The Most Forced Mary Sue I Have Ever Seen
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
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this is, without a doubt, the most cringemax force hold one can perchance possible Mary Sue a Kirito. perchance.
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It gets even better when you realize Rezmir is one of the first villains you meet in Tyranny of Dragons. Dude didn't even create the character.
I mean that Rezmir is a female half-dragon instead of a male dragonborn, and she doesn't seem to have daddy issues. But... yeah the similarities are way too close to be a coincidence.
I was going to comment that yeah… There’s a few changes but it’s so painfully obvious they used her as inspiration it’s kinda sad.
That's SO MUCH WORSE...
Kinda funnier knowing that the character the DM used as a basis was a villain character.
I was waiting for someone else to say this
How to use an op NPC:
1) Save the party
2) Be nice to the party
3) Reward the party and give them quests
4) Have the NPC get killed by the BBEG to hype them up as more powerful and scary
My advice if you're on an airship: you REALLY gotta pay attention to step 2.
One time, our party got saved by an OP DMPC as part of the opening. He was built up as our sort of guide/tutorial character, as a legendary hero. And then, when he took off his helmet to dramatically reveal his identity...
...he got shot with an arrow and died. Not an enemy arrow, but a stray one from a nearby range. Then, he was used to establish that all of the gods are all fucked up and not working properly, including the god of death, by making him immediately came back as a ghost, bound to his corpse and unable to really do anything but speak. It also meant we had to lug his corpse around because he couldn't stray too far from it.
I had one be a 'mentor' to a party full of new people. He was too lazy to fight, but would jump in to help if there was serious danger.
@@theinternetpolice2078 Sounds like a good campaign.
@@nathanjackson9560
Eh, it's a mostly silly campaign by amateur DMs. Not a _good_ campaign, but a _fun_ campaign, and the two DMs know it.
Visualizing the party fleeing on horseback from a DMPC's monologue is the funniest thing I've imagined in a while.
I KNOW, RIGHT?! The image is soo funny to me!
It is worse than a Vogon reading poetry to you.
It's honestly funnier when he's following them on foot, continuing without missing a beat.
I would learn spells just to shut him up and tether him to the ground...except hes a hologram
NIGERUNDAYOO~ REZMIR!!
These are my favorite kinds of RPG Horror Stories. No assault, no bad baggage, no weird sexual stuff, just a DM wanting to roleplay his OP anime protagonist with the other players as a captive audience.
IKR? Everything else is too close to home for many of us; why relive our own worst tables? Instead just give us cringey and inexperienced noobs.
Sadly I have been in campaigns with GMs that want to play their Gary Sue character WHILE sexually harassing players... TWICE.
Yeah, comparing It to other things Crab narrate to us, yeah, it's Just annoying, and a silly history that probably will steal a laugh from this people in the Future when remembering the moment
Taking out sexual assault from DnD is like taking out Mary Sues, is just a natural part of this fanbase.
When CritCrab tells a MUCH better story than the actual DM
Yeah honestly if done intentionally this would be a hilarious campaign. I'd be down tbh.
*Quietly does a steal*
Now I wanna play dothack infection again.
Honestly that’d be amazing if he could pull it off. The players think it’s a lame dmpc, but upon reaching the supposed final boss the dmpc gets reckless and starts hurting the pcs, and upon fighting back the dmpc blurts out “oh fuck I gotta tp!” or something similar, before vanishing. Turns out that they’re meant to be npc followers in a game, and the dmpc is the real bbeg cause it was part of the original plot of this “game” that he becomes emperor of the land if he kills the original bbeg
@@glasshorse6893 god man, I would love to run through this as a first campaign, this stuff makes me want to find a group to play the game with
Oh, my, fucking, god.
I cannot believe that he really said "It's a hologram!"
It takes me back to the good 'ol days as a 7-year-old at the playground, playing an "imagination game" with my brothers and some random kid at the park, and this 5 year old, desperate to not have his character die, made the exact same claim.
For years, that has been my go-to line to poke fun at bad storytelling/writing/roleplaying.
I cannot believe I have seen it in the wild once more.
Same. Except I was the one saying "its' a hologram" sometimes it takes time to become self aware. Those people were so nice to me.
Maybe the DM in this story is the same random kid you once met
💀@@TheUnknownsShow
Or like those kids who have that unobtainium armor that makes them all powerful, or they can't be tagged because reasons. Those instances feel terrible in the moment, but are absolutely hilarious in retrospect.
what really makes it even worse is D&D has illusions that actually exist in the game but he chose to use a hologram because he couldnt think of it at that moment,
when it got to the point that the DM was describing Rezmir continuing his extended monologue as the party literally galloped away from him, I couldn't help but think that the entire table was playing along at this point and having a big laugh.
sad that wasn't the case...
It kills me how fast this dragonborn MC became a parody of himself.
I think Martin Septim (from ES4 Oblivion) is a good example of an NPC where the main storyline revolves around him. As he is a non-fighter, the player acts as his right hand man, helping and protecting him throughout the main story.
In the final battle, Martin sacrificed himself to save the world, while the player lived and was hailed as a hero, both becoming a legend in their own way. It gives the both the player and NPC their own spotlight, unlike our Reznir/Rezmir here...
Pretty much the definition of "DMPC as MacGuffin", but with said character taking an active role on the political side of things, which I think is a great way to do it.
Funnily enough a lot of players hated Martin because they felt like Martin was the true hero and they were his errand boy.
@@Former_Halo_FanI can't take these people serious, as they are basically admitting to be (or wanting to be) a Mary Sue.
Both Martin and the Champion of Cyrodiil are heroes and while Martin was the one who banished Mehrunes Dagon back to Oblivion, the player was the one who had the most active role in every single step along the way. And it's not like we didn't had our own final battle against Mankar Camoran.
@@Former_Halo_Fan I can see how someone would read that, but fortunately, I don't think Gamers' opinions matter.
@@tripple-a6031 @Tripple-A _I can't take these people serious, as they are basically admitting to be (or wanting to be) Mary Sues._
- Well yeah. This isn't D&D or published fanfiction we're talking about. An Elder Scrolls game is a single-player experience in a genre practically defined by power fantasies and by people making and living out their own stories. In a game like this, if the player doesn't feel like the main character and focus of attention, the designers arguably did something wrong. Elder Scrolls games aren't even story-driven enough to justify shifting focus too much away from the main character, since the main questline is going to make only a fraction of the time you'll spend in the game anyway. Accusing the player of an Elder Scrolls game of wanting to be the main character is as misguided as a GM accusing his players of wanting to make the game about them and their characters. It's simply what it is _supposed_ to be about.
Poor Kirito, he’s become the face of the Mary Sue OC community.
It's ok, I hear he has insane HP regeneration, he can can tank all the burns and sassing. He can take it! XD
@@AegixDrakan And remember; Kirito is always right xD
@@Nephalem2002 And gets ALL the waifus
Him AND Asuna.
And he ins't?
The fact that it ended the same exact way as that Tails vs. Sephiroth RP meme destroyed me, this is unintentional comedy gold!
The what?!
Tails from Sonic vs The One Winged Angel? Did I hear that correctly, what meme is this?
@@asteroidxarmageddon2354 ancient but still iconic facebook roleplaying "fight" that ended the same
@@javsandarts lemme guess, turns out TaIlS wAs A HoLoGRaM
I checked it out and yes, yes it was like that
Although the sephiroth guy was instantly cutting off two arms like if he was the fucking flash, imo, he deserved that holographic "fuck you"
When we open up with CritCrab's eyes blazing like a thousand suns, I know we're in for a fun time
Whenever Rezmir the Black is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Rezmir?"
Also, that bit about fleeing on horseback from the NPC monologue is like an Animaniacs joke.
A great example of how to properly use a "DMPC" can be seen in the Shadow of the Dragon Queen 5e adventure. He does cool things, and has plot relevance. But he's ultimately there to be the party's cheerleader, and provide RP opportunities.
In my DnD group the dungeon master has a player character but really they act like just another party member and they don't play it any differently than normal, they just multitask between DMing and playing
@@Salem-Angel Thats cool, but very rare - and difficult. I'm leading a homebrew campaign myself and my party really likes some of the characters they met on their journey that appear from time to time again. But if it would be more than just moments and one of this characters would be my permanent DMPC I know I would mess things up. ^^'
I don't think it's a DMPC if it doesn't have a character sheet, and isn't considered as one of the party. It's just a regular NPC.
I remember when I did a campaign for the Palladium Fantasy RPG, I had a pretty strong DMPC, but she would only appear as something like the Mysterious Stranger in Fallout if a battle was getting a little on the rough side.
You mean Leosin? My DM messed up in that case. My barbarian hated his guts.
okay, in all honesty, the bit at 5:00 minutes in and the image of Rezmir monologuing while trying to catch up with the group, and on horseback no less, just makes it even more absurd and oddly hilarious with how the DM is trying to establish how 'serious' this character is.
Oh Rezmir wasn’t on horseback, *HE WAS ON FOOT.*
The real question every DM should answer before starting a game is if this concept they have should be written as a campaign where the players are active participants, or if the other elements of the world are so important that it'd serve better as a novel instead. In this case, it would've been better for everyone involved if Rezmir remained in the annals of the aforementioned self-insert story because to have a campaign centered solely around him and not the players is not a campaign at all.
I was thinking that as well, maybe Reznir would work better as a story than a roleplay or game, because why have free will characters like the pcs, if you want them to follow along exactly how you want?
yeah but no one would ever read the DMs story so this is the only way he can get an audience, hell from the sounds of it I doubt the DM can get people who know him well to even listen to him anymore than a couple of seconds dude has MAJOR main character flaws
Hey Reznir, I know this Centaur you might get along with. He's waiting on that airship over there :3
I’ve never heard the airship story, any good?
@@ryankoopacanada ruclips.net/video/5YkzdHU9fcU/видео.html
It's a 2-parter
Enjoy~
@@ryankoopacanada it was the very first critcrab story I ever heard. It's really good
God, don't remind me 😂
OH GOD NOT THE AIRSHIP 😂😂😂
That's actual, literal Purgatory-type shit lmao 🤣 😂 💀
Heard this already, bit damn is it hilarious.
That twist at the end could have saved everything if it were true.
Who told this story also? I thought it was Critcrab
@@Yojimbo16 Jacob Crowe
@@Yojimbo16 Pretty sure Crowe's Perch, but DnD Doge may or may not have also read it. I listen to about 4 or 5 DnD Horror Story channels.
Eh, no it couldn’t have. The entire game sucked and was a pain in the ass to play through, to the point where people dropped out midway through because they weren’t having a good time. No twist ending could make any of that worth it.
Okay, that idea that CritCrab had at the end sounds pretty interesting honestly and I'm curious about the potential it has if done right. But I don't think the DM in this story would've thought about something so complex when it came to that world though, since it just sounded like he wanted an audience to watch his DMPC do all the cool stuff and go on about his damn father, not bothering to engage with his players in the slightest. I don't blame the party for leaving though, because with how he faded out as a hologram... I'm willing to bet he would've made him reappear again if there ever was another session.
"It's a hologram.... you wake up surrounded by a stranger liquid in a coffin, it opens and you breath real air for the first time in months, you remember everything now. Golems have been harnessing living beings for their magic while trapped in an ilussion for years and you were part of the resistance but were captured, luckily you were capable of inserting the detonant. A fake person that would overlap the written code when damaged by you with the personality to make that happen as quick as possible... you are free now and inside their base ready to fight the leader of the golems"
Dude the “rebellious video game NPCs” storyline idea sounds dope as hell
If CC's twist ending had been what the DM was actually doing it would have been SO GLORIOUS. Then the players get to not only go for a ND the source code, they can kill the DMPC over and over again!
"It's a hologram.... you wake up surrounded by a stranger liquid in a coffin, it opens and you breath real air for the first time in months, you remember everything now. Golems have been harnessing living beings for their magic while trapped in an ilussion for years and you were part of the resistance but were captured, luckily you were capable of inserting the detonant. A fake person that would overlap the written code when damaged by you with the personality to make that happen as quick as possible... you are free now and inside their base ready to fight the leader of the golems"
I'm gonna toot my horn a bit here. Never played D&D always wanted to. But I did have a long distance friend years ago I helped with a similar situation. He was a DM and created a story around A barbarian who would get the players to help defeat his father so he could take over because his father was corrupt. But he made the barbarian pretty much He-Man...almost unstoppable. He realized he had to figure out why he would need the players help. Nerfing the Barbarian wasn't an option. So I offered make it a tribe code....regicide/parricide does not equate to taking over the throne. It was what he needed.
Ah yes. Politics rule number one. Thy own hands must be clean. Get some one else to do it.
This... Actually would make an interesting plot point.
"Yes, I could just walk into my father's camp, decimate his guards and decapitate him with a single strike, but that would remove me from legal position of a new High Chief of the lands. So while I can help you with any tasks that do NOT revolve around removing my father from power, I am unable to give any direct support in those tasks."
If wanting to make it even more complex, could attach in it some other mission/quest line players are doing (for example one player's personal story of getting revenge on a high-level demon etc), and basically this is the way they can get this unstoppable He-Man on their side for that fight so they have a good chance of winning, and possibly even more in the future.
The idea of a campaign where the players are secretly NPCs in a video game is genius. It would only work with very specific players, but sounds super cool.
"when I run a game I tell 2 stories; the story of the mission and the story of the player characters" Absolutely based. This is something that should be said more. I never thought of the game in this way, but it makes so much sense.
Also a way I would describe it: a game is like a river channel, with the mission story being the channel and the player story the river water, and nothing is stopping the water from spilling over into a new direction.
Saw Mary Sue and clicked immediately
Same. And my claws clicked in joy directly after.
Yes I also love videos about Rey Skywalker, everyone’s favourite Jedi
Same. These stories always entertain.
I vaguely recall a story where the party trolled the GM's dmpc. They decided to play along and even worked on getting that one spell that would make him ascend. Yet in the end they basically created a parallel dimension instead where they all hopped in and closed the door behind. Not the best way to handle an out of game problem in game but it was funny.
Reznir/Reznov sounds like Reznov.
With that ending like that, I doubt it's a coincidence!
Also, the party turning on the DMPC was the true awesome plot twist.
Honestly the plot twist you came up with sounds like an extremely fun campaign idea that I might pitch to my group for a one off
I had my party ally with a Vampie that wanted revenge against one of the two BBEG in my campaign. He let the party use his mansion as their base camp, and only directly helped the party in battle 3 times. Once when they called him asking for backup when they were ambushed, another time he held off a group of guys while the party fought a Big BIG, and then at the end when they fought the BBEG for revenge. Party enjoyed him, as he acted tough and menacing, but was a big ol softy on the inside.
I feel for the players that left and all of them that just wanted a game, but the end was great.
If Dalriada doesn't have the Gae Bulg , we're going to have problems.
Immediately collapsed laughing at the DM's final trump card.
Good LAWD that's dumb.
"You all wake up."
"You mean it was a dream Rezmik died?"
"Who's Rezmik?
I’ll admit…when you said the name of the sponsor I thought you meant just…Irish people in general 😂😂 and I was like “Any time Critcrab” 😂
"Lord BBEG, I swear to loyally serve! Let us now punish this world that would choose your cringey son to be its champion!"
Glad I stayed all the way through. I've heard the Rezmir story a bunch of times before, but your ending theory put an epic twist on it!
I had a dmpc in my first complete home brewed campaign, and from my experience having them be unwilling or unable to complete the task the party has is pretty good, they can be useful but only when the party directly calls on them, and making them vulnerable to the bbeg is always a good idea. It will reward the players with vanquishing something that someone like a messiah or a wisened warrior was unable to take down
My dm hates when I do what critcrab does at the end and is like “you genius!! How did I not see it before!!” As her response is always “what did I do?” Im such a meticulous note taker that I always bring up things she said in session one near the end of the game that she completely forgot about, but now I want to play the story critcrab came up with
I feel so lucky that my DM , while often inserting a DMPC, Keeps the players at the forefront. The DMPC's are given time to shine, but they're never given any more or less weight than any player
I kinda got a DMPC who is a Mary Sue on the sense that he's over-powered as heck. BUT i also have his backstory have him cursed so he's unable to directly help the party with combat, so he's mostly relegated to a support role. He's not even around for very long when he shows up, and in the grand scheme of the world, he's just another guy who rarely gets brought up. I do have a side question with him, but the only way he reaches full power is when the party does. If you want to write a story for a character, please don't make other people sit and listen to it, just write a book.
I heard “Reznir” and immediately opened my tyranny of dragons book to find “Rezmir” a black half-dragon.
I'm a new DM, and I've rolled up a few NPCs for my campaign.
One of them is based on one of my favorite characters ever, and I've done my best to keep him out of the way of the players.
I threw him into their first boss fight because they were a bit outmatched, and he ended up kinda carrying them (he's only 2 levels above them).
In the future, I'll try to let them carry their own weight, but how they bounce off my OCs will determine how I play it going forward.
I remember the one time I tried using a DMPC when I tried to DM a campaign for the Palladium Fantasy RPG, she was just a regular NPC for the most part who gave quests but would also act like a Mysterious Stranger encounter in Fallout if a fight was getting a little on the rough side.
Okay, the concept of a group of NPCs in a Video Game becoming self-aware and rebelling against the player would actually make a very fine plot hook in an ACTUAL video game or perhaps better yet, a TV Show.
you mean like in star ocena till the end of time?... :v love that game, dont care what anyone else says.
I had a similar game idea, It's basically a park tycoon,build stuff,get customers,etc. However the manager comes to scold the player like you putting fireworks at the entrance except he becomes aware more and more of the player.
that's just ReBoot
Now, whenever I become a DM, I want to make an NPC like this but the moment they enter combat the dude dies instantly.
9:43, some of you may not realize.. but that’s a South Park clip
There is a DMPC in the campaign I play in and our quest is to try and retrieve that’s DMPC’s soul as he is the king on the lands. Even then we always have the option of doing other side quests just to have more fun.
You know it's gonna be good when Kirito is in the thumbnail
(Insert SAO: Abridged reference here)
@@luigiboi4244 "Do you know how many of you have died screaming Leeroy Jenkins?! MORE THAN ZERO!!! Which, as far as I'm concerned, is justification for exterminating the human race!!"
Kirito=Mary Sue/Gary Stu
Kitty toe is what I heard when watching that show
Power fantasy is one of the best genre of all time
I've actually had that exact idea in my head for a while, RE: players are NPCs and some other character is a PC with actual hacks... though in my version of it this character isn't so much an antagonist or protagonist, but rather an occasionally appearing "WTF" to handle times when there's a lull in game prep or something goes horribly horribly wrong and threatens to upend the game entirely (like a player choosing to do something I never accounted for that would have catastrophic consequences for everyone at the table or something)
Also the abilities of this character, while reality bending and essentially ludicrous, are formalized on paper and have costs and triggers associated with them.
I got the idea from watching deep dives into how From Software games work, where players will use hacks to become temporarily unkillable, but not invulnerable, or to gain infinite poise or duplicate themselves as a hostile enemy, or other really weird things just to test out the AI and numeric calculations of fall damage and such. I thought to myself "what does this player look like from the eyes of an NPC?"
Shout outs to Zullie the Witch and Illusory Wall.
lol all I can think of is a dmpc running at 40 mph just chasing a group of people yelling about some prophecy
I remember this story from a long time ago. Definitely a funny ending.
I love it when players beat a DMPC, even when the DM cheats the death.
Agree with the crabs take on DMPCs. In a star wars game I have the ghost of an ancient Jedi who is powerful beyond belief be with the party. The reason why he doesn't just defeat the BBEG is because the BBEG is the force ghost of his wife. He can only bring himself to grant the party an opening that would allow them to kill a ghost as he doesn't have the will to do it himself. He also acts as a nice encyclopedia for force knowledge since the party is extremely lacking in that department.
Powerful DMPCs are the hardest ones to do correctly, this is a case of it being done right. Bravo 👏🦀
@@CritCrab "It's a hologram.... you wake up surrounded by a stranger liquid in a coffin, it opens and you breath real air for the first time in months, you remember everything now. Golems have been harnessing living beings for their magic while trapped in an ilussion for years and you were part of the resistance but were captured, luckily you were capable of inserting the detonant. A fake person that would overlap the written code when damaged by you with the personality to make that happen as quick as possible... you are free now and inside their base ready to fight the leader of the golems"
I’ve said this on another crit crab video before but I’ll put it here too. The best way to make a Dmpc is to make them the bad guy. As long as you have a little self awareness it works wonders. Your bad guy can be op, close to the players often, gets to monologue whenever they want, and you can still make them feel special. You just have to remember at the end it’s still your player’s story and give them agency
Dammit, Critcrab. Now I want to create a campaign with an insufferable DMPC character that the party is supposed to turn against. And have a dramatic reveal that they are actually NPC's in some video games who became sentient. But it's going to be really hard to balance making the DMPC insufferable enough that the players hate him, but not too much so the players quit the campaign. This is going to take a lot of work. And I blame you for giving me the idea. You monster.
I'm playing a game right now where one of the characters "Roland the Guardsman" showed up just to help the PC's with a hard encounter, but the party leader got the idea to bribe him to come along for the full ride.
The thing is, the GM played Roland as a total coward, who nonetheless faces his fear alongside the great adventurers. He rolls almost everything ad disadvantage and yet... Roland has still come in clutch multiple times. He's a party favorite, and everyone loves him to the point that stealing furniture from the bad guys to fill Roland's ramshackle apartment was a fun point of interest for the party.
This was another fun story, but please keep making positive ones. I loved the last video, and I want to hear more stories about awesome moments at wholesome tables.
I had a very powerful npc as part of my rp universe, but her number one rule is that she was to be a mentor, and her job was to help build the players and encourage them accomplish their goals
ok... the twist the king gave at the end... now THAT is a great idea for a game. Hell, it could even switch over to another system at the end of the first, like shadow runners or something.
I think xenk from honor among thieves is a good example of what to do for a dmpc. he doesn't butt in to take control of the plot; he's there to help get the party through the otherwise unforgiving underdark, and then promptly leaves to go take care of other matters.
I made Hercules an NPC for a Greek mythology game. Naturally, he could beat the entire party single-handedly, but when it came time for them to face the big boss monster---Cerberus---Hercules was too busy wrestling with the Titans escaping from Tartarus. So the PCs had to beat Cerberus without help.
I'm honestly depressed we couldn't see the players' immediate reactions live. I can't imagine not absolutely chewing the DM a new one for pulling something like this, I'd be so damn mad, lol
My guy I only discovered your channel last week and have gone through 90% of your videos already it’s been amazing. Stoked to see a new vid after getting caught up.
I’m sorry but the players just running away from a monologuing NPC is hilarious… and then the NPC keeping up ON FOOT is even funnier
I’m trying to run a campaign with a lot of regular npcs and I’m trying so hard to balance them. This did make me feel better in showing me what NOT to do.
Best DMPC I've ever seen was in an SWRPG game. The DM made a little mechanic/engineer who would spend downtime beefing up our weapons and equipment. He would join us in combat and was more of a wildcard than an asset, which made battles fun and unpredictable.
having a npc save the party needs to have a reason. Maybe showing he has unusual powers and that being a plotrelevant clue
Hearing Rezmir mentioned so much really threw me for a loop as I'm currently DMing Tyranny of Dragons and Rezmir was the main arc villain for the first half of the story, the players ended up liking the character so much that I rewrote their death to be ambiguous and had them reemerge as a surprise boss towards the end of the second half of the story, never had a player group actually cheer for a villain to turn up.
The mental image of a dragonborn chasing after the party on foot at 50 miles per hour yapping about his backstory is both terrifying and absolutely hilarious. If these DM were the least bit self aware they would be great at parody campaigns.
I would've respected the DM a lot more if he described, as the party rode away, he continued his monologue as his voice slowly became more distant, eventually disappearing.
Him running with the party and continuing his monologue is fkn hilarious
For those confused "GM" means "Gaming master" and it's a different way to say DM which means "Dungeon Master"! Pin this please!
I like General Manager of the NPCs.
@@leolandleo Lmao! That also works too...
I’ve used the “he wasn’t real” thing exactly once. But that was when the enemy was an accomplished artificer, the players were aware of this, and I intended him to be a recurring villain.
The players were captured and went through a SAW like dungeon. It was a wild time!
When they said they started attacking the dragonborn I imagined it like that one Golden Wind scene where the gang beats up some random dude thinking he's an enemy
I've only ever run a DMPC twice. The first time was a party full of first time players, so I played an old, blind Harengon to advise them. The second time was an orphaned child the party adopted, and he wanted to learn how to be strong from the party. (They don't know he's gonna die soon)
I feel like a character like reznir could be interesting if he was secretly his father's spy. Whyd he randomly declare he'd defeat his father? A bad attempt to through the party off his scent. Why does he keep showing up in quests? His stalking the party. He'd be the BBEG's, uh, dragon, I guess, and the party would fight him as a boss towards the end of the campaign
Honestly, Reznir sounded like he could be that funny reoccurring character that only shows up to be comedic relief. Long monologues to annoy the players, but never used to advance anything. Like a solo team rocket type deal.
DM is a special person, if he could he probably run after people fleeing him on horseback to get away from his chatter and probably does not have a clue as to why everyone avoids him.
The chasing the party down to monologue thing takes me back to my own experience with a DMPC...
It was a modern day zombie apocalypse Dnd game (yeah it was already looking bad), the party started out in a shack in the woods in the middle of a storm, me and a friend start to play some instruments to pass the time (I was a bard) when suddenly we are attacked by zombies, which apparently heard us through the walls, forest and thunder, but whatever its a zombie apocalypse. We are fighting them off ok but more keep coming in, when suddenly, a majestic elven ranger comes charging in yelling a battle cry and starts killing zombies left and right, following after them is a group of their allies.
So I immediately think and communicate a few things to the party, one, they are making noise and are going to attract more zombies, two, 90% of people in zombie apocalypses are bandits who are going to either steal everything you own and kill you or enslave you. So we all decide to run, offloading the zombie problem onto them, we all run into the woods and split up, trying to hide as best we can. The Elf and friends immediately give chase, ignoring the zombie threat, and start knocking people out and capturing them. Our suspicions confirmed, we all freak and leg it. After a few strange checks (for example, one person had to roll acrobatics while running, they failed, fell over and was immediately captured) I was the only one left, I sprint out of the forest using every action I have to dash, the elf and their allies cant keep up. DM starts asking me to make con saves, I pass them, the elf starts firing arrows at me, immediately I switch to using my action to dodge while I run, after about 5 attacks they finally hit me, sending a arrow straight through my leg laced with some form of knock out poison.
That's were we ended the session with all our characters knocked out and captured. After the session we talked about the mad dash, and I described how I could take two levels in rogue to run even faster with cunning action next time as a joke.
Next session comes along, turns out the elf ranger was just trying to help us and guide us to his survivor camp, at which point my character points to the arrow shaped hole through their leg. To add salt to the wound, this ranger now has mysteriously gained two levels in rogue by the DM's own admission.
The campaign died two sessions after when the DM railroaded us to a obviously haunted town, which we all decided to ignore as hard as possible but no matter which way we walked we would be sent back via magic mist. When we were finally forcefully dragged to the haunted building at its core, me and one player sat outside and chucked cantrips at the building knowing that nothing was going to happen but refusing to go into the building out of principle at this point. The only other player went in, and was almost immediately killed by a homebrewed boss, the DM teleported me into the room, at which point I almost immediately killed it with a mix of kiting and a well placed concentration spell. A day or two later, we all expressed how we now have some "scheduling" issues and can no longer make it to the sessions.
TLDR: DMPC chases down, attacks and knocks out an entire party of strangers, including shooting an arrow through someone's leg because they really want to help them, and show their cool survivor base.
Party of NPCs rebelling against a player character in a fantasy videogame sounds like a cool campaign plot ngl.
Always have a spellcaster that knows silence and counterspell. So he can shut up the monologue and counterspell the counterspell.
This is why I only ever play healers or supports if I'm DMing, and only if no-one wants to be one.
As you were describing the end, I had to pause like '.. How did CritCrab find out about the plot of one of the games I'm in??' Legit, that's the whole thing about 'Sealed Hope' our campaign. The Player lost against the BBEG, who is becoming a system wide virus, a mod that's gone out of control. Our characters are npcs who are gaining sentience and becoming the only thing that can now stop the BBEG. It's.. basicly ReBoot but in a high-fantasy setting.
As a DM for around 5 years now and 7 overall as a dnd enjoyer, I have learned that NPC’s can easily be made annoying as heck to the party. For the few games I have been in, NPC’s have been my name in other games but I am happy to know that I’ve managed to not go that route. The most annoying of them all being a level 20 wizard that had no interest in stopping the BBEG, in fact, didn’t think they existed. But when I asked for them to remove my cursed sword, the sword attacked them and they charged me double despite our deal. Unfortunately due to my characters hot headed trait he got upset and threatened the shop keep, but then promptly got hit with a disintegrate spell and almost got one shotted. He robbed all my coinage and left me absolutely nothing besides my non magic weapons, clothes and the only magic item he couldn’t take from me being the sword. Due to my situation I had to ask my party for help which to my surprise, the party didn’t. I had to sleep on a church floor for a night while the others spent their night in the tavern enjoying their time. Over the course of the rest of the game that NPC reoccurred often and at the most annoying times making it almost personal rather than dnd strictly. I understand annoying character for plot devices or to give a short term rival, but please don’t just make it feel like an anger outlet.
In a campaign I’m running over the summer this year I have two acting armies that the party can choose whose side they are on. On one side we have monster slayers who are waging war against the tiefling tribe known as Volfgang because they are unholy abominations of hell. While on the side of the Volfgang the tiefling leader lost his son and started this war only then despite numerous attempts to destroy him and his village. The party can pick a side and numerous missions can happen to them and simply the NPC on both sides act as quest givers and only join into the fight rarely where it seems appropriate. In the final battle a number of things can happen, betrayal, success in destroying one side or the other, failure or retreating and letting the NPC’s do it them selves for whatever reason. The party acts as the edge either team is looking for to stop the opposition.
I hope you dont mind me casually stealing the whole players are npcs rebelling in a videogame plot because im going to 100% use it
I'd heard the story of Rezmir before but this take about video game mods is a fresh and hilarious new take on the story.
should've straight up asked the DM what rezmir's movement speed is when he said he can keep up with horses
I just started (13 hours ago) DMing a curse of strahd campaign for people stuck in a rut of classic gameplay ( dungeon crawl and combat only) this might be the answer to getting them to think outside the box
The party went full Game of Thrones 'For the Watch' and stabbed Rezmir and I love it.
I feel like this kind of thing could work if he dies to something small and weak as like a joke. Giga powerful NPC gets killed by something like a rat.
As a someone trained in Irish history and a lover of Irish folklore and mythology. Your sponsor is right up my alley
Super strong NPC who has an obvious weakness like bad will power, who needs protection in case he’s dominated. Also makes a new “ boss fight” trying to stop scary DMPC from wiping the party or being taken from the party.
Another great video King crab!! And I hope that despite not streaming yesterday, you're doing okay :)
The ending is straight up just "I shoot a super-mega-death beam at you!"
*"Nuh uh, I dodge!"*
The idea of a villain campaign where the protagonist is wondering around around and is the bbeg actually sounds interesting... definitely not stealing that
Seriously, the DM coul´ve saved it with "Then why don´t you finally kill Rezmir? I´ve been waiting for that for 10 sessions now!"
you just gave me an campaign idea, thank you
Also. I can almost guarantee you that DM just snatched the main villain of Horde of the Dragon Queen, and made her a male dragonborn, instead of a female half-dragon.
The ending is so laughable I almost tore my stomach. It is SO good and yet so sad.
One of my favorite comments about dmpcs was "If they're a 'good' dmpc, that means that they're an npc."
I’m currently running a curse of strahd campaign with ireena as an NPC Paladin. She has a healthy amount of benefits a normal devotion Paladin gets but I don’t control her in combat. The player who has the closest initiative count does, essentially giving that player two turns per combat and the rotation is pretty good so far and my players can choose if they want to control her or not because there’s always at least two who are willing
If Rezmir's not on screen, everyone should be asking "where's Rezmir?"
i have 1 who could be seen as a dmpc. he is an information broker who shares the goal of the party, but likes to stay in the shadows and helps the party with intel that he gathers while they go off on their adventure. he only once fought. and that was off screen as he held off some underlings so the party could get a shot at their captain.
Okay but the idea of a campaign where you purposely piss the players off with a Mary sue dmpc only for the players to rebel, kill the character and NOW the plot of them being in a video game world having to kill this clearly modded protagonist character is BRILLIANT