>the King's Chief Adviser does lots of morally terrible/questionable things
>he claims "but I'm just doing everything to protect the kingdom! you kill me and the kingdom will be in peril!"
>everything he does actually creates more enemies and problems for the kingdom
come on DM, at least try to make it a debate on whether or not we should off him
>not wanting a straightforward villain
>>44010076
I've got a GM that tries to make every villain ever some variation of "tragic misunderstood anti-hero", even when they're guilty of terrible unforgivable crimes like rape, murder, human experimentation, selling people to slavers, ect.
Yeah... then he gets buttmad when we consider those villains to be actual monsters and kill them without listening to their sob stories or trying to "redeem" them somehow.Fuck I need to find a better GM.
I'll tell you one of mine. I tend to take perception too seriously and I end up hiding shit that shouldn't need a perception check.
>PCs go into a giganitc pit trap room
>There is no way out
>They have rope that they need to tie so they can scale up the wall they have to jump from
>I don't make it clear there is a hook near the entrance to hang the rope on
>They never really ask, and when they make a perception check to see whats in the room, the hook is behind them so In my mind they never notice it.
I do stupid shit like that, I might take things too literally and need to loosen up so it's a bit better and less nit picky.
>>44010076
Get the king to fire him. He's not even evil. Just incompetent.
>>44010076
I misread that as "Chef Adviser" and was trying to figure out what kind of culinary faux pas one would have to do in order to fuck up diplomatic relations so consistently.
>>44012118
>the hook is behind them so In my mind they never notice it
Dude, come on. What are Perception checks ever FOR in your mind?
>>44012118
I have some advice for you that may not have occurred to you: stop using perception as a mechanic. It's using a roll to abstract something that's more fun and interesting if you act it out instead.
Make players literally search for stuff by searching for stuff. If there's a switch behind a painting, make them move the painting to find it. If they just roll a die, they didn't do anything adventurous. You just temporarily controlled their character and made them see something that they didn't see.
Using a dice mechanic, they just roll a die and you tell them something from some notes you wrote down, which turns the game into a series of questions answered by a random number generator. Usually this is pretty boring in real life for a game a group of adults plays around a table.
And then it becomes awkward when they *fail* the roll, but they *know* there's still something there, so they want to keep searching. Do you just let them keep rolling until they pass? if so, why did you bother? To simulate how much time it takes based on the number of failures? What's the point of that, really, when you could just roll one die to see how long it takes? It's equally boring either way.
Just something to think about. My first rpg was caster edition as a kid and I always had problems like this as a DM due to everyone just rolling for literally every thing they can possibly do. It's a modern gaming sensibility that you need a dice roll to make something fun, and that rolling more dice = more fun. Some dice are okay, but most of the fun comes from decision-making. Some dice rolls subtract from it.
>>44013049
>Chef Advisor is setting up a diplomatic feast
>Serves beef broth as part of the appetizer, the minotaur ambassador is present
>main course contains ingredients banned by 3 major foreign religions present
He keeps doing this shit, but he's the king's nephew.
>>44013447
>Player with no idea how Perception is supposed to work thinks everyone else is just as ignorant.
>>44013262
I don't know, I've been trying to figure out a proper place for them but I just can't. It just feels shitty and phoned in and a last ditch effort by a DM so the players don't miss something pivotal or neat. That's why it's a fail, I'm at the point where I just kind of want to throw perception out of the window for dungeon crawls and shit and leave it for RP shit where they can spot unusual shit in rooms that hint at bullshit.
>>44013447
SO MUCH THIS
>I had a thing hidden in a room behind a painting one time.
>PC's knew from previous info it was hidden in house
>Described room appearances in house as they advanced
>PC's start pulling books searching desks usually scooby-doo/detective guesses
>Think like person hiding it, eventually find it and feel more rewarded then just by a dice roll
Worst case scenario you can just point them more towards it by like having them find related clues like carpentry work order for a specialized conpartment/wall work. Reference in NPC diary/papers to "safe" or whatever the objective is
>>44010083
Too old-fashioned for the new bloods, apparently.
>>44010083
Well, it seems the DM wants to make a debate for it, but just fails due to the chief advisor being about as effective as tossing water on a grease fire.
>>44014014
You have to be careful not to end up in Point and Click Adventure mode though. Nothing is more frustrating to a player than being unable to grasp the singular thread of logic that the DM has in mind while he just sits there barring the plot from proceeding until they do.
>guilty of terrible unforgivable crimes like rape, murder, human experimentation, selling people to slavers, ect.
Maybe they're sorry about it, you fucking autistic fuck.
>>44014379
Lol... I'm the autistic fuck? Yeah, OK, GM, is that you? Yeah, being "sorry" for killing someone's family doesn't mean they get out of jail for free when that character shows up wanting justice for the younger siblings. Stop trying to justify your angstlords, goddamn.
>Long campaign arc comes to a close
>We are heroes of the kingdom
>Noble families trying to get our favour for a change
>Each PC takes leadership roles, no longer always working together
>Dealing with tense political situations
>Trying to solve complex conspiratorial mysteries
>Suddenly aliens invade, destroy the setting, and kill us all, but we're getting reincarnated or something
Literally just happened!
>>44013522
It's a dice roll that represents whether your player notices something hidden or not-obvious.
You could employ it only for the specific scenario of when the player is not describing exactly how they are searching/looking, and it doesn't interfere with anything (because it's just a chance that the player is saved by random chance despite not checking for something). I'm only really criticizing it as a concept because it's part of a larger gaming paradigm that people often unknowingly adopt, where they rely on dice rolls to determine everything.
Even if you're using it as a way to separate the player from the character, that just creates frustration. Like, if YOU know something's there because you're not an idiot, but your CHARACTER doesn't, because he is. We're playing a game which means the player needs agency. That agency is probably around 90% of the fun, depending on your taste for watching random results get generated, and/or your love of character sheet numbers.
I think that most D&D gamers aren't really hardcore into literally roleplaying the attitude of some grumpy idiot dwarf so much as they are interested in exploring dungeons and overcoming obstacles with their cunning. Despite the fact that we call them "rpg's" role playing sometimes plays counter to what's actually fun. Just because your character is imperceptive on paper shouldn't force you to act like a stupid moron who can't see something they're looking for, if you're honestly clever enough to find something.
The DM shouldn't just write a DC and say "it's hidden." They should write how it is hidden so the players can discover it by looking. As long as it isn't hidden in a really convoluted retarded way that nobody would think to look, it's fine and more fun than "you rolled a 15 so you just find it."
>>44014360
I agree, but it's part of the delicate art of being a DM. One of the principle lessons you must learn is to always have a brutally obvious path for the players to progress, just in case they get stumped. You can't let the adventure come to a screeching halt. You can, however, increase the danger that arises if the players make bad decisions or miss things. That brutally obvious path might be obviously brutal.
>>44015274
>Again, you don't know how perception is SUPPOSED to be used because you seem to have only ever had shitty GMs. The stuff your saying isn't a revelation to most people here.
>>44015446
How's it supposed to work?
>>44010479
I am am GM without the opposite problem, as my players try to redeem everyone. They run a mercenary faction devoted to stopping the bad guys, but their main scientific researcher is an ex bad guy who is known for...
>enacting a near genocide
>running a eugenics program that basically started combining human and monster bloodlines with science
>was the one of the largest crime bosses in the biggest city, preferring protection rackets, prostitution, and drug development and distribution
>experimented on children
Dude's a real piece of work. Everyone calls him gramps (or Grandpa Hugo) because he's charismatic enough to act all friendly and not be the huge douche he actually is.
>>44014450
You're an autistic fuck for taking him seriously and responding in kind, yes.
All in one campaign.
>First adventure. Long and exciting and we're all ready for the final boss- a young dragon that's gonna be a cool fight with cool loot.
>Dragon acts first. DM rolls three nat 1s in a row and just says it dies mysteriously. We all level up
>Later on my buddy's sorcerer/monk (a character he loves to play) has been charged this whole time on spying on the cute DMPC empress heir girl for his evil church. She hides somewhere with magic wards his second level spells can't possibly pierce and he has no contacts or help in this city since his organization is despised
>His character is executed for failing his mission
And where it all fell apart
>Story coming to a big climax of an arc where a PC's lost friend can give them answers on a bunch of mysterious plot stuff
>Friend is somewhere in these mountains
>DM decides to make us go through some bullshit RPG convention tournament dungeon filled with outrageous traps and encounters
>There was a specific bit where an ice dragon thing broke through a wall with a surprise attack and was specifically made to instantly target my wizard with me having no way to prepare or react.
>One bad damage roll and stilled dimension door stopped me from dying almost instantly.
Yeah, we PCs just stopped playing.
>DMing a month long campaign
>we game at players house due to his cooking
>forget some of my notes one day, but still have most of them
>switch NPCs name in a quest
>realize it after two hours of doing said quest when one of the PCs ask me why would a nobleman need ghosts removed from a farm he doesn't own
>mfw I had to retcon everything
Atleast I let them keep the XP so they wouldn't feel completely cheated
>>44012118
This is so bullshit, I can't not say something. At some point did the players specify that they walk into the room and remain faced forward at all times, or did you introduce them into the room that way? I mean come on, you walk into a brand new room in your mind and you aren't being attacked and a new puzzle ISN'T vying for your attention, and you assume the player hasn't at the very least looked at his surroundings? What the fuck kind of logic is that.
It's your job as GM to describe the environment and props directly visible, otherwise the players haven't got a fucking clue, as per "they never ask, they never notice it".
Is perception the skill identifier for being able to see anything, or is it about perceiving specific details of your environment with increasing accuracy?
>You enter the study
>Roll for perception
>*17*
>You see a wooden desk with papers and notes on it, along with some pens
>Roll again for perception
>*13*
>There's also a chair behind the desk
Seriously, fuck you, anon. I can't tell you how angry your post made me. It's not fair.
>>44015023
Elaborate.
>>44015274
This is one of the things I like about torchbearer. You can just roll to search a room for treasure, but it takes up a turn, meaning you're closer to starvation and running out of torches.
Definitely helps to encourage poking about manually, while still having the option to roll if you're stuck
>>44015551
>doesn't say the animator suffers a fatal heart attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJfowXTXOfU
>>44010076
>Guy came in wanting to run Edge of the Empire, he didn't know half the rules.
>Including that each class gets to train a number of skills for free at character creation, or how to properly calculate damage soak.
>So we'd have all been 20 experience points short of what we should've had if someone hadn't noticed and corrected him.
>We were taking almost full damage from blaster bolts before someone called bs looked up soak and got that corrected.
cherry on top was when he let me get my character killed in the second session of the introductory adventure module. doing something which he knew was impossible. Instead of saying directly it was impossible to find the money we'd been sent for, he said, "pass the check to reach the ship, or find the money" I choose the money and he said I was instantly killed by the enviormental affect we were trying to avoid. We assumed I'd have to take checks and try to get back to the ship because I didn't pass the initial "run for the ship" thing. You know, do something daring and dangerous, than try to survive typical awesome adventure thing. Nope, instant death.
>CHECK (enemygender)
>IF (enemygender = male) THEN (kill)
>IF (enemygender = neutral) THEN (kill)
>IF (enemy gender = female) THEN (CHECK : enemycharisma)
>IF (enemycharisma < 12) THEN (insult, kill)
>IF (enemycharisma > 11) THEN (roll to seduce)
>>44014360
One of the X-Files P&C games had a 2 pixel wide bullet lodged in a support beam. If you failed to click on those two pixels, the game was unwinnable.
>>44013447
>It's a modern gaming sensibility that you need a dice roll to make something fun, and that rolling more dice = more fun. Some dice are okay, but most of the fun comes from decision-making. Some dice rolls subtract from it.
As someone who just started a Delta Green campaign with three guys coming from DND, so much of this.
They feel like they need to roll to be able to do anything. In the two sessions weve had there has been a total of a half dozen rolls, one was from me, two I asked for, and the other three I told the guys that the roll wasnt needed after theyd already tossed the dice.
Im hoping to wean them off of it.
>>44019150
This is exactly how living construct characters should think.
"What is this thing you humans cal love?" And all that Star Trek crap.
>>44010076
Only had one encounter where the party's fighter was able to actually use their strength favorably. Every other encounter where a fight might break out would likely have gotten them killed because the DM forever surrounds them with NPC's who are way above their level, both ally and enemy.
>>44013447
>>44019201
Oh shit, yes. I hardly, if ever have people roll dice. But it does ride on your group. If you have a bad group, you don't want to give them the freedoms like that.
>>44010076
>D&D 3.5
>we are level 8 and severely underequipped
>normally that wouldn't be an issue but it's starting to detract from the game
>I mean seriously all the party's treasures consist of one +1 weapon for the warrior and a stone that gives fire resist 3 to the bearer
>We are having trouble getting alive at the end of the sessions
>bring this to the DM's attention out of game
>next game's quest, an NPC asks for help in getting back his heritage from his grandfather's tomb
>tomb is a dungeon with spell traps and demons
>prismatic wall traps
>a meatgrinder
>finish the dungeon with 2 characters dead but a bit of gold
>town authorities claim the gold because of laws of the land
>we ask for a trial
>Spend a whole session preparing the case
>DM rolls a single die behind the screen
>no NPC interaction, no roleplaying, just a single die
>"You lost the trial"
>we don't have money to rez the dead and DM doesn't allow new characters
>campaign dies there
>>44019349
>we don't have money to rez the dead and DM doesn't allow new characters
why someone would do this? it's just a way of losing players
>>44019395
Let's just say he had pretty strong ideas about the "narrative" of his campaigns.
I've played with him for more than 10 years and every time we ended in TPK or partial party kill and no possible recovery.
>>44019443
That honestly sounds like he hated all of you.
>>44019443
i hate when the GM is just roleplaying with himself
>>44019472
He was a very complex young man. >>44019484 might be right.
>>44019523
as a GM myself i sometimes did straightorward narrative but damn, give the players some space, a little freedom at least, even if it means you have to rewrite the scenario between session
your friend looks like the kind of guy who "writes books" right?
>>44019313
I like having players roll dice when it's just as much fun for the players to fail as it is to succeed.
Also, I love how the phrase, "Evvverybody make Spot checks," can create foreboding if used sparingly.
>>44013735
>I don't know, I've been trying to figure out a proper place for them but I just can't.
As a basic rule, never have your players roll anything unless every outcome is interesting. PCs need to find X to continue? They find X, no rolls needed. PCs need to find X before they are caught? Have them roll to see if they find it in time. "Yes, but" is one of the best phrases a GM can learn to use, and should use freely.
>>44019443
>I've played with him for more than 10 years and every time we ended in TPK or partial party kill and no possible recovery.
Why do you hate yourself and your free time so much? If that were me I would have cut all contact with that little shit the first time I heard "no new characters".
>>44019886
Eh, the good parts of the campaign were good, and there weren't a lot of available DMs in the area.
However, I think that the greatest isssue with the guy (personal matters notwhitstanding) was that he was an old-school DM trying to cope with 3.x. I mean, he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that 3.x had different assumptions than basic or AD&D.
Inquisitors show up on planet in second session and attack party with zero knowledge one is a Jedi or reason to attack dudes just chillin in a speeder. Only after the first encounter does one recognize the Jedi, and attempts to take him prisoner, after throwing lightsabers at his face only an hour earlier. Still no motivation given for attack when asked.
Hutts who have all of 30 personnel want to kill their best slave doctor because she helped victims of a bombing without their consent. When appealed to they just say nah not your place over and over. This results in party fucking their whole operation over.
The dude is a pretty good GM but he has weird ass npcs.
