Am I the Jerk in My D&D Games? ft.

[@twistedpinttavern]

Thanks for swinging by the tavern again!

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

As long as the ale keeps flowing, I’ll be there!

[@katlicks]

In regards to Scenario 2, I had a group completely neglect a world ending issue for a petty political stunt that took way too much time, and the time limit to go stop the world ending event was previously established, I gave them constant warnings (People talking about things getting worse, earth tremors, nightmares, etc) and was even willing to bump the time limit up if they went back in and actually tried to solve the problem, but instead they kept going on a really dumb petty political adventure to overthrow a king for some policies they didn't like, and so when the time limit came, I just explained how the world became a horrendous hellscape as pain and decay swept over the world, and anything left alive basically had to contest with how the world became a horrific nightmare. The party eventually found a cliff and made the adventure end. Or so they thought. When they hit the ground, their skeletons tore out of their flesh coffins and thus began the skeleton adventure. It was full of puns and was silly, and the party had a really good time, ending with the skeleton party finding a human that could bite the undead and transform them into the living again, creating a chain reaction to fix the world, even if it'd be a long journey, it lead to a hopeful, humorous and fun conclusion. I was lucky the party was willing to keep going and have fun, but, I think my willingness to "Play along" with their little power trip diversion bought me the trust that I'd set up something good and didn't just say "The ritual happens, game over". Communicating and really working with them let me recycle a fair amount of the original quest into the new one, sure I had to scrap a fair amount of it, and the tone was different, but, it gave room to give us the fun experience we wanted.

[@realdragon]

Seems like end of the world wasn't so bad after all

[@noahdude628]

This is a fucking great stuff. Good job bro, love that creativity

[@nabra97]

Sounds like something my local community would approve) I'm glad you managed to deal with it in a way everyone enjoyed!

[@Caio-ti1ec]

Skeletons? Puns? Sans is that you?

[@OrpheusSpyros5]

Notes from a Fighter Redshirt; Here's my thoughts on the stories(live the channel btw).... 1) my fellow DM was at least willing to Admit that he used to be a horrible DM and personally agree he's not the jerk.... 2) I can personally sympathize with this one, as my player's have done similar stuff. I ran a Star Trek Adventures campaign for 4 years and in the end had to drop it cause my player's turned the entire setting into a Star Wars game...I personally don't think the DM here is a jerk and might just need a break. 3)Now this has some neat on the Bone! While for the most part I'm with you guy's on it, I don't think this group will fit for podcast games... Take it easy and don't forget to support your local Fighters Guild! Nate Trevelyan

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

Glad you’re a fan of the channel! I hope you went to watch twisted pint tavern’s video too! I agree that the 3rd one is the most interesting. It’s funny that the Reddit ruled he was being a jerk but the both of us thought it was pretty fair.

[@rons5438]

After three decades of DMing and playing, I can say no campaign survives first contact with the PLAYERS! I have been in the position where I had a huge campaign idea and story I wanted to tell in a home brew world setting, but the PCs had a different idea and my campaign was derailed by session two. It sucked, but it wasn't anything intentional on anyone's part and in the end we had a great time for a few IRL years of campaigning. As a player I had DM who tried forcing us players down his story line and the group fell apart one player at a time and by session 4 it was the DM and his girlfriend. My personal pet peeve is when campaigns or DMs throw PCs into situations that they have no agency in. Such as "the door slams and the 50ft X 50ft room fills with poisonous gas so fast your entire lvl 12+ party of six very experienced and creative adventurers have no chance to react, not even to do a save vs poison! Now you wake up in a cell without any of your gear, familiars or friends." I have seen that ploy used in official DnD modules and home brew, and if the players are low lvl then maybe it makes sense. But IMO high lvl characters probably have a means to negate the trap and deserve a better intro to the next module. Thanks for hanging at the tavern, the keeper takes a bit to get used to, but at least he pours a full tankard!

[@realdragon]

I wanna start campaign (if my group will find a time) but I had few one shots and short games so I know more or less what to expect. Maybe it was system we played but they have no problem stabbing each other and eating the corpse if they need to

[@marlow7376]

If a dm cant handle players derailing what they had planned because its a game about the players choices they should just write a book and seriously give up on dming

[@the_guitarcade]

As long as you never let the players know there's a curtain they can look behind, the illusion of choice is a fantastic tool. If the players get the idea that their choices don't matter, it will make the game very not fun, but as long as they don't find out, you're an insanely great DM with an amazingly fleshed out world where the players can go anywhere and do anything and you're always prepared, as far as they know.

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

Yeah it’s a great way for the party to have a great time and for you to be able to use all the hard work you prepped, but you definitely have to strike a balance!

[@DianaTaffie]

I love when they's a discussion about stories like that. Always better to have at LEAST two points of view in regards to those questioning things.

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

Scenario 2. Sometimes you just have to plan out a little further than normal. Especially if you are running a wide reaching intrigue or war campaign as other things are going on and will have an influence on what happens also. For this I like to keep things VERY general like YES the party does get the McGuffin, make the Deal, etc.; or NO they don't. Each outcome will influence where the games goes next based off (literally a coin toss sometimes) other events the party can not be involved in due to distance or time. The trick is never get roped into having to have events go a specific way. And never have to have the players do things a particular way. As long as you can answer your general event question like Did the Party get the McGuffin? YES or NO that's all you need. And as it is a flow chart with more than one way it will end and routes to get there. You can re-skin it and your players may never notice.

[@MrKilroyKiljoy]

Ngl this advice might have been exactly what I needed to get my next game off the ground. Thanks king

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

I would have to say for Scenario One go ahead and let them. They are increasing the size of an Object, NOT a Creature. So anything on board the object is not also doubled. The result being that while the base and all of it's controls and equipment increased to 2x's the normal dimensions and 8x's their weight; the PC's, any NPC's, other creatures, any equipment not physically bolted to the base, gear carried by any creature on board; remains normal sized. Making controlling the base and operating it's weapons REALLY difficult for the PC's and their crew. Case in point. A ship's wheel for controlling the direction of the base. These would be 3 to 4 feet wide and 4 to 5 feet tall; taking 1 to 2 crew to operate depending on size and size of the ship. After Enlarge is cast it is now 6 to 8 feet wide, 8 to 10 feet tall, and will take 8 to 16 crew to operate due to it's and the gear attached to it's new weight. And while it doesn't have to be a ship's wheel, you get the idea of what kinds of problems could come by just making the base (an Object as far as the spell is concerned) Enlarged to 2x's it's original dimensions.

[@Stiggandr1]

In that first one, I would have allowed it, then simply said that the magical contraption that enables the beast to move can't handle the enormous strain, and it collapses in on itself, then comes back, slightly worse for ware, once the spell ends. The best response to game breaking power fantasies isn't prohibition, but sobering reality. At least imo. Something like this also leaves the door open, if the players still want to pursue this option... They just have to quest to get the upgrades they need!

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

My thoughts as well.

[@Azrage]

For the second one, I think they should definitely try to correct things or go forward as things are if possible, and maybe take a break to cool off or think about how they might be able to proceed before actually deciding to quit, but if the DM doesn't want to keep doing this, I don't think the players are entitled to make the DM stay and put in quite a lot of effort into salvaging a completely wrecked storyline anymore than the DM is entitled to force the characters to roll it back and do it without randomly trying to murder critical NPCs for no real benefit. It's a game and everybody is there to have fun. You shouldn't immediately give up (and thus force it to end for your entire party) if something you don't like happens, but if you really don't want to play no one has a right to force you. Frankly I wouldn't blame the DM for quitting, though I would say that if starting a vote that you'll only respect if it goes your way is not how you go about dealing with this situation.

[@nicholashernandez4611]

2:16 A great way to deal with using a spell on the base of operations: that player has to choose exactly what will be enlarged, by how much, and it will only enlarge for a certain amount of time until it reverts. If you cast enlarge on a war hammer, are you casting it on the head, the handle, the pieces connecting all of it together, the shaft, or any other part of what should have been a simple weapon? Roll for the increase in size. Also roll for time duration. This will change the size but not the mass, meaning a gain in range but only a slight increase in force. Same for the mobile base. Which piece of this complex and elaborate base are you enlarging? Will this render the base immobile? Is there enough room for this to occur without damage to other parts? Roll for how large it grows. Roll for how long it stays enlarged. Reduce your mana pool by the correct amount. Please wait until you are able to act again. This would make enlarge, as a spell, cumbersome but insanely useful in combat: imagine a fast enemy having an enlarged knee or foot. The weight imbalance and the shift in their mobility would effectively leave them immobile. Enlarge the third rib on the right side of a berserker and watch it be unable to attack with that arm until the spell ends. Imagine an elven archer trying to make a difficult shot when their eye swells in their head (handicap because of the eye pushing against bone). Stuff like that. Could also remove armor in the funniest ways. Just enlarge the leather straps until the normal armor slacks off. Works on anything with multiple articulate pieces. That’s my solution.

[@theuncalledfor]

That is not how that spell works in 5e.

[@VestedUTuber]

Story 1: If the players were fine with it, then there's no reason to believe the OP is an asshole. Sudden rules hotpatches are something you generally don't want to do, but I feel it was well-handled in this case. Now, just to comment, I love the idea of a gargantuan scale mage-punk tank/mech/kaiju fight. I honestly would have let them do that, and then given them specific _fair_ gargantuan-sized enemies to fight, and honestly I wouldn't end with just one. I'd make it an occasional thing, like part of an arc climax. Story 2: Yeah, this is definitely a case of "what do you do next". I honestly don't blame the OP for wanting to quit the campaign, but if they did decide to continue the best option would be to retool the plot to work with this more aggressive, combative playstyle the party wants to partake in, and maybe plan four weeks ahead instead of four months. I can't entirely blame the players as well - a lot of people are used to D&D being a combat-heavy game - heck, D&D started off as a high-customizability co-op skirmish wargame focused on hacking and slashing your way through a dungeon and the increased focus on roleplay came later - and roleplay-heavy political intrigue campaigns aren't everyone's cup of tea. I feel like the "hindsight is 20-20" solution to this would have been to have an extensive session zero going over the general idea of the campaign and, without spoiling anything, the fact that negotiations would be more important than combat in this campaign, and to make sure that everyone was on the same page. Story 3: Before anything else, I want to say this - if you're going to broadcast your campaign, keep in mind you are NOT going to be the next Critical Roll. Anyway, OP, I envy you. You have the patience to deal with an entire party of edgelord powergamers. As for whether the OP would be an asshole... Not necessarily but I don't see any way of getting out of this squeaky clean. The problem is this: If the OP walks, the DM gets shafted. If the OP sticks around but doesn't try to work anything out with the DM, the DM gets shafted because of the inevitable failure of the podcast. But if the OP sticks around and tries to organize things with the DM to make things a LOT more viable for a podcast, the other players are going to take offense. The assholes here are the other players, technically, but because they're also the majority it would be VERY hard to make things work with them. I have to agree with finding a more serious, story-focused group for the podcast, but I'm concerned that the current group would take offense to that as well.

[@justinthawsetmyo4173]

That talk about the kaiju battle reminds me of that story about how a player kept summoning an army of bears and using a one trick pony win-the-game combo. The gm didn't like the player, but if I were the gm, I would've like, given his army of bears another army to fight with a mini boss for him to clash with. Like an army vs army. But then again I guess that would turn into a war game in dnd.

[@ZzZ-qd1zo]

Regarding story 1,the dungeon master's guide specifies that structures, vehicles, etc are not "objects" for the sake of spell targeting, but are instead collections of individual objects. So, rules as written, enlarge/reduce doesn't work on them. Which of course is the only way the game could work, since otherwise that spell would be broken as hell.

[@IamMullet]

Gotta disagree about the relying on a specific plot point. A situation can go many ways that isnt "I stab him!" Especially if they identified the group as not being murder hobos

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

I think you can’t hard force a plot point but you can definitely give a party multiple chances to take it as an option. If they run the opposite way and then like hard force them back on track then it is a bit of railroading.

[@IamMullet]

@@lootgoblinmarketplace Force? For sure, cant do that. But if your players have been normal people up to then I think its reasonable to plan something far ahead thinking your players wont resort to ultra violence

[@nabra97]

I mean, randomly killing an NPC usually isn't OK (if it was randomly; I don't know where the negotiation was going, and I can imagine the NPC pissing PC off so much they decided to attack). But I feel like the long, complicated spy thriller where main characters don't have a right to a mistake will never work in almost any ttrpg. Perhaps there are systems made specifically for it that mechanically don't allow players to screw everything. It often doesn't even work in non-interactive media without using plot armor and similar maneuvers.

[@tuliobednarczukpecinemisko5606]

I think the key here is to open communication and respect, both to yourself and others.

[@apocalypso3427]

Another amazing collab :D Glad you came back to the Tavern again! You guys do great collabs :D

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

Always like working with Zyl! I’m sure we’ll have more in the future

[@apocalypso3427]

@@lootgoblinmarketplace That's awesome! He's a great dude to have on your side :D

[@MadMalMan]

Subscribed and going through your vids like a podcast whilst I work, great DnD content is hard to find! But on that subject another reason why they may not want to be on a podcast is because they may want to play the game for themselves and not an audience. Not feel that pressure of having to do a real life performance in their chilled out gaming downtime.

[@dragolectron9351]

Because of the killer hobo thing.. I did the "Skyrim NPCs" rule. XD Here is a thing that I did to prevent that: I had placed "essential" tags on some npcs. I also placed "non-essential" tags on lots of NPCs. And it turned out to be well, even though sometimes if they didn't like a character cause it was annoying I was like: But that's where the fun is in the game, as also in life, you can't have everyone be nice to you, there are many rude people out there. And you have to deal with them, just like in this game.

[@ciaranartorias264]

really i'd think enlarge/reduce doesn't work on either complex things, or things which exceed its range too much - so an actual castle, for example, can't be enlarged/reduced, either because it's made of too many pieces, or because the other side of the castle is a lot more than the spell's range away.

[@shadow-aliengachaandmore7902]

I love watching this channels funny D and D stories Yet my small brain cannot understand how to start/find a DND group online

[@London_J]

My HB rule : No you can't necromance dragons. No you can't seduce Dragons.

[@crassiewassie8354]

I think if the players are choosing to 4v100 an entire army Like in the blacksmith scenario It's kind of the player's fault if they all die Like if a player does something stupid they should get a stupid result Drowned in heavily armed and armored people with endless numbers If players dont try and change the odds they should like Just die? But i understand that if you did that the players would prolly be upset with you.

[@marlow7376]

Any good dm would be excited by this idea as it allows them to throw more interesting an exciting monsters at the players because now they can actually handle it and like i said in another comment theres a million ways in dnd they could of split the party from the base its not even remotely challenging any building would do the trick which is where the majority of dnd play happens anyways indoors

[@soldierofkazus]

For the first story, the DM is totally within his rights and even the players seem to have agreed, but I think the best way to face a situation like that is to consider if that would be a satisfactory ending to the campaign. As in, "Okay guys, I can say no to this and we keep going, or I can say yes and we'll end the campaign when I run out of interesting things for you to do with it."

[@matthewbentley1236]

For the second one, if you're not enjoying running a game you're not an AH for stopping running the game, especially if you and your players aren't gelling.

[@fluffykitten077]

How would DMs feel about Formula-1'ing crazy exploits they weren't expecting? "You can only use a broken thing in the session you've first mentioned it, for one session only, for 1 battle only. Then it gets banned"

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

I’m definitely a fan of let it fly this one time to not bog down the session with rules talk and then we talk it out later! If we have to ban it then I’ll let them always respec, if someone made their whole character based off a gimmick that we decided needed to be adjusted it only seems fair he gets to adjust his character again”

[@jorayx]

In the second story have less murderhobo background npcs get the stuff the pcs forfeited and have the pcs be persona non grata for a while in the world.

[@BrokenSoul79x]

Rocks fall, everybody dies. 🤣👍👍

[@BrokenSoul79x]

Laughed my ass off when two seconds after I commented he said my line. 🤣🤣🤣

[@keiferplayz1286]

Hey there I’m the OP from the first story I was very shocked to hear my story come up in a video.

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

Hello, I thought it was a really interesting situation to find yourself in. I totally agree that it’s a scenario where you can communicate how it could be too broken and everyone seemed to understand. I love when a group can have an honest discussion about that kind of thing.

[@keiferplayz1286]

I’m just lucky to have an understanding group for stuff like this.

[@marlow7376]

Whenever dms talk about killing players because they just want to it shows such a massive level of insecurity on their part like ur seriously threatened by a player character when u have liches at ur disposal very im utterly incapable of being pushed outside my comfort zone or actually provide interesting and challenging encounters energy

[@yogapantsyogurtpants3365]

Fuck the book. Let them have what they want. Enjoy their enjoyment.

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

That’s how I try to play!

[@carlossanchez-bi6sn]

nice video

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

Thank you! Couldn’t have done it without Zyl!

[@JuicyBlueWill]

Definitely not the asshole but you can tell there's remnants of prior dickishness. That homebrew rule feels a bit forced but if everyone agrees then it's not a problem but I feel like there should have been some ingame reason for why the spell wouldn't work like that. Definitely the asshole. After 4 years, they are all very invested, not just him. Him ending the game right then because of one action that they wish to stick by feels like a betrayal of 4 years of trust, especially after giving them the illusion of choice in the poll. Now if he had said that he would not continue without retconning, that would be way more honest before the poll but as he presented it it was "Roll back or Continue" not "Roll back or Cancel". Definitely the asshole for how much he rambled in the post. In regard to the contents itself, I'd say he is the asshole for almost leading him on then just saying "lol no" but also I see why he would go against it. I feel like he could have gone about it way better or just try it out for a bit then accept the low view count, which is a near inevitability. Although I do agree that a new campaign should be started. In a way, I'd say he's not quite the asshole but he absolutely would be from the DM's perspective. At 20:22 in regard to what Zyl said, you absolutely can be the asshole for expressing your free will. 99% of reasons someone is called as asshole is because of free will. They choose to do something which offends someone for whatever reason, whether it be going against prior promises or just being generally abusive. That's all an act of free will and it can't be used as a shield for goading someone on only to back out, which can easily be seen as a betrayal.

[@twistedpinttavern]

Okay, fair point, you can be an asshole by expressing free will. However I don't think just having your free will is what makes you an asshole lol. The guy is totally within his rights to make whatever decision he sees fit, and if that's leaving the group, then he can totally do that. However if he's a jerk about it, then yes, he's an asshole.

[@keiferplayz1286]

Heya! op from the first story here. And there actually is an in-game reason for it not working like that. The spell simply isn’t strong enough to effect something that big (it’s a low level spell so I felt like that was reasonable)

[@lootgoblinmarketplace]

I think it matters on what the actual spell interaction is because sometimes people can definitely stretch how the rules are written.

[@MrKilroyKiljoy]

​@@keiferplayz1286Chief, I think it would've been a better play to just say that the base is multiple objects, so enlarging the whole thing won't work

[@keiferplayz1286]

@@MrKilroyKiljoy yeah I figured that out after the events of the story.

[@London_J]

DND and democracy doesn't work. Parties always out vote the DM, the DM is forced to either be a servant of the party or to just leave.

[@simplyharkonnen]

Yep, why I quit doing it. Started around like 19, and my friends were all hyped, but it just wore on me because they were Podcast Kiddies™️ and really more wanted like.. essentially improv with me doing a heavy share of the story work. Just didn’t work out.

[@MrKilroyKiljoy]

So I don't think any of those ops were assholes. The closest is maybe the second one, but it sounds moreso to me like that guy is finding out he doesn't like dming and just wants to write a story instead. There's always ways to make it interesting when a player doesn't do what you expect, but if that turns you off from the game, maybe that story wasn't meant to be a game for you in the first place. The third one is only an asshole if he doesn't voice these concerns to the dm. A good 2/3rds or more of AITA posts just require an honest conversation without letting your emotions get in the way, this one included. It's possible that the dm had been thinking the same things, and already had plans to correct or get around those obstacles. And if they didn't and don't want to change? Then you're not an asshole for walking away at that point. The first one, if no one's upset about it then no one's the asshole. I might have done it a little differently, but it's somewhat sensible. Just don't ever break that rule on your end either, and you should be good.

[@realdragon]

If you put something to vote don't be surprised you're outvoted. If DM put something to vote and then doesn't wanna play because you didn't get the outcome you want then don't put things up to vote. Why is it so hard to say "hey I wanna retcon this because I don't feel like going on with this story"

[@michaelk7007]

Had a completely different opinion on the would I be an asshole story. I think it was even bad for them to speak with the other players about this ordeal to begin with. I get why the others would have been defensive or annoyed by it. Did I miss that they were a coDM or something? If not they came off as that guy. Like your co-worker having a sit-down meeting with all your other peers advising that they're not taking work seriously enough and their concerned that their boss's effort won't be well received because of it. Okay great you're not the manager and this feedback was unsolicited. Please go through the boss next time. And I absolutely disagree with needing to make sure that everything is golden from the start of a podcast or any endeavor. If it's worth doing right it's still worth attempting even if it's not done right. You shouldn't get hung up on anxiety or trying to reach perfection with any project or it may never get off the ground. Granted this means I agree with Reddit so this is likely an awful opinion. Cheers.