No, no, the world needs to reflect the bleak struggles of life back onto the players. Nothing good ever happens in reality, and so fantasy should be the same. So the next time you think you are the hero, remember, you suck, and you always will. This ad is brought to you by the Guild of Emo DMs.
You can align with faction A or faction B, either one you pick, you are a terrible person, haha I'm so deep. At least in WH40k, they make it awesome to suck no matter what you choose
@@jrytacct a regular game would be understandable, since you're also hanging with friends. But PAYING to play that shit? Nah man, I'd be outta there after two shitty sessions.
Story 1 Yeah, to be immediately killed off for… realizing the mystery early, and then left to twiddle your thumbs? Thank god this was a one shot. You can leave this terrible DM behind and forget his existence just like he did you
If a DM OOC tells you that the mission is going to be a complete failure if you bring your weapons and armor, Then TPK's you for not bringing your weapons and armor with another OOC "well this was all a trap I made up all along." Leave that table. If you can't trust your GM to not screw you over, then you'll never have a good time engaging with the story.
I feel the Dm who kept making the party fail needs to remember there’s a different story between wining d&d and succeeding at d&d. You shouldn’t try to win d&d but you need to succeed at some point otherwise like the OP said it’s not fun if you never accomplish anything
Ehhhh? I disagree strongly with that, having trap encounters capable of wiping the party aren't inherently a bad thing, especially in the kind of game OP described, and it kinda sounds like it was telegraphed pretty strongly. I mean, a group of pacifists who require you to not bring armor or weapons in a world like that just sounds like "Come to my tea party in the middle of this minefield! Ah, never mind the razor wire, we have crumpets!" I mean, that's a red flag so gigantic that it seems pretty fair to say it's not the DM's fault the players fell for it
The second story is a dm who’s having a lot of fun at the expense of her players. Definitely not a thing I would do if my PCs are PAYING me to run the campaign. What a boob.
Sorry DM in second story, but not everyone is into a sysiphian struggle of playing in a world where everyone sucks and you are a terrible person no matter what you decide. I mean, it sounds like an amazing concept for a dark/evil campaign, and if DM said that that was what they were running at session 0, then I think it would have been a different story
2nd story: While a story like that could work, it needs more honesty and transparency between the DM and players, and a level-focused game like d&d is not the right system for the job. Also in a paid game the player's enjoyment should outweigh what the DM wants to do. Last story: DMs need to learn to put their foots (feet?) down with players like this. It's the only way to stop this nonsense that doesn't involve someone leaving.
The second story sounds like the DM was attempting an Undertale kind of campaign, probably with a similar twist regarding the EXP points. Could work if the players agree to it but yes, absolutely a paid DM should put player enjoyment choice above their own desires.
If you PAID DM refuses to give you a chance to level up, and keeps trapping you, and rug-pulling you, and tricking you, and making your character's life more tragic than it needs to be, and ARGUES with you that "It makes for great role-play," it's time to say, "Well, it makes for LOUSY customer service, and I won't be paying you, anymore." THEN leave the table. Just leaving is not enough. You need to teach the PAID DM that they are providing a service to paying customers, and if they continuously ignore the customers' desires, and lie, cheat, and steal from the customers, just so that the DM CAN ENJOY THEIR MISERY, they are going to go right out of business.
The xp for killing thing... 1. That's the reasoning behind cannibalism. 2. UnderTale handled it well, by making a point of punishing the player (explicitly the player, not the character) for it. It also sets up the stakes immediately, with an NPC representing kindness and mercy who helps you and another who represents cruelty who lies to you.
We ALL saw what you did at the end of the title story and we all gave you the same unamused stare at how bad it was. Even I, who usually goes for the low hanging jokes, would not stoop THAT low. lol
I'll say this: I like the idea of a gritty game, one that's difficult to advance simply because the world is fucked up. I legit created a level-three rogue once who started with absolutely nothing and woke up in a cell. All the guards were half-orcs or similarly beefy characters wearing full-plate armor and carrying halberds or the like. So, I couldn't just rush everything. I had to think my way around the prison to escape it. I actually did pretty well, though I was eventually surprised by a guard and murdered to death because the dice gods were bored. I was picking up just barely what I needed to survive - a bit of food stored here, some of which might have been moldy; a quiet room out of the way over in this corner of this level where I might rest for a few hours if I could hide behind these barrels; et cetera. It was a bit of a slow crawl, and the odds of me actually escaping were low, but there was at least a CHANCE. If you have zero chance at all, why the fuck play?
I do so luv Alice, she's such a tabby baby. The last story was interesting - but as our wise Doge said - this one was a DM problem not a Player problem - as the DM should have said no if switching characters was going to be an issue. It was an intriguing concept - and if planned ahead of time with the DM in sync with the player - can be done - but a fresh DM shouldn't do this. Sometimes a DM has to say no to players (well you say it alot depending on the group).
It likely was the sunk cost that kept op there initially, but that little girl no weapons trap was the absolute last straw for them. Heroes failing in their quests CAN be fun when everyone fails ON THEIR OWN, NOT WHEN THEY WERE SET UP FOR FAILURE. This DM SET UP THE GROUP TO FAIL FROM THE BEGINNING. They didn't make any mistakes, they didn't fight, they didn't break a mcguffin by accident, the only thing they did was survive their bullshit until they pulled their Trump Card to finally euthanize their characters.
Everything the DM did was meant to get the party killed. That bullshit about morality in the beginning was a lie. Killing NPCs for exp was pure bait. If they even TRIED to murder hobo at such a low level they would have likely been floored by the hobos.
I mean in that case it kinda just sounds like an obvious trap I think. Considering what OP says about the tone of the rest of the game, I think the detail about being told to leave behind armor and weapons sounds like the most obvious red flag for this being a trap that one could possibly ask for. I'm kinda reminded of that SAO Abridged episode where the guy gets tricked into going into a "peace talk" in a dungeon unarmed and then is shocked to find out it was a trap
@@whensomethingcriesagain that was funny. Not sure if the OP had some vain hope that the DM had thrown them a bone or was in the "XP is XP" mode with blinders on.
That second story is a disgrace to curse of Strahd and DMing in general. I was pissed that op didn’t quit sooner, only a sick minded individual would come up with something so anti-fun
The story about absorbing souls to gain exp, sounds like it has potential. That sounds less like a horror story, and more of a "wrong player, wrong table" scenario. Like, a low-level campaign where your strength comes from resources and allies sounds refreshing. But I do agree, you can't keep punishing or limiting player choice in such a setup. If their progression is measured in the allies they make, then let them gain meaningful allies they care about.
I mean, it sounds like a good premise for running an evil campaign. But if players want to play a heroic tale, then a setting like this will elseverely hamstring that
So honest question about paid DMs. Obviously not the first time I've heard of a paid DM doing something shitty but don't they have someone they report to? Or someone supervising the whole operation in case of circumstances like this?
Yeah... I've seen fictional worlds (non-video game ones) working on that kind of XP system, and some have resulted in popular entertainment, so I can at least understand a DM wanting to try one out. The thing is, that works for an MMO because you have endless spawns of monsters to kill for experience, so civilization and the ability to work together have a chance to win out. Without that, and with the usual RPG concept that power does more when you concentrate it, murderhobos always end up being the ones in power. There's nothing necessarily wrong with a campaign in which the PCs won't gain levels - there's networking, commerce, and a lot of ways to slowly gain agency over the world and make effective changes in it - but the elephant in the room with this XP system is it's impossible to not be a murderhobo yet not be at the mercy of every NPC murderhobo. This is simply a game world which is a huge beach in which you can either kick over sandcastles or build your own sandcastle knowing it'll get kicked over. If you don't like kicking sandcastles, you don't want to go there. A paid DM who makes a game that every single player has stated ahead of time isn't one they'll enjoy playing shouldn't expect to have a profitable career.
As terrible sounding as the DM in the second story was.. They set up a setting where EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GET STRONGER FROM KILLING PEOPLE and then someone asked you to go somewhere out of sight WITHOUT WEAPONS AND ARMOR. Come on, dude.. That is such a obvious trap.
I am willing to agree. But I also read that part as the warning coming from the GM and not an actual character with any chance to sense motive. my larger issue is that they set this up despite the players wish for a campaign that isnt murderhobo. Or rather actively punishes them for not being murderhobos.
First Story even if it a one shot. Dear god that DM screams power tripping and I bet can't stand the idea of thinking outside the box. 2nd story. Sounds like shit planning by the DM who very emo.
Story #1 - Bummer. DM handled this about as badly as you possibly could. Story #2 - Whatever the Party did, they were screwed regardless. Not what I play RPGs for. Certainly not what I would even think of paying for. Story #3 - Selecting a DM via a job Interview process is an interesting idea. Not how I'd roll, and it sounds very time-consuming besides. Story #4 - Positive outcomes, good.
The underworld soul sucking game would be better suited to a game that doesn’t assume you’re going to level up regularly. Something like mutants and masterminds or something like that. Not leveling in dnd feels like shit after a while
Story 2 sounds really fun, but honestly the Dm needed to say exactly what kind of NPCs and tone the campaign would be. Even still, OP sounded a lot like "I just eant generic black and white shit, what you mean npcs in hell lie to me :(".
Story 2 just sounds like a mismatch between DM and party. To me, everything described about the DM's game sounds really really cool, as a player who loves being forced to make hard choices and make the best of a bad situation where there's no right answers. So I and a lot of my friends would take to this game like fish to water, and it seems like the problem isn't that the campaign is bad or anything, it just didn't mesh with the player(s) and their expectations/wants. That kind of thing just happens in D&D, and being able to recognize when to just bow out and find a game better suited to your style is an invaluable skill to have as a player. In the immortal words of u/Ramtide, "I suppose he thought we were going to play Happy Go Lucky Hero Adventure Time, not Doom and Gloom Edgemax Deathgrind"
Wait... player think they know who the murderer is and tail them *alone* then complain when they're killed? The xp for kills as a mechanical wya to show the world encouraging evil is actually pretty clever. The GM should just have had this on TOP of regular XP, not as the main source. Tragic stories CAN be fun, but they're not for everyone. Not for OP, not for me. Also paid GMing is nothing but a shameless scam justified by a fallacy. . "But GM need to prepare and put in work". No. GM's are just players with a different role. In addition a GM can't run a game without players, so by the same logic, players should be paid too. Interviewing a GM isn't a bad thing. Lots of GMs interview their players... but the truth is, GMs should be interviewed too. Not all players are right for all GMs, and not all GMs are right for all players. That one did sound a bit strange, though. Broke up GM is just a creep. Ugh. I diagnose 20 Characters Guy with Compuslive Character Creation.
Story 2
Ah yes, the world of “Too bleak, stopped caring”.
DM needs to make the world a place the players WANT to play in.
No, no, the world needs to reflect the bleak struggles of life back onto the players. Nothing good ever happens in reality, and so fantasy should be the same. So the next time you think you are the hero, remember, you suck, and you always will.
This ad is brought to you by the Guild of Emo DMs.
You can align with faction A or faction B, either one you pick, you are a terrible person, haha I'm so deep. At least in WH40k, they make it awesome to suck no matter what you choose
Sounds like the DM was like "imma put Dark Souls and Undertale together" without realizing why that is an absolutely abysmal idea.
Exactly! Why the hell did he stick around as long as he did? A couple sessions, tops, and I'd have been gone.
@@jrytacct a regular game would be understandable, since you're also hanging with friends. But PAYING to play that shit? Nah man, I'd be outta there after two shitty sessions.
Story 1
Yeah, to be immediately killed off for… realizing the mystery early, and then left to twiddle your thumbs?
Thank god this was a one shot. You can leave this terrible DM behind and forget his existence just like he did you
If a DM OOC tells you that the mission is going to be a complete failure if you bring your weapons and armor, Then TPK's you for not bringing your weapons and armor with another OOC "well this was all a trap I made up all along." Leave that table. If you can't trust your GM to not screw you over, then you'll never have a good time engaging with the story.
She's not running a game, she's writing her crappy emo fanfic and the players are her unwitting audience.
I feel the Dm who kept making the party fail needs to remember there’s a different story between wining d&d and succeeding at d&d. You shouldn’t try to win d&d but you need to succeed at some point otherwise like the OP said it’s not fun if you never accomplish anything
"This encounter has TPK'd some groups I've run it for" is absolutely the sign of a shitty DM.
Ehhhh? I disagree strongly with that, having trap encounters capable of wiping the party aren't inherently a bad thing, especially in the kind of game OP described, and it kinda sounds like it was telegraphed pretty strongly. I mean, a group of pacifists who require you to not bring armor or weapons in a world like that just sounds like "Come to my tea party in the middle of this minefield! Ah, never mind the razor wire, we have crumpets!" I mean, that's a red flag so gigantic that it seems pretty fair to say it's not the DM's fault the players fell for it
@@whensomethingcriesagain running the same shitty encounter for multiple groups is quite pathetic.
@@mikeharris6429 As if to imply that DMs can't run the same homebrew games/encounters more than once?
More like a DM who enjoys intentionally TPK'ing a party simply for amusement then claiming its the party's fault for "being gullible ".
Second story's DM gets no pay if she's going to be that kind of a DM...
The second story is a dm who’s having a lot of fun at the expense of her players. Definitely not a thing I would do if my PCs are PAYING me to run the campaign. What a boob.
A paid DM who runs the same ideas in every session she's in. I bet she'd have switched to a different trap if the previous group survived it.
Sorry DM in second story, but not everyone is into a sysiphian struggle of playing in a world where everyone sucks and you are a terrible person no matter what you decide. I mean, it sounds like an amazing concept for a dark/evil campaign, and if DM said that that was what they were running at session 0, then I think it would have been a different story
Alice is pure joy, and is looking healthy and happy
2nd story: While a story like that could work, it needs more honesty and transparency between the DM and players, and a level-focused game like d&d is not the right system for the job. Also in a paid game the player's enjoyment should outweigh what the DM wants to do.
Last story: DMs need to learn to put their foots (feet?) down with players like this. It's the only way to stop this nonsense that doesn't involve someone leaving.
The second story sounds like the DM was attempting an Undertale kind of campaign, probably with a similar twist regarding the EXP points. Could work if the players agree to it but yes, absolutely a paid DM should put player enjoyment choice above their own desires.
I think the only thing worse than how long the player in story 2 stuck with the campaign was that they were PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE!
I get that breakups are hard and you need to take out your stress somehow, but making your other players suffer is not a healthy way to calm down.
If you PAID DM refuses to give you a chance to level up, and keeps trapping you, and rug-pulling you, and tricking you, and making your character's life more tragic than it needs to be, and ARGUES with you that "It makes for great role-play," it's time to say, "Well, it makes for LOUSY customer service, and I won't be paying you, anymore."
THEN leave the table.
Just leaving is not enough. You need to teach the PAID DM that they are providing a service to paying customers, and if they continuously ignore the customers' desires, and lie, cheat, and steal from the customers, just so that the DM CAN ENJOY THEIR MISERY, they are going to go right out of business.
5:56 It sounds a lot like the whole "you won't get any money; you'll be paid in 'exposure'" spiel.
Alice knows how to make my day.
The xp for killing thing... 1. That's the reasoning behind cannibalism. 2. UnderTale handled it well, by making a point of punishing the player (explicitly the player, not the character) for it. It also sets up the stakes immediately, with an NPC representing kindness and mercy who helps you and another who represents cruelty who lies to you.
ALICE IS ADORABLE! Also, I like your videos! Even though I don't think I could play DnD, I still like listening to this kind of content.
We ALL saw what you did at the end of the title story and we all gave you the same unamused stare at how bad it was. Even I, who usually goes for the low hanging jokes, would not stoop THAT low. lol
People really need to just leave these groups when it starts going south with no signs of improvement.
Sometimes games get rocky before they improve, so I don't blame them for not leaving at the first red flag.
That’s just a telltale sign of the story being fake in general
@@vallahdsacretor4839 still most here have at least 3 and no signs to leave. They have a "i can change him/her" mindset at that point
I'll say this: I like the idea of a gritty game, one that's difficult to advance simply because the world is fucked up. I legit created a level-three rogue once who started with absolutely nothing and woke up in a cell. All the guards were half-orcs or similarly beefy characters wearing full-plate armor and carrying halberds or the like. So, I couldn't just rush everything. I had to think my way around the prison to escape it. I actually did pretty well, though I was eventually surprised by a guard and murdered to death because the dice gods were bored. I was picking up just barely what I needed to survive - a bit of food stored here, some of which might have been moldy; a quiet room out of the way over in this corner of this level where I might rest for a few hours if I could hide behind these barrels; et cetera. It was a bit of a slow crawl, and the odds of me actually escaping were low, but there was at least a CHANCE. If you have zero chance at all, why the fuck play?
I do so luv Alice, she's such a tabby baby.
The last story was interesting - but as our wise Doge said - this one was a DM problem not a Player problem - as the DM should have said no if switching characters was going to be an issue.
It was an intriguing concept - and if planned ahead of time with the DM in sync with the player - can be done - but a fresh DM shouldn't do this. Sometimes a DM has to say no to players (well you say it alot depending on the group).
It likely was the sunk cost that kept op there initially, but that little girl no weapons trap was the absolute last straw for them. Heroes failing in their quests CAN be fun when everyone fails ON THEIR OWN, NOT WHEN THEY WERE SET UP FOR FAILURE. This DM SET UP THE GROUP TO FAIL FROM THE BEGINNING. They didn't make any mistakes, they didn't fight, they didn't break a mcguffin by accident, the only thing they did was survive their bullshit until they pulled their Trump Card to finally euthanize their characters.
Everything the DM did was meant to get the party killed. That bullshit about morality in the beginning was a lie. Killing NPCs for exp was pure bait. If they even TRIED to murder hobo at such a low level they would have likely been floored by the hobos.
I mean in that case it kinda just sounds like an obvious trap I think. Considering what OP says about the tone of the rest of the game, I think the detail about being told to leave behind armor and weapons sounds like the most obvious red flag for this being a trap that one could possibly ask for. I'm kinda reminded of that SAO Abridged episode where the guy gets tricked into going into a "peace talk" in a dungeon unarmed and then is shocked to find out it was a trap
@@whensomethingcriesagain that was funny. Not sure if the OP had some vain hope that the DM had thrown them a bone or was in the "XP is XP" mode with blinders on.
@@AmaryInkawult "Hey, come to my tea party in the middle of this minefield! Ah, don't mind the razor wire, we have crumpets!"
That second story is a disgrace to curse of Strahd and DMing in general. I was pissed that op didn’t quit sooner, only a sick minded individual would come up with something so anti-fun
I don't fight windmiles nice don quixote reference there
The story about absorbing souls to gain exp, sounds like it has potential. That sounds less like a horror story, and more of a "wrong player, wrong table" scenario. Like, a low-level campaign where your strength comes from resources and allies sounds refreshing. But I do agree, you can't keep punishing or limiting player choice in such a setup. If their progression is measured in the allies they make, then let them gain meaningful allies they care about.
I mean, it sounds like a good premise for running an evil campaign. But if players want to play a heroic tale, then a setting like this will elseverely hamstring that
Ahh love kitty time, my dog also does sense he thinks it means playtime
So honest question about paid DMs. Obviously not the first time I've heard of a paid DM doing something shitty but don't they have someone they report to? Or someone supervising the whole operation in case of circumstances like this?
No, paid GMs are just individuals who are running a game and decided to charge money for it. No organization required.
Yeah... I've seen fictional worlds (non-video game ones) working on that kind of XP system, and some have resulted in popular entertainment, so I can at least understand a DM wanting to try one out. The thing is, that works for an MMO because you have endless spawns of monsters to kill for experience, so civilization and the ability to work together have a chance to win out. Without that, and with the usual RPG concept that power does more when you concentrate it, murderhobos always end up being the ones in power. There's nothing necessarily wrong with a campaign in which the PCs won't gain levels - there's networking, commerce, and a lot of ways to slowly gain agency over the world and make effective changes in it - but the elephant in the room with this XP system is it's impossible to not be a murderhobo yet not be at the mercy of every NPC murderhobo.
This is simply a game world which is a huge beach in which you can either kick over sandcastles or build your own sandcastle knowing it'll get kicked over. If you don't like kicking sandcastles, you don't want to go there. A paid DM who makes a game that every single player has stated ahead of time isn't one they'll enjoy playing shouldn't expect to have a profitable career.
At the very least, the DMs in the first two stories don't seem like assholes. just..... There's plenty of room for improvement and reading the mood
Why you got the shirt mod Doge? Vann just looks so weird with it. XD
A shittyyyyyy situation . Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! That’s funny 😆. I was wondering when my favorite doggo would make a poop joke.
For the last story, its not a bad idea but the d20 for if the character dies
Oh i really love the Game in the Background i think it perfectly fits for the Videos :)
Oh nice, you're playing FFXII!
As terrible sounding as the DM in the second story was.. They set up a setting where EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GET STRONGER FROM KILLING PEOPLE and then someone asked you to go somewhere out of sight WITHOUT WEAPONS AND ARMOR.
Come on, dude.. That is such a obvious trap.
I am willing to agree. But I also read that part as the warning coming from the GM and not an actual character with any chance to sense motive.
my larger issue is that they set this up despite the players wish for a campaign that isnt murderhobo. Or rather actively punishes them for not being murderhobos.
The penultimat story, I think I see why his GF broke up with him
First Story even if it a one shot. Dear god that DM screams power tripping and I bet can't stand the idea of thinking outside the box.
2nd story. Sounds like shit planning by the DM who very emo.
Story #1 - Bummer. DM handled this about as badly as you possibly could.
Story #2 - Whatever the Party did, they were screwed regardless. Not what I play RPGs for. Certainly not what I would even think of paying for.
Story #3 - Selecting a DM via a job Interview process is an interesting idea. Not how I'd roll, and it sounds very time-consuming besides.
Story #4 - Positive outcomes, good.
Alice guess wut… I did eet
Never pay DMs. Don't normalize it.
Good game choice
for story 2 I wonder exactly how many people posted "WINDMILLS DON'T WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!"
.... Never heard of Don Quixote I take it?
didn't he think one was a dragon? @@RenaDeles
Wie sind die Kork. Plastikverschlüsse sind zwecklos :3
The underworld soul sucking game would be better suited to a game that doesn’t assume you’re going to level up regularly. Something like mutants and masterminds or something like that. Not leveling in dnd feels like shit after a while
Lik, coment, an subscrib! DO EEET!
Bottom text
I agree with op in story two interesting concept. But totally executed written and designed wrong.
Storey one dn was a bad planer.
Damn, these stories today are just classic examples of Dungeons & Douchebags...
For the second story, the idea is fine, but the communication and execution was lacking.
do you have the right timestamps on, doge?
Thanks for the heads up! Not sure how I messed that up. Should be fixed now!
algorithm comment
Story 2 sounds really fun, but honestly the Dm needed to say exactly what kind of NPCs and tone the campaign would be.
Even still, OP sounded a lot like "I just eant generic black and white shit, what you mean npcs in hell lie to me :(".
Story 2 just sounds like a mismatch between DM and party. To me, everything described about the DM's game sounds really really cool, as a player who loves being forced to make hard choices and make the best of a bad situation where there's no right answers. So I and a lot of my friends would take to this game like fish to water, and it seems like the problem isn't that the campaign is bad or anything, it just didn't mesh with the player(s) and their expectations/wants. That kind of thing just happens in D&D, and being able to recognize when to just bow out and find a game better suited to your style is an invaluable skill to have as a player. In the immortal words of u/Ramtide, "I suppose he thought we were going to play Happy Go Lucky Hero Adventure Time, not Doom and Gloom Edgemax Deathgrind"
Wait... player think they know who the murderer is and tail them *alone* then complain when they're killed?
The xp for kills as a mechanical wya to show the world encouraging evil is actually pretty clever. The GM should just have had this on TOP of regular XP, not as the main source.
Tragic stories CAN be fun, but they're not for everyone. Not for OP, not for me.
Also paid GMing is nothing but a shameless scam justified by a fallacy.
. "But GM need to prepare and put in work". No. GM's are just players with a different role. In addition a GM can't run a game without players, so by the same logic, players should be paid too.
Interviewing a GM isn't a bad thing.
Lots of GMs interview their players... but the truth is, GMs should be interviewed too. Not all players are right for all GMs, and not all GMs are right for all players. That one did sound a bit strange, though.
Broke up GM is just a creep. Ugh.
I diagnose 20 Characters Guy with Compuslive Character Creation.
came for the DnD subbed for alice the cat