The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- Come hither as Critical Role’s Matt Mercer tells you how to be a better GM / DM. In today’s episode he shows you how to roll with the punches, and suspend player's disbelief.
Catch these tips a week early on Vessel, and on GeekandSundry.com every Friday!
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A friend's pc got drunk for three and a half days (dwarven beer is strong, man), and was seeing everything as shooting stars. The dm jokingly told him to "roll to wish upon a star." So he decided to roll as a joke. Natural 20. This is where the rule of cool comes into play. The dm allowed him to cast wish as a level two sorcerer because of the lucky roll.
He wished for more beer.
That PC has his priorities straight.
therty001's brother He's a chaotic evil sorcerer, what do you expect?
I just got the idea for a mechanic where, if you see a shooting star, roll a d100. Get your level or lower and you can roll a d6 or d8 and refer to this table of ridiculous effects.
sounds like my gnome :D (he's a constant drunk)
Cyril Ya'ule III That is Grogg
One time my DM allowed me to jump inside a giant frog, and I proceeded to cast thunder wave. The frog blew up, and so did the innocent man I forgot was in there.
I once got my character to be eaten in one bite by an armored monster so I could stab it from the inside
my dude, you just made my day :D :D
Our group's warrior tried to do a flipping double axe attack by jumping off of our monk's shoulder. He rolled a 1 and ended up slicing off both of the monk's arms. I asked if I could try to magically suture his arms back on. The DM said I could try. Natural 20. The monk got his arms back and proceeded to strangle the warrior. Hands-down the most epic thing i've ever done as a cleric.
Punpunpun
What an emotional roller coaster.
Lol
my most epic time as a cleric was when our barbarian got into a fight with the city guards during a rest at a tavern, they killed him when he wouldnt resist, and i talked the guards into stopping. i then was about to send the barbarian to his afterlife using a ritual (not any spell, just a character thing) well, i got a nat 20 and the dm had the god i pray too come down and revive the barbarian, it was awesome
Lmfao
My favorite Rule of Cool moment was in the last session of my second campaign of D&D. My character was an Ancient Red Dragon that was stuck in the form of a human through a god's curse (basically to teach my character humility). At the end, the god lifted the curse and I got to kick ass as a Dragon (with the other players riding on my back and sniping enemies. Luckily, everyone had ranged options).
I know the DM threw several rules out the window to let that happen. Everyone thought it was a great ending to a campaign.
This is what I do with my players sometimes: one time a level 2 monk was shot at with a ballista bolt (nat 1 from the person shooting the crossbow) and I let him deflect the bolt into the enemies
Funny to read this, I had pretty much the same idea for the character of my wife. Sadly the group got wiped before it come to play. She did not know, as she was turned into a human baby she lost all her memories of dragon form because babies have bad memories. It would have been such a cool surprise for her.
That DM should be fired.
@@SophiaAphrodite what do you mean? The players all like it and the first rule of D&D is that the DM can do anything he wants to make the game more enjoyable as far as I see job well done
I think my favorite things are the little ones. The adventurers dispatched some goblins who were playing cards in a dungeon. I expected them to search for loot and keep going. They pulled up a bloody chair and started gambling. I had them do bluff checks and the ranger got a 20. I had the others do intelligence checks to see how much they lost. The ranger made off with 45 GP
The best example of the "Rule Of Cool," that I've seen has been Matt's own invention of the phrase, "How do you want to do this?" Letting victories be extravagant is great because mechanically, the players have already won, it's just a matter of how to make it officially happen in the story. Letting players do whatever when the challenge has already been completed is a really good way to go about it all.
i assumed ALL dm's let their players choose like that - i didnt know it was a purely Matt thing
@@jesterssketchbook i mean i had that experience recently but it was like the first kill of the combat round on a drow at lvl one with an attack roll that was higher than it's entire health pool. (1 handed longsword attack with 4 strength. i got 12 damage of a 1d8+4 so ma possible damage without a nat 20)
I feel like sometimes the HDYWTDT can be too over the top or too frequent. One of my DMs do it on every single kill, which gets old after the 4th or 5th time that fight, and some of the players proceed to explain an extravagant killing blow with extra magical effects and such that take way too long to narrate
@@jesterssketchbook My DM does. But I'm sure he lifted it from Matt as he quotes it verbatim. But he generally only uses it for killing big baddies or maybe the last enemy in a big fight
That’s a house rule that predates Mercer. Not to rag on him but he isn’t the first to implement it into DnD.
I want a "You can certainly try" Shirt now.
+Colin Kennat I second this. Seriously. This needs to be a thing
+Colin Kennat We all do.
+Colin Kennat I would buy one for sure
+Colin Kennat I would buy it.
I would certainly buy
Great example of this: Buddy of mine was running campaign where he used random encounters. He would roll 3d10 and that would lead him to the page of the monster manual. He ended up throwing a dragon at the party. The AC was way to high and it wasn't looking to good for them. That is until the rogue decided to douse himself in lantern oil and jump into the dragon's butt. He proceeds to stab the dragon from the inside all the while taking strangling damage. The dragon is finally felled just before the rogue would die. He is promptly cut out of the dragon, at which point he slides out with a chest of loot. With a deranged look on his face he said "Mine!" He wasn't contested. He took a -4 to Charisma checks for the next 4 sessions because of the stank.
Okay, I actually kind of love this story. Good stuff.
Getting some serious drax vibes of this guy.
Pearl Vesper
Uh.... easier entry.
I look up to these kinds of rogues.
Ive heard of rogues being asshole, but this is the first time ive ever heard of a rogue being a butt plug.
This one time, My party and I were being pursued by high level guards in a narrow corridor, so I tried to cast "Knock at 3rd level" to untie the boot or undo the belt of the guard who was leading their line. I knew the idea was too stupid to work
but then our DM said:
"Well, they are technically 'mundane locks'. The spell also doesn't specify if the object shouldn't be worn, and since you're willing to spend a 3rd level slot for this..."
he made the guard make a DEX save with disadvantage and...
...She stepped on her shoelace and fell face flat on the floor, causing the other guards behind her to trip on her. Some got distracted by her glorious butt since her belt was also undone.
And with that ruckus~ they completely lost sight of our party
The rule of cool saved our character sheets from being turned to bonfire that day :D but I had a high level NPC hunting me down for a quite while for exposing her glorious butt.
Brilliant. You wouldn't happen to have been playing a Bard, would you?
I love this xDDD
as both a DM and a player, i've seen many "rule of cool" moments happen, but one of my favourites was when i essentially shish-kabob'd a dwarf after falling 100 feet.
my party was in a cloud-giant's tower, when it was besieged by a party of dwarves trying to kill the giant because they thought it was evil. my character was stuck on the upper floor, and the combat was going on a couple floors down, about 100 feet below me. in order to make it to the combat, it would have taken me two turns of dashing just to get down there, and as a rogue, i didn't really have any means of ranged damage. however, i noticed on the climb up that there were massive windows all around the perimeter of the room the combat happened to be going on in.
I turned to my DM and asked him "if i set up a grappling hook with 100 feet of rope, can i grab it, launch myself off the building, and swing my way through the window, stabbing anything that happened to be by that window with my rapier". he told me to make an acrobatics check, to which i rolled an 18 on the die. swinging down, i burst through the window and crashed into the first target that i came across, which luckily, happened to be one of the mobs we were fighting. i was then told to make an attack roll, which was counted as an auto-crit, since i was able to convince my DM that anyone in that position would be surprised that an elf would fly through a window with a rapier drawn.
dealing double damage on my attack, with double sneak-attack damage, i was able to nearly kill the dwarf in a single strike, knock it prone, and make it into the combat in one turn, and all it cost me was 14 hit points in fall damage
ThunderBird1333 epic
This is my most favourite rule of cool moment.
If that's not a surprise attack, I don't know what is.
ThunderBird1333 I’m almost more impressed that the dwarf you hit survived the initial attack. What a story that would be.
This is so damn awesome
My rule of cool experience as a DM.
Had a PC playing a two weapon fighting Ranger. The group was deep in a forest and had taken to sleeping in the trees because of things living on the ground. Late one night they get attacked by a pair of Allosaurus. So the ranger gets the idea to cut his rope that he had tied to keep himself in the tree(free action) and then jump out of the tree, stab into one of the dinosaurs and try to ride it.
I said "you can try" and had him roll a jump, melee attack roll, and a grapple check. He made the jump, failed the attack, so the dino got an attack of opportunity and between the AaO and the fall damage the ranger ended up at like 2 health. The rest of the round was the other players trying to distract the dino's away from the prone, and almost certainly about to die Ranger.
On his next turn he says "well.. screw it umm. charm animal!'... Dino gets a 1 on his will save, ranger lives on.
The player didn't stay in the group long but man that was an awesome moment.
My favorite rule of cool moment: we'd hit a brick wall in hunting down our target. Our GM had no easy answer for us, preferring instead to see what we came up with. So I used an idea I'd been sitting on from the beginning.
My rogue had long since been established as a devout follower of Olidammara. I stopped outside the tavern, prayed... then stepped inside and proceeded to lose 1000 gp, via gambling, buying drinks, etc., as a sacrifice to Olidammara and an invocation of Chaos. I DESCRIBED IT IN GREAT DETAIL.
The GM had me wake up laying flat on the bar with only a fuzzy memory of the night before. In one hand was a map to where we needed to go. And I had gained a level... in Favored Soul, a class I did not want and did not need, but which was entirely reasonable given what I'd done!
Every time Matt says something about derailing or going off the story line I think of "for the 20th round in a row, I roll to kiss my orc girlfriend" "I spent 2 days writing this campaign please just fight the kobolds" "for the 21st round in a row I roll to kiss my orc girlfriend"
Is this from an episode? I don't remember it if it was.
I would also like to know if this is from an episode
Lol sadly I've played with people like this, makes the game terribly boring for everybody else
We've had instances were our characters died via the rule of cool.
For example: My super-paladin cutting the rope bridge behind him when the rest of my party crossed it to safety, and Grunt-from-Mass-Effect-style charging into an army of goblins to give his friends a chance to flee, basically "cooling" his way to death for eternity.
You know what? He'd probably survive if we rp-ed the technical part of the battle, but me and my DM set it up so I'd reroll, because he was getting very OP for our campaign (the lowest I rolled for stats was a 15, and I was tanking, healing and dealing more damage than all the rest of my party combined).
Rule of cool death...
+Totem PsyClinic
Ya, i did that once for a alien in a super-power game. He was basically taking over the world and no one could stop him, but we decided to make an opening for another character to kill him just before he was done.
An OP character is no fun. Especially with a game master that doesn't know how to restrict what characters can and cannot do.
For example, my following character could absorb energy and do some telekinesis like stopping a bullet. The game master's reaction was to think i had created an invulnerable character, until i pointed out to him that this character could only stop one bullet and thus was very much vulnerable to automatic fire, something pretty common.
+Totem PsyClinic I think it's cool you went along with that, not to mention the badass way it ended. A lot of people (min-maxers) would never give up such a character. Kudos to you friend for being a true champion of balance!
+10far2many We were like lvl 10 at the time, and I was going head to head in 1 vs 1 battles with lvl 20 enemies, so yeah, it was no fun.
My DM let me roll another char at lvl 10, when he usually'd let us reroll a couple lvls lower when one of us died, but the circumstances were different at that...
:)
Never play with someone that says he wins at roleplaying or even worse, that he beat the DM.
I think its great you went along with that! But if I were your DM I would've brought people up to your power level in order for them not to feel entirely left out and also allow me to throw bigger bads at you! Rule of "one guy too cool, all you become cool"
I lost my melee weapon and my bow broke, so I charged head first at an ogre and headbutted it in the groin. The rolls came out perfect and the ogre ended up exploding from the impact.
Another time I tried sliding and shooting at the same time and ended up skidding my face on the ground. So, you know, what he said. Occasionally succeed. Occasionally.
+Draven Hughes SO MANY INAPPROPRIATE JOKES ABOUT THAT OGRE.
Nobody done told me the archer's gonna blow me.
brings new meaning to the term "giving head" i suppose
In the fall of gondolin story (tolkien) there is an elf that did almost the same thing against a balrog.
(I want to say it was Ecthelion of the fountain against gothmog, but I read it a long time ago.)
I gave my players magical weapons that caused whatever they killed to explode in excessive amounts of gore. They smell terrible, and they've got penalties to persuasion checks (But a bonus to intimidation). So, yeah, get crazy and have fun with it.
I remember a creative PC in my campaign made sticky pseudo-grenades out of tar and gunpowder. When we fought a Roc, I decided it would be fun to stick several of those on its head and fire scorching rays. The result? Our DM said "As the smoke clears... yeah, there's nothing left of the thing's head. Take your XP." I'm still so proud of that kill.
Here was my rule of cool moment in the only D&D campaign I've played:
One of our party members revealed himself to be working against us a bit earlier, stole an artifact from us, along with one of our party members and had attacked us earlier. We've caught up to him in the process of performing some sort of ritual. He's WAY far away, far outside the range of any attack. After he taunts us and just as he's about to teleport away, my Deva Artificer, who is super pissed at him, levels her artifact rifle at him to take a desperate shot. The DM says I'll have to take a huge penalty to hit rendering the shot nearly impossible but he'll let me try it. Then I roll a 20 and the bullet grazes the dude's cheek like that scene in 300. It was pretty awesome.
As a 12-year old, I played a very casual family reunion D&D with lots of rules broken and changed to accommodate for the younger kids. I was playing a Paladin and my mom was playing a Druid. She wild-shaped into a gorilla to throw me at the top of cave where a trapdoor was located. She rolled a nat 1 and threw me against the wall behind her. It was so funny.
Love the Sarcasm-Camera.
I opened my bag of holding in front of me and a Mimic backed into it. would've been cool. but now I have a living mimic going for my hand anytime I go to get things out of the bag.
rule of cool gone wrong :(
Do mimmics breathe? If they do, it should have suffocated. If they don't, go to your nearest Magix R Us and get someone to get that mimmic outxD
I haven't checked personally but my gm seems to think they don't.
Its still filled with very real treasure, just gotta dump that fucker out in a weapon shop and let them deal with it
That sounds fun XD how did it jump in there anyways 😂
Well I jumped over it, a comrade attacked it and it stumbled backwards into what would've been my small halfling face, and I instead opened my bag like a boss and the thing fell in.
+Nathan Guitar But hey, it's a cool story!
Drunk dude at bar to Matt: I'm gonna kick your ass!
Matt: (sips beer, places it on counter) You can certainly TRY
"Eh, I'll allow it."
My best Rule of Cool experience: The party's in a room full of skeletons and not one of us had a blunt weapon. The DM allowed me (as one of the warriors in the party) to grab a skeleton by the legs and proceed to use it as a blunt damage weapon. It required a metric crapton of rolls (to keep hold of it during combat and the like) and I fought with a penalty for it not being in my proficiencies, but I'll be damned if it wasn't hilarious at the time.
"Okay, so everyone else, you see your ranger - in an odd moment of desperation - picking up one of the skeletons and proceed to use it to Sunday Slam the other in front of her. Roll for initiative for the next round."
For me, as a GM of 20+ years, I find that players and GMs alike sometimes let the rules of a system drive their game rather than the story, and I think this can, and often does, severely limit the game experience for everyone. Knowing the rules of a system is great, but if you center the game around the rules only, the storyline will soon suffer because of it. For my group our motto has always been “story, story, story,” and without that mindset, those “cool” moments that everyone loves will be few and far between. If you find your players chatting about an event that took place in your game many months or even several years ago, and they still remember how cool it was, then in my opinion, you know you’re on the right path as a GM. Just my 2 cents.
As someone preparing their first campaign as a DM, I'm going to take this advice to heart. Thanks!
A beautiful example from the show of such a heroic feat...Keyleth piledriving K'varn.
Absolutely epic.
+Trendane Sparks Ep. Ic.
+Geek & Sundry Ah. Men.
+Trendane Sparks Or Scanlan as a triceratops!
Playing the first session of my Homebrew campaign tomorrow night. Thanks for the tips!! Love Critical Role, love your players and your DM style!
+Keith Winget Hope it goes well!
I left this just a little ambiguous in my comment, but I'm the DM, so thanks lol
+Keith Winget Thanks! Yeah, it's a pretty good show. We're proud of it. :)
+Geek & Sundry is there a CR podcast I can listen to at work? I could and would bust out 2 episodes a day to catch up.
OMG same here, this just popped up on my feed as I've been working all week on building my world and it's history from scratch, and tonight we meet for Character creation. This series is sooooo helpful.
Rule of Cold: Thermodynamics.
There is no cold. Only a lack of heat. Thermodynamics.
@@rolandkushm.d.710 but cold is defined as a lack of heat, so there is a cold because there is a lack of heat
@@celestialtree8602 but what is a lack of heat? 0? So is absolute 0 the only "cold"? Something can be colder bc it now has less heat than it did before but nothing can be cold because there is no cold.
I hate thermodynamics
@@natekite7532 how do you define "hot"? sure, things get hotter as they, well, *get hotter*, but what's hot to various organisms is different. "hot" is going to be very different between a penguin's perspective and a human's. and not only that, things get colder as they, well, *get colder*, so there's no clear answer either way. is there truly something that can be universally declared as "hot"? there's relative heat, but is there truly an absolute "hot" point? we know there's an absolute "cold" point, as in absolute 0, in which nothing can get colder. but there's no absolute "hot" point, at least as far as i know.
so, in reality, there is no "hot", for there is only "cold" and everything relative to it.
thanks for reading this barely-thought-out paragraph written by some bored kid on the internet
@@celestialtree8602 there is no hot and there is no cold. There is only heat, the increase in heat, and the decrease in heat
I still haven't watched the show-proper yet (3 hours an episode is intense o.o;;), but this guy has some awesome DM advice. Keep up the quality content, G&S!
+Chris V Oh man, I hope you get to it some day. But take your time, one hour at a time or something :)
+Chris V I agree with Viktormon. I use to watch the shows live, but I just can't afford the time anymore. I suggest taking the show into sections, maybe 30 to 60 minute intervals, and find good stopping points that you can catch up on. Just have fun, and if you can't watch the show, enjoy the community around it
+Chris V "show-proper"
+Angga Rahadyan I was about to say that.
It's great to have in the background while do the laundry, write a paper, file taxes or any dull activity really...
ShadowRun example: My character, a Street Sam, is driving a truck which is getting shot to pieces by a squad of Knight Errant officers. I realize I won't be able to make it out of there, so I point the truck at a building and jump out. My teammates are driving along in a van. I make an athletics check, 4 successes is almost enough to be able to grab onto the van. One of the other guys, an Elf variant with huge dexterity grabs me midair and hauls me inside. KE is strugling with rubble in the street (courtesy of our mage), a cloud of smoke from a grenade I fired earlier, and some hallucinogenic drugs from a grenade lobbed by another team member. Panting for breath, I tumble into the van on top of my team member as we race to safety...
Crazy? Yes. Cool? Most definitely!
As someone who really wants to try his hand at being a GM, I cannot voice enough how much I appreciate these videos. They're giving me a ton to think about and keep in mind, and Mr. Mercer does a wonderful job of keeping the videos amusing. Love what you're doing, love how you're doing it. Keep up the awesome!
One thing I'd very much like to see is how Matt organizes all his stuff prior to a game
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
I'm a visual/kinesthetic learner and I want to SEE Matt prep a dummy campaign. I also want to see him interact with one or two players before their 'first' session.
Agreed. I just use a ton of xlsx files, but would like to see how it's _supposed_ to be done.
Have watched every episode so far(Except the latest). I have started D&D with 8 of my friends(I am extremely lucky to have that many friends willing to give it a go). So far everybody is loving it, and I have to credit Mathew Mercer for my success as a DM. I would have no idea what i'm doing, nor not be as good as describing scenery and surroundings if it were not for this amazing man!!!
I recenently had a "You certainly can try" moment in a campaign where We were obviously all about to die in a fight (the gm actually meant it as an unwinnable fight) and I asked if I could pray to my god for assistance, as a murderous rougue, with my deity being a evil god of death. He told me to roll a percentage and if I rolled the same percent as he did it would work...we both rolled 78s and we ended up winning that fight, that was one of my coolest moments in that campaign.
Hmm, with a 1/10 000 chance of happening, I'd say that wasn't abusive.
@@Harrowed2TheMind To be fair its only 1/100 but the point stands!
@@wackymattcobra naw. it's a 1/100 for just the dm or the rogue to roll the number. it's a 1/1000 for both of them to roll the same number.
a 1 in a 100 in a 1 in 100 chance
ain't that one in a thousand?
@@programmatical-nonsense it's a 1/100 chance to roll the same number as the DM. The DM can roll any number he wants so his chance is irrelevant, all that matters is the player rolling the same 1% as the DM, which is a 1/100
He's probably thinking about a certain red dragon-born, when talking about characters trying to break the game.
+Zetonic Void I USE 5 SORCERY POINTS TO QUICKEN SPELL A FIREBALL!
THEN 10 MORE TO DO QUICKEN SPELL A FLY ON EVERYONE!
THEN 18 MORE TO CAST DISINTEGRATE!
tibs you don't know that spell
oh well nevermind then *saunters off*
+alwayzbored114 But don't forget he has 3 disintegrations stored inside his ring, that he was smart enough to use while mind wiped with 0 intelligence. He just did it on impulse.
+alwayzbored114 "WAIT, I DON'T DO THAT", is one of my favorite Tibs line :)
+Camolatte I would say it's my least favourite Tiberius line, mainly because he clearly never thought his plans through until he'd already babbled his way through 3 minutes of gameplay to find he can't do it.
Although to be honest I never really like him as a character so it's definitely a bias opinion.
+Rhys Causon I liked him for the first few episodes but he got worse and worse as the show progressed. Plus he constantly yelling and getting mad at people for no reason.
Play acrobatic character. Everything you do is cool.
you can certainly try. i've noticed by the way mister mercer says it sometimes, that he didn't think of the proposed action up ahead.
i've only seen 2 episodes of this GM tips series and i've learned quite a lot.
In one session, an army of hobgoblins had invaded a town.
They made the mistake of bringing explosive tar within firing range of a wizard that can use fire spells.
Needless to say, I ended the encounter far quicker than what was expected. There was some collateral damage, sure. But hey, as long as it works.
My favorite example of rule of cool was the 'Arms Outstretched' scene from the Adventure Zone.
A story that I'd like to share:
As some of you know, I play D&D (Dungeons & Dragons)
Every second Sunday, I run a 5th edition campaign. Through the years, interesting and amusing things have happened around the table. Tonight was no exception. In fact, I think tonight was the exception. Tonight I believe was the most "interesting" night I have witnessed being a DM.
As a quick note, the DM's job is to supply a story that the players work with (or against). I present challenges so the players can find solutions. The challenge of tonight was to rescue an elf from a camp occupied by the Cult of the Dragon. As there are 7 characters against a camp of around 100 mercs, cultists and creatures.
Since they realized that brute force would not work, they felt that they needed to distract the inhabitants of the camp to make the rescue. Now, the party (Orphans Promise) have the skills to execute the rescue using their shape shifting druid with a Pass Without Trace ability. It was a matter of creating the distraction.
Now, these people who come to my house to eat my food and play this game have come up with some neat ideas, execute fantastic strategies and utilize there greatest weapon against me: Dumb Luck. The Dice Gods were in favor of the players this evening. Whenever an idea comes up and if I think that it is totally ridiculous, I let the dice decide the fate of the idea because what could possibly go wrong...
My NPC mentioned that they should find a chicken(s) and somehow release it in the camp. The chickens would be running around and the Kolbolds would create the distraction they would need. I should have known better but my players decided to take it up a notch.
The Gnome fighter/ranger went hunting for a turkey. And through the rolls, she convinced the turkey to help them. The turkey was all for it because the Kolbolds have been hunting it for a week. Now, the last thing that anyone should do is piss off a large Foul, geese or turkeys. I personally have been attacked by a goose. They can be very frightning. But this turkey was game (no pun intended).
Orphans Promise have a few very capable spell casters and tactictions. So they started to make their plan. After a successful recon of the camp, they found the perfect spot to execute their devious plan. They proceeded to buff the turkey with defensive armor spells and enhance it's abilities. Then they proceeded to attach a wand of fireball to each wing...Through the Druid and Ranger, they both were able to teach the turkey the command words for the wands...
Hence George the Tur-Tanken was born.
They set up there staging point at the entrance to the camp and at the middle of the camp, they launched the turkey from a high point using more magic spells...
Visualize if you will: You are a mercenary in a camp. You think you hear the sound of a wild turkey but can't pin point where it's coming from. You instinctively look into the dusky sky to see a flying turkey wearing steam punk goggles, gobbling wildly as fireballs are coming from its wings. You feel a wet sensation streaming down your leg.
Turkey -> 1, Cult of the Dragon camp -> 0
This is why I play D&D.
In my current game, using the rules for turning a golem into a suit of armor in Pathfinder, as well as the intelligent magic item rules, one of my players with a little help from me poured all of his gold- Level 10 character, has saved up almost all his gold from level 4 and up, so he almost had 90k- managed to build essentially a Titan from Titanfall, complete with a personality, a 'cockpit', and even an experimental Dimension Door to have the Titan appear in thin air and fall behind player, picking him up and thrusting him into the armor. I swear, you can do anything in the D20 system with the Rule of Cool and enough freaking money. Oh, and managing to subdue a mithral golemn. It wasn't easy, trust me.
John Kennedy that is probably one of the most bad ass stories i've heard of... now i wanna see if i can convince my dm to let me do this XD
That sounds so badass and I wish I was part of that session to experience that awesomeness, now I MUST try this with my Artificer that I'm playing. Hopefully I can convince my dm to let me try and build the same thing
I remember we were trapped in this coastal tower filled with storm elementals. They were left over to guard the place. The sorcerer at the top of the tower was summoning a hurricane and the tower was slowly being filled with water. After almost dying i hid in a room yo recover and found some old satin clothes from a past resident. So I decided yo put the clothes on and acted like I was meant to be there. Rolled a nat. 20 and walked my way past the storm elementals as the bowed and greeted me as one of the towers residents. That was amazing and our DM had no idea how to react.
I and a Ranger were fighting a Rokshasa while WAY under-leveled. We weren't supposed to fight it directly, we were supposed to get help.
I told the DM that my Fighter character ran up and screamed a bellowingly loud war cry into the Rokshasa's face. So the DM said, "Roll an Intimidation Check."
Natural 20.
I had the Rokshasa on its knees, begging and crying. I made a ROKSHASA CRY with a LEVEL 1 FIGHTER.
He touched on it a bit, but I was thinking, "BE VERY CAREFUL about any ONE player always bending the rules or taking the spotlight, or getting all the cool moments." Naturally, some players are more outgoing, better at improv and thinking creatively, or just better at knowing the rules inside and out, and it's important to keep balance in mind. If the scene-stealing player is not a douchebag, Matt's right, take them aside some time and talk about it - encourage them to use those spotlighting skills to give _other players_ cool moments too, or just tone it down sometimes.
If they are a douchebag, don't play with them.
Matt suggests rewarding players who do something cool. I'd say be extra careful with that. In my experience, it's good to reward the whole group when the drama was really on point - then more anxious players can come out of their shell and know that no one will resent them for being the center of attention. If everyone stands to benefit, players may encourage each other to go big.
see that's why when the dm is faltering for words on how a pc is attacking someone I step in and try to elaborate a bit more to make it feel fun.
In a campaign I'm currently in during session 2 the CE Rouge of the party got a little too stabby towards his own party, don't worry the DM had repercussions planned so the next time the Rouge got a little too stabby the npc of the party grabbed his dagger and snapped it in half in front of his face not knowing that this dagger was magical. Since that moment the Rouge hasn't stabbed a party member and has acquired another magic dagger as a replacement.
Luckily for the rest of the party, the dm talked to him about it and he agreed that it was a bit much on his part and agreed to calm down and not just willy nilly harm the party
We had a moment in pathfinder where we had to save a kid from a burning building. Me, being an Ifrit decided to wade through the flames. About half way up our paladin decided to try and climb the side of the building. He rolled a nat 20 and proceeded to walk perfectly horizontal up the wall (Jojo's bizarre adventure style), grab the kid and jump back down the moment I reached the top. Sorry for the long post but it was a fun little thing.
For me, the biggest rule of cool when I was DMing was just good timing. The Blood Hunter in my group said "sometimes, you have to become what you hunt." The music crescendoed at that moment. I rewarded him with a permanent +2 to CHA because of it.
Mastro Soul permanent +2 seems like a bit much, did he have really low charisma beforehand or something?
Kinda broken, and a bad precedent to set, imo. Then you'll have PCs acting based on the music....
I’d say a permanent +2 to Cha because of an accidental timing is pretty strong, especially since now your PCs could also attempt to do the same for boosts.
This series of videos has been so helpful to me as a first time GM
Rule of cool makes things hilarious. Our monk tried to join a "high" druid peace pipe circle rather than engage in a combat encounter, he rolled a 4 for persuasion but the GM asked him to roll again, and he rolled a 20. The dice decided rule of cool applied there.
The monk is also completing his meditations while polymorphed as a giant ape (harambe) whenever the wizard has spell slots left so he can eventually use his ki points while polymorphed. Then they will be monk-ki
Please put more of these videos up! They're great and I'd love an advanced version for instance. Specific context based tips he's picked up. Etc.
Thank you so much for these tips, Matt! I am intimidated by your DM skill set, as I start my own personal DM career. Your videos are helping me transition from the “player” to the “DM” side of the screen.
I love these videos, just started DMing and I can't tell you how much these help. I've kinda created a basis of DM behavior around watching Critical Role, Glass Cannon Podcast, and PAX Acquisitions Incorporated and it has really helped our group start smoothly. Please keep them coming.
so like when Scanlan insulted an enemy into killing itself.
I really enjoy your DM tips and look forward to each one. Just watching the show has given me a lot of helpful information on how to be a decent DM and how to keep things lively and fun, yet still maintain that tension needed for a good story.
I appreciate the time and effort you put into posting these videos, keep em coming =)
One of my favourite responses to a player asking about something that pushes towards the boundaries is "Justify this to me." Gets the players to work through their thought process and lay out why they think it might work. Takes the pressure of me to do that myself and gives me much more info to work with when making my decisions.
Matt's mention of the creative use reminded me of my second session of dnd ever we fought a basalisk and i was a cleric that was out of spell slots. So I waited for my allies to turn to stone and i would cast mending on their stone bodies to heal them.
Best rule of cool thing that was so ridiculous was one player killed a dragon with a brick in a sock. So to add something that was cool and unique like that, the DM made te sick have dragons blood on it and it gained the dragons element typing for extra damage. That was one of the coolest and funniest moments ever when I was playing in a 3.5 campaign.
One time my character was being slowly digested by a remorhaz and so, rather than trying to climb out of it's stomach, my character decided to cut through it, it's a good thing they were fire resistant. I rolled really well on an acrobatics check to climb out of the whole that her and the creature's carcass were in, so she jumped out heroically once she was near the top and was greeted by the rest of the parties relieved faces, even though we were still in combat, because the last thing they saw prior was her get swallowed whole, and then the remorhaz went down it's tunnel. It was so fun!
I've been running a game for my Dungeons & Dragons club at school and these groups are usually really big because there are only two DM, including myself and it's just been a wild ride. A lot of the players are new to the game and I'm fairly new to being a Dungeon Master, honestly, these videos have been helping me upgrade my game so it's more fun.
For my first game with them (second time DMing for me,) I unintentionally gave them a Deadly Encounter for their first fight. The Dragonborn Paladin wanted to save the Forest Gnome Rogue from a couple homebrewed Clockwork Golems by launching an enemy into the chandelier above. Long story short, he rolled a Nat 20 and completely demolished the chandelier by slamming his shield against the enemy midair. Listening to the players shout with glee honestly makes my day.
Could you do a video of how to hint things in a game (like what the players should or should not)?
I've pretty much been ignoring Geek & Sundry for a while. But this series and a few others have brought me back to watching. Excellent series.
I really appreciate how Matt is with the players experiencing his story. I think of a pretty underwhelming example personally.
There's a time in the second campaign where Nott steals gold from Shakasta. He was successful in doing so with Matt describing Shakasta didn't notice.
However, later Shakasta confronts Nott saying he DID notice and let her do it. But is showing respect for her and how she saved their lives.
Usually, I could totally see a DM being like "you didn't notice at all" and enforcing the rules. But Matt allowed it. It didn't affect the overall plot, but it was a cool little moment that existed.
ive been playing D&D since i was a young child and I finally had the courage to ask my friends if they want to test a game with me as a DM. Now none of them have played and I have never played as DM. My father, who had played throughout his childhood, and his friends have all come together to help teach me the key points and this also helps. Thanks so much!
My favourite example of the rule of cool was in the "Dungeons in Places" series on the Game Grumps. ProJared was DMing, and one of the characters rolled a 1 on their attack with an axe. ProJared had them roll another attack, which succeeded, leading to said axe flying out of their hand, missing the enemy they were aiming for entirely, bouncing off the wall, and hitting an enemy behind them. It's really a great example of how to handle both high and low rolls, and also just a great campaign all around.
Thanks for the vid, this is very well thought out! Fun > Rules
It's always great to see you work with your players to make the game challenging and entertaining. You hit on the idea that your players' "play style" has a big impact on how your game plays out. Can you talk a bit more about catering to different "play styles" in your next GM Tips?
Thanks Matt, this has been an informative and accessible series thus far. I'm still relatively inexperienced with RPGs and my time spent as a GM will soon eclipse my time as a player. Pretty soon I'm going to start an original campaign of L5R 4th ed. and a Fantasy AGE conversion of old D&D's Mystara setting (though I'm skeptical about participation with the latter).
GMing has been easy for smaller indie games (My Life With Master is a pretty amazing story-telling option), but now that I'm treading into heavier rule sets and predefined settings, I'm paying close attention to your advice. There's a lot of communication needed before, between and after sessions by the looks of it. Hopefully I'll remember to touch on the important things and make sure we're all comfy and on the same page.
For games that use meta-currency (Fate Points in Fate, Momentum in 2d20, and Action Points in Eberron), the meta-currency resource can be used for the purposes described in the video, on-demand from the players, and already worked into the mechanics of the system. It tends to work pretty well.
The GM's pool can also be used to declare some railroading fact, and I find as a player that I don't mind so much when it's known to be a use of a finite resource that the GM has.
Your line on that shirt I think also goes very well along the rule of cool. I only recently started watching Critical Role and "how do you want to do this?" quickly became my favorite recurring phrase. Like, really damn quickly.
This is one of the most overlooked opportunities I've experienced in campaigns. This can really make a climatic moment for that character in a specific session, that really made them stand out as truly heroic intentionally throughout your story. These memories are the real reward of role playing.
I'm a first time dm and I'm binge watching this stuff and it's quite useful. Thanks for the many tips you provide!
I'm starting Hoard of the Dragon Queen in about a week, and these videos have been immensely helpful! Thanks!
Thanks for these tip videos! I'm running a pathfinder game for the first time (also fist time GM'ing) and these are very helpful for helping keep the game fun and exciting for everyone involved.
+ThePortableTornado Hope it goes well !
As always, love your work, Mercer. I don't know if I'm becoming a better DM as a result, but I'm definitely becoming a better informed one, and I'm always trying my best to bring your advice into my game. Thanks for doing these, they're always amazing.
i use poker chips as a way to track victories and losses of the party. they started out lvl 1 with 2 chips each, a level up gets them 3 chips and if something important happens to a character(very good or very bad), i handed them a a proportional amount of chips. it is a literal bargaining chip, if they fail a roll, they can cash in five or more chips to turn it to a success, if the roll succeeded they can cash in one chip and they can do something cool. alternatively, at a long rest/ end of session, they can cash their chips in for bonus xp or feats. they can also wager chips when receiving loot to attempt to get better rewards(typically on after boss encounters). i like doing it this way gives the players a bit more agency in the story while also putting a limit on the "rule of cool" without having to really make a judgement call myself. i also worked it into a narrative. these adventures turned fate so many times that eventually the cultists of the god of fate start attacking them every so often, this led them on a quest to dissolve this cult and confront the actual god (they were level 19/20).
I DM for the first time 2 weeks ago. Got through session 1 and tomorrow will be doing session 2. Our group has 2 pc’s and each of the pc’s has another character they control to bring the group to 4.
It's funny that Matt mentioned the fog scenario.
In my first ever DnD session we were confronted with the typical fort/goblins/wolves/Orc Overlord type of setting. Our GM had littered the entrance to the stronghold with enemies and it was within his intentions to make some of us fall. We attempted to sneak in but were caught and so one of our party members decided to cast fog, as a way of concealing the vision between us and them on the battle field whilst the enemies were running towards us. A character had the ability to cast lightning strike and so asked the DM if he could cast the lightning into the fog and have it create an AoE damage. The DM allowed it and it was extremely successful; this opened my eyes to the possibilities of DnD and made me want to play so much more!
I really wish i had seen this last week. running 2nd session tonight as new dm. the issue was i had a player mid battle in first session want to use thaumaturgy as distraction against 4 enemies 3 rounds into combat.... went through full description of spell and she still wanted to do it. finally, another player, after a full 2 or 3 mins of discussion convinced her to do something else.... i instantly regretted not letting her and having it as a teaching moment to the limits of certain spells, but more so, i felt like i took away from her creativeness of the possibilities of those same spells.... its a hard balance to figure out.
One great example of the rule of cool in Critical Role: Vox Machina's squadron of flying illusionary cows. Without a doubt one of Scanlan's greatest moments, not to mention one of the most hilarious, sidesplittingly funny things I'd ever seen. Just remembering it makes me crack up...
My favorite moment with my group was when the castle was under siege by a rebellion, bit by bit oil fills the halls and set aflame, burning several characters (and the main villain eventually) and a bone dragon frantically began wounding the party, the group had a gnome NPC with them who caught aflame due to the oil and decided to use him as a projectile, killing the dragon on impact. He, of course had them arrested when they went back to town and became the next villain with an affinity for setting his own henchman aflame. Gosh I love this game.
Had this happen in an encounter I did with some Wooden Golems. Party of 3, main person we're talking about is a Kenku Bard.
Whilst fighting it, he decides to take a crossbow bolt from a teammates holster and jumped onto the Golems back to bury it in the back of the Golem. Rolled a strength check, 2, didn't get in at all. Tried again next turn, 18, got it pretty deep. Golem was too busy attacking Vamp rogue to notice.
He backflips off the Golem (Acrobatics check, 17), casts 'Heat Metal' on the bolt in mid-air, and does a superhero landing as Golem takes FAR above lethal damage from the bolt lighting it on fire inside it.
Loved the creativity, because I hadn't expected it from him at all. :D
There's a "built-in" rule of cool in West End Games' Star Wars, using Force points, which you can use whenever you want to double all of your skills for a particular action/sequence. And you get it back if this moment was appropriate (and you get to gain one if you use it at the "epic" moment of the adventure). That's actually one of my favorite feature in this system.
Oh, I am loving this series. Just a little miffed I'm finding it so late! Wonderful tips so far--I'll be directing some of my players to this channel when they want to run their own games.
Once had a ranger who hadn't been keeping track of arrows run out in the middle of a battle while holding up half way up a steep snowy cliff. He used his last arrow to start an avalanche and asked if he could use a shield to sled on it. I told him he could roll to see if he could. Rolled 18 with +6 aerobatics. He asked if he could try grabbing a quiver off a dead enemy as he sledded past "role a straight dex check with disadvantage. Rolled well enough to grab it. Got an arrow an said he wanted to shoot the boss. Roll with disadvantage. Missed. Tried to use the second attack to jump with the shield and aim for the boss. Told him to roll for attack, improvised weapon 1d6 damage, with disadvantage. Rolled 2 nat 20s rolled max damage killed the boss I'd been settling up for three sessions
This series has been so helpful
Keyleth: 'We're Gods!' *dies*
I just recently was directed to you and I must say thank you for the inspiration for my own sessions and games I plan on doing with my friends. :) Thank you for the insight and what-not. Take care and keep it up!
One battle I DM’ed had two very cool and creative moments: the bard charming two duergar, turning them against the enemy, and the arcane trickster blinding an umber hulk, basically siccing it against its allies due to its sudden reliance on tremor sense.
These videos are really helpful. I'm about to DM my first campaign and I definitely wouldn't have thought about a lot of this stuff.
Our dm does this quite well. Being chased by a swarm of angry spiders, we asked the accompanying military men for their gunpowder bags. One player, mid run, used his action to tie them together, natural 20. I cast prestidigitation, holding the release of the spell until ready to be thrown. The rogue tosses it, allowing me to cast it, lighting it on fire. Our makeshift incendiary device takes out a good amount. Perfect for a bunch of level 2s in an overwhelming encounter.
I read online of a time a PC fell off a ledge into a bottomless chasm during a session. It should have been instant death but the player challenged that he could flap his arms fast enough to save himself.
"Roll a D20"
Natural 20
"If you can do that again you live"
Natural 20
"The rest of you see a dwarf rise from the chasm frantically flapping its arms like a giant, bearded hummingbird."
When a player beats 1 in 400 odds you give them almost whatever they want.
I started DMing a game with my friends recently and my barbarian failed a javelin throw and I had it start to fly past my fighter who wanted to catch it and smack the thug attacking him. It worked and I think its a really good example of the rule of cool
I am going to GM my first D&D session ever soon with some new players and my idea is for this lesser god of trickery to keep giving them tasks, and the more creatively they solve each problem the more they will be rewarded by him. Also I totally based this god off Mollymauk
Seriously, these are super helpful! I'm building my own RPG (not DnD), but they are overall great tips for any fantasy games.
My most fun experience with the rule of cool?
I was playing a tanky paladin, and was the only person in the party capable of healing. Now, mind you, our thief was a dumbass and constantly got into trouble. So, the next time they asked me to heal them, I looked at the DM and asked if I could bitchslap them using Lay on Hands.
Yep. I bitchslap healed people. It was great.
Oh Master of Game Masters, please do a tip episode on PC deaths (or protection from)! I find that I struggle on that part. The characters need to know that there are consequences, good &/or bad, but if a DM kills off a character there is meta issues to tackle, players feelings, creation of a new character, introduction of said new pc, etc. as well as game elements that needs to be addressed, namely resurrection or memorial. Thank you (hopefully) in advance!
Total newbie to DMing DND, but not other ttrpgs. In my first session- all my players are family- the cleric wanted the barbarian to throw him into combat with weapons flailing. I allowed it thinking ' what's the worst that could happen'. They pulled it off and will be rewarding them for some ingenuity. I feel one could happen every other adventure or so.
There was this encounter I had alone, no other party members cause they were out and about elsewhere, where I encountered a robot in a cave frozen over below the freezing point of water (to which the DM glossed over how exactly my character survived in there ironically). I was a 13th level Rogue/Fighter Multiclass and had access to a Burning Hands spell scroll and had the cantrip Booming Blade. So, first, we were standing over the cavern's frozen lake. I lured the bot over and prepared the Burning Hands spell with my action to use as reaction. When it got close, it auto-crit due to thermal reaction thanks to my DM's reward for creativity. Not only that, but the ice below melted and submerged it into a lake. Since I used my reaction then, and it used its entire turn to get close, it was my turn to use freely and I used booming blade on the water. The lightning channelled through the water and into the submerged bot and auto-crit again. I moved back a bit, and ended my turn. Then it came forth, using up its dash to move past the water (difficult terrain), and it was my turn again so I came up, action surged on it, and cut its head off.
Not a single point of damage, not even from the pack of wolves I faced before it. The bot never even had the opportunity to try to attack. Was rewarded a heftier sum of EXP for it.
there is an phrase (with variants) I often use to signal the limits of the rule of cool, ans that whilst they might have pulled something awesome off this time don't bank on it being easily or frequently repeatable. It goes something like this. "As the dust settles, your chest swells with the knowledge of a job well done. You have done what was thought impossible, and performed feats few could have imagined. It was as if the hand of your god was on your shoulder. But as you recall from the tales told to you as a child, the gods can be fickle."
I think Matt's "How do you want to do this?" is a great example of balancing the rule of cool. It allows players to have their awesome finishing moments doing crazy things, for example ripping a huge monster in half, without making it something players constantly try to do. It provides an outlet for that crazy awesomeness without it being something people try every turn.
My first time ever playing D&D and my group picks me to be the DM. Talk about hard mode. While it is quite difficult its been really fun, and these vids really help, thx G&S and Matt!
Had a great example of this in my last session (running 5e Princes of the Apocalypse). Our group's Sorcerer was pushed off a tower and the Barbarian decided she wanted to save him by throwing her javelin (tied with rope) at him. Skewered him and knocked him out, but ultimately saved him from lethal falling damage.
I often use the rule of cool. but I never establish that with my players. they know that I both use it and I punish trying to exploit it hardcore. Whenever a player tries something because they think the rule of cool would apply, I think hard about it and often let it fail. but when chance gives a cool moment, I take it. This makes the moments much more special. Fate is always my wingman as a DM.
Most of my players and I have forgotten a lot about the first campaign we did some years ago, but no one will forget how they got stuck on a roof butt naked while trying to do a Thieves guild quest
That's why I like the Plot Point bank in the Cortex system. They get those as rewards and can spend them if They want to reroll, increase a bonus, or redirect a story moment. It gives the GM more control over these changes: "You the bullet to ricochet and hit the ghoul? That'll be three Plot Points."