This DM is Way Too Proud of… Killing His Whole D&D Party (+ More) - RPG Horror Stories

[@ZorotheGallade]

Team Rocket Grunt 1: "Prepare for trouble" Team Rocket Grunt 2:" And make it double" Breeder: "Bruh I didn't even prepare my stat sheet, what makes you think I'd prepare for that"

[@ultimateninjaboi]

Fact that she specifically brought sheets of paper to rustle to sell the charade means she 100% understood she was doing bad. This was cheating.

[@diamondblade3490]

Hey y'all! OP from the intro story here. I'm glad I could bring some positivity to the channel, and hearing my own words read back in Crispy's voice is kinda surreal. We actually had our second session yesterday, and everything is going great! Communication works wonders.

[@baseupp12]

One day I want crispy to just read horror stories for an entire hour.

[@Tytoalba777]

He is approaching 200 RPG Horror Stories videos, so I imagine that 200 will be a special hour long video, like he did for episode 100. Hell, maybe even double the length to 2 hours, but that's a lot to ask for.

[@djimonmcdonald9085]

I think one special crispy did real an hour long video

[@johnk9727]

Crispy marathon

[@arandomflorida4201]

Why stop at just one hour?

[@lyudmilapavlichenko7551]

Watch 3 videos. 🤔 I am very smart.

[@zacharysieg2305]

I really felt what Crispy said at the end of the second story; it reminded me of a sermon I saw at summer camp where the pastor was doing his whole thing about trust. Towards the end, he smashed a ceramic mug to bits, likening it to any “stupid” act that betrays someone’s trust. His point being: trust, once broken, is exceedingly difficult to repair.

[@Xylarxcode]

I've seen the smashing cup/glass thing as a reference to trust before, probably because it's just so very fitting. You build up trust and once it's established, you have to at least partially rely on it. However, once it breaks and shatters, you can take the time and effort to put the pieces back together, but just like a mug that's been shattered into smaller pieces, although you can glue it back together to become whole again, the cracks will always remain there. You can never go back to the mug being complete like it was before. That lingering doubt in your mind will always stay there, once trust has been broken.

[@julesmasseffectmusic]

My old DM, rip Jasper, used to get a look of horror on his face when a TPK was close, the DM screen would come out so he could lie, and devine intervention rolls would happen, his eyes would gleem and show us the 1 percent roll. He set those up and roll 2 d6s. We knew Jas they sound different too 2d10s to 15 year gamers.

[@commonviewer2488]

You could ask "why are you proud of that" in lots of contexts

[@angelc286]

I really think DM’s who like to kill off their party members only DM because they want to have control over others. Its a weird kind of power trip.

[@ArcCaravan]

Yep, and then they act like whoever complains is just whining about fair difficulty.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

Intro story: It’s so nice to see people actually communicate! First story: I don’t know why so many DMs insist on being so hostile to their players. You, as the DM, essentially have god powers. There’s no real accomplishment in “winning” against the players, because you can easily just throw the tarrasque at them or say: “rocks fall; everyone dies.” Second story: I bet Breeder gave every DM in the club trust issues with that little stunt. It’s good to see that she at least didn’t kill OP’s enthusiasm for the hobby, and that OP was able to run the campaign again with players who all actually gave a shit. Third story: As I said before, the DM is essentially the god of their game world. A DM “defeating” their players isn’t a big victory or anything to be proud of, because the DM just has an automatic “I win” button. You didn’t do anything special by insta-killing the party, you just pissed all of them off. (Also, as a postscript, I think the only way to win that encounter would be for at least one of the PCs to sacrifice themselves by grappling Strahd and jumping off the balcony with him, holding on so he can’t save himself by turning into a bat. Running water is lethal to vampires, so even if Strahd survives the fall damage, the river will finish him off.) Fourth story: Trying to murder someone over a romantic rejection is undeniably a red flag, but I think the real kicker here is the big tantrum Milena threw over her failure. If you can’t handle the possibility of your character failing, you can’t handle TTRPGs. Of course, it’s completely fair to be upset if the DM is picking on you and refusing to let your character succeed when they reasonably should, but that wasn’t the case here. It was completely reasonable for the assassins Milena hired to want a higher pay for a higher-profile target, and her backup plan was just stupid. What kind of idiot tries to poison a character who’s been established as immune to poison? Milena failed thanks to her own stupidity, and if I was in that group, I’d definitely vote to kick her.

[@robertbryant4669]

Strahd can also turn into mist.

[@unnefer001]

One possible reason to let Milena stay in the game is to continue to watch her fail and rage. Bring some popcorn each game.

[@a.s.208]

I completely agree with everything you said, especially the things you mentioned about DM‘s with God complexes. Also, how is murdering your entire party instantly fun for the DM? If that happens your game is over, and all of your planning is wasted.

[@finnmchugh99]

I had a similar situation when my fighter grappled this vampire knight nearby a river... Our DM was very kind n stuff and the fight was intense. I find it ironic the guy doesn't know why he struggles getting a good gaming group when he pulls these stunts. I as a DM occasionally bring up the partys fumbles as they do mine when I'm a play in good humour, but never deaths or TPKs. If a DM gets their jollies off bragging about TPKs which are as simple as *snap* that, then they aren't DMs just immature manchilds with the social graces of an Otyugh.

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

Personally I always thought the falling damage rules assumed falling onto solid ground. Falling onto water from that height would hurt, but not like solid ground. Say half damage with a possible dex save or athletics check for half damage. But also the DM should have said something to the players like "As you look down at the river, you sense that you may not survive the fall." And for all you players out there remember an arrow shaft thru the heart is a STAKE THRU THE HEART. Just roll high on damage (crit should be automatic for this) when shoving it in with your bow (or hand. And a javelin works pretty good to. Spears normally do not as they are designed to not penetrate so much they get stuck. But then again I allow Mercury to be used as a very deadly poison against lycanthropes as it was known in the past as Quick Silver.

[@marybdrake1472]

Holy crap! An intro story with a positive outcome! Now that is a tavern record of the best sort.

[@catandrobbyflores]

Has to be a record

[@marybdrake1472]

@@catandrobbyflores It's the only one I'm aware of, so, yeah.

[@MrCrunchytime]

I don't know, I feel OP was being whiney because "Rules weren't discussed beforehand" and "friendly fire crit-fail". Like, they've played with these peeps before, they should have confidence that things are fair, not throw a fit because another player had a really bad roll and they were in a position to get hit on accident, which they did not.

[@marybdrake1472]

@@MrCrunchytime Hardly, anyone worth their D.M. screen will always discuss such things before hand and never simply spring stuff like that on the players. It's just bad DMing to do otherwise.

[@MrCrunchytime]

@@marybdrake1472 Doesn't make OP any less whiney. The rules in question weren't even that bad.

[@Mark73]

Guys, rolling your stats in order used to be a thing in the early days of D&D, but even then you picked your class _after_ seeing what your stats were.

[@ArcCaravan]

Tell that to the DM.

[@nora_4188]

I think Rolling Stats in Order can be a fun campaign idea, if you then Build the character and a class around it. Given that the players WANT to do that of coourse ^^´

[@vlanAlf]

I was also once pretty satisfied after killing my entire party as a DM. Back in highschool I was taking a new party, there were four players, two I knew from before, other two were new to me, but they did have experience from playing table top RPGs. The first few advantures were small just around their home town. Little world building. The overall campaign was meant to be pretty classic, returned of the old evil saving the world. I even had wise mage living in the secluded tower far from everyone. So it came to the quest which should have send my part to the world and to leave their hometown. It was meant to be pretty straight forward. The fields was hit by some wierd plague and they were suppoused to go to the capital (they lived in the small dutchy on the edge of civilization) to seek help from the alchemist who would then become main quest giver for the next couple of adventures. Alchemist in the capital was pretty much the only person they knew who could help with the plague on the fields. Or so did I thought. Unfortunately one of the players remembers that on the sheets I gave them before they even starts making their charackters, to make them familiar with my world, was a mention about a wise super powerful mage who lives in the tower far away from everyone. So while everyone else agreed to visit the alchemist, this one guy asked me "How long will it take to visit the wizzard?" "Three months" was my answer. At that point I was pretty sure that alone will discourage him, and if not the rest of the party surely overvotes him. "Lets visit the mage!" he continues "He is way more likely to have answers we are looking for." that was his first agument. Truth is, he wasnt wrong the mage really did have the answers, and unlike the alchemist who would have to do research, mage would be able to give answer straight away. But he lived far away, he was known to not talk to visitors, mainly because his tower stand in the middle of a very lethal and conscious forrest, which pretty much kills all visitors anyway. That was in my world buiding sheets too btw. When rest of the party actually refused, then he said, that if they dissagree than he is going to visit the mage alone, on his own. Means breaking the party. Except we played in his house and literally didnt have anywhere else to meet up. After a couple of attemps to make him change his mind, including me riminding him how dangerous would it be, the rest of the party succumbs and they all agreed to visit the mage, so they prevent to splitting the party. To makes things worse, this all happend at he beging of that session. So we suddenly moved to the teritorry I had basically nothing prepared except couple of notes meant mainly for the end of the entire campaign (of course the mage was the end game stuff). In the end I decided to go easy on them and actuallly allowed them to meet the mage and talk to him. So they return home, they did the ritual to clense the fields, they died, they have been resurrected by the powerfull entity after couple of days (this was actually always the plan, it wasnt a strange punishment for them to talking with mage). They reutrn to their hometown for reward and they found out the reward was already collected by another party (this was the punishment for going in the wrong way). This actually wasnt out of blue, this other party was there before. They were from the different town, they investigated plauge as well. Originally they were suppoused to help each other during the subquests, but since my party was gone I let them to figure everything out. Since my party now lacked the connection to the alchemist from the capital, I changed my plans a little bit and made two legendary heroes to passing the town. Now it was them who were meant to be tickets for the big world for my party. But my party has different plans. They want revange. So they join the celebration of the NPC party, lure them out, planed to kill them all. In the end my party actually decide to let one guy lived. Plan was to cast the spell on the guy so he would spread the rumor that the NPC party was killed in the forrest by wild animals, so players party would be completely of the hook. At that moment I myself had an idea, so I took two dices, and cast. First was if the NPC will resist the spell and second if he has same idea as I just got. Both succeded. So NPC guy run the town, but with the truth of what happend. He just pretend to be under the spell. This pretty much meant doom for players party. The two legendary NPC chased them. Players didnt even run, they believed that truth is on their side. They make a pretty good arguments, but then they let the suvivor from the NPC party talked. I had they story prepared, just in case players would asked them, I didnt expect it would come to this. And so the suvivor told the story, how his party for three months worked hard, studied, explored tombs, made tests for the alchemist, even few of his friends died, but in the end they did find the answer. They went to the right place, the made the ritual, but nothing happend. They were ashmed so rather then retutn to their home town they went to the players home towm, There they found out the plague is gone. They thought it was thx to them and their ritual, so they accepted the reward and celebrated and then players showed up and kill everybody. My players actually reacted to the story with words "omg, we are such a bastards". after which the entire players party died.

[@ArcCaravan]

Feels like this shows not every TPK set up by a DM is inherently bad.

[@Xylarxcode]

Something you probably know by now, but might not have known back then, is that you should never include anything in your details or lore build up that you're not prepared to improvise for. It doesn't matter how small or insignificant your detail is, there's always the chance a player will latch onto that small part of the story and start obsessing over it. You may not have intended it to be anything important (whether temporarily or permanently), but now they're tunnelvisioned on that one thing and they want to know everything there is to know about it. Players almost always go off-track and do something unexpected you didn't/couldn't prepare for and forced you to improvise. Every single detail you add has the potential to be something important to a player, even if you only meant for it to be irrelevant. As a DM, I find that I'm forced to do a lot of improvising. It's impossible to prepare for everything and you shouldn't. Most of your preparations will go to waste anyway (although you can always recycle them for later use) and players will focus on the most random thing you put in your world and if you didn't put anything special, they'll just start asking random questions until they find something they want to focus on. That something may (and often is) be a thing you pulled out of your butt on the spot, but now you're stuck with it as an important story elementand need to flesh it out further, because the party decided it was important to them somehow.

[@commonviewer2488]

Good to hear a tale every now and then that resolves in a content group

[@PaladinGear15]

The bragging DM reminds me of this DM I heard of who used to put stars on his DM screen. Silver for killing a PC, gold for TPK's, and the guy had like 25 gold stars, it was pretty pathetic to hear about honestly. While not every combat I run is challenging, when players do come face to face with something deadly, while I am rooting for them; I play it out exactly how it would go depending on the monster, like how a hungry adult basilisk will just try to kill them, a basilisk trying to defend its home will try to turn them to stone, etc, I think that's how it should be.

[@LordRenegrade]

17:22 - I agree completely. That's not a bragging point at all for that crappy DM. The real challenge is to push the players right to the edge so that they have to use every bit of their skill and power to overcome a difficult encounter. The DM "wins" when the players have the most fun, not when he kills them.

[@slothdance2020]

Early D&D editions did have that states were in the order you rolled them. SO you would roll stats and then decide on a class and make a character. It was only later that the stat buy or rolling extra and dropping or even straight rolling and picking where they go started to be used.

[@nikki594]

Love your videos! Here’s my own horror story. A year ago, I (25F) picked up a few players from a “Get to know DnD” seminar my university hosted. After some chatting, I thought I’d found a nice group (experienced players only) and invited them to my place. Four strangers showed up: the first guy was playing a Monk, the second had built a female Paladin and also brought his girlfriend, who played a tortle Cleric. I looked at their sheets and it all seemed fine until the fourth guy arrived half an hour late, looking rather unkempt (unwashed hair, stained shirt, you know the type). He played an Elven Mage, and his sheet was mostly blank. Apparently, he’d “forgotten” to pick spells, but since he was a self-proclaimed DnD expert, no biggie. Except he also didn’t know how to roll ability checks. Turns out, the “years of experience” he’d boasted about was watching a few episodes of Critical Role. Paladin and Cleric had to help him out with every single roll. Meanwhile, his level one character insisted that “No! He was an expert in Nature!” And in arcana. And in medicine. And in survival. And so on. He stated that his character knew everything there was to know about Every. Single. Skill. No irony involved, mind you. Of course he didn’t have the stats to back it up. It got old very quickly, but at least we had a fun session otherwise. Paladin, Monk and Cleric were fun, sociable and generally lovely to be around. The next session rolled around and Mage cancelled the day of. Bummer, but we had a blast anyways. Before the next meeting, I asked the Mage what his character had been doing while the others were off adventuring. “Everything”, the player said. Huh? “Everything important,” he repeated. I still didn’t get it. “What do you mean?” - “I do everything important for the plot.” He wanted me to tell him what was gonna happen next. Yeah, that ain't happening. When I told him he could only do or look up specific things, he got really annoyed. “Fine. Then I don’t do anything.” Um, okay. I was really confused at that point. Was he playing his know-it-all character out of game? Did he misunderstand my question? In the end I let it go and prepared the session. He showed up, late again, and I described how the characters met up. They got pickpocketed by some female street urchins who proceeded to flirt with the group in an ironic and over the top manner, trying to weasel their way out after they were caught in the act (think along the lines of “Oh dear sir! I was so blinded by your handsomeness, I didn’t know what I was doing!”). I thought the encounter might be a fun way to break the ice (it’s worked in the past), but it got awkward quickly. The Mage “flirted back” aggressively, if you can call it that. He leered at me, leaned in close to my screen and asked how big their boobs were. He said they owed him for trying to steal from the group. When he proceeded to describe how his character put his hands on one girl’s shoulders, sliding them under her shirt… She kneed him in the groin and took off. Mage got really angry out of game since he didn’t get a roll, but I had decided that this was their (and my own!) natural reaction to his creepy come on. Honestly, I just wanted out of that situation. I still don’t know whether he was trying to flirt with me out of game. I don’t want to know. Weirder still, Mage’s character then started to flirt with the suddenly “super hot” female paladin. Paladin rebuffed his advances, of course. It was very uncomfortable all around, especially since Paladin’s real life girlfriend was sitting right next to the action. The game continued until Mage left abruptly half an hour later, way before the established end time. We decided as a group (in a unanimous vote) not to invite him back, so I wrote him a message stating that he didn’t fit with the group. He replied with a long rant about how unfair I was being, in and out of game, for making his character a villain “who didn’t get to do anything cool”. And how I was abusing my powers as GM to destroy his happiness. I didn’t answer, but the other guys let me know that he tried to convince them to let him back into the group behind my back.

[@AuntLoopy123]

The problem was not a badly drawn map. The problem was that when the player asked the DM, "Can I hide in this BUSH," the DM did NOT reply, "That's not a bush. That's an ooze monster." Also, who DRAWS THE MONSTER ON THE MAP? You use a TOKEN or MINI! That is ALL, 100%, on the DM's lack of accountability. It's as if he was TRYING for a "gotcha" moment, and claiming his poor artistic skill is to blame, when he DREW THE MONSTER AS PART OF THE MAP, in the first place, and then said, "Oh, sure, you can hide in the BUSH," in the second place. That LYING BASTARD was out to kill the party! Also, IF you're going to roll stats in order, you do NOT decide the class first. You roll, and then say, "What class best fits these stats?" BAD DM! LYING BASTARD DM!

[@ArcCaravan]

Nice analysis.

[@TigerKirby215]

The player in story 2 is so upset that they actually have to pay attention lmao. Like "I could've gotten away with being a pretty face who gets everything I want without trying, if it wasn't for your meddling, other girl!"

[@aegisScale]

Bro story 4💀 Reminds me of a time a DM of mine gave two bags of holding to a player in a dire situation (we were being attacked by a monster), all but asking that player (who was one of his friends and was a character/player who was fairly impulsive) to put the two in each other. Of course normally this is just a great way of dying but in this case just caused the end of the otherwise directionless campaign. Could've been a bigger dick move, but he still looked _super_ proud of himself for that Catch-22.

[@ZorotheGallade]

Well, you can definitely do worse than destroy a monster by causing a localized cessation of existance

[@aegisScale]

@@ZorotheGallade true, however under that DM two bags going into each other means an existence-ending void only an overpowered NPC could fix in a cutscene (and for the record we were like level 5 or 6 so ain't no way we'd have the means to do it ourselves). So if he wanted to the DM could've ruled that both players in there were just toast (they were in a building separated from the party), since I don't remember how the hell they got out.

[@ZorotheGallade]

@@aegisScale Ugh, reality bending NPCs/DMPCs. Gotta love them.

[@wolf1066]

That 3.5DM who listened to criticism and worked with another DM to make a compromise version for the players - that's legit the scariest thing I've ever heard in any of these videos. Sooooo Strange and Unearthly!

[@saverna1]

That last game sounds like it was based on Dune, I'm super interested in reading the source book! Thanks for reading Crispy!

[@Obstreperous_Octopus]

I hear stories like this, and feel glad that I've had very few such encounters, and never any as bad as some you've described in these videos. (I'm enjoying this series, btw, and appreciate the insights and advice. Glad I came across your channel!)

[@LucyBean42]

For fumbles, I do an abstract roll. I roll 2d12, and make the fumble more severe the higher it goes. An average roll isnt that punishing either, but it leaves a lot open to interpretation and situation. My players like it a lot.

[@23gameoverlord]

I've always been curious on how a DnD version of Pokemon would actually play out? I heard of these types of games, but I keep forgetting to look them up, and still curious.

[@cobaltcouatl1476]

Pokémon table top United! I recognize the system from the way the story was told. I’ve never actually played through a campaign of it but I fell in love with the system and started to GM. What this player did hurts my soul! Oh my gosh I can’t! I feel like I’m being a good first GM for new players to the system. I’m personally helping everyone with their sheets and taking them through a session 0 where I give them some one on one time with their starter Pokémon and take them through a Pokémon battle or two. Just so I can see how well they understand the system. I can understand not understanding how the classes work and all of the features. But oh my gosh! To get through the whole campaign? And to not write anything on your sheet? This hurts! This hurts so much! And she was a breeder? That means she hatched a lot of Pokémon. How did someone not notice this sooner? I really do understand as a GM for the system. There’s a lot you have to keep track of. But oh my gosh! She had so many Pokémon. You should’ve seen at least how she was leveling them up. Or not. Lol I feel the GM’s pain!

[@dadadajasper]

Not knowing the rules with the example "the order the stats were rolled were the order they'd be put on the character sheet" That is a way of stat rolling that is sometimes used. You can't put that on the DM, you could've opted out when that came up. In this case; the players should've decided AFTERWARDS what classes they'd be playing with the stats they'd rolled. Can't blame the DM for the players making rogues with low dex and barbarians with high int in this case.

[@NaBa.O3O]

"Why are you proud of that?" That's my question as well...

[@nathandielmann549]

I love how Eugenia just casually handles it in the last story

[@shadiafifi54]

Proud Killer DM: So what did said DM expect when everyone kicked him out of the groups and refused to play at any of his games? That's the problem with Killer DMs; unless you have similar expectations (i.e. you both love hard, grueling fights and a high chance of TPK), it's not going to be fun for the players. Add to that, he's clearly out to "gotcha" the players and kill them off in cheap ways, which even old school players would see as excessive, so that's not going to be fun for anyone, either. So yeah, the biggest problem the Killer DM faces is that, eventually, everyone wises up to him and stops playing with him. Which, ironically, proves his players are the more mature people there and show it by not engaging with something which is just a headache. And that the DM was the immature man-baby for wanting to "win" and getting upset when his players decide to just not play. Dune Game: Milena has clearly never read the Dune books; Bene Gesserit can neutralize poisons in their own bodies. Hell, they're basically so eugenically bred and biologically trained to _feel_ their own biology and even detect poisons in their own body which allows them to counteract them. You'd think such miraculous powers would be more commonly known in Dune, or at least something Milena would know given her rank and connections. But yeah, Milena went way over the line, and I hope they can talk sense to her, or just remove her from the group entirely.

[@Jermbot15]

Being a killer DM is usually bad. I think the bigger issue is that he's simply a bad DM. Party sees Strahd, party runs from Strahd, party jumps to their death is a boring story and a bad game. Fighting Strahd epicly but falling after a hard fought battle can be good, sometimes a loss can be a satisfying conclusion on it's own or it can energize the players to pick themselves up and try again. If done well.

[@Endar0]

I guess the DM didn't advise her to roll for knowledge.

[@ArcCaravan]

@@Endar0 Based on the story, DM assumed she read the notes like she said she did.

[@joshuaturner4602]

So I have done rolling stats down the line before, and whenever I roll stats this is how I do it, but the important feature this dm seems to have ignored is you roll FIRST then pick your class, you don't pick the class, and then roll the stats and hope they don't suck. but most of the rest of that stuff is kinda dumb

[@krishina89]

I played a game where during the very first combat was when I learned that if your attack missed, not critical failed just if you were one below the AC, your attack would then hit something else. And I figured that out when I rolled, missed, and my attack killed a townsperson, instantly making nearby civilians hate me and putting me in the awkward position of wondering what I was supposed to be doing during combat.

[@ArcCaravan]

It feels like Crispy mistook the NPC Eugenia as another player. I may be mistaken, but it sounded weird when Milena was accused of killing players when Troy was the only targeted player.

[@TigerKirby215]

As someone who isn't very artistically talented either: it's not that hard to label things, or simply... clarify what things are when asked? Especially when the Rogue asks multiple times if the "green blob" is a bush or an enemy I would've just told him "hey that's actually an enemy." This isn't adversarial DMing: this is someone who doesn't care about their game making it everyone else's problem. It's someone going on a power trip acting smug because they literally control the entire world.

[@cemiller]

the third story reminded me of a problem player who admitted that if he ran a game everyone would have multiple characters because he would go out of his way to make the game as hard as possible and would tpk the party every session.

[@lordbrowning]

"Bin Giserit"... Crispy, you're killing me...

[@kaiserwilliams6833]

Crispy, the cheating player in "There's something wrong here" brought extra paper to shuffle. These sheets were on paper and hidden behind some form of DM screen, not on a computer screen.

[@lkb3190]

Wow, 3rd story reminds me of my intro to 3rd ed... with a party that was half essentially new players we made 10th level characters for a module, but were only given starter equipment... and he bragged afterwards of a one session TPK. (Not even accurately, my rogue had been knocked out early with temp Con damage and stuffed in the fighter's backpack, we made the rolls that night and she survived when he fell off the tower.)

[@Endar0]

It's pretty clear Milena knows nothing about the Dune lore.

[@ArcCaravan]

She didn't even read the notes available to her either.

[@sunzi42]

Typical behavior of a cheater to get angry on the person finding out she is a cheater, when everybody start to check her papers.

[@ArcCaravan]

Yep. If it's only cheating when you get caught, it's the fault of whoever caught you for your cheating.

[@asioca1992]

Intro Story: Rare footage of a table being able to resolve a problem out of game and work out a compromise that allows everyone to more or less get what they want. Seriously, if only all stories could end like this, but if it did then none of us would be here. 1st Story: Yeah, this DM is garbage. It's one thing to create a tough (but fair) encounter that tests the players on their skills, it's another thing to create a meat grinder where the only thing that matters is bigger numbers to kill bigger enemies. Also, screwing over the Rogue by having them do nothing for half an hour after punishing them due to your lack of artistry is a dick move. There's a reason why you're supposed to clarify "are you sure?" when the player does something that may screw them over, because if your slime looks like a bush and you're unwilling to answer their questions on what something is on the map, it just makes you look like a dick. 2nd Story: I'll never understand the logic of joining a game, being handed a character sheet, and not recording anything throughout the entirety of the campaign so you can keep track of your stuff during play. The fact that she was able to do this for as long as she did really really says a lot about her and the club, but at least they started to check her stuff after that point. Better late than never. 3rd Story: Why is it always Curse of Strahd? Seriously, why is it always Curse of Strahd? That aside, the DM is another one who is absolutely the worst. Your goal as a DM shouldn't be to TPK the party, especially if you only killed them due to an error in communication. I hope he enjoys not having a group to run for anymore, but I guess people like this would consider it a Pyrrhic victory at worse. 4th Story: Honestly, trying to kill someone's IC fiance because you're a horny bard who got rejected by another PC (who is, again, engaged) and not looking into what her target brought to the table, is already a massive red flag. Not really much else to say besides that tbh, she's just lucky that her assassination attempts weren't discovered IC, or else the story would've taken a distinct turn for the worst for her character.

[@Tytoalba777]

3rd story: Not Curse of Strahd, as this would have been back during the days of 3rd edition or earlier, while Curse of Strahd came out only in 2016.

[@ArcCaravan]

@@Tytoalba777 Still another Strahd based horror story. Probably a mix of popularity or reputation for difficulty.

[@TheZMage]

So I take, like, no notes for anything in my games and I know that’s a problem, but at least I track my character sheets (and, admittedly, I’ve forgotten to take experience in PbtA games some times)

[@madvulcan8964]

17:27 Just wondering if you carry a small barrel of water to pour out then use the cantrip shape water to make a mini flowing water in frond or around you would it dieter the vampire?

[@kassandrapatrick9064]

I genuinely don't understand these people as a DM. When I run a game, the players' joy is my joy. I love seeing them succeed, ruin my well-laid plans in spectacular fits or genius (or hilarious dumb luck), and role-play even just slice of life type moments with one another. To unironically see squashing that experience as an accomplishment.. I just don't understand. Truly, why are you proud of that?

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

You would assume the cheater girl was doing it out of laziness but for me that theory falls apart when you get to the part where she brought extra blank sheets of paper to cheat simulate the sound of paying attention. Like she was PREPARING every session to cheat MORE EFFICIENTLY. Clearly it's not about the effort at that point lol

[@ArcCaravan]

Good point. Definitely points to her not wanting to actually risk defeat by only allowing her character to suffer if it isn't inconvenient.

[@liontamer4581]

I swear I feel like I would have a horror story from me being a new DM. I'm just paranoid like that

[@l0stndamned]

Any DM can make a TPK. There's no achievement or challenge to it. Running a fun game is more of a challenge.

[@hellbreakfast1590]

I just... yeah, why are you proud of that really IS all I could think of.

[@TigerW0lf]

Of course she hated the op afterwards, she exposed her cheating.

[@theaniman]

I wasn't proud of this, but THEY were proud of that? Crispy should be proud though.

[@NBluth]

I once ran a campaign with crit fumble charts and this one guy, poor dude, lost 3 characters to friendly fire. It was a 4 man party. He was killed by each of the other players one by one. The real kicker is only one of them even killed him with nat 1s, the other two just got really sloppy with AoE magic items

[@HiatoPDSS]

About the intro story, OP should have specified that he wasn't playing RAW 3.5, there are no to-hit rolls for spells in 3.5 and let alone the walock class, that was added in 5e. Also, the OPTIONAL rule for nat 1s and 20s is only auto miss/hit, critical fumbles are and always have been homebrew. The way OP wrote makes it look like 3.5 has some weird and unreasonable rules, when it is actually the DMs house rules that caused the problem. In short: OP seems to be blaming 3.5 for the problems with the session when the problem came from the House Rules, which, to me, sounds like one of those people who want to say "other edition bad, my edition good" putting the whole story into question

[@MrCrunchytime]

OP freaked out over literally nothing. It wasn't unfair, and ultimately nothing happened in the end. I feel like OP couldn't cope with SLIGHTLY more complicated rules and threw a fit. Oh, but look how good the DM is for "aCcEpTiNg CrItIcIsM"! Look, before anyone gets the wrong idea, DMs do need to be receptive of critical feedback, particularly in instances where there's an ACTUAL problem, not some kid whining because the DM played with slightly different rules than they were used to.

[@HiatoPDSS]

Yes, and because of how trustworthy he seems I believe that he was in fact in the way of the eldritch blast, and not next to the warlock, so that's why the DM made them roll to see if the attack hit OP instead

[@MrCrunchytime]

@Hiato That, and it was because of the crit-fail. I play with two DMs who both have crit-fail tables that include "friendly fire"; doesn't happen often, and even when it does the attack usually misses anyway, no biggie. And even when it does it, we just laugh it off and keep playing.

[@MathewPatrick]

"Why are you proud of that?!"

[@lilmaibe]

Bit of a tangent here, but it's quite fascinating to see how often people with a severe DM vs Players mentality always seem to shy away from systems like PARANOIA, which is pretty much the epitome of DM vs Player. It's bizarre to see.

[@ArcCaravan]

Not everyone knows enough tabletop games to get the perfect system for them. Sometimes it's easier to homebrew a system only they enjoy.

[@lilmaibe]

@@ArcCaravan Ah, I should have clarified: This is when people with that mentality learn about games like PARANOIA, even play a session... it's bizarre.

[@ZedMazaus480]

The Pokemon TTRPG story made me think. What if the critical roll characters were pokemon, characters in the world, or just portraying already existing characters? What/who would they be, and how would it effect the poke universe. In the end I concluded it'd probably end up being a much less PG-13 version of Starter Squad no matter who was what. Frightening or envigorating? You decide.

[@destroyerinazuma96]

I had a proud GM... rightfully proud of having run CoS for the first time to unanimous applause. Party quasi TPKed thanks to their own decisions tho, not the GM's :)

[@luke208]

As for the second story where the player didn't track anything on their sheet: While I don't really condone doing this in a game where it's assumed, probably agreed upon to ... track stuff on your sheet, I can see people being avert to that thing. I've been playing for a while now, playing many different TTRPGs, and the level of my enjoyment of tracking stuff has varied GREATLY over time. At some point I tracked every roll I made to see how much "experience" in this skill my character would make. I also had made up a rule about how armor would wear down with every hit where it reduced damage and lose its damage reduction to see how often my character would have to repair the armor. In more recent times I've become more and more against tracking inventory items and equipment in general, only noting special items. In other games I'm also not even interested in stuff like hit points etc. The same goes for session notes. I usually try to take SOME notes during a session, sometimes really in detail, sometimes only a couple of bullet points. This doesn't really correlate with how much I'm invested with the game either. It's just that ... sometimes I feel like tracking stuff and sometimes I don't. And I can see how some people might feel tracking stuff to be like work or homework, or there might be learning difficulties at play, dyslexia, difficulty focusing on stuff like that - I don't know, I'm not a psychologist. So TL;DR: Yea, this might be annoying but maybe there are reasons a player acts that way other than they're just not cooperative.

[@ArcCaravan]

It sounds like you and the cheater have different issues regarding tracking information. In her case she reacted like someone who wanted plot convenience for her character rather than getting sick of tracking minute details.

[@Tijggie82]

"Boyfriend upgraded himself to Fiance..." Lol, can't even upgrade myself to girlfriend 😭

[@TheAnonyomusGuy]

If you have some way of breaking the water surface and it is Deep enough for your character to be submergedThen it is very feasible that a person would survive such a fall because people have in the past. Most of those people were hurt pretty badly but they were alive

[@richardalatorre4006]

The map thing can be remedied by either giving the players copies of the color map, using different colors for things, using minis for intractable objects, etc. Overall 1 star.

[@ElanorBrooks-nw9cn]

An economist named Reeve.... 🐈

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

A lot of these guys need to start writing books. Failure in writing is often a path to better writing for the introspective.

[@ArcCaravan]

That'd require these guys be introspective or care about their worlds beyond killing players, which is infinitely easier than writing a successful book.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

I notice a lot of people want their characters to enthrall other player characters with emotion and thusly defeat the other player by taking agency as if that’s what love does

[@ArawnNox]

To be fair on the first story, roll in order is a very old school ADnD rule... that fell out of favor because it sucks.

[@ArcCaravan]

At least you admit it sucks. Everyone else pointing that out just aknowledge it existed or supports it.

[@ArawnNox]

@@ArcCaravan It can be an interesting challenge if you have no plans for a character, but too often you end up with something overpowered or underpowered. It's why I prefer point-buy systems.

[@ArcCaravan]

@@ArawnNox I just feel the roll in order is an outdated system that at best arbitrarily extends character creation.

[@ArawnNox]

@@ArcCaravan You're not wrong. And nothing is more frustrating than "I wanna play a wizard" and end up with a 6 or 8 in Intelligence

[@dalepalm1138]

... exactly, use different color dry erase marker and white board or a pen and paper with different color pens or pencil..?

[@KamiKazeKayaK]

But like, 1st. Also, wanna run a game for you, Crispy.

[@emberfist8347]

When I first heard the final story, I though the DM was having the poison be slow acting for the simple reason that poison in real life doesn't instantly cause someone to fall over and die. Particularly not in the arm. It will take a while for the poison to travel through the bloodstream. Not an expert on poisons mind you just noting that that a DM would use that justification if they didn't want the player to instantly be killed for murdering an important political figure. It is what I would do in one of my games.

[@Endar0]

While that would work, the character in this case has training to turn poison in her body into something not poison.

[@ArcCaravan]

Good point. Not sure if Milena ever thought of that.

[@emberfist8347]

@@ArcCaravan She didn’t given the story has her reacting as if it didn’t work as soon as the character pulls out the needle. One thing the story left out was how long the poison needed to start effecting her. I just assumed Milena wasn’t given a timeframe.

[@DirkLoechel]

WHY ARE YOU PROUD OF THAT?!

[@Rocksteady72a]

Hey Crispy, what site do you use for your D&D maps? I am an artless art student (film does that), so I'm really curious what site was scrolling down in that clip 5:20?

[@broke_af_games9661]

That would have been awesome if stride chase them off into the river and they ended up at the bottom looks like one hit point or on death scenes or something like an out of the frying pan and into the fire scenario.... Ah well.

[@AomoriKryhavek]

Rolling a nat 1 and potentially hitting someone in melee range is raw or am I mistaken

[@beesus1412]

it's not raw

[@ryanahr2267]

@@beesus1412 Oh. Well, it's what I've done in the case of a lot of nat 1s.

[@beesus1412]

@@ryanahr2267 in 5e a 1 on an attack roll is an automatic miss and it's an optional rule to have the same apply to attack rolls and ability checks. that's basically it, it's a house rule

[@zixserro1]

First Story: If the DM was that hostile and the characters were so poorly-made via the DM's lack of knowledge of how character creation works, the players should've just let him get his precious TPK. He clearly wanted it bad enough to continue screwing the players over, so just let him have it and walk away.

[@DANTVSVERGIL]

Well to be fair, the way the DM had stats rolled has been in D&D ever since White Box/Edition 0 all the way to like 3.0/3.5, the thing is, 2e gave 5 other options on how to roll characters. Now I’m not saying that he’s a good DM by any stretch, especially with how he handled the players and just the campaign in general, but with that very very old way of rolling it’s always, Roll First, THEN pick your class. The imbalance could’ve been mitigated at least a bit if the players had followed that simple line of logic. OP said they’ve been DM for several years at that point, so they should at the very least of had that knowledge, but at the same time, if the DM knew older edition rules and was going to play by them, then they should’ve told the players that.

[@ArcCaravan]

Why reward the DM for being a jerk rather than walk away without giving him TPK satisfaction? If they walked away there wouldn't be a story.

[@DANTVSVERGIL]

I'm curious as to what Edition the First Stories DM started off with. Rolling Stats in order has ALWAYS been a way to build characters, like, since Edition 0/White Box all the way to like 3.5. 2e gave optional rulings. In fact. I'm going to quote the Rolling Rules straight from my 2e Handbook. "Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook, pages 18 and 19. Chapter 1: Player Character Ability Scores: To venture into the worlds of the AD&D game, you first need to create a character. The character you create is your alter ego in the fantasy realms of this game, a make-believe person who is under your control and through whom you vicariously explore the world the Dungeon Master (DM) has created. Each character in the AD&D game has six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The first three abilities represent the physical nature of the character, while the second three quantify his mental and personality traits. In various places throughout these rules, the following abbreviations are used for the ability names: Strength-Str; Dexterity-Dex; Constitution-Con; Intelligence-Int; Wisdom-Wis; Charisma-Cha Rolling Ability Scores: Lets first see how to generate ability scores for your character, after which definitions of each ability will be given. The six ability scores are determined randomly by rolling six-sided dice to obtain a score from 3 to 18. There are several methods for rolling these scores. -Method 1: Roll three six-sided dice (3d6); the total shown on the dice is your character’s Strength ability score. Repeat this for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, in that order. This method give a range of scores from 3 to 18, with most results in the 9 to 12 range. Only a few character have high scores (15 and above), so you should treasure these characters." Alternative Dice-Rolling Methods: Method 1 creates characters whose abilities scores are usually between 9 and 12. If you would rather play a character of truly heroic proportions, ask your DM if he allows players to use optional methods for rolling up character. These optional methods are designed to produce above-average characters. -Method 2: Roll 3d6 twice, noting the total of each roll. Use whichever result you prefer for your character's Strength score. Repeat this for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This allows you to pick the best score from each pair, generally ensuring that your character does not have any really low ability scores (but low ability scores are not all that bad anyway!) -Method 3: Roll 3d6 six times and jot down the total for each roll. Assign the scores to your character's six abilities however you want. This gives you the chance to custom-tailor your character, although you are not guaranteed high scores. -Method 4: Roll 3d6 twelve times and jot down all twelve totals. Choose six of these rolls (generally the six best rolls) and assign them to your character's abilities however you want. This combines the best of methods 2 and 3, but takes somewhat longer. As an example, Joan rolls 3d6 twelve times and gets results of 12, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 9, 12, 6, 11, 10, and 7. She chooses the six best rolls (15, 12, 12, 11, 10, and 10) and then assigns them to her characters abilities so as to creates the strengths and weaknesses that she wants her character to have (see the ability descriptions following this section for explanations of the abilities). -Method 5: Roll four six-sided dice (4d6). Discard the lowest die and total the remaining three. Repeat this five more times, then assign the six numbers to the character's abilities however you want. This is a fast method that gives you a good character, but you can still get low scores (after all, you could roll 1s on all four dice!) -Method 6: This method can be used if you want to create a specific type of character. If does not guarantee that you will get the character you want, but it will improve your chances. Each ability starts with a score of 8. Then roll seven dice. These dice can be added to your character's abilities as you wish. All the points on a die must be added to the same ability score. For example, if a 6 is rolled on one die, all 6 points must be assigned to one ability. You can add as many dice as you want to any ability, but no ability score can exceed 18 points. If you cannot make an 18 by exact count on the dice, you can not have an 18 score." These are all of the options from White Box/Edition 0 and AD&D 1 (Method 1), and 2e (Obviously, all of the other Methods, some of which are still used in 5e). Now this isn't a way to defend the DM, this is specifically in response to OP's statement of "not knowing the rules (he let players roll for stats but told them the order they roll them in was the order they go on paper." Clearly, given what I had just outlined, that was the primary method of rolling characters. I point this out because the Players are not entirely blameless either, because of this continuing line: "(We had rogues with low Dex, and barbarians with high Int, it was ridiculous." At that point, it is now the players fault for having those kinds of characters. Especially when the rollings rules were laid out. If you have a High Strength and Low Dex, why would you play a rogue? Same with a Low Strength, High Intelligence Barbarian. At that point, you know what the primary stats you need are, why would you continue to play a class that lacks the primary stat. Because this game was clearly being played like an older edition game where: "Roll First, Choose Class (that fits with the parameters of the stats that were rolled) Last" was prevalent. Again, as I've already stated this comment is in no way me defending the DM. This comment is to point out that the players (especially OP) are not completely innocent and can be given blame as well. Especially with OP's more "mightier than thou" kind of attitude the entire post, clearly shown by the "fixed by moi" comment. If OP had been DMing for as long as they said they were, then they should've known that multiple variations of rolling existed to some extent. And Hell, if they had phones on them, they quite literally could've just looked up the different rolling rules that existed instead of acting like the DM just pulled that ruling out of his ass.

[@RioDrake]

Critical fumbles aren't core to 3.5 last I played...

[@tobak952]

i personally like crit fumbles, but they should never, ever EVER be capable of straight up killing a player.

[@M_Alexander]

Wait what's this Pokémon TTRPG and where can I find more info on it?

[@hollowblaze2320]

Hellz yeah God of War!!!!!

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Bragging? Finest hour? He doesn’t realize the dm has god powers and takes pride in killing off his players instead of writing stories with them

[@sophiescott143]

"let the players roll for stats but told them the order they rolled them in was the order they went on the paper" "not knowing the rules" I wouldn't say that's not knowing the rules, I'd say that's using a well-known extant variant that's been in the D&D culture for many years

[@gramfero]

My favourite stat gen variant 3d6 in order

[@sophiescott143]

@@gramfero That's a pretty good variant, very useful for hardcore games with a moderate to high difficulty.

[@ArcCaravan]

Not everyone is a DnD culture historian.

[@artmanxp]

Why would you be proud of tpks? I feel like crap for accidentally killing a player, let alone the whole party.

[@deepseastonecore3017]

A star walks into a black hole but doesn't seen phased. The black hole then turns to the star and says, "I don't think you understand the gravity of this situation."

[@ArcCaravan]

Are you the element joke guy trying a different pun?

[@Serbinderbintine]

Engagement

[@carlosbaroni1158]

I really don’t get those DMs that make the players take the stats in order of rolling. That’s just dumb

[@ArcCaravan]

Apparently it's an older way to make characters, but it's based on picking classes based on the stats. I don't like it because it doesn't help make a specific character you want to play, just makes a random starting point nobody has control over.

[@Curriation]

Why would you be proud of that?

[@glorygrandeur7545]

Why are you proud of that

[@Twisted_Logic]

Down the line stat rolling can be fun, but that DM seems to have missed the point. The idea is to build the character around the stats. It's a great way to get out of your comfort zone and try a new playstyle you may not have considered. But this? It sounds awful

[@ArcCaravan]

I think there's better ways to get players out of their comfort zone. It feels like it forces character creation to be on the fly too much.

[@Twisted_Logic]

@@ArcCaravan Naturally, it should be an opt-in only thing, and is better for shorter term campaigns. But some of my favorite characters I've ever played have been from that method of character generation.

[@picses76]

Why Are You Porud Of That?!

[@dextrodemon]

i think the dm was the bad player with the girl not keeping any stats, if she could play fine and everyone was happy then fine, making the whole story end badly because of it was mean and pointless.

[@cobaltcouatl1476]

I wouldn’t necessarily say the DM was bad. But I’m running the system right now. It’s really complicated. And at this point in the campaign there’s so much to keep track of. I believe that theDM was just hurt! She put so much work into her first campaign only for a player to just, not! Should she have reacted like that? Absolutely not! That was the climax of the campaign and the other players shouldn’t be disappointed because of one player. but I would understand the fury, pain, and disappointment of the moment. No it’s not best to act irrationally but it happened.

[@cobaltcouatl1476]

I wouldn’t necessarily say the DM was bad. But I’m running the system right now. It’s really complicated. And at this point in the campaign there’s so much to keep track of. I believe that theDM was just hurt! She put so much work into her first campaign only for a player to just, not! Should she have reacted like that? Absolutely not! That was the climax of the campaign and the other players shouldn’t be disappointed because of one player. but I would understand the fury, pain, and disappointment of the moment. No it’s not best to act irrationally but it happened.

[@ArcCaravan]

Could say both are bad because cheating is never good. Even I admit the DM overreacted by forcing a bad ending after finding out the cheater cheated.

[@SaltyRocksPew]

The way you pronounce pokemon makes me giggle

[@davidspring4003]

I will say, depending on the game or means of procuring it, having a TPK as one of your proudest DM moments isn't necessarily a red flag. Examples? If everyone in the game thought it was funny, or you actually outplayed your players with a fair challenge and the TPK was within a couple of good hits of turning it around. But the title story is definitely not either of those, he sounded simultaneously lazy and like he had a player vs dm mentality.

[@ArcCaravan]

Context is key.

[@bryanburrows3458]

I love your videos, HOWEVER, hearing you pronounce "Bene Gesserit" hurts my soul. You should expect to be haunted by the three ghosts of Dune. Frank Hubert, Dino De Laurentiis, & the Original logo for the Sci-fi Channel.

[@MusicaKenith]

Why are you proud of that?

[@Odande]

What's with all this discourse about critical failures? The amount of times it actually happens is super minuscule, five percent chance when you roll a d20. As long as your DM isn't outright killing you for rolling a one on your insight check I don't see the issue. I love criticals because they add flavor to the stories you're telling. For instance, The Bard rolled a nat 1 for performance check against the demon lord. She ended up dropping the **holy** avenger longsword she was carrying directly in front of him which initiated combat with the entire demon conclave. It was an awesome moment that spurred out of an unforeseen failure. As long as the DMS are being mild about how they handle critical failures, I see no issue

[@commonviewer2488]

You have to trust the DM to not cripple your character on a whim

[@mateowolf8481]

There are some games where luck is never on your side... I've had a few games where 1's happen to be about 1/4 the dice rolls and another campaign over 30 games in where a player on average is about a 4 on a d20

[@deadline1746]

The big thing is that Casting classes can avoid rolling fumbles and as Martials become more experienced it happens more often. It make a joke of most things. It also draws thing out way more than it needs too. But thats my thought on it.

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

I'm lukewarm on the idea of critical fumbles, but if the player wants to then they can describe something extra happening when they roll nat 1.

[@thor30013]

Just want to say, as a fan of Dune (the book, the movies, and the TTRPG), it was _really_ weird hearing Crispy mispronounce "Bene Gesserit." Yes, I get that it's an odd term, and I don't hold it against him, but my knee-jerk reaction was still to think "that's not how you pronounce that."

Why are yoou proud of that?

[@keybladewizard49]

Technically straight down isn't against the rules, it's an older style of play. But you _do not_ do straight down without warning the players first and you don't make them do straight down _before_ they choose their class. Jesus. The rest of this just sucks though.

[@cargo_vroom9729]

I have mixed feelings about the title story because really did the DM even kill the party? They mass un-alived themselves. I could absolutely see a DM telling that story for years to come.

[@JacobL228]

You're not using the correct titles for these stories. For instance, the Pokémon one is called "The Blank Sheet", not "There's Something Wrong Here".

[@lamiahunter]

“How many want critical hits” Everyone raises their hands “How many want critical fumbles” No one does. Society

[@ArcCaravan]

How many would agree to give up critical hits to avoid critical fumbles?