Player Who Managed To Outsmart Me Every Time I DMed Him | Narrated D&D Story

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Credits
Story Source: Reddit
Video Editor: Shawn Kadian
Editors: Lonny Foran ([e-mail])
Narration: MyLo (Twitter/VoMylo)
Thumbnail Art & Channel Artwork: NalaFontaine (Twitter/@nala_fontaine)
#dndstories #dnd #dungeonsanddragons

[@TheFoxfiend]

That first story, props to the GM for allowing creative interpretation of a contract, I can imagine them smiling as probably a fairly insignificant detail about the state of the world that was mentioned once came into play because a player decided to be clever. It is the quality of a good DM who remembers that the game is collaborative story telling, not them vs the party.

[@Undomaranel]

I left a group in part due to that. The DM was always whining when we survived or outsmarted her, and didn't consider any of it fun unless one of us got KO'd. She flat out said it was us vs her, and no matter what the rest of us told her (especially her husband who had DM'd for years) she refused to let up on it being a competition. It was toxic all the way around.

[@wolfoffenris9951]

To be fair, a fay would have done exactly the same, so he just outfayed the fay

[@hanswurst5479]

I dont agree that they were helpless. The city can be in a helpless state but that does not make everyone inside it automatically helpless too. Or if everyone is riding a train and the engine dies the train is dead but that does not hold true for the passangers. They are not in a dead state just because they enter a dead train. The only reason why i would let that slide is because they payed attention to the world and its descriptions. They are involved and that should be rewarded.

[@cilantoranone5933]

@@hanswurst5479 They weren't helpless, but the contract was met because they were to be given to the fay in a "helpless state", so they met up in a city that is a helpless state, which the contract decided met the rules because they were in traded in a helpless state, since a state can be seen as a place for people to live obviously and not just the state of a person.

[@shatteredsouI]

Had a similar “mixing science with fantasy thing” Our party was facing off against a pack of werewolves at level 5. We knew we were supposed to run, but we were just too stubborn. Halfway into the fight and we realize we might lose. Our barbarian had already thrown an oil flask on a bunch of the werewolves to set them on fire. But it wasn’t doing as much damage as we’d hoped. Then the barbarian’s player got an idea. Barb: “Hey, DM, we’re next to a lake.” DM: “Yeah.” Barb: “Would this fire be considered a grease fire?” DM: “You used an oil flask, so yes. Why?” Barb: “Okay, I’m going to run and fill up my bucket with water, then throw it on the werewolves!” And that is the story of how a barbarian cast Fireball. While we still had to run away, that gave us the chance we needed. 😂

[@FireBowProductions]

Nothing more dangerous than a player that can scientifically explain how get "mundane fantasy materials" to work in a magical way. Reminds me of a TikTok I saw where a guy mathematically explained how you can hit more creatures with a Cone of Cold by flying up in the at max range and firing straight down.

[@denverarnold6210]

Dude wad like Dr. Stone.

[@soldierx345]

Well yeah, cones get bigger so the max range + not having the ground taking up area

[@Spiceodog]

The “ they were in fact handed over on a helpless state “ got me

[@DonovanTheDread]

Every party needs a jerry. Someone to put the laws of nature and the bounty of the land into perfect harmony to create things far beyond our comprehension for the setting

[@shadiafifi54]

Jerry _was_ a challenge and even possibly a nightmare to work with, but he's the _fun_ sort. Just listening to his ideas is giving me ideas, and you really could see an industrialized magepunk setting hailing him as its version of James Watt, Thomas Edision, or Nicholai Tesla. Hell, you could domesticate gelatinous cubes or slimes by using them as waste disposal for settlements, then culling their numbers a bit to make batteries. I'd draw the line at some points, like using illithid brains for psi-radios (partly because the illithids themselves would be really pissed off they're being harvested by prey and prevented from being given to the Elder Brains as they should), but you can genuinely see an Eberron-like setting come out of all this...

[@jeremiahlewis410]

Yeah, there would definitely be consequences for the psi-telegraph. Same as in Palladium Fantasy, where if you want permanent/reusable Wards/Glyphs, you have to include a rune carved from a single Dragon bone, and smallest is still the size of your hand. Definitely consequences for having and using it. Really helps when you are running low on ideas, though. Or have high-level players.

[@neock]

ah yes, i remember times like this. i was playing a game where the GM gave us an airship as part of a war. my character, a sorcery with dwarven smithing training who specialized in fire magic... worked with an artificer to install a railgun on the ship. shot 20 foot long adamantine rods enchanted with antigravity. thing was so enchanted in so many ways the GM couldnt figure out how to get rid of it. failsafes all over the place so it couldnt self destruct, detections so it couldnt be stolen without us getting it back, mending enchanted into hundreds of gemstones to cover every inch of it, protected by enough elementals getting close to it was hard enough, but surviving air elements deciding you dont need air in your lungs... dam cannon delt 2012 bludgening+10d8 percing+ 10d10 lightning+ 14d6 fire+60 damage to everything infront of it. moutains, other airships, even a dragon we didnt know was hiding in a mountain... all fell at the hands of this cannon. has a platform set with true polymorph and fabricate to create more rods as needed. NEVER let a magical blacksmith work with an artificer. only hell will rise... or fall, depending on perspective

[@itap8880]

As far as I'm concerned, if you stuck to the rulebook times for creating permanent enchantments, this would take like a century or two to make.

[@neock]

@@itap8880 had some homebrew effects in place the DM allowed. my character could craft artifacts in just over 3 hours, and could forge 2 different items at once. by using her custom gloves she made just for smelting. the artificer was doing most the enchanting other than what i pre-embused in while crafting. it took 6 months to finish, with my character exploiting the fact they didnt need food, water, sleep, and couldnt suffer exhaustion. normaly it would have taken too long to craft even with a whole mountain of dwarfs. but with how i built her... she was on her way to accending to a goddess of the forge, and this showed

[@GayBearBro2]

My friends fear the day I play an Artificer because I can make off the wall ideas from my engineering experience/knowledge. The good news is that half of my friends are also engineers, so we all kind of have the spark of passion to gamble with science.

[@kevinafrank104]

Technically, the lever action crossbow was an actual design in medieval Europe. They simply could not make it more than a small or light medium design.

[@GreaterGrievobeast55]

6:16 oh my gosh that was visciously ingenious!! I swear puns can be the most dangerous thing with wishes and magic contracts YIRBEL LIVES!

[@masonwheeler6536]

OP wondered why they don't use Jerry's gelatinous cube battery to solve the world's energy problems. The answer is, we already did. Sort of. What he's describing is a lead-acid battery, more commonly known as a "car battery" because that's where they're typically used.

[@serge263]

The title of this made me think "Oh gods, were they DMing for Joseph Joestar?!"

[@BlueThunder1988]

"You thought you were being guided by a DM, but it was me, Dio!"

[@fugitiveunknown7806]

"Your next line is.... roll for initiative."

[@serge263]

@@fugitiveunknown7806 Roll for initiative....!

[@rodyrubber]

The second story made me want to listen to the MacGyver theme in Bardcore.

[@ProjectRedfoot]

I get how any DM can feel like, "please don't de-rail this story I worked so hard on!" But I also get how a player can feel like, "Just let me do my thing and work *with* me!"

[@WorldWalker128]

I love the idea of getting sciency with a magical world full of monsters. Once had an idea for using Prestidigitation to make an AC unit for carriages as well as an enchanted self-heating bathtub with a wand that focused specifically on the 'cleaning' aspect of the spell to be stirred in the bathwater and make it clean again. You'd only ever need to fill it completely once, and as water evaporated. I freaking love that spell so much! Prestidigitation can't make liquid boil, and it can't make it freeze, but different liquids boil or freeze at different temperatures. By taking a large metal or glass bowl and putting salt water in it (I imagine that a hollow bowl that can be filled like a canteen would be more efficient), then putting fresh water in another bowl of one or the other materiel and set into the first one you can chill the salt water until it's almost-but-not-quite freezing, and overnight the freshwater will freeze, giving you ice. Now imagine what a tavern or merchant company could do with that. Cargo wagons that keep the food they're transporting cold. An ice-closet for keeping beer/ale/wine chilled for a hot day when they need it without having to pay a ridiculous fee for someone carting ice blocks from a mountain top somewhere.

[@timtauber5557]

Just because the materials exist to make a battery does not mean a player character would know that combining them in a certain way would create electricity. I would suspect this knowledge would be accidentally discovered at best, while tinkering with those items, over several months of game time. That’s assuming there was an actual reason they might have had to tinker with those items in the first place. I use a mechanical aptitude skill in my games as an adjunct skill to engineering. The character would have to have at least a starting skill level in both in order to create a successful modification to a crossbow. Possibly decided by a successful intelligence check. I am not against innovation, I just want those innovations to be discovered in a plausible way.

[@yungo1rst]

the players stun locked a session boss with a weak psionic power. then just blasted him with strong power attacks and sneak attacks. it was a condition i had not accounted for when designing the session. his allies were too far away as they found the alternate rock face to bypass the ogre guards and lesser dragons guarding the bridge. so he just was surprised and barely had any summons to help him against the players stall for his encounter abilities. he had a weak will save versus that power and it was doing just enough damage to bypass his resistance. the frog oni was felled just as he was going to try to get away into a portal he set up earlier. they have his fort as reward to be remade into what they want later. the portal was destroyed as was too spooky or unknown at the time as was a old spirit deity effigy that looked like a giant rat skull holding a sphere held up by wicker boughs.

[@davidr6702]

Re: In game crafting, I had a forge cleric and ranger team up to make progressively outlandish arrows. It started with grapnel and bleed, but pretty soon they had a glassblower making collapsible gas and poison cartridges inside the arrow design, and eventually linked a melee cast familiar discharge into explosive and electrical charges, shrapnel damage, and virtually anything else you could consider. The ranger was more powered than an arcane archer with none of the spell limitations.

[@JonathanToolonie]

"I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE SPECIFIC!!!!!!!"

[@Jebbtube]

Jerry is the hero we need, AND deserve!

[@tysondennis1016]

As an aspiring DM, I hope to reward players for outside-the-box thinking, innovating, finding a solution I haven't given them, outwitting me at every turn.

[@patrickmckenna563]

My dm always said if I could explain how it works I can build it.... I came up with a particle gun

[@fugitiveunknown7806]

In my game you'd hear a devil would leave you a business card for a play that good.

[@heathmorris6100]

I had a kobold wizard that took all the weird and obscure spells and the dm had a tendency to make weird and quirky villians. The entire campaign was him and me finding ways to outsmart each other in ways like this. The best part was most of the solutions I came up with involved the other members of the party taking a prominent role with my spells acting as more of a boost to their abilities. I went into the game with the idea of playing a necromancer wizard and came out as a kobold master tactician

[@jprevost25]

Similar to Jerry in one of our modern setting games the DM has banned "chemical warfare & other science crap" in any games she runs as we have done things such as using chlorine gas to kill a big bad in its own tunnel.

[@Metalisalearning77]

No problems with this.... It's good for DMs to think outside the box on how to make games even more fascinating both in gameplay & storytelling. & for players to not let a setting hold you back in creative means to solve a problem within a few limits

[@jamescah9230]

Tried the mixing science with fantasy. Didn't go over quite that well because I was expected to be able to prove that the underlying fundamentals were at least known to me. While you could prove that it was relatively common to transition matter between different states, there were numerous checks for everything. Sometimes multiple stats on one item depending on the potential for it. Also the DM was very educated on modern science, and what he didn't know he would learn fast. So yes it worked, but no where near the extent that dm allowed. In truth the DM did good with it. He is a good friend of mine and he knew I would totally break game balance if he let me.

[@adamb89]

Reminds me of this time I was playing a Magic User in an old version of D&D, mid 90's. The DM really encouraged off-label uses of magic, and would frequently set up scenarios that required some MacGyvering. One that comes to mind, we were teleported to the middle of a desert. Using a combination of Move Earth, Wall of Stone, Woodform, and Wall of Ice. I created a sort of depression in a sand dune with a retaining walls and a sun shade. Wall of Ice acted like air conditioning, keeping us comfortable until evening. Then we chopped up the permanent burnable parts of the shelter for warmth after sundown, getting us a nice comfortable rest while the Cleric and I prepared new spells with construction in mind. Next morning with a specialized spell loadout and the other characters assisting, we basically spent half the day creating a dugout bunker right there in the middle of the desert complete with interior lighting, basic furniture and cots, a stone cistern full of water, and fresh conjured food. The perfect base of operations.

[@MrMarco302]

I had a player pull something like that science thing with me once I was dming a LOTR second age inspired campaing where this player, an elven ranger with a level of bard for flavour, needed to fight off an orc invasion on a dwarven city. For context, this player saved my Radagast expy and cleaned a forest of corrupting spiders, as a reward radagast asked the forest spirits to bless the player's bow, and now every arrow they shot dealt a 1d4 magical/fire damage (it was a set up for a way to be able to damage wraiths later on). Earlier in the city i came up with a legendary Dwarvish Ale that was so strong even elves could get drunk (the player tried to outsmart me by challenging an important npc to a drink duel, they ended up winning by the con saves anyway) Now, fast foward to the invasion, since in LOTR dwarven cities have vast undergrounds i ported that and made a Kazad'um style city fully underground, and the invasion had an earth elemental open a tunnel into the heart of the city. When combat began the player thinks for a second and asks me about the bar they were earlier, i told them that it was just around the corner, they sprint to it and convince the owner to give them as many barrels of the ale the party could carry, since the owner was friends with them at this point it was no problem, then they proceeded to yeet all the barrels on the tunel and with a single nat 20 fire blessed arrow detonated the higly alchoholic 10 gallons of ale, which promptly killed most orcs, caved in the tunnel and gavely injured the elemental. In the setting, the party was supposed to lose this battle and retreat to the elven city and try to devise a counterattack plan with the surviving dwarves, but the sollution was so incredible that i had to let the story take another direction.

[@williamscott1102]

Nice, Jerry's story reminds me of how my fighter ended up Polymorphing into an adult blue dragon and ended up giving a golem the rock bottom right into a Mummy lord and knocking them both prone: The session started out as the previous session the party I was in ended up fighting this wizard that had crafted potions that would polymorph the user into a dragon and ended up dropping a lesser potion of dragon polymorph that turned the user into a adult dragon and randomly determined on which one you were with a slight chance on failing and enters my fighter as the party went to grab it my fighter ended up swiping the bottle and pockets it for later. From there my party ended up deciding to see where this Lynch bard was performing in order to complete a side quest in order to get the hilt of the sun blade, when we arrived at the town, a lot of stuff was made of chocolate as it was from Willy and the chocolate factory, but with a more sinister sense to the whole thing, we end noticing the lynch bard performing on stage at our arrival and as soon as she ends the performance, my fighter ends up realizing that majority of the people in the town are undead, as well as introduced to the adult pink dragon that was the lynch bard's companion, despite all of this the bard and pink dragon sent my party on a quest to destroy the heart of the mummy lord that was about a town over from where we were and the party agrees, as we were informed that in one of the mummy lord's golems was the Mummy's heart. After agreeing to take the job, the lynch bard teleported us straight to the golems and the mummy lord himself was there. This starts the battle starts off with a struggle and realizing how little damage I was doing outside of character I made the split second decision of trying to drink the lesser polymorph potion...and fail, but the dm realizing how creative how I was trying to be allowed me to reroll at the price of that later when I rolled I would get the result of a failure instead. At the dm's mercy I ended up polymorphing into an adult blue dragon as the party starts to focus on one of the golems and start dealing some damage to it. The mummy lord on the other hand had its sights on this blue dragon that just popped up and tried to cast harm on me, as I rolled the dm tried to use the failure I just got into play as I use one of the dragon's legendary actions to automatically make a save, then turn by turn we are beginning to turn the ride in our favor as the mummy lord begins to flee, my dragon destroys the golem containing the heart of the mummy lord by luck would have it, in a slight quick response my dragon grabs the heart and chucks it into a nearby lake as the mummy lord redirected his approach towards his heart and uses the other golem to grapple my dragon as the rest of the party is trying to stop the mummy lord from getting his heart. As the top of the round starts I ask the dm if my dragon could lift the golem up as I moved, he said to make a strength save throw, and I end up successfully caring the golem up in the air and make and attack roll in the air to hit the mummy lord, nat 20. I describe on how my dragon picks up the golem in mid air and delivers a rock bottom to the golem hitting the mummy lord from high up in the air and hitting him on impact. The result from this knocks both the mummy lord and golem prone as well as knocking one of our new players unconscious. The fight ended as the rest of the party destroys the heart, mummy lord and golem. Out of the combat step we ended up stabilizing the new guy's character as my fighter celebrates by giving the townspeople nearby the people's eyebrow while in dragon form. From there soon after we ened the session with a couple of laughs, even the new guy who's character my dude end up nearly killing. This was one of my most fun sessions playing dnd and probably one of my favorite stories to tell.

[@renata3559]

I have a brother whom is like the guy in the 2nd story. He has a degree in chemistry and is now working in lab equipment. He plays a kenku artificer and its amazing the things he comes up with. I always looked up to him, but when i noticed that about him i did even more so. I love him as a fellow player but fear the day he will join my game when i am the dm

[@Tasfarel]

Defining the town a a helpless place to outsmart the ettercap seems like a far strech. The gm most likely was so nice to let it slip but this was not the genius idea op believes it to be. For the second storry i just will say: This is the way to play an Alchemist/Inventor. Sure this kind of players will keep you on your guard but they will make your game so much better if both sides agree not to break the game with an arms race.

[@taragnor]

Yeah, in D&D no town with active adventurers is ever helpless. That's literally one of the core concepts of the game that adventurers beat back the evil forces and protect civilization.

[@noneofyourbuisness1679]

I remember hearing the second story from somewhere else (Skydieray, I think). If memory serves, Jerry also made a windmill to charge his batteries and was on his way to making a crude nuclear reactor or something

[@Sparklespeed]

I love the artificer story!

[@silverbloodborne9495]

I made a crossbow that was a semi automatic cross bows Could be loaded up with five bolts coated in a slime that cause a chemical reaction when hit that will eat away through flesh and most metals . The character who use it is a magic hunter He hunts and slays those that use magic . He is supposed to be like a bad guy but can be used as a player character

[@bryanphillips341]

This dude, Jerry must have been a race car driver.

[@cyanhb9689]

Level Action Crossbow... It would double the size of the crossbow and almost triple the weight.

[@bretmensen5306]

Finally, one that wasn't pure drama, and was actually enjoyable to listen to.

[@stevenmcdonald4078]

Just be careful on the flop. Fay have a way of coming around to bite you in the ars

[@ryudragon7]

Damn, this dude is an alchemist archivist in real life. But better.

[@Bidmartinlo]

Jerry is like a fantasy-world Doctor Stone and I love it!

[@chriswandell3570]

Jerry, was the best player you could have :)

[@Draithan]

Just because it can be explained irl doesn't mean an pc would be able to regardless of how smart said character is. That's not to say crush their creativity or anything like that but to just keep in mind we have hundreds of years worth of both slow and rapid scientific advancement to help us and a pc just doesn't have all that knowledge to help them make something.

[@rashonx]

I feel like this. If magic works, then science works

[@dodhethompson4841]

Notable about the first story The other player is were never actually prisoners, the only theoretical prisoner that this character had was their familiar So realistically, all they had to do was hand over the familiar via the rules of the contract

[@wintersal7274]

Am I the only one who sees that he in fact, did not hold up his end of the bargain?

[@cassielchrist]

Amazing content. Thank you!

[@nephicus339]

Beware the cunning player who decided to become a warlock. they will rewrite your own fine print while you're writing it.

[@mrjamieb1899]

Video begins at 1:18

[@SilverionX]

My DM just sent this to me. Wonder what that means? :P As long as everyone remembers that we're telling a story together and that the DM should have fun as well, I think it's fine. Just like that time I defeated a Basilisk with an ordinary cloak and a Oil of Slipperiness.

[@timacuff332]

Ive heard that it's reasonable for the result of an artificer doing stuff with wires woth knowledge they have no way of knowing to NOT be 'electricity'.

[@bartlester591]

Jerry was definitely a genius. I have several ideas myself.

[@justinmaitland7335]

One issue with smart players is they take advantage of the fact we stand on the shoulders of giants in regards to sciences. In a world with magic, most ingenuity is stifled on the mechanical front as magic can do it and those inclined to research are wizards instead of engineering. Too much player knowledge, not enough character knowledge.

[@HarrowKrodarius]

Depends on the smart player, I as a fledgling DM that is currently planning to run my first campaign with some of my friends. (world build and written by me) I would allow Jerry. He was a perfect player. I mean, he asked how far he can go. The DM set the limit. basically if he can convince the DM of reasoning and the know how on how to do it. it would be allowed. Every invention was made by being able to convince the DM it would actually work.

[@gergosoos4652]

In DND you have what kind of skill to understand that kind of stuff? Anyway, there is no limit. The RPG I play: MÁGUS you need Alchemy (and Maths), mechanics and craftmanship with metal or wood (for crossbow) and for blueprints: drawing. One has to be on a certain level with those.

[@zobek530]

Did Jerry ever want to be a race car driver? 😂 his character probably could have pulled it off.

[@normal6969]

Yes a certain combat camion with attached player base trailer somes into my mind - steam powered via fire magic. :D

[@droehnix]

The second story I was I confused I thought you were describing episodes of the Dr. Stone anime

[@jonathanmarks3112]

I need more Jerry stories.

[@ProjectRedfoot]

Ok, this was an awesome story

[@VacomaTeParjila]

And that's why contracts are dozens of pages long 😂

[@morecringe89]

If that happens every time, maybe we need to start to step up a little?

[@mixmastermike2128]

thats actually some cool art in the sponsor bro

[@xavierdoesntmatter]

Are the stories about Jerry from 40 years ago because basically everything described was done in ad&d second ed and probably even before that.

[@NatsuDragn33I]

I know it's silly but I feel bad for the ettercap

[@mrmannsalt2444]

Jerry the jereneer

[@Bonana-xw1jq]

We all love Jerry

[@gergosoos4652]

So how is a bugbear's lfe cicle? Egg-larva-fully grown bear?

[@SandySquatch]

I don't think that the DM was at all pissed at the player in the first story.

[@salazzar5631]

Amazing but i really wish his name was "Rick" instead of "Jerry" haha

[@ramirezthesilvite]

Why does this channel always have captions on by default?

[@LordMarvel]

Personally don't like the second story... using our modern understanding of world and how it works in a game where such science would be way less advanced, maybe even less than ours in middle ages due to magic dealing with a lot of things that technology does for us... I would ask, how his characters knows all this stuff? Has he done any experimenting? Because taking scientific knowledge out of your character ass seems like a weird thing to do... If he would like to experiment and make together some mechanic for discovering things, that would be way more acceptable imo.

[@johndoes9305]

Went into the comments for this. How the hell would he know that acid can be used to make batteries? How we he even know a battery could exist? The lever action crossbow is the person implimentation of this, but everything else just seems like "metagaming".

[@LordMarvel]

@@johndoes9305 I wouldn't mind lever action crossbow at all... specially that there is already a self repeating crossbow in game (correct me if I am wrong, I may be remembering 3.5ed)

[@jeremiahlewis410]

@@johndoes9305 You have obviously never done the "nails in a potato" battery method. They were literally using similar methods to what Jerry was talking about back in Greece and Mesopotamia to create electricity to gold-plate vases. It's called electroplating.

[@hanswurst5479]

@@jeremiahlewis410 But do they need to do that in D&D. They have magic for stuff like that. Do they know about electricity?! Why dont they have electrical light in their citys?! Its just some copperwire and magnets... Make magic spinn the thing and you have electricity. They dont do that because no one has investigated in that direction. There just is no reason to do it. In greece they had a good reason because they did not have magic in our world.

[@jamesbrost1367]

Is Jerry... Goblin Slayer?

[@deathdancin]

Interesting

[@craigtucker1290]

The first story was some fine rules lawyering gymnastics that *does not fulfill the letter of the contract* . This would be satisfactory for someone who is lawful evil, who would subvert said contract to mean this, while a lawful neutral would not accept the stretch of a "helpless state," nor would someone who is lawful good who know the spirit of the contract is being subverted. Just a bad call on the DM's part. 2nd story, he made a cho-ko-nu, repeating crossbow which has been in D&D before. And no, one cannot save a breath weapon as it is partly magical and defies real world applications. As for all these real world innovations, Jerry is actually metagaming, using his knowledge, not his characters. Basically, Jerry is cheating.

[@taragnor]

Yeah, honestly, it's silly how clever the guy thought he was. Clearly if the wizard has spells and the barbarian can grapple the thing, then they're not helpless because they're capable of fighting back. Even a lawful evil wouldn't consider that a valid bargain. I thought he was going to do something actually clever like handing over the prisoners and then teleporting them away. Instead he just blatantly ignores the contract and the DM lets him get away with it and he thinks he's some kind of genius. lol.

[@craigtucker1290]

@@taragnor His "clever" argument was that the territory (being referred to as a "state") that the victims were left in was no longer able to defend itself from aggressors, hence a "helpless state." There needs to be some mental gymnastics to come up with this as being an appropriate interpretation of the contract, something a lawful evil creature would try to argue while they are trying to rules lawyer their way out of a consequence. The bad part is that it isn't clever and the DM just handed the player a magic item they asked for without having to earn it. That is not good DMing.

[@taragnor]

@@craigtucker1290 Even if you go with his interpretation, the presence of the adventurers themselves makes the village no longer helpless. I mean, this is D&D, where threats to villages/townships/kingdoms are routinely handled by adventuring do-gooders wiping out threats that would have otherwise taken over. If there's one constant of D&D, it's that no land with active adventurers is ever helpless.

[@craigtucker1290]

@@taragnor Well, that is how some play D&D, where only the heroes are capable of dealing with anything in the game. But this style of play is the cartoonish/video game version of the game that tends to lack verisimilitude and generally not very plausible. The point is that this interpretation required some mental gymnastics and rules lawyering that still did not fulfill the contract. Just bad DMing.

[@HarrowKrodarius]

@@craigtucker1290 your point exactly. I mean if a village is no longer helpless due to a group of 4 Adventurers being present. And the kingdom is collapsing due to missmanagement and an ever growing horde of Undead. after a plague swept the village. and possibly hundreds of undead approaching. and only 4 being able to assist. Yeah that is terribly naïve.

[@sneezeguardable]

The Jerry story is pretty cool but if I was the DM I would have said you're limited to the technology of the setting i.e. magical medieval fantasy so only late medieval and early Renaissance science and technology. Two you are limited to what the character knows. Jerry might know how to build a battery because he studied science, mathematics and engineering is a 21st century university but how would Jerry's character know that? You can't use out of world knowledge in-world otherwise you could have character building high speed rail, computers and hypersonic missiles based off their own personal knowledge.

[@brandond2768]

to quote another commenter "You have obviously never done the "nails in a potato" battery method. They were literally using similar methods to what Jerry was talking about back in Greece and Mesopotamia to create electricity to gold-plate vases. It's called electroplating."

[@sneezeguardable]

That other commenter sounded like a condescending jerk. You can find isolated cases certain civilisations crude primitive versions of certain technology like electroplating or the ancient Greeks creating a steam engine but the general output or power of of these devices was very weak and their application very limited. I would allow a player to electro plate an item using acids and metal, I would not allow him to build a taser. I mean taser were something first created in the later half of the 20th centaury.@@brandond2768

[@hanswurst5479]

@@brandond2768 does not prove anything. they did that in greece because they did not have magic. thats why they researched stuff like that. even if some people in d&d do know of electricity that does not mean that the pc does so as well. On top of that you have to roll if your character knows/remembers things. So at the very least he should have to make several different roles to build a battery.

[@tcironbear21]

He violated the magic contract. The prisoners were not delivered in a helpless state. They were not "delivered". And they were not in a helpless state, they were in the territory of a helpless state.

[@ddqfpluskick]

I'm sort of torn about Jerry. On the one hand having knowledge is useful what does your character have that knowledge. I think Jerry is using a lot of hindsight of modern understanding to make his medieval character more powerful.

[@antoniczarnecki9455]

I mean, Jerry didn't really do anything that special. If anything, the DM sounded a bit inexperienced. Both in conducting games and basic technology.

[@MrThedud33]

Yay first

[@saberq6413]

For all have sinned and the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus God alone

[@kingwildcat6192000]

No offense all things dnd but your sponsor sounds like a word for word copy of the main pathfinder mythical features from wrath of the righteous...

[@cyanhb9689]

Metagaming... Smh

[@denmarkball7728]

sorry but that voice is unbearable

[@lkuhhdsfgasdgvdadfg]

Story 1 also, he dint actually have any prisoner's

[@jamescrawford8538]

Jerry wins mvp