Grave Cleric should be more popular than it is. It's the "fine, you're at 0 hitpoints maybe I'll heal you this once" class and they can also put bodies on ice for 10 days if they do die which is a great punishment for all the people coming into D&D expecting this to by an mmo raid :>
DMs: When a player uses "It's what my character would do" as an excuse, the consequences they face should always be "It's how my NPCs would respond." Their character might _want to_ murder everyone, but basic wisdom says the PC knows they can't get away with it. You created a serial killer who burned a village to the ground? Congrats, now a squad of level 20 bounty hunters is after you.
Heard the third story, the dude was warned, and healing is not meant to enable stuff like that, you could have gotten through without provoking a fight, and healing is meant to be used if shit goes sideways, I was playing in a campaign a few days ago, and our hometown was being sieged and the healing that the cleric (who intended to play healer) legitimately got more worth out of saving the heals for the townies, rather than healing the party, the healing the party had collectively, was one second wind, one lay on hands, and two healing potions, and all healing had been exhausted by the end of the siege
Think the only bad interaction I've had in dnd, was joined a after school club for dnd, and was a day late so I got picked up off the side of a road when the party passed by, I was playing a goliath barbarian, and we entered a gnome technological base, and while passing through one of the rooms in our gear, got mistaken for a trsting team and the operator on a slightly raised platform started messing with the control panel, firing automated balista at us, i rushed in, dodged one bolt and ripped the gnome off the contol panel as my 7-8 foot self, non-lethaly/violently disabling a neutral party, and when I was explaining that we were not in fact the testing team, another party member decided to slit her throat because she attacked us, and I decided I didn't want to deal with a party that murderhobod day 2 and left
I let my players roll for stats. However, if anything is below an 8 it automatically becomes an 8. Once they roll, if they don't like their roll they can re-roll all of their stats. Once you choose to re-roll you cannot go back to the previous roll. If you don't like the second roll, I as the DM can roll your stats, cause we all know DM's roll soooo much better. If you don't like the DM roll, you can choose SA or PB. Every roll is done with me watching it online. This has been discussed at every Session 0. Everyone likes the randomness of the stats and that they have a 'safe' fallback.
For the AITA for killing a PC, if I had been the DM, and since it was already established that they were following a women around town because she was acting strange, I would have had her transform into a Succubus when the offending player attempted to do what they were saying they were doing, and the PC would have been transported to the Nine Hells, their soul eternally forfeit. One note. In the video, you described the above DM as a woman, but that isn't what the OP says. They said "I was DMing for a party of 4, They are all men (I'm not) and we are all in our early/mid 20's." The DM could identify as non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid, agender, transgender, or among many ways they could possibly identify themselves.
For rolling stat issues heres a tip, have everyone roll stats and then choose which array EVERYONE uses. So if you have someone who rolls 2 18s everyone gets that benefit. And then the guy who rolls a commoner has an out
You can play in a game where the power balance is different, if you are a good DM, its not easy though. You pretty much need to think of encounters in split way, where they have to utilize the OP character to get an objective complete in the fight, and look at where the other characters classes shine. So if you have a Rogue, you can have them disarming a trap, bomb, lock while the OP character needs to protect them. Its def not something recommended for a starting DM tho.
oh a great video! you were right on every take. i think we talk sometimes about how it's the players job to make characters that want to adventure, and in a similar vein players should make characters that want to work as a team, and if they don't they could at least make it only minimally negatively impact the rest of the party. there's an appeal to butting heads which is why it's sometimes okay, but mostly it's just rude and i think it often speaks to thinking you're the main character of the campaign.
Something to take into consideration is that we are only hearing one side of the problem. There might be some key details being left out. I've seen plenty of threads where you would completely side with the OP only to have someone OP knew see the thread and give more of the story that turns everyone against the OP.
This detail was glossed over in the third story, but roleplaying autism is so incredibly cringe if you aren't actually on the spectrum. I would've cut that off in session zero. Don't RP real-life health conditions just so you can play a character who doesn't have to follow social rules, especially if you're deliberately playing an evil character. Mental illness is stigmatized enough in society without some edgelord fetishizing it.
I only use point buy. I let player dip down to a 4 stat, and go as high as starting 16+ racial/background bonus. Theres a program called 5e chicken dinner point buy, should be the first thing that pops up, you can change its rules to have the amount of points you like, and set limits ect.
In the game im in right now, we tried rolling for stats too, and it was okeyish. we have 2 players who had a 6, (im playing an char with 6 int) but the rest of the stats are fine, but its still very unbalanced. it was more like a test to see how we can play with this. but we wont use rolling again.
You can't have random rolls, and then only take the result if better. That's strictly better. That said, if no stats are exceptional, pcs would be better as farmers. Some houserule that unexceptional rolls are farmers: roll again.
You’ve not played any edition other than 5th, have you? 😅 The rolling stats one sounds like a 1e game, where PCs are very squishy and random. 3/3.5 introduced rerolling when an array is low enough as well as 4d6 drop lowest. I think either 4e/5e were the first to drop it as the default generation method.
Grave Cleric should be more popular than it is. It's the "fine, you're at 0 hitpoints maybe I'll heal you this once" class and they can also put bodies on ice for 10 days if they do die which is a great punishment for all the people coming into D&D expecting this to by an mmo raid :>
DMs: When a player uses "It's what my character would do" as an excuse, the consequences they face should always be "It's how my NPCs would respond." Their character might _want to_ murder everyone, but basic wisdom says the PC knows they can't get away with it. You created a serial killer who burned a village to the ground? Congrats, now a squad of level 20 bounty hunters is after you.
Heard the third story, the dude was warned, and healing is not meant to enable stuff like that, you could have gotten through without provoking a fight, and healing is meant to be used if shit goes sideways, I was playing in a campaign a few days ago, and our hometown was being sieged and the healing that the cleric (who intended to play healer) legitimately got more worth out of saving the heals for the townies, rather than healing the party, the healing the party had collectively, was one second wind, one lay on hands, and two healing potions, and all healing had been exhausted by the end of the siege
Think the only bad interaction I've had in dnd, was joined a after school club for dnd, and was a day late so I got picked up off the side of a road when the party passed by, I was playing a goliath barbarian, and we entered a gnome technological base, and while passing through one of the rooms in our gear, got mistaken for a trsting team and the operator on a slightly raised platform started messing with the control panel, firing automated balista at us, i rushed in, dodged one bolt and ripped the gnome off the contol panel as my 7-8 foot self, non-lethaly/violently disabling a neutral party, and when I was explaining that we were not in fact the testing team, another party member decided to slit her throat because she attacked us, and I decided I didn't want to deal with a party that murderhobod day 2 and left
I let my players roll for stats. However, if anything is below an 8 it automatically becomes an 8. Once they roll, if they don't like their roll they can re-roll all of their stats. Once you choose to re-roll you cannot go back to the previous roll. If you don't like the second roll, I as the DM can roll your stats, cause we all know DM's roll soooo much better. If you don't like the DM roll, you can choose SA or PB. Every roll is done with me watching it online. This has been discussed at every Session 0. Everyone likes the randomness of the stats and that they have a 'safe' fallback.
This wont be too bad. "safe search off" oh dear god
Here is my take on the last one, the tabaxi was trying to get a free room for the night. Does it really matter their sex?
I'd assume if they didn't ask they didn't care to be honest.
For the AITA for killing a PC, if I had been the DM, and since it was already established that they were following a women around town because she was acting strange, I would have had her transform into a Succubus when the offending player attempted to do what they were saying they were doing, and the PC would have been transported to the Nine Hells, their soul eternally forfeit.
One note. In the video, you described the above DM as a woman, but that isn't what the OP says. They said "I was DMing for a party of 4, They are all men (I'm not) and we are all in our early/mid 20's." The DM could identify as non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid, agender, transgender, or among many ways they could possibly identify themselves.
For rolling stat issues heres a tip, have everyone roll stats and then choose which array EVERYONE uses. So if you have someone who rolls 2 18s everyone gets that benefit. And then the guy who rolls a commoner has an out
You can play in a game where the power balance is different, if you are a good DM, its not easy though. You pretty much need to think of encounters in split way, where they have to utilize the OP character to get an objective complete in the fight, and look at where the other characters classes shine. So if you have a Rogue, you can have them disarming a trap, bomb, lock while the OP character needs to protect them. Its def not something recommended for a starting DM tho.
If the group all decides to roll, stick with it. If he got 4 18’s he wouldn’t be complaining and asking to lower his stats.
oh a great video! you were right on every take. i think we talk sometimes about how it's the players job to make characters that want to adventure, and in a similar vein players should make characters that want to work as a team, and if they don't they could at least make it only minimally negatively impact the rest of the party. there's an appeal to butting heads which is why it's sometimes okay, but mostly it's just rude and i think it often speaks to thinking you're the main character of the campaign.
Something to take into consideration is that we are only hearing one side of the problem. There might be some key details being left out.
I've seen plenty of threads where you would completely side with the OP only to have someone OP knew see the thread and give more of the story that turns everyone against the OP.
This detail was glossed over in the third story, but roleplaying autism is so incredibly cringe if you aren't actually on the spectrum. I would've cut that off in session zero. Don't RP real-life health conditions just so you can play a character who doesn't have to follow social rules, especially if you're deliberately playing an evil character. Mental illness is stigmatized enough in society without some edgelord fetishizing it.
How do problem players even find groups? You'd think it'd be easy the way they're all in these stories...
I only use point buy. I let player dip down to a 4 stat, and go as high as starting 16+ racial/background bonus. Theres a program called 5e chicken dinner point buy, should be the first thing that pops up, you can change its rules to have the amount of points you like, and set limits ect.
In the game im in right now, we tried rolling for stats too, and it was okeyish. we have 2 players who had a 6, (im playing an char with 6 int) but the rest of the stats are fine, but its still very unbalanced. it was more like a test to see how we can play with this. but we wont use rolling again.
You can't have random rolls, and then only take the result if better. That's strictly better. That said, if no stats are exceptional, pcs would be better as farmers. Some houserule that unexceptional rolls are farmers: roll again.
You’ve not played any edition other than 5th, have you? 😅
The rolling stats one sounds like a 1e game, where PCs are very squishy and random. 3/3.5 introduced rerolling when an array is low enough as well as 4d6 drop lowest. I think either 4e/5e were the first to drop it as the default generation method.
what is AITA
Am i the a$$hole