Bold Takes and Bad Tempers ( Ep. 4) It’s What My Character Would Do
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- In this episode, Zach breaks down some of the worst sayings in DnD, how to handle a DM NPC, and what to do when someone doesn't know their character after three years of play.
Send your questions to BoldTakes@outlook.com
Thank you everyone for the support!
45 minute episodes? No thanks. I need several hours; at the end, you're drenched in sweat, holding your ears, rocking back and forth mumbling about the pits. Don't short change me!
Exactly! We demand MORE
MORE!!!
Cant wait for my weekly session of Zach spiraling into madness over acid splash
I need this comment pinned
*Chaotic Neutral character sets fire to an orphanage*
“It’S wHaT mY cHaRaCtEr WoUlD dO”
@zachthebold You’re the GOAT brother, keep up the great work 🫵🐐
Do you prefer they write down chaotic evil and still do it?
@@sqfzerzefsdf I would prefer they played the game with evreyone, the alignment system is dumb anyways
@@ZeldaDPDePietro I was mostly commenting on that alignment receiving complaints due to problem players. I also don't think the system is dumb, it's a general idea of how your character behaves if you don't have a straight answer and you can change alignments depending on your actions during the campaign.
also "playing with everyone" depends on your group. for some groups, this IS how you play. that's why session 0's are a must and people still do it way too little.
if you don't communicate beforehand goody 2 shoes are just as off beat to the evil characters as the other way around, so talk about it.
Even in a full hero campaign you can still utilize evil PCs they just can't be chaotic stupid. (except some technicalities like "so dumb he ends up doing good with his 'evil'")
Oh, neat, it's time for my weekly mug full of unrelenting fury.
Before I watch this, Imma make a prediction; Zach sweats a flood into Los Angeles f*cking up the ecosystem even more than it already is
I was right.
I'm the stunned essay author! Loved the reaction, Zach. Awesome video as usual, sorry my comment was so long. The TL:DR is: "Crowd controlling players isn't that bad, the 'Can't even play the game!' comment basically sums up the overreaction. You're playing the game, you just can't take your turn right now". Keep the rants unhinged, we might disagree here, but I also ain't letting anyone acid splash my locks!
Meh, I've been a victim of a stun effect many times. I could have stayed home and nothing would have changed. 3 hours of my life washed down the drain. It wasn't fun or interesting. There was no counterplay. I didn't make any choices, take any actions, or do anything except roll a die that didn't matter because nothing I rolled would have broken me out of a DC22 Stun effect with a +1 to the save.
This has been my experience with stun every single time in the last 30 years I've been playing D&D. It's NEVER fun. Stun is just telling your players, "Yeah, F- you. You can't do anything for an hour or two."
stun is a great crowd control tool to move a players attention from the game onto their phones for the next 30 minutes
Personally, I think the Stun condition is one of the harshest ones to afflict on a character. I say this because the Stun condition has no counterplay. The turn(s)... just gone. I do think it has it's place in the game, but the cause should have an equal amount of weight as the effect. So more than one saving throw, or it happening after a player makes a risky / bad decision. That kinda thing. I also think that applies to the player's as well. As much as I love Monk; something like Stunning strike can be pretty overwhelming. The solution there is a bit different, and I think would work both ways; make the "Stun" condition harder and harder to do repeatedly in a certain time frame. It might be counter intuitive to real life combat; getting knocked so hard you can't move IRL is gonna hurt more and more, but in D&D it'd give both sides the knowledge that this powerful effect will only work for so long. It'd help keep things tense.
Or not idk thats just my opinion.
There are several skills, fears and items that can end a stun.
By your logic everything that takes away player agency is bad and would rob the game of half its appeal.
You are right. Stand proud for your opinion.
@@Glaswalker1001 Many players look forward to combat because they are almost guaranteed agency within it. I want my players to feel good about combat, not sit there and watch everyone else feel good about combat. Sorry, I don't like stealing away a player's turn or giving them items specifically so that I can't steal away their turn and that do little else. I want my players to focus on trying to build upon their choice of classes and subclasses and not have to worry about how unless they take certain skills from specific classes, a random enemy can throw their whole turn out with a stun.
This is very similar to my middle-ground take as well. I actually think Darkest Dungeon did it correctly. Players can be stunned, BUT it's much harder for enemies to stun players than vice versa. Also, all stuns expire the next round no matter what, and once you are stunned you get stun resistance for a round to prevent stun lock. Good system in that regard. And I don't think it's "unrealistic" either; the idea of a 'stun' is that you are dazed from getting hit harder than you were expecting to be. If you get hit again, well you're expecting it this time!
The word Traumatic in a backstory is needless. Life is Trauma, anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
I also like The Princess Bride :)
I'm 2 minutes in and zachthebald is already SEETHING with rage
I appreciate your enthusiasm and candid approach to gaming from both sides of the screen. As a player and (forever) DM since 1e, it's so cool to see newer generations taking up the mantle of gaming and having such a passion for the game. Though I don't agree with *everything* you say, you do bring up some very valid points, and you've given this old wolf a few good slants and more than a few good points to ponder. Please keep calling out those things that many others are too timid to tackle. It's crystal that you love D&D (5e is definitely boss) and gaming in general, so I'm a fan. Thank you!
You’re a G, supporting our G my man
@@CrazyWizza- a privilege, truly
DM'd an XP based game where about 50% party were XP grinders who decided they wanted to turn on their allies "for the XP". I was disencouraged by XP to say the least but managed to convince them not to kill their allies. Won't be using XP again especially considering that after every single combat I'm met with barage of questions about when their leveling up... "yes, technically killing this group of harmless farmers would give you more XP- but... too late they killed them all"
You forgot the classic tool for this. Negative XP for civilians or innocent farmers. Its not a challenge to kill peasants, so it should always be 0 XP or just negative if you want to punish this behavior.
Unless if your players are going for a villain campaign tho, from what it seems evil campaigns are easy to level early on, but later you cant just kill civilians for XP. Plus consequences from your actions
@@DoubleKillExtreme That's actually genius, typically I just said "Nahhh no XP cos they were passive" but I like a negative XP system
what are we getting mad about and yapping about today, zach?
"XP dungeon masters make things up as they go!"
....um...Zach...that's the whole job of the DM right? Love your content. I do milestone too.
I think you missed the entire point.
I’m losing my mind
"Make things up as they go" in regards to mental-gymnastics on why xp is better than milestones (to the point that xp based leveling becomes milestone leveling, with a funny number to ogle at)
To be devils advocate, people like number go up, if DM can make it more fun with number go up (for some definition of "more fun" across the entire group, DM included), then let number go up. Is it comedic irony if it ends up similar in practice to milestone? Yeah. Is it a problem? I don't see it.
God I love refreshing to see a new post
As a DM, I personally don't hate the blinded, stunned, poisoned conditions, etc, but I like to use them on the person it affects the least or has the highest save first to give my players that sense of danger and urgency and prioritizing who needs to avoid what. Using a mind control condition on a character that saves means when they're able to identify that's what he was doing, they know to NOT let that happen to the Barbarian.
hearing Zach is a monk main makes me smile over here with my level 5 monk :D
A monk main hating the stun mechanic is my new favorite
Another insane rant from ZacTheWet. This podcast is great!
Barbarian: AGGHGGHGGHGGHHGHGGG TRUAMA
Some teen: Sir this is a Wendy’s…
For what's effectively a rant podcast, that was such an unexpectedly compassionate and emotionally intelligent response concerning the player who takes a long time for their turns. Thanks for the great advice and perspective.
Thank you DnD George Costanza. You have good words
Zach better start his next episode of Bold Takes eating a half pound beef and cheddar, It would be peak
hi zach!! i think every video you make is literally peak humor and im eating up these podcasts. please dont shorten them bro im begging you to keep these episodes an hour long‼️ i DM’d over the summer for my friends and tried to prep and homebrew an entire world with deep lore in 2 months while doing an internship, and it was genuinely so stressful to manage that i instantly got burnt out of DMing by the time summer was over. but your videos have genuinely inspired me to start thinking about my world more, and maybe even try to DM again alongside my classes. anyways thanks again for the great content, it keeps me sane while i wait to play again as my beautiful baby boy Norbert every thursday night with my friends.
My next campaign I will have an NPC character that bursts into the room a la Kool-aid man named Mr Bold every time they take too much time planning or shopping. 😅
One of the most obviously terrible features to include in a game are effects which stop players from playing it, yet WoTC chose to include like 3 of them. Stunning decision
another perfectly timed podcast for my sleep. Thank you dear god Zack
Someone get this man some AC he works too hard for us
He mentioned in a previous episode he has AC its just too loud to record with
@@BigCurryCorp oh I forgot lol. Maybe I don’t listen close enough
The part about the self-insert DM NPC feels like an epiphany was happening, lol.
I simultaneously want these episodes to be linger and feel like I've been watching for 6 years. For clarification: I love these, I'll be loyally watching until episode 250.
Saw one of your shorts and had to come check to see if ep 4 was out and I got here 20 mins after release!!! Loveeee these, keep up the amazing work ❤
The Polo made him 20% less the joker and 20% more Brian Murphy
The whole time you're ranting (love btw, and same), I keep singing "I'm a little teacup" because of the one little loop in your hair lol
Another character in my DnD game stole a magic item that we bought originally for one character because we thought they were getting planeshifted, but they had to leave the campaign so they were going to give the goggles to another character to try and help them find their children. He said "Sucks for you its what my character would do." The next session my character one shot him and took the goggles back. His current character is a lot less abrasive
I DM'd ONE encounter that had a monk and a blood hunter with hold person. Our barbarian got stunned by the monk for almost the whole fight and our fighter almost got killed instantly after failing the hold person save. I have never ran anything that could paralyze/stun again. I'm okay if the party runs stun mechanics but I, myself, will refrain from using it against the party for the time being.
Your reaction to the players who want the player to learn the game better was really really nice. As a player I'd be a bit frustrated, but as a DM and graphic designer/illustrator, I'd be trying to figure out how to create a better organized character sheet so that the information is easier for that player to find. Summoning a creature with a stat block could be just an extra card for them.
I play a DMPC to fill a missing role in the party and be a babysitter. I actively work to keep them out of the spotlight, and so far I’ve had no complaints!
My favorite part of these is how Zach always says the name of the podcast wrong haha
Has he gotten it right yet? 😂
Love this show, been wanting a dnd rant podcast like this for a while!
Playing rage games and listening to this, great combo!
I love this series so much GIVE ME THE CHAOS, GIVE ME THE RAGE - so many DND takes deserve someone jumping behind a mic and going insane over it
I love how the first question sent you off a spiral. That guy has never seen the parties face when you decides to make mind flayers and the dreaded int save happens
No fucking way you ALSO have the kickstarter exclusive mythcraft core rulebook!
Sending this for the goon platoon snack fund. Please keep doing these man. Usually im not a big fan of podcasts at all but i cant stop watching these keep it up man!
This is quite literally one of the most entertaining podcasts ive listened to in a while.
I think you might be surprised about how unique the dynamics that people can bring to you at their table can get.
On stun:
I agree that RAW stun is detrimental to the health of the game, however I personally do not write it out of my games. I make it thematic with a thing I like to call "loose stun" which is where mechanically for all intents and purposes, the player's physical body is considered stunned, but they take their turn doing something like fighting an alter ego or something. I provide my players stimulation and engagement with the game beyond stun. My players have never given me any complaints about this, they've told me that it's cool based on how I handled it. Since I only use stun in a regard like this, it appears very rarely and provides an entertaining narrative in my games. Specifically in the case of RAW, it does suck and really should not exist as it does.
That 'the goblins' and 'the pits' part of the podcast made me laugh so hard my parents thought I was going insane.
First things first, you’re my favorite dnd content creator right now. The energy you have for the game and the type of content you create feels like it’s been infused with that energy in the best ways possible. All that aside, here’s my topic for you.
I started as a player in 5e a number of years ago now and have been the forever DM for the majority of the time since. In that time, primarily due to scheduling issues, I have only been able to complete one campaign which truthfully went really well. In contrast to the one I’ve been able to finish, I have started 10+ different campaigns across my 3 groups and not a single time have we done a session 0. I’m always adamant about doing it because I want to sit down and go through character creation and have conversations about what types of campaigns everyone wants, but no one else does. This has lead to a couple instances of characters not fitting the overall theme of a setting, stories that players just aren’t as invested in because I’m left to figure things out on my own, and just so many other issues. Generally things work out okay, and I can say with certainty that those are not the leading factors of the campaigns not being completed, but at this point I have never done a session 0 and have never been able to get my players interested in doing one. Do you have any tips on what you do for your session 0s or anything I can try to make my players more interested in actually doing them?
Also as an aside, would love to see a video one day where you go over the world you’ve created for your campaigns. I’m always interested in seeing what other people have come up with.
Zach’s face melting during the whole video, like Acid Splashes fan casted it on him for badmouthing The Best Cantrip
My favorite chaotic podcast to listen to while i do the dishes fr
That sentiment of "I don't wanna play in your game, and I'm sure there are people say the same about mine" is one I've really had to internalise. I really love filler, I think downtime and smaller character moments are what make the epic moments matter for me, so I probably wouldn't want to play in your game, but you'd probably hate playing in mine and I think that's the beautiful thing about TTRPGs and this wonderful hobbies.
LETSGO ITS MY MONDAY DOSE OF BOLD THE ZACH
I’ve been prepping for a low magic high stakes combat fantasy game, using Symbaroum for it and from reading the rules, I’m so hyped to actually get into it and play it.
Stun isn't an annoying challenge, its going out drinking with friends and the bar staff telling you you're not allowed to drink.
I've been paralyzed for like 8 turns after failing a save in Pathfinder once. That being said, I still think that negative status effects should still be used by both party and the DM.
The one thing all say as a player of xp. It can be sort of fun and interactive to feel like you gain something from each thing you do. And it’s a number so you know if it’s a lot or not
I was running a game based loosely on lost mines of phandelvor, and with the side quest to the ruins of Thunder tree, instead of playing the NPC myself, I invited a friend to play him for me. The NPC became a permanent PC for the rest of the campaign. So much better than me playing him as a DM NPC.
i like when th e funny man point and scream at camera, brings me joy
12:24 the traumatic backstory is kinda weird because everyone has a traumatic backstory because who becomes an adventurer for fun?
As a fellow 110+ degree weather sufferer, never stop bitching about it. They Should Know.
Riiiight!! Your villian shouldn't make people hate the game, but 'you', THE VILLIAN!! (this may drastically vary on their involvement in the dramatic arts.)
Zach: I don't think I look like Jeremy Allen White.
RUclips: People in this video - Jeremy Allen White
The merits of exp lay solely within the realm of the table dynamic. Some players (particularly people at the table I play with) like visual representation of progress. WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT we cant be fighting lvl 1 gobos to power level b4 a certain fight and etc. Narratively milestone is awesome, but I think the discussion stems from what people wnt from the game and not what makes sense in a RPing game. I don't mind either as a player.
My only concern with milestone is if the GM doesn't make it clear the pace the game is moving at, specifically for Homebrew games. I think the table again should know and understand the pace so that they cant end up complaining milestone is "taking too long."
Communication solves soooo many problems, and typically ppl who gravitate towards these games arent very good at it haha
Edit: I love your videos and really appreciate your takes, thanks for all the laughs and thought provoking discussions!
Wow…only 45 minutes. I need 10 boldillion year long episodes of just sweat and anger with the white balance changing every single frame
Here's the thing about stun and things similar to stun. Your players have might have the tools to end the condition. If you're a DM who is using it, and your players have that option: fair game. And thats smart, because you're paying attention to what your players can do and giving them the chance to utilize it. And then they can't get mad at you, because they had the option to prevent/stop it, and they didn't, so its entirely their fault for eating crayons.
Honest question: What are tools to end the Stunned condition? On the fly I can think of Cleansing Touch from 14th lvl Paladin or Way of Mercy Monk at lvl 6. But besides that? Any spell below Lvl 5? Any mechanical interaction I'm missing?
Paralyzed has Lesser Restoration as the simplest answer that most "healy" spellcaster get.
@@yarion4774 Totally.
Way of mercy monk can end the stunned condition at lvl 6 as an action using Physician's touch.
You can also potentially polymorph into a creature that is just immune to being stunned or alternatively polymorph another player into a creature that is immune to being stunned, of which there are creatures at almost every CR.
The lawful outer essence shard from TCE can end the stunned condition. (sorcerers only)
Also do not forget that the source of the stun matters. If its magical in nature, dispel magic also works RaW.
The main problem with stun is that it can last for one minute. The way I run it is that if one of my players gets stunned, it will only be for the one turn, and then it fades. The player can make the Saving Throw again on their turn, and it counts as their action, so if they pass, they still get their bonus action and movement. If they fail, their turn is skipped, but the condition immediately ends, so they have access to reactions after their turn. I also limit stunning enemies in my game, and my main bbegs don't have access to stun. I'd rather highlight something else to make them difficult in combat. Or the party can steamroll them, as long as their having fun, that's all that matters.
Holy shit, I thought I was the only one who cared about the Arby's on Hollywood closing. I remember going there like a month ago for some of those seasoned fries and was crying on the inside.
Don’t worry Zach, with how popular the podcast is getting you’ll finally be able to afford air conditioning
I really liked the note about more serious vs silly moments in DND, there have been so many moments where as a player I make the stupidest dumbest brainrot joke and go "my character wouldn't say that" and yknow what I am trying to care less because its silly! DND is a silly game! We are having fun! And we can be serious too but it's ok to crack a joke in or out of character! Embrace the stupid jokes for the love of god we all need some comic relief
15:43 That whole dealing with Trauma situation reminds me, that Wisdom isn’t Willpower and that Willpower needs to be a stat. Most Min-Max-ers wouldn’t put too many points into WIS, but a (cliché) Barbarian would suck it up and not start crying about past inconveniences.
The Trope-y Barbarian may not be wise, but he is strong willed for sure.
(Edit: Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Barbarian spending the entire Movie whining and moaning about the death of his parents and his servitude as a slave and pit fighter instead of going on his epic quest 😂)
Re: the Stun Condition. Even in Monopoly (a game that gets as much hate as it deserves), you can still buy, sell & collect rent off of your properties while in jail. If a condition in a TTRPG is LESS FUN than being in JAIL IN MONOPOLY (to say nothing of how long each condition lasts), something has gone disastrously wrong.
this podcast is psychotic and rapidly becoming the highlight of my day. ~charmed condition~
The best take I have about DMPCs is that they're best if they're a temporary but useful ally. My current DM uses them in our game, but they've never felt forced into the game or even really as a self insert. Just a companion to help us through the next adventure, like classic games
I think a good fix to the stun condition is to just slightly alter it so instead of being a turn skipper make it so whatever creature/character is stunned is unable to take reactions, not have a bonus action on its turn, and have its movement speed halved. That way they can still act, yet also have trouble due to being stunned.
Stun/Paralyzed makes absolute sense if you're watching a movie of the fight. But we're not. We're playing a game. Imagine if a video game stunned you and didn't you reload or play for 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes if you failed a single roll. And then you have to wait a week to play.
Ha, the only DND podcast! 🤣 Only funny because the only other podcast I could think of is Bob World Builders "It's what OUR character would do" lmao
Zach I would love to watch a series of you ranting and tearing apart the new PHB and DMG
I played in a game recently and killed another player’s character. Basically the DM and the player had this character arc in mind for this crazy tabaxi character that the player created.
But the character literally acted opposite the party and constantly made us go to save him (which was totally uncharacteristic for our characters) because the player is our friend and we want him to have fun.
Anyways, there have been several combats where the DM says the tabaxi has a vision or whatever and he just attacks us and we have to subdue him.
Another detail is that my character made a deal with a benefactor to get the story moving along. Basically we all had to give sensitive info to this NPC to get him to trust us and use as blackmail so we don’t betray him. My PC is on a mission to save his brother, and left his daughter and pregnant wife home without him so he can rid a curse on himself and his brother.
I missed a session and the tabaxi betrayed this NPC, so my character’s family was screwed now because of it.
In the last session we played, it was a really challenging combat the entire party was down except for my PC because he is a gloomstalker and it was dark. So I’m at full hp while the rest of the party is downed. It’s just me, our cleric at 13 hp, and the tabaxi at 2 hp. The boss tells the tabaxi to listen to him. DM didn’t make him roll, the player freely chose to cast sleep on our cleric.
I, a 5th level ranger, saw that we were absolutely f*cked because of that casting of sleep. So I shot the tabaxi twice with my bow, in hopes that he would die on his death save. He did.
Anyways, we make it out of that fight barely, and the nearly defeated boss npc surrenders and says, “don’t kill me or your tabaxi friend stays dead. I can bring him back.”
I told the DM, “I knock two arrows and shoot him in the face.”
The tabaxi player left the call like 40 minutes prior because his character was dead. But after the session, the entire party was complaining about all the stuff the tabaxi did that was just screwing with us and our plans. Our DM said he had no idea we all didn’t enjoy that. As if yes we love derailing everything for a character that just fights against us in combat when we are losing. But it was because we just didn’t want to tell our friend no and expected the DM to do so. It never happened, so I took it into my own hands. The next day the player had the audacity to ask me why I did that, as if he didn’t do stuff to literally thwart us or derail the entire game. So I told him, logically it’s what my character would do, since he was simply doing what his character would do as well.
My character sees this person as a consistent threat to him, his family, and his other allies. Because no change has happened and the character has not developed or learned at all over the course of 20 sessions, he had to go.
Continuing the streak of A+ takes for another episode!
16:34 if the Player knew that the campaign was going to be Mines of Phandelver before he created this character, he deserves a kick from the group. If the DM decided to play Mines after the character was already established at the table, he should adjust the „paint“ - make the Goblins be Kobolds or something along those lines.
Audiophiles: "the sheer fucking Audacity(tm) bro..."
My players can go from gut busting comedy fest to thousand yard stare war crimes at the drop of a hat. It’s kind of scary. Like playing with Jekyll and Hyde.
I love XP because as a DM I'm always throwing awesome stories at my players. And their characters are doing super cool things. When I ran milestone I would give too many levels, every other session the players did something I considered level-worthy. And especially when it got to higher levels and they started killing devils and solving mass problems.
Also in my games, if you miss a session you get half xp, so people have to actually show up, they aren't just given participation trophies. The player who hasn't missed a session and is always trying to engage with the adventure and lore is at a higher level than the player who misses all the time and ignores plot hooks.
I do have audience member players, and I reward them for their style, just to make sure they aren't left out when it comes to power level.
If I were to structure my game around milestone then it would work, but I run a game with much less linear storytelling, so Milestone is much harder for me to run successfully. I think XP does well to serve as a reward to encourage players to make good, smart, and in-character choices. Magic items, feats, and other things can be used as rewards too, and I do use them. But having another system of reward I've found is great in my dnd games.
Yes, I am going to take it to a publisher.
Hammy the squirrel energy
1. I agree that stunned should never be used on a player! However for a player? Go for it! Stunned my bugbear or beholder or whatever
2. I think xp has its place, such as in a dungeon crawl style game or a west march’s game, but any regular style home game? Naw milestones all the way
3. I don’t really mind a dm NPC (not a dm pc) where there character has a full character sheet and assists the players but never makes and big decisions and always appears less then the players, Matt colville has a great video on this where he talks about his dm NPC being portrayed without confidence and when asked what to do he simply says “idk I just heal people and try not to die” kinda thing, I think that’s nice because you can then fill a simple roll without forcing the party to have to pick a certain class because there scared of being weak without a healer or tank
I feel like Zach absolutely lost his shit "in a good way" When he saw the new monk in the 2024 player's Handbook.
I am a long time player but pretty new DM. I am running my second campaign ever. I wanna say thank you for the advice on stun. Removing stun was the best choice I ever made.
My very first session ever, my first character ever, a very impatient monk with a half a sentence of backstory (the concept was a Harley Quinn/Jinx-esc neurodivergent charecter that i didn't have that much time to delve into deeper before the first session i joined). There I instantly covered myself with the poorest excuse of "It's what my character would do" after engaging a group of enemies and causing a TPK... honestly the most humbling experience for me that lead me to actually sit down and turn a few marbles in my head before jumping straight into wild spontaneous ideas. So i guess having that moment once or twice and being heavily punished for it might not be the worst thing ever.
On a totally unrelated side note I would love to hear your take on Counterspell since the new changes seem to gut the spell down to a bone and a friend of mine is glad about it and thinks it's a deserved balance, while I on the other hand disaggree and believe it to be too much and maybe not even healthy for the game itself
Looking forward for the next episode and all your short content that you dish out so impeccably. Hopefully the heat doesn't desolve you by then :D
His most belligerent yet, so excited to see him spiral further and further down
Some people don't have FUN, they have control.
I gave my wild magic gnome power word stun solely for the “common or gnomish” meme as the power word, so you inspired a use of stun lol.
I will watch this format till I die
Also, maybe traumatized barbarian should be discussed with the party on session zero, maybe players want such charter, maybe they wanna care him or have chaotic fun
I have a DMPC in the game I run. He showed up in the beginning of the campaign to introduce the players to the world and then went off on his own thing. They have occasionally interacted with him or will hear about what hes doing as he is one of their allies, but I try hard to make sure they dont feel in any way like they are not the protagonists of this story.
All the talk of stun just makes me remember when my first DM stunned my character for 10 rounds, killed me 4 rounds into the stun, had a wraith haunt my body to prevent any player from approaching me/touch me/target me with a healing spell, and my successful death saves didn’t matter. All in an effort to have my character die, and make me instant revive with powers that basically let me do anything I wanted regardless of actions or rules.
I may not be a rules lawyer, but that whole interaction sucked and I prefer structure to my gameplay rules and home brew. Other things happened related and unrelated to the game that caused the players to leave the DM. And long story short is I am now the DM for the party I used to be a player in. We now are in a completely new world where they get to explore a better overarching and character narratives with the characters they made for the last game. Cause man, that last DM was not great. My first time DMing and have had 15 sessions, and my players assure me they are having fun.
Sorry this comment is all over the place, have never typed out anything about that bad DM before.
I agree that something like stun or paralysis would be a really useful tool in improvising a combat where specifically you know your parties life cleric goes after the enemy but before everyone else and has a chance to solve a problem using their abilities it has its place in the rule set
However, I think rhythmically giving the enemy haste or something to double their action economy esentially making the players slower and the enemies faster would feel a lot more thrilling and have essentially the same effect
If you think stun is bad I think perchance it might be how YOU use stun. Major Villians being able to stun allows for dynamic fights where the objective of the fight can change mid fight from "hit the guy with the spells and weapons" to "how do we distract him and save our teammate from their vulnerable state". Its also an extremely useful tool to use when making encounters where the monster you're running is by itself and overwhelmed in action economy.
that being said its kinda wild to say there's no middleground, stun would suck if your combats are taking 15min per turn thats straight up unfun. But like... mine don't take 15 min per turn bc my players are attentive and know the game, a stun might make them wait an extra 5-6 min per turn but theyre not NOT playing the game, theyre involved in whats happening and how their friends are reacting.
In a game where roleplay is what matters most, failing to see the stun condition as a potential roleplay moment for the player effected as well as the entire party is a mistake.
100% agree most of my groups combats take around 20-30 minutes in total. With some players taking really long (the ones who only play cause we’re their friends) and then the DnD lovers only taking around a minute at most. Sure it suck at time, but that’s when the party comes together to protect them. Also people who don’t plan for things like stun or paralyze are just shit out of luck cause that was an eventually that they didn’t plan for, of course it’s gonna suck.
Dude, if a majority of your combat rounds are taking 30+ minutes, that's the real problem. I can appreciate the argument that stun is anti-player but, if this isn't hyperbole, the issue is with how long your combats take to run. Stun in this context functions as an anti-player multiplier in the sense that missing one turn isn't a big deal when your whole rounds take 5-10 minutes. If your combat rounds are lasting 30 minutes (or god forbid an hour like you mention) then a stun will double this for the player in question and waste an hour (or 2, yikes) of the players time between turns. I've never noticed a significant problem with stun however it's very rare for a full combat round to take longer than 15 minutes with my group. The aversion to stun is almost certainly proportional to the time your combats take.
I agree with Zach to the extent that players shouldn't be reduced to spectators for upwards of 30 minutes at a time but I disagree that this is a common issue faced by the average group. Perhaps a useful tip for DMs intending to use enemies who stun/paralyze/sleep etc. would be to keep these encounters as quick as possible and that can be achieved in a number of ways, probably easiest of all by keeping the enemy on their own so the rounds aren't bogged down by minions etc.
The first two times playing DnD I didn’t quite know what I was doing, first using a ranger and didn’t understand the spell slots proper, and the second time using a basic barb at the request of the DM. They continued without me, and I wish they didn’t 😢
please keep it around an hour :( It's so good
24:10 For the guy who asked about what you can do to help that player who take long turns help him have some print outs and such that will work for his character on when and what works. Try to help him with combos and case scenarios that will speed up combat.