Fighter is one of the classes that its good to have multiple
Okay. Honest thoughts about the "first time last time" story: I think it's been pretty exaggerated, even though there are some parts that sound true. Heck, I was introduced to DND by my then-fiance-now-husband a few months before we got married, and I got into it about as hard as OP did. That part I 100% agree is real.
The big red flag for me was the DM doing a complete 180. Going from "hey super excited for you to join, let me help you build your character" to "I'm gonna kill you off right away and there's nothing you can do about it" seems really odd and, if true, really dirty. Could it happen? Yeah it could. But the way it was presented (no death saves, 17 doesn't succeed, no info about character level) doesn't seem right.
Anyways, hope you two are doing well! The dice tower I got from you at FanX Salt Lake (last one you had there, by the way 😁) has already been put to good use!
I believe the poster believes it’s true (probably with identifying details changed.) They apparently didn’t stick with the system, assuming they even continued to game.. so they might just get important details wrong.
And it sounds to me like a personality conflict. While it could be a harsh system that they took personally, I’m getting “you’re annoying us” vibes. Especially with the girlfriend’s reaction after, I’m thinking they didn’t like something about him, and didn’t communicate about it, and he can’t accurately tell what he doesn’t know. And if everyone agreed before that his character could die, why didn’t the gf explain that to him beforehand? Because he COULD die, like everyone else, but wasn’t SUPPOSED to die, until they were annoyed. Gf says “wth y’all?” and gets “we didn’t like him”. So obviously she would find it easier to not hang out with people who dislike her so than explain to him why said group dislikes him (especially if she doesn’t agree) and then have to reassure him every time she plays. Imo.
It's easy to imagine that if "Player 4" and DM were close and he said, "Hey, I actually don't wanna have this guy around if he's gonna step on my toes." The DM might feel that he just has to kill OP off to preserve a friendship. From how it's written it sounded more like a scripted thing that the DM narrated rather than something that happened during an actual fight, so the DM just bullshits it and OP just has to accept it.
The only reason I think it's real.
Is because I have known two-faced people like that.
Acting all excited, and nice, and sweet. But actually not being.