The Pain Every DM Knows
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Behold my cool villain! ...aaaand he's dead. #shorts #dimension20
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Now a similar pain is when your players get f****d by a boss that you thought was gonna be a walk in the park
Some friends of mine spent 3 hours fighting a forest that was supposed to be a 15-minute encounter. I could be wrong, but I think that's what it was.
I TPK'ed a party like this once, I made sure that they held them at ransom instead of murdering them. Sometimes players can surprise you with how smart they play... and sometimes they can surprise you by how dumb they play lmao
Yeah that's the worst. You'll have everything balanced so it's not a walk in the park but not too tough either. I like to throw "confidence booster" combat scenarios sometimes after particularly harrowing experiences to make players feel powerful. It normally comes after a level up so they get to try out their new toys too. But every once in a while, it all goes to shit because the dice just isn't on their side. That's when a simple bandit ambush goes from "Wow these guys messed with the wrong group" to "Your wizard is bleeding out and has lost 2 death saves". I'd rather deal with getting my villains steamrolled constantly than to come close to a TPK during a battle I thought was going to be easy for them.
Admittedly, this doesn't happen as often anymore because I stopped using Challenge Ratings as a basis for balancing completely. Some of those ratings are just completely wrong.
The CR thing is why everyday I regret using Experience Leveling instead of Milestone leveling
My party has an unofficial problem with remorhazes. The first time we fought one, my warlock got grappled and reduced to low, almost zero HP. TWICE IN ONE FIGHT. I misjudged how fast the things moved and just wasn't far enough out of range the first time. The second, she didn't have any high damage ranged spells that didn't deal fire or cold damage. She *had* to engage up close! The damn thing nommed her and almost escaped underground with her unconscious body, rendering her unrecoverable. I was this close to having to roll up someone new on a RANDOM ENCOUNTER.
Here's the thing about recurring villains. It's not the DM that makes them. It's the players.
Amen. For some reason, the more interesting you make your villains, the more likely they are to be focused on and killed. Or even worse, the party ends up befriending them somehow. Now you have an OP NPC parading around with your party and your only choice left for a villain is a vendor that ripped them off in session 2 😂
That statement is so true, in our last session we just made a re-occurring villain, we are so dead.
That reminds me about my last game how my DM kept complaining that this wear bear was supposed to be a nobody, but we all kept ignoring his intricately prepared backstory for what was supposed to be the main villain and following this bear who became my nemesis.
It be like that sometimes
So true. I made a bandit gang leader who was supposed to be a minor nuisance to my party and they rolled so terribly and had to flee his fort. Now we're 20 sessions into the game and they're still planning on how to get back at him. He's basically become the BBEG of the campaign
“Sometimes you make a villain and they die in the first two rounds of combat. And that’s ok.”
-Brennan Lee Mulligan, Fantasy High S1E16
Sometimes? I'm assuming that comment is before 5e.
@@Cheshipuss Fantasy High was 5e. Most of the villains lived more than two rounds.
@@irreleverent Heresy!
Okay this has nothing to with the video but I am unable to sleep-
*what in gods name is your profile pic supposed to be*
@@gorey348 It's the MC of Despicable Me in the symbol for male, but the circle is crossed out with a single line.
I once had to cut out an entire phase of a fight because my players used Polymorph and turned my boss's getaway mount into a butterfly.
Keep those players 😂
That’s amazing 😂
Anand bbeg nuke solves that problem. "Oh! You're now trapped with the demon knight lord of terror who has 10 levels on you. He casts explosion, and you all suffer 8d6 + 1 for every level of damage. You're all crippled, deafened and stunned. Failing a constitution save, you're knocked out. Failing a dexterity save you're thrown 5 feet back. BBEG teleports away in a shimmering halo of light laughing the entire time." Pardon me while I railroad the villain despite PC's cheesing the mechanics of the game.
Reminds of the first campaign of NADDPOD when a pc turned the bbeg's flying mount into a dolphin 😂😂
How does that add anything positive to the players experience?@@MrLookatmyhat
Man, that villain's much-worse brother is gonna be so upset! Hope this event doesn't kick off some sort of ongoing vendetta....
12 sessions later they’re dealing with his cousin’s son’s half-brother
Much worse twin brother....cause you know why not
@@athatcher9367 And the mastermind behind it all is the uncle's gerbil
or he’s brought back to life by insert magufin here
Ah the ol Billy goat gruff play
Always take it as a compliment when your players outsmart you. It shows they're engaged enough to put effort and thought into your game. A hard learned lesson but one worth learning.
Laura Bailey and a cupcake comes to mind
I always liked it when my players outsmarted me. I once thought very hard about a particular encounter and even created custom rules for how the vehicle would work. The players got the control. They asked whether the road behind them is free. I said no. They asked whether the front road was free. It wasn't. I wanted them to fight one of them to get out. But they literally thought outside the box and realised they can move in more than two directions and they just drove off road and honestly I fucking loved it. They managed to outsmart me and make me learn my lesson.
@@JacktheRahin session I pretend their bright idea was what "I had planned" all along 😅 only after the campaign wraps do I tell them all the things they basically created.
My party had to fight a very scary Lich.
The Lich was a self accredited archaeologist and historian, with a running obsession which forced him to collect artifacts, relics, and even people of historical significance.
The first time they fought him they had no plan, lost 2 party members, and got rolled, only winning the day by distracting him with a powerful relics location and running away really fast when he abandoned them to collect it.
The second time they fought him they were ready. The Lich revealed himself as the commander of an undead legion poised to destroy their home base city. The players brokered a deal with a cabal of demons to hide out in the building across the street, and surrendered to the Lich, offering to just give him what he was there for so the citizens didn't have to die.
The Lich gleefully agreed, as he found combat and conquest to be tedious, and more fun to study than to commit. Some amazing bluff roles had the Lich convinced that the item he wanted was in their possession and he just had to come in and get it.
As soon as he entered their base, the Demons dropped an antimagic dome on EVERYBODY, locked all the doors, and watched the party through the window as they took +1 masterwork runic crowbars and showed the Lich their best impression of Joker killing Robin.
Being A LICH he did not die, but they popped off his skull and locked it in a magic birdcage.
@@selkiara1272thanks for taking the time to tell this story haha!! sometimes you just gotta get your hands dirty!
"it was narratively unsatisfying, but in a way that they loved." is a very solid summation of some ways the dm-party relationship can play out 😆
I believe its called "the players are always right" effect. while unsatisfying naratively and to the DM who had plans. it feels great to the players to outsmart and outroll and ruin the DM's plans lol.
@@alexlandsbergs Honestly it can be fun as the DM too, it's like when watching a movie, if the characters explain the heist plan ("He'll show up at X, Y, and Z and then they track down his hideout after finding the third crystal...") and then that's exactly what happens, it's kinda like "Okay, cool, coulda skipped that and saved me twenty minutes."
When your god… (DM)
Making the big bad liv tell right at the end is still not narratively satisfying. Banning together to overcome something you are NOT supposed to is satisfying. God smashing a bug is not a fun story.
Overcoming god… that’s a book I’d read.
And I hate reading
"The ahh- the elemental... Yeah, ahh- the elemental went home"
- Actual words spoken by an actual DM on one of my campains I've participated in
I'm confused by this, could you clarify?
@@LilyTheSmolextremely successful intimidations check? some sort of spell that induced fear or a similar condition?
(i would also like to know)
@@LilyTheSmol pretty sure they meant that instead of killing off a villian, they declared the villian just packed up and left
@@LilyTheSmol probably a good banish spell
Probably just forgot them in an encounter after the main boss died
Very important DM wisdom :
The best DnD stories aren't the one that end up exactly going the way you had in mind when you prepared the session
They are the stories you create by mixing your plan with the players input and the element of random that is the dice, creating something that might not be a good story by novel standards, but a great group experience.
As a DM I 100% agree. However, for many new DMs this wisdom is a tough frog to swallow given the amount of time they spent, overthinking their campaign, which is basically a good trait and it means you are just right to be the party’s DM. It is always encouraging and exciting to the players, if you can spark your imagination on them. But try not to become a storyteller who creates extremely detailed situations, because this takes away the creativity of the players and narrows down their choices. Let the players be the narrative icing of your homebrewed cake.
@@DnTironfilms I mean, that's one way to make the analogy.
Usually for newer DMs they do make the mistake of overplanning, creating this whole world or storyline, aka, making a cake. Their NPCs are the icing on top.
It's a nice cake to look at, but the players want to know how it tastes, so the DM goes to get forks, plates napkins, and a knife to cut it.
The players want to know how it tastes *NOW*‼️ They want to know it feels, how it feels mashed between their fingers and toes...
The DM comes back and gets nailed in the crossfire of a food fight, the table's flipped, the couch cushions are shredded to bits, the tv is smashed and hanging askew, one player is currently peeing in a potted plant, and someone has 💩 in the fish tank.
I find it's much better to let their characters run loose on the playground, and they can look to me to referee any rules as needed.
When they come down to a more manageable energy level, I call them over to the pavilion for cake and presents.
I'm happy. They're happy. The park is no worse for the wear. And they made some new friends along the way.
All of that is to say that I prefer to run character driven campaigns.
There's no need to plan everything in advance. Think of it less like a railroad or a giant sandbox and think of it more like Silent Hill.
The fog obscures everything that they not actually close to and shining a light upon.
Make a few set pieces, some encounters, and a handful of people for them to encounter.
As the campaign progresses, the players are going to illuminate more and more, but you can flesh it out as you go. so you can be just as surprised as your players. 🙂
I hate D&D and im convinced its because i only ever had bad DM's. Ones that were like "no thats not a thing" or "you cant have (this) on your character its a mage (and im like well wtf is a mage??) and i rolled the eice twice, died, and had to sit out the rest of the three hour game night that everyone else enjoyed. Im convinced the guy hated me, that... Hurt me. Deep inside. I cant touch the game again. I hate it and i hate the game. I dont know how any of you people have fun with it and ill never know
@@valoressbqiskrnrjbx5025 That’s truly awful, and I’m sorry you went through that. That was not okay. There’s no excuse for that kind of abusive behavior.
If I may suggest, have you considered running a game of your own, perhaps for one or two friends you trust who maybe don’t know the rules very much (or at all)? Maybe something small, like a single session or two? It might give you a chance to show the universe how a DM _should_ treat their players. I don’t mean to overstep, it’s just a thought.
@valoressbqiskrnrjbx5025 I give my players literally whatever they want, however they want it lol I once had 2 players hit 0hp at lvl 3 because they failed to stop the ritual that summoned the big bad, and decided to fight her. One died, and the other was revived. SHE was literally going to ignore them because they were completely inconsequential to her, but they kept throwing attacks at her. So she casually power word: kill'd one, and skewered the other. The one that died worshiped Auril the ice goddess, and so he found himself standing on a frozen lake that stretched out infinitely. I made him roll a perception check IN THE AFTERLIFE that he PASSED, which caused him to just barely make out (what he didnt know were) thousands and thousands and thousands of people frozen deep below the ice. Most looking up in horror. That session they found out some gods are very cruel, the nature of the big bad, and exactly where they were between them. Everyone got awesome narrative moments, everyone got to do what they wanted, and everyone's actions paid off in INTERESTING ways. They all had fun, even after death
The fact that something can be narratively unsatisfying in a d&d game just reminds you as a player that you have actual agency. It's so incredibly satisfying after taking part in stories over the years where the villain always gets away while you're screaming at the TV or book or video game for letting them get away.
Oh my gosh THIS. It gets boring! Or even silly. Now the players have a great story to tell, both in and out of character, instead.
So many stories where you actually defeat the enemy, and they still get to do their speech, steal what they wanted to steal and get to walk home. That got really on my nerves.
I did slightly screw up the first one shot my best friend did, when I convinced a rival NPC run by the DM that I was the dying princess we were all competing to save, and I convinced him that I was safe and healthy. He clearly didn't plan for that, but it was cool to be able to drastically amter the outcome of a situation by using your abilities, other than force. As someone who is trying to DM, I hope I'd be able to improvise well enough to account for the kind of disruptions that I like to cause as a playable character. In the end, if everyone's good at fantasising, it makes the game more interesting than it probably would have been.
At the same time, it also is a part of the whole cooperative storytelling thing. If you, as a player, want a game that has a good story, you have to participate in the telling of that story. That means that you have to prioritize things other than "winning" every encounter.
IMO, one of the biggest problems with D&D and the TTRPG experience as a whole is that players are very often detached from their characters experiences and motivations. It's also kind of why I like alignment, when so many people don't. People aren't always consistent, but it serves as a guide for a player to play a consistent character, when, if left to their own devices, a majority will be all over the place. For example, the thing ImaginaryChannel is describing their player doing is a clear and serious evil act... but exactly the sort of nonsense players will do even when they've opted to play "good" characters.
Of course, you shouldn't force players to "play their alignment," and I treat alignment's practical effect as basically being one aspect of a character's reputation.
Applause 👏
And then you read Brandon Sanderson, and now you're genuinely terrified of the Big Bad
I love hearing about these other games that Brennan GM'd.
See I know you ment DM'd, but I think it's funnier if it's Good Morning'd
@@kingofsoy2413 GM: Game Master. DM: Dungeon Master.
Can't DM if there's no dungeons.
General Manager’d, which in a way arguably still works
@@baconcheesezombie psst I know it's just GM has other meanings one of witch is Good Mourning.
Where can I find the full podcasts, which these shorts seems to come from? ANyobdy?
Sometimes it feels kinda off when your boss ends up dead too quickly, but you gotta respect your players outsmarting, sometimes it feels even cooler when this kind of thing happens to the players. The villain WAS badass, they were just even more.
Yeah i had a campaign recently where everyone and their grandmother outsmarted us every time despite our plan that should've worked... it was not a fun time, please to all the DM that read this it's ok to let your player outsmart you !
@@requieme2 Another interesting thing is, smart villain can fail and still be smart, A Smart villain should be able to fail and THEN turn things around.
In one of my campaigns that was very piraty I had a Gnoll captain who my players HATED he was a bloody unforgiving murderer, but he was smart. The first time they encountered each other, the players kicked his ass but he barely managed to escape, the second time he had studied their abilities (I played around everything they had used in the first fight, they had leveled up so still there were some moves that I purposely prepared to fail) he lost again, but the immediate sense of danger was still there. Just because the players kicked his ass easily, it doesn't mean they're not afraid of him. Actually, they needed strong allies and Captain Stirge was the first choice of the rogue, they had a truce and the rogue was sure proven right.
I don't want a challenge. I want to be awesome!
Are you talking about the villain described in the video? cause that sounds more like someone trying WAY too hard to make a villain cool, and ending up right on the other side.
kind of hard to just call it outsmarting if a key component is getting good rolls while the villain keeps rolling bad
Letting them beat your cool villain is proof that they have agency in the world. Narrative satisfaction is for prose, rpgs are their own medium.
I agree. There's few things that are as unfun as a DM who already has this novel in his head and won't tolerate deviation from it.
in the current campaign im DMing i only have 2 major villains left, and i started with 5. 1 i had to end his story early because the player he was connected to wanted to leave, and the other 2 the players just encountered and beat em with easy. so the other 2 major villains i either use sparingly somewhat and will occationally pop up, or make it so they can interact but cant hurt each other. for example they are fighting a lich as a big bad, and it will use portals to get places and he used one to take a player, then try to kill her only for the players to get her out. i explained he was using power word kill, and they are instantly afraid of him.
@@captaincaterpie disintegrate is also a great one if players start getting enough health to not care about pwk :D
Narrative satisfaction is important but only when its organic. You want the story to reach its conclusion on its own without you strong arming anything. When it does happen despite all the opportunities for it to not happen its all the sweeter.
@@EskChan19 rigid players on either side of the screen are bad.
I've had players that should have just written a novel for their characters.
They come in with a backstory that is several pages long, for a first level character.
I'll do my best to incorporate it into the overarching events of the world, especially if they leave any plots unresolved or define some character connections like friends, family, or sworn enemies.
But they'll just stare blankly.
Sometimes another player is more interested in those threads than the person who originally wrote them. 🙂
My group recently had a literal death stalker type due following them, and by the second encounter he'd been stripped of all of his belongings, then harrassed until he had an existential crisis and quit his job
this is so funny! i love these stories
That makes me think of something like a Warner Bros. cartoon villain who starts really confident but by the end of Bugs harassing him through the cartoon he's crying.
I'm laughing my ass off at 1AM, thank you
Some fates are truely worse than death... being unable to kill a group of adventurers while probably being berated by them (God forbid they have a bard) to the point that you question your whole life's purpose. 😂 Top tier problem solving right there, dudes gonna become vegetarian and be a monk contemplating existence 😂
It shows that you did your job. They took him as an actual threat, and did everything they could to prevent him from being a future problem. They succeeded, and outsmarting someone they were scared of was probably incredibly satisfying.
There is this understanding that things like this are actually your achievements as players. You take the threat seriously. The DM is not pointing or nudging you towards it. And you hear that tone of voice from your DM that hesitantly agrees that your plan could work. And then it does and the DM lets it happen.
That's a magical moment. The DM let it happen. You earned it. Narratively unsatisfying, as a story to outsiders maybe.
o.o
I wouldnt say out smarted him/the system.
Based on what he said, they chose good tactics (as long as they rolled well), and they rolled really well, and he rolled really badly, so they ended up killing him.
That is versus, just the normal them just trying to escape and maintain some kind of cohesion. Instead of just doing the normal, fighting an surviving and escaping when odds are really against you, they went for it, rolled really well, he rolled, badly, and the got him.
I mean 40 arrow damage from way way way way out of range requires some serious courage and luck if youre going to beat that "head on" like they did.
Most (if not 99%) of the time, in situations like that you either run, wait for back up, or run further lol
@@lagg1eI just had an Abomination Vaults session as a player that went like this. We'd just leveled up last session and I'd gotten some new spells and feats I specifically intended to use for ambushing large groups.
We mopped the floor with this intimidating encounter in under two full rounds with no significant damage sustained. GM later informed us it was intended to be a 50/50 chance of TPK.
It was highly satisfying to trounce the combat that Paizo wrote for us.
@@lagg1e Also narratively unsatisfying as players lol. An important character with tons of potential dies. That whole arc ends. You close every possibility of finding out who he was or what he was about. Imo that's violently unsatisfying.
"He shoots you from INCREDIBLY far away, perched on a cliff." Warlock with grasp of hadar, spell sniper, and eldritch spear "perched you say..."
Lol I like the way you think!
"You say 'Vantage point', I say 'Easy target'."
That was the moment when the DM knew he phuqt up. The PCs can only do what they can with what they have.
Viable tactic, now it turns into a sniper duel to figure out where he is
*takes out eldritch AWP* PEEKING DOWN A
Then you have the same sort of scenario where you plan out this big elaborate quest with branching paths and your players somehow dodge _all_ of it and you wind up doing a campaign about curing an owlbear’s crippling alcohol dependency
Players be like: "Oh you made this elaborate plan for any possibility? That's Great, maybe you'll get a chance to use it some day" *Become the rulers of all hells and kill a god*
Dm: "This is because i didnt let you rob that city isnt it?"
Did that really happen? What am I talking about, this is DND, of course it could happen. I need the whole story now.
But was that a focus during session zero?
Or you derail a campaign by starting your own comedy sketch group, kidnapping the son of a town mayor, murdering his parents, and the list goes on 😂
Me making a one shot to get family into D&D during quarantine "You're locked in a small cell, captured by goblins as you were heading to a city..."
Next time we play with their characters, with me working a couple months on an awesome adventure..
"Hey remember those goblins that kidnapped us and were going to eat us? Lets go hunt them all down!"
Me: 😮
Built up a devil over real months. Recurring nightmares, whispers in characters minds, some real paranoia sowing. They finally get to fight her, and she tears open these rifts that bring forth horrific, twisted creatures - failed attempts at creating life abandoned by the gods. Sets herself on a rooftop, out of the way of the party, with her minions as a barrier and gets ready to pull some serious super abilities she had. Paladin charges through the horde, climbs the building, and makes it up to her in a couple rounds. There's this whole thing where the devil lets herself fall off the roof, and the paladin falls after her. It's cinematic as fuck, so I let it go, and the paladin is full-attacking while falling and just rolls crit after crit, super good damage. If we weren't using an online dice roller, I'd have had to check the player's dice. And this is Pathfinder, so every attack is empowered by Smite Evil, and the devil is just taking _massive_ damage. The devil has an ability to feign death, and they use that, but the player, having no reason to know that this monster can do this, declares, "[Character Name] is too angry to stop, so she'll just keep attacking anyway." and just _obliterates_ this boss monster.
Honestly though that sounds cool as fuck
And that is why you should always stay in character
That is... *epic.*
Sounds like NPCs AND Party were firing on all cylinders that night.
FUCKING SICKKKK lol
A really excellent villain isn't one that lasts the whole campaign. It's one whose fight leaves a mark, who is memorable after the defeat, and who gets everyone really engaged and lets the players enjoy themselves to the fullest. If the players loved it, your job was a success.
I will never forget this one goblin that with 3 rounds of combat me and another friend just could NOT hit at all but the goblin couldn't get past our AC either. That entire encounter was fantastic because we were just rolling bad all around 😂
When your Forever Villain ends up a Memorable Monster of the Week.
This is so like the time my DM realized that he used the wrong treasure tables and gave us too much stuff, so he had bandits steal it and bring it back to their heavily fortified hideout. Despite being fairly low level, we worked together to bring down the whole camp and got it back. He was shocked and impressed and said we earned it because that camp should have been way out of our level.
We weren't lucky on rolls either. they were just good at working together.
You killed them with friendship, and this gun I found
The plus side to this is that in succeeding you probably advanced to the point that you "deserved" the loot, as though you didn't already.
Should have*
@@theyruinedyoutubeagain shirt halve*
Me: satisfied
Tiana "[...] should of [...]"
Me: salty
I ran a great campaign last summer that ended with them not killing the BBEG. He was a tyrannical dragon threatening to melt the entire area to slag. They thought it would be more appropriate to polymorph him into a Kobold and make him file their taxes.
I think it's super important for the quality of a game to be influenced by your players. It should be 50/50, If the DM is doing everything the players hate it. If the players are doing everything the DM hates it. There needs to be balance and sometimes that balance is the bandit leader being sent to court because he didn't pay his taxes. I don't know why but my players just really cared about taxes that campaign.
I absolutely adore your group, I've never been a part of it, but fucking taxes man
Hey, if it can happen to Al Capone, it can happen to a bandit leader.
Well, death and taxes are the only two certainties of life. Although most adventurer parties usually focus on the death part, but hey! Whatever works!
Do they call him the tax man
Damn, DMing for them sounds very taxing
Listen… having an intimidating villain that looms over the heroes’ whole journey until they’re defeated in an epic final battle? Been done before, will be done again.
-Jumping into a corn monster’s buthole and killing him from within?
-Bribing an ancestral eagle into abandoning the forces of good in exchange of some pants?
-Getting out of a deal with an archfey hag by tricking her into eating a lace cupcake?
Only in DnD.
I love that I know all of these. D&D show fans unite!
Where's the ancestral eagle from?
@@BMAK92 Escape from the Bloodkeep.
Laura.
FUCKING.
Bailey.
I played Strahd with a group a few years ago and when we go to Old Bonemill we bombed it and collapsed the entire building on the hags heads because they drugged once of us with their moon pies
This feels like when there is a boss in a video game that your supposed to lose to, but if your insanely good you can actually beat him.
And they managed to get that win on their first try. That is so fucking awesome.
See, this is why Brennan is such a great DM. He doesn't make sessions about him, he makes it about the players. That's a way more fun table to sit at then a DM who's like "No, you can't do that because this guy is way too powerful" etc... Obviously you have to work things within reason, but still
Bernard Cornwell mentioned how people are always happy when the villain dies, but the author oftentimes is upset to see them go. It's not easy creating a villain that can arouse such feelings of anger.
My favourite author after Terry Pratchett ^_^
I'm in love with his viking England saga
@@Covah86 I recently started reading Terry Pratchett so I'm so happy to see him here !
Thank you for this unexpected moment of "Oooooh, I know this !".
my players have just realised their 'comic relief' reoccurring villain is actually the BBEG of their campaign and all their tussles with him were him testing what they could do, their faces when they worked it out will fuel me for years and their cries of 'why did we never finish him off?' will delight me for a while to come
makes up for them totally going gung-ho on who the original BBEG was going to be
DM: are you going to let him go?
players: we dont like him and he isnt funny so, nope, killing him now and making sure he's dead'
Pure poetic irony given form in good writing
"IN YOUR HUBRIS"
"...so you want funny? I'll show you funny"
@@JayTohab
*Cry of pain* My hubris!
How did you handle the reveal? Been trying to get a good plot twist like this
as a guy who has never played D&D, I've always listened in awe at these stories.
i think it's about time I learned.
9 months later, how'd it go?
If you can stand math and enjoy improv go for it
Yeah, but getting the people for it, though...
I've tried watching Critical Role, absolutely no idea what is going on and i feel dumb.
@@jonq8714 did you watch the first campaign? 'Cause that one kinda throws you into the middle of the campaign and its a lot to figure out the first few episodes lol
nobody's gonna talk about the 2 hours they spent planning how to defeat this villain. the dedication.
it takes my group 2 hours to figure out what they want to buy from the merchant LOL
@@nicholass5621 my group has taken over a year on a little halloween "oneshot" sidequest because we are all to busy looking at everything and basicly playing pokemon trainers getting little creatures we are finding to join us vs kill them quickly and moving on like we should, in theory we might finish it next session but we've been saying that for the last 5 sessions.
The monk in our party was kidnapped by one of the bigger bads so he could use her for his experiments (plot hook to make us find his hideout, worked really well too).
And while the rest of us was busy finding and getting to her, she almost singlehandedly killed the guy.
She was like 2 hp away from just straight up ending him on her own.
It's hilarious because usually her character is the most collected and calm out of all of us, the one person you can usually reason with, but at the same time if she decides you need to die, you will.
As a DM I always feel accomplished when my players "Beat Me" for Ex. I had planned a orc landing raid encounter on a river side village and I had told them that they had about 45 minute's to prepare and they had a idea to push boxes and crates for cover out on the beach and gather as much oil as possible from near by lighthouse and fill clay jar with the stuff to then throw on the orcs. The Orcs landed oil was deployed and fire arrows followed. It went from "OMG we're out numbered 40 to 14" to a player making a comment "So this is what it was like to be a German on D-Day" I was disappointed because story wise it was suppose to force them into the wilderness but it made me smile because they took the scenario I created and beat me at my own game. I should also say these particular players I've been DM'ing for 6 years and they really love to be put through the wringer.
See I like to make there be consequences to actions. They took the oil from the lighthouse huh? Well then the Lighthouse didn't have any oil. After all its not like a Lighthouse would buy double or so their needed amount. So now the Lighthouse is out, and ships are in danger of crashing. Hey players, you made the mess now clean it up.
@@TheLastSane1 That sounds like a great way to have players no longer try anything new because they'll be punished. Again you sound as fun as having my balls slammed into a car door multiple times.
During a fight against a Pit fiend (final fight of a quest) that had almost killed the group, they finally managed to bring it to low enough hp, about 70 out of 240, that it started to fly away to save itselft and plot its revenge. They really wanted it dead after the hard time it gave them and they had no mean to catch up with it. The cleric knelt, prayed to Helm, rolled his %dice for Divine Intervention, gets. The Cleric says "Please Helm, bring him back to us so that we can deliver your Justice". A beam of light split the hellish sky and send the Pit Fiend crashing back on the ground, the dwarf barbarian cracks his nuckles, hit him in the back of the knee with his Maul, roll a Critical Hit, and then the Rogue go for the neck, also rolling a Critical Hit, and like that, in only 2 attack, the Pit Fiend lost close to 100 HP, finishing it of.
You gotta respect that though, and it's a cool cinematic sounding sequence
I did learn to "grab the moment and add stuff to it" by watching Brennan on youtube. I'm far from him, but watching some of his stuff not long before I DM a game will help me get out of my comfort zone.
Asking Helm to bring the pit fiend back, rather than asking for Helm to strike it down is 10/10
Is this all imagination based? I’ve never played so genuinely curious. “A beam of light split the hellish sky” is that in a script or is it different for each persons imagination? Super curious how this works but sounds dope.
You can do it 100% just speaking between players and the dungeon master, you can use maps and miniature to help with the visual aspect and combat. That game was played on Roll20 with voice chat.
That particular sequence was not in the book, basicaly the Cleric (priest/healer) who gets his power form a god, in this case it was a god of justice, Helm) has an ability where he roll a D100 and must roll under or equal his level and ask a prayer for a divine intervention from his god.
He had to roll 14 or under, which he did, and asked something along the line of not letting the demon escape so that it could be destroyed here and now and stop being a danger to others.
That ability result is literally open to the interpretation of the DM, as opposed to most spells who got pretty defined effects.
As they were in the final fight of an adventure that took place in "Hell" it felt fitting to have this happen.
I do love the idea of a story that sets up a big bad guy and the heroes sit down and come up with a plan and catch him immediately and then spend the rest of the show trying to catch a much less competent villain that just so happens to keep getting away.
If that's not in the D&D movie, it'll bomb.
This is just the Transformers franchise with Starscream
Let's just stop for a moment and talk about how insanely badass that villain is. That sunset confrontation is genius staging.
They had their sparky spark boom boom man, he just described a sparky spark boom boom man type enemy, we all love those types.
Sparky Sparky Boom Man!
Well, that's not his name, but
I guess a Combustion Man enemy or something?
I know that feeling.
Had a possessed mage villain in my game that could cast an energy dome that fizzled most forms of matter that touched it (Think emancipation grid from Portal).
One character fired a spell (fizzled); one fired an arrow (fizzled). The last, teleported inside the dome and shoved him into his own dome wall causing him to fizzle as well...
First time they'd met him. He was gonna be the big bad; but oh well...
I mean the teleport would fizzle going through the dome.
@@TheLastSane1 I don't think you know what teleportation does it's not a straight line to something it's more of your at point A and then you're at point B there's no inbetween to fizzle now if it was something like Misty step which would have matter to fizzle that wouldn't get through
@@picklesdinkles3523 No I don't you know. Teleportation is still travel its still getting from point A to point b. Typically through a different avenue of travel. A wormhole, teleporting through one dimension into another, etc. So teleportation would likely count as travel as energy instantly to a new location. Think traveling as light but instant rather than just very very fast though .00001 seconds in a 6 second round might as well be instant. The point being is the dome was fizzling spells, it should have also fizzled a teleportation spell.
@@TheLastSane1 but no in that you just admitted it's moving through a different dimension there wouldn't be any interaction with the barrier
@@picklesdinkles3523 No I said there are different ways for them to be traveling to be teleportation and cited things like wormholes or well Nightcrawlers teleportation ability which sends him through another dimension to get there. D&D does not have rules for how the spell works exactly, what method they use so it becomes a DM's choice.
If the DM did not want the player to teleport in, they could have easily had the spell fizzle out at the barrier because its their choice.
I had a plan for a character introduced early in the campaign. He was going to be introduced as this bratty, cocky teenager, and then through time travel shenanigans the players would encounter him at different stages in his life, sometimes being an antagonist and sometimes being an ally.
The PCs ended up causing a massive brawl and he got into a fight with an NPC. Win or lose, I figured he would get hurt and learn a lesson or somesuch. The NPC fighting him got a nat 20 and gutted him. Womp womp.
There’s ways to bring such things back into the realm for example a deity could bring them back or another NPC could resurrect him or begin to resurrect behind the scenes (maybe it’s a VERY involved process) hinting to your PCs about it and just maybe this changes this NPCs alignment and makes him the new BBEG or a strong pawn of the BBEG upping the difficulty to which you could say “if only you had brought him back to life” etc or if they did bring him back to life maybe he drops on and brings gifts maybe a nice amulet to allow the wearer to become a dragon or another party member to become invisible and can pass through walls called the Amulet of True Potential or something like that
@@jackmoonbeam1503 Might have worked, but in the end, I just reused my ideas for a different character.
wow that such a cool concept.
Fudge the dice. Unless it didn't end your story?
@@jimmy_x557 It was honestly just a subplot, so I was okay with him dying. His death also had a ripple effect that eventually caused a war hundreds of years later, which the PCs will have to deal with eventually due to time travel shenanigans.
Even though I don't have an obvious BBEG at the moment, session one had the party's druid casting Heat Metal on a captain and barbequing him inside his own armor. They unintentionally ended up creating their own future antagonist.
Ahaha, a burnt character coming back charred and crispy, classic.
I wonder if The Man on Fire from Metal Gear V TPP would be valid inspiration for you.
Obviously not to the extent that pure revenge is portrayed in MGSV, but maybe he goes out of his way to learn some magic that takes a toll on his own body since his nerve endings could have been burned off or something
edit: I have just realised I am replying after a year and this bears no use to you anymore. Whoops
Would be cool to hear how it went down
The best part about collaborative storytelling is that your co-writers are also the audience.
this is why you make villains CULTS and GROUPS rather than one guy that is gone forever at one defeat
I think part of the reason the players love that kind of stuff is because the fact that it is narratively unsatisfying, makes them know they weren't "supposed to" do it that way, and when it then is super effective they feel really smart. I mean it's like when you find a way to cheese a boss in a game in 3 sec, but in D&D it's the DM's job to then validate that, by having npc's actually recognize it and stuff like that. Honestly, if the players love it it may feel a bit sour, but I still can't help but acknowledge my work is done.
This. There's very few things as statisfying to the players as seeing that "What the fuck? You weren't supposed to do that" look on the DM's face. It feels like you didn't just against the NPC's, you won against the DM. and DM is god so you just defeated god. And few things make you feel as badass as defeating god.
Also enforces player agency and open world aspect of rpg !
I remember reading one time - always appreciate a DM with good villains. When your character that you made a full story for and have so much behind kills them - that was their character to do that with.
It's especially hard when you grow to love your own villains ❤
The best recurring villain is the one minion that survived an early encounter with the PCs and took that as the motive to start down a line of badassery.
Never forget that as a DM, it's not just "your" story
he seems like hes just such an awesome dm
I remember I kinda had the opposite in one of my games, a goblin sorcerer who was going to just be in a single encounter but managed to escape, one of the party members swore they would kill this goblin who had almost all his abilities in support and evasion,
Misty step darkness, dimension door, grease,
They simply couldn't pin this guy down for the kill, sometimes you don't need them to be a threat but just an annoyance they. Cannot. Get. Rid. Of
Ooo, those are always fun. Float like a butterfly, sting like a mosquito.
And then sometimes there's that one goblin soldier that's supposed to be a mook in a random encounter that rolls absurdly well and comes close to party wiping the PCs. DnD is wild.
See my near TPK was from a player igniting a large barrel of gunpowder on an orc soldiers hip while trying to disarm them. Killed the NPC they where trying to save, two other bystanders and left all of them in critical range with less then 15 hp on the fighter and the bard rolling against death. Silly Cleric.
Now that is a good mini boss
“I basically made The End, and Snake just took a nap and he died.”
This comment deserves more likes
Absolutely incredible
When Snake naps for seven days because he is that exhausted dealing with advanced threats:
I want that dude's stat block. Now. 😂
I was once playing as a monk
a monk who was also a dwarf
a dwarf who was self conscious & had run.
The main bad guy attempted to escape on horseback for our introduction.
I lept from a 2 story tower Assassin's Creed style and chased after him on foot. .
That was when my DM learned there are specialized rules for pursuit.
That was when my DM learned that Dwarves are excellent sprinters.
Very dangerous over short distances.
There are specialized rules for pursuit? Which edition? :0
My DM has been running the same campaign for about 40 years now. For all that time, we’ve been playing in one world. That world, was Middle Earth. We had our own entire system where the leveling was very slow and survival was nearly impossible. Only one player ever made it to level 20 and it killed them in the process. That was after over 25 years of playing that character. The DM spent months making dreaming up this big villain. He was a very old noldor elven warrior who separated himself from his own people along with about 300 who followed him. He was to be the one responsible for the enstrapment of the entwives. Our characters came upon him, ranging in level from 1 to 16, and we had almost no chance of succeeding. This guy was later stated as being “effectively level 28.” Through ingenuity and sheer luck of the die, the players killed him in the first session and freed the entwives, routed his small army of incredibly high level warriors, and took his +8 magical sword. You never know what’s gonna happen when the dice really get hot.
Man I wish my DM was like this - if they want something to happen it doesn’t matter how much we plan or get creative or roll… it’ll happen
I hate when that happens, it's so boring and makes me as a player feel inconsequential to the story, like I'm just there to fight and gain XP and that's it
That's how my DM was, it was so frustrating. If I wanted to battle with extremely basic mechanics that equated to just shooting and rolling, be unable to strategize on my own, and have absolutely no influence over the story, I'd have just gone home and played Uncharted or something.
And I'd still have a better time than I did in that campaign.
Id say just find a new DM who doesn't railroad, they only want to feed their God complex and it's not fun for anyone else
I like rolling with it. I'd have it go that the players took out THIS demon archer, but his order still has a contract to fulfill against them.
They should quit DMing, wanna make a story? write a book. Wanna DM a campain? Take improv classes
DMs go through all this plotting and planning and story writing and often gmforget that THEY ARE PLAYING THE GAME TOO!! There's only so much "Deus Ex Dungeon Master" you can pull to squib rolls and plot armor your villains before the game becomes unfun. Having players RIP off an entire story path in a few rounds or one unique decision is what makes D&D so freaking amazing!!!
Yeah, and a lot of DMs make the mistake of thinking their players can't tell when we're bullshitting them. They can tell. I think often my players are willing to put up with a little bit of bullshitting. I won't lie -- I don't always let the dice decide. Sometimes it just doesn't feel fun. Like, it would feel bad to kill someone's level 2 character they put so much work into getting off the ground. That would feel bad, so I am very flexible with my rolls in the early game. But as the campaign progresses, I take fewer and fewer liberties with rolls, until eventually whatever the dice say is what the dice say.
@@jopabr24 and that's great because early on in a campaign, a few bad rolls can literally end it then and there. Whereas late campaign is no pulled punches. Good for both novice and experienced players at the table. Also, seeing a novice execute an idea that absolutely demolishes the plot by sheer spark of ingenuity is absolutely glorious when in a mixed group of players.
Wouldn't it be DM Ex Machina?
@@Jerokhna That's why campaigns should have more than one BBEG going on in it. Societal machinations can be their own BBEG, not just monsters.
In a SW game we had an imperial officer keep coming back, lost a limb every time
'Tis but a flesh wound!
Dang. That's sad but cool. Great character design and introduction.
My players had an entire side meeting before a game just so they could plan out how to beat the last boss based on how convoluted their plan was it must have taken hours to come up with. 20th level half-dragon samurai backed by a uniqe monster I called "the vampiric blood dragon" both died in 2 turns.
i had this happen with "The Bard", evil demon summoner. they'd come across him once where he tried to destroy the inn they were staying at with demons after he was slighted.
and this guy was a monster. 17th lv caster, powerful weapons with multi attack.
the party learned he was coming to town and were planning to ambush him. here was my plan: attack them and summon some demons to say "look, he can create an army", feablemind two of the party members to just say "he's powerful and can fuck you up", and if things look rough simply let him cast teleport/planeshift (forgot which one he had) to get away.
the party however had different ideas: step 1: surround him... ok, no problem, he was made to be able to handle melee. step 2: cast a dome of fire over him. ok, epic, and not really a problem, he has ways of getting away or dispelling the dome. step 3 (improviced): cast silence on the dome... PROBLEM! bard, every one of his tools was verbal based. suddenly this 17th lv caster turned into a stabbyman who could cast true strike. and here's the brutal part: i could have counterspelled the silence... if he could see the caster, but he couldn't because of the opague flame dome.
then they also disarmed him, turning him into a man who could cast truestrike.
that's when i learned that you should never underestimate a part. (then again this was the same party that got incredibly stuck on a locked door. it was hilarious)
A party that whoops a BBEG yet can't get past a locked door had better be in the D&D movie, or it'll bomb.
@@commandercaptain4664
i mean, it was a different party, largely same players, but yea, it's oh so very dnd isn't it (:
Your party deserved it, it was a damn good plan
Your party deserved it, it was a damn good plan
@@slayeroffurries1115 oh absolutely... but my bbeg though (:
If you're salty at all that you didn't get to use him...might I suggest...PUTTING HIM INTO A D20 SEASON MAYHAPS?
This is the sort of thing that should be shown in schools to young folk. Even me at 29 really appreciates the candid conversation and stories that are shared. Lots of wisdom and genuineness.
I can just see Brennan being like “WELL GREAT JOB GUYS. YA KILLED THE FINAL BOSS IN THE FIRST SESSION. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW!!?”
This is how my party stole a purse back from a horde of 40 spider-worshiping dark elves. We had a scroll of flying, an invisibility spell, and my ability to summon swarms of rats from the ether.
This is the "Kill Your Darlings" of GMing... sometimes, the game mechanics say your Big Bad has to die, and you just have to accept it, and move on.
A good reoccurring villian will not be an enemy they can directly face, or an enemy at all. If they are a destructive tormentor then the party will arrive after the horrors, if they are a political force they will be behind the scenes. Or best they will be a false best friend. I love writing epic campaign villians the moment months or years into the game when the party has discovered them or spent great effort to confront them is always immensely satisfying.
One of the potential 'villains' in my current campaign is a noble Tiefling family who basically run the Kingdom's version of the CIA/FBI. The current patriarch of the family was obsessed with trying to 'create' perfect children, so not only did he father some 25-odd children with more than a dozen total women, but he had foreign mages and mystics experiment on them to try to create sort of super-soldiers.
Of his 5 remaining children, two have psychic powers, one is Were-cursed, one is engaged in a Pact with a fallen celestial, and the last one, his current heir, is.... *seemingly* a mundane high levelled Rogue-Fighter multiclass.
It’s definitely possible to make a good reoccurring villain that directly confronts the players, you just need two things.
1. A plan for how the villain will survive to fight another day when the party beats him.
2. To be prepared for the villain to die anyway, because every encounter between the PCs and the villain is a chance for them to successfully finish him off.
@@mr.cup6yearsago211 UNLESS
That villain has a Clone stashed somewhere.
It was a delight when, halfway through looting his body, he suddenly appeared on the far side of the room in a fresh body.
It was even more of a delight when he did it a second time.
That what I plan on doing for the best experience. I'll have plenty unique bosses that they can fight for the rush and fun, but the BBEG will be a complete surprise
Kinda similar to creating a backstory for your villain that's a bit too sad, and now the party is 100% on board with him and you've lost the coolest boss fight ever.
oh he's masked? ok, now he's a member of some group and they're gonna try to getcha'
Every DM knows, when you plan for a reoccurring villain, it will be a one-shot villain. When you plan for a one-shot villain, it will be a reoccurring villain.
The real skill about being a DM in a moment like that is not just instantly raging and bursting into tears over storylines involving that villain you labbed and spent MONTHS writing, and realizing it’s all gone up in smoke. Tbh, I could NEVER handle something like that. Even if I’m good at thinking on my feet, I’d just be pissed and sad over the valuable time and effort I wasted.
I always figured in a situation like that you could just use pretty much the same campaign over again if you wanted... maybe some people feel differently, i suppose itd be hard if you dm for one group and only wanna dm for that group
It helps to keep in mind that any plan you had that didn't come to be, you can always do again. If your players didn't know the villains true intentions, then congratulations, you just finished writing the master plan for the next villain. If you spend days working out that super elaborate puzzle and they just miss that room entirely... well guess what room will be waiting for them in the next dungeon?
Remember, players can't be mad at you for reusing ideas, if they have no idea you already had that idea before.
IMO you should never spend months writing out a single villain for D&D, especially not one who could easily die to the players. Most villains only last for one encounter, so a basic motivation is usually enough. If you want the villain to have an overarching plot, then just don't have them fight the PC's directly, have them send henchmen instead.
For example, in my last campaign most of the villains were simply following the tenets of their religion, so individually they required practically no writing whatsoever. I took the time to give the main antagonist deeper motivations, but she was a powerful Wizard and so she'd just teleport away whenever the players got anywhere near her.
You can always rehash those ideas for a different NPC
*DM:* And behold, the Demon Archer!
*Player 1:* And he's dead.
I smell serious Axford energy from that encounter
My first ever D&D campaign was great! We had this boss that just kept coming back. We encountered him several times and almost died each time. Later in the campaign, due to a special medallion, one of our party members became able to shape-shift. There were no size limitations, but you took on the traits of whatever you shifted into (keep in mind that this medallion was lying behind a crate that had clothes stretched around it and about as much loot as you’d expect to find on a single person…), and you have to roll an intelligence check to return to normal.
So this big bad that we had almost died to several times once again appears, ready for the final battle. Once again, he starts kicking our butts. Our shapeshifter comes up with a brilliant idea, which he whispers to other members of the party about, leaving our DM a bit confused.
All at once, our characters ran in different directions, some while evading the Big Bad. While he was chasing after me (of all people), Kram (cn) turns into a giant dragon. Everyone freezes upon seeing this, including our Big Bad. Dragon Kram, rather than breathing fire or slashing, decides to *sit* on him. Kram lands perfectly on top of the Big Bad (rolled a nat 20), and we hear the Big Bad’s bones crunch, as he had no time to react (DM rolled a nat 1). A fight that was supposed to take at least another hour lasted only 10 minutes
Hopefully Kram passed the intelligence check, otherwise you might have a dragon fight on your hands. 😅
it's never the bosses that do serious damage to the party, it's always the random encounter I make as an afterthought getting a critical hit at the worst time.
It’s never a strong enemy that has a lot of buildup that kills the party’s it’s always the random encounters with a lot of enemies that kills the party’s
Me : Ok it is time for the little strategical medium to Easy fight i planned.
Players :"We almost died this time , luckly this was the last obvious deadly fight "
Me "Oh shit they are really going to die today "
Players proceed to clear the complicated deadly fight in 3 turns starting with half hp and 25% of their resources.
Me"i don't know anything anymore"
We once clobbered the final boss of a dungeon within 1 round, but that was after all of us fainted(though not at the same time) to the 6 lvl 1 skeletons in the hallway before that... i mean it was our first session but still.
I once had a dryad that was supposed to be a simple fight for a group of 4 level 9 characters. The rogue/bard got charmed then proceeded to nearly TPK the entire group.
Now the group is utterly terrified of all things fey. And will murder hobo anytime they see anything like that. Even the druid 😂
Can I just say I love Brennans voice? It's so nice and captivating to listen to, its like he's pre-born a story teller ( or semi story teller considering the playing of dnd)
In my game, this bout of good luck would later lead to the players finding a letter from two groups of unknown enemies talking about how freaked out they are that the PCs were such heavy hitters and how they're calling on way more dangerous friends to deal with them.
I mean, in a way it's super badass to confront a villain with the potential to be your worst nightmare and then kill them epically.
That laugh of hers was so deadpan. I've seen heard mortaria with more life when they hit the floor.
I thought they were going to cast Hold Person and kick him off the cliff.
That's the beauty of the rolls, when they're in your favor you expect good results and vice-versa.
Most people think the GM has all the power but ultimately they're a servant to the PCs.
One of the big lessons I've learned is that players, often, love when they 1-hit or out-plan a Big Baddie and they die very easily. And it can often make for some great stories.
"Remember when I killed the boss with 1 attack?"
Running a Warhammer Fantasy campaign, my players where investigating this cult that was messing around behind the scenes. The players where rolling bad, but they where getting hints that if they don't find out whats up, the city they where in was going to get destroyed. So they are closing in on the leaders and I planned out a big Daemon fight, slightly higher level and ready to just slaughter everything. So the Troll Slayer PC just opens up and crits so hard that she kills it in one hit and I had to go "it's dead as soon as it appeared, and you got the leader as well because he pissed himself from you guys butchering a Daemon" and they just LOVED it, but I was so disappointed, lol
I fell my DM hated me sometimes cuz there would be time he would say "look there is no way for you to live". Then I roll 3 critical successes in a row and he is like "alright let's play this out". Then it is me flailing around for a hour trying not to die
Yeah, some DMs are like that, and pretend that the PCs are helpless
@@hamster_04.7 well normally for me I am running into oblivion lol. Or a normally fatale scenario
@@jkl1110 oh
That was some overlord/opm storytelling right there
It sounded incredibly similar to The Primal Hunter's Main Character to me.
Its a LitRPG Book about an archer, who's a badass hunter, who wears a Demon type mask, who uses poisons, and has special skills that increase the damage of his arrows depending on the distance they traval.
Great book, do recommend.
I’ve learned that diversions of villains is super helpful to not get them killed, cause if you have bad guy written on them and they have the chance they will go for blood
My DM last night ran a murder mystery woven into the game, and we were planning on investigating a few of the sights until we captured on of three assassins who we weren’t intended to fight. So we ended up skipping the other two locales (Which would’ve hinted towards a literally growing threat) in lieu of an enhanced interrogation and improvised therapy session. We spared the assassin and brought him to my character’s neighbor to look after, and set up a trap which failed almost as bad as my Rogue’s Stealth rolls.
That's why sometimes you have to add a special mechanic for the party to figure out before you can beat the boss, and only let them discover that method a little at a time. Have good rolls and regular damage be able to incapacitate or defeat the boss "for now". A good villain is one that's always one step ahead and has many escape routes. A good hero is one who figures out how to cut off all of those routes.
My DM made a badass undead caster that was supposed to be a really tough fight for our party.
We knocked him down, put an immovable rod in his mouth so he couldn't cast and played croquet with his head until he died. It took two rounds total. Most satisfying fight so far
This is why I love make a game with multiple sides and nobody is really morally in the wrong so no matter what side you choose rather than feelin like some perfect high and mighty person it feels real
Good job, Brennan. Another brilliant DM who recognizes story is second only to fun
Yknow, this is probably the reason Necromancers exist as Villains, because you may kill a person, but you need to fucking brute force to kill a Necromancer.
Reminds me of a time when I was playing and the DM wanted us to fight a group of cultists and the tree they were worshipping. Sidestepping all of this, through a bit of high rolled thaumaturgy and telepathy, we convinced the cultists to turn on each other and burn the tree they were worshipping. It was a real bummer for the DM but hilarious for the rest of us.
As the DM you are not versing the players, you are creating the game the players are playing. Your goal is not to win, your goal is for the players to have fun.
“This feels like ‘The End’ all over again”
As a DM the feeling of making a cool character they have to fight and then the party ends up being just amazing is a feeling that i know all too well
that's why you always introduce a gallery of villains working as a group and only point who the boss was at the last session
Yeah my party one-shotted their first villain, it was a half-elven hedonist bard called Fisto
"hey, it's cool. I do a lot of work for this game."
- Brennan "All the Bad Guys" Lee Mulligan
Just make a whole bunch of demon masked enemies and make it a whole syndicate that wants the party dead
I remember my cousin's confusion when we managed to catch his bad guy, he needed a minute to think about it since the module had no plans for the PCs to catch the minion
Does anyone else want to see a season of Dimension 20 were Brennan DMs for Molly and Noelle and a couple of the voice actors of She-Ra?
I've been pulling for Molly and Noelle for a sidequest for a while, and now that we're breaking from the usual pattern I'm going to push even harder.
I didn't till you put the idea in head, and now I want it reaal bad :D
If you guys are interested and haven't seen Exandria Unlimited: check it out. The main voice actress of She-Ra is part of the group.
No.
And this is a problem I specifically made the BBEG of the campaign I'm running to avoid. Between having no negative stat modifiers, a solid but not overpowered AC, and a wide variety of escape methods and counters available, it'd be effectively impossible for the players to down him in the first session they meet him (which is going to be this upcoming session). ...of course, they still couldn't beat him anyway bc they're all gonna be lvl 2 and he's a CR 13 at the time, and he won't provide enough warning on entry or time after arrival before leaving for them to trap him.