[LinearPhilosopher]

Our discord now has 10 channels dedicated to roleplaying in our campaign.

I don't even know where to start with everything that's happened. It could fill a novel.

Our party now has a book that if read aloud it causes 6d10 psychic damage. It's called destroying dusk. (we now got the sequel, called breaking dusk)

We also have a few smut books (with pictures!) called elves kiss, succubuses bite and in the wings of an aasimar.


ALLL OF THIS STARTED, because me, as the dm puts it, "the player who is not really into roleplaying" "had the brilliant idea of doing pickup roleplay. Its like street hockey, but you don't have to yell car every 5 minutes." Basically if 2 or more ppl are on, and their characters want to roleplay a thing, they have a text channel to do it in". What followed next, was a flood of RP, you either stay up to date, or you fall hopelessly behind.

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This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 29 February 2020 - 07:47 PM

[LinearPhilosopher]

So lasts nights session got really heated.

Our group lives up to its name (the Chuckle Fucks) but even by this standard.

One of our players thought he would have a character develiopment moment by causing a scene. Said scene involves throwing our only cleric with low health directly at an enemy, nearly killing him and separating him from the group. For RP reason every character runs out of the instant fortress to help him, many of which had levels of exhausting, low health and spent spell slots.

This completely derailed the session as had the DM proceeded with his plan of there being a second wave, half the group would have been tpked and forced to create new character sheets.

And ALLLLLL that RPING over the last few months of everyone putting in HOURS together to create stories together woulda been wasted. Our dm didn't proceed with that for obvious reasons because he enjoys this and our character too much but my god did it create a stink. Add to the fact these chucklefucks were actually trying to trust each other and work together.

DM gave him a talking too, (and given he has paper thin skin, ill refrain from digging to into him as he brings alot of energy and is character is great for comic relief, last session he grappled a troll and started swinging it as an improvised weapon) but jesus fucking christ hes a fucking dumbass. Rp wise a few of the players talked it over and we think we have a plan to how the characters will "patch things up" (it involve a miniature cube of force that can be triggered by the players if DM allows) but jesus christ you don't blindside the DM like that, forcing us to have to improvise what to do and basically ruin the session (were on roll 20 stuff needs to be prepped ahead of time though our dm is lightning fast).

The dm told him he does that kind of stuff the punishment is usually you are forced to make a new character or outright kicked from the table, we didn't want to do this as it is his first time playing DND and he finally really got into RPing and invested in his characters story. But dayum... Hes lucky asf our group is patient.

[Malankazooie]

Neat little news story from my neck of the woods.

Roll For Initiative: How Dungeons & Dragons Helps Castle Rock Teens Cope With Real-Life Stress

[Slow Ben]

I'm just coming here to vent to you all. It will be rambling. It will be partly incoherent. But i'm venting here cause i have to get it out.


I play with 2 of my friends and one of those friends daughter. It was actually her idea to play for the first time. I'll be forever grateful to her for that. 2 of us and her take turns DMing.

She loves DMing. And she is so bad at it. OK, she can write a really good story. Its interesting and compelling. But she is a horrible DM. Its the most railroad campaign you can imagine. If we do anything that isnt exactly what she has plans out she gets flustered and it falls apart. Combat is a joke. Last night the encounter went, literally like this. As your traveling to the next town, oh there's a hill giant in the road, roll for initiative. Wait, what? where? In the road. How far? 30 feet. Ok....... Oh, there another one behind you and another to the side. Its so uninspired and boring. We've had over 10 sessions in this campaign and my character has taken exactly 0 damage.

Skill checks? I guess. Only if it fits the story.

And don't get me started on unbeatable saving throws. A cultist throws some liquid on you, make a Dexterity Saving throw. 28! Sorry no. OK, can you tell me the DC? There isnt one. THen why the fuck am i rolling? Its more fun. No, its really, really not.


I'm just frustrated since this is the first DnD session i've not completely enjoyed. It was still fun because the 3 of us are good at RP. But gods man, just some fucking basic mechanics!



OK, thanks for that. I do feel better.

I'm hoping it was a fluke, cause its not usually this bad.

[Imperial Historian]

That's rough, but unfortunately probably not that uncommon.

DMing and improvising on the spot is a skill that takes awhile to develop, and most new DMs will struggle with. It's always difficult those first sessions.

If you are DMing for her there are a few things you can try to teach by example.

A few things I do in my games which might help:
1. Most times I ask people to roll a dice for a skill check I announce the DC first, and if it is high why- getting into the habit of this helps people learn what reasonable DCs should be, and is a style I prefer
2. I use success failures a lot, and am explicit about this, ie you tried to open the lock but you rolled low, you succeeded in opening the lock but you were very noisy and now people know you are here, this allows story to progress with consequence - might be a useful tool for her if she's worried failures will disrupt her story, but doesn't know how to deal with it, most new Dms struggle with this
3. I discuss combats with people afterwards and specifically ask what people enjoyed most, and say why I did certain things. I try and get my DMs to do this with me too so that constructive feedback can be passed about.
4. With new DMs I try and stay broadly within the lines of what they have planned, and slowly push my way outside the lines to ease them in, this is a tough one though. Giving new DMs permission to say look I didn't expect this can I stop and think about it instead of under pressure can help, but this is something that takes time to learn.
5. I always end my sessions with a what did you enjoy/are looking forward to, round the table (not just on what I did but the players too) . This can help encourage people to focus on things they are good at, helps me figure out how to improve games for my players and has led to useful conversations.

Hang in there, I have bit my tongue through many new DMs sessions, they have all got better!

[Slow Ben]

Imperial Historian, on 11 May 2020 - 07:01 AM, said:

That's rough, but unfortunately probably not that uncommon.

DMing and improvising on the spot is a skill that takes awhile to develop, and most new DMs will struggle with. It's always difficult those first sessions.

If you are DMing for her there are a few things you can try to teach by example.

A few things I do in my games which might help:
1. Most times I ask people to roll a dice for a skill check I announce the DC first, and if it is high why- getting into the habit of this helps people learn what reasonable DCs should be, and is a style I prefer
2. I use success failures a lot, and am explicit about this, ie you tried to open the lock but you rolled low, you succeeded in opening the lock but you were very noisy and now people know you are here, this allows story to progress with consequence - might be a useful tool for her if she's worried failures will disrupt her story, but doesn't know how to deal with it, most new Dms struggle with this
3. I discuss combats with people afterwards and specifically ask what people enjoyed most, and say why I did certain things. I try and get my DMs to do this with me too so that constructive feedback can be passed about.
4. With new DMs I try and stay broadly within the lines of what they have planned, and slowly push my way outside the lines to ease them in, this is a tough one though. Giving new DMs permission to say look I didn't expect this can I stop and think about it instead of under pressure can help, but this is something that takes time to learn.
5. I always end my sessions with a what did you enjoy/are looking forward to, round the table (not just on what I did but the players too) . This can help encourage people to focus on things they are good at, helps me figure out how to improve games for my players and has led to useful conversations.

Hang in there, I have bit my tongue through many new DMs sessions, they have all got better!

That’s the plan. We do have fun, it was just a rough one.


I appreciate the feedback.

[Slow Ben]

Played a 6 hour session tonight with literally no combat. All politics and interacting with NPCs. And it...was..awesome!

My barbarian diplomat had to hold his tongue a few times, but it was worth it.

[Tsundoku]

Barbarian diplomat???

Is that when you hit someone with your open hand instead of your axe?

[Silencer]

Lost my first character to a werewolf encounter and a string of natural 20s (publicly rolled) by our GM last weekend.


One of our party was scouting out behind us because we'd picked something up but weren't sure what it was. Natural 1 on her stealth roll. Spotted, bola'd. Called for help, and our team immediately rushed towards her approximate position. I had Expeditious Retreat so cast that and made excellent time. Found her fighting two werewolves (thankfully she managed to get out of the bola that had hit her or else things might have gone very differently), but as she can fly that left me the only target in reach of the creatures. Flanked pretty quickly, I managed to hold my own for a round or two, did some decent damage thanks to a recently acquired magical weapon, but then the crits started. Went down once, got brought up immediately by the other player. The two other members of our party showed up, but I went down again at the top of the turn order and took free hits due to being unconscious, putting me on 2 failed death saves. My turn next, failed the death save roll.
Party made it out, after brutally taking out their rage on the werewolves (who didn't have much left to go), but no way to revive me.

Honestly I think my GM took it harder than I did, but still sucked to lose a character.

[Abyss]

DM'd a fairly tough campaign once where any character who died came back as an undead version.... Dead NPCs and monsters kept reappearing too. It was a lot of fun. Barbarian zombie tore his own arm off to use as a club. Cleric who got partially digested by a gelatinous cube ended up a skeleton.

[Slow Ben]

Tsundoku, on 11 July 2020 - 08:36 AM, said:

Barbarian diplomat???

Is that when you hit someone with your open hand instead of your axe?

Diplomacy first, RAGE second.

He tries reeeally hard to suppress the chaotic orc side of his heritage. Sometimes works.

This post has been edited by Slow Ben: 12 July 2020 - 03:51 AM

[Silencer]

Abyss, on 12 July 2020 - 03:43 AM, said:

DM'd a fairly tough campaign once where any character who died came back as an undead version.... Dead NPCs and monsters kept reappearing too. It was a lot of fun. Barbarian zombie tore his own arm off to use as a club. Cleric who got partially digested by a gelatinous cube ended up a skeleton.

Yeah, one of my party members pilfered my gold early on. Since we've been out in the wilderness, my character was taking the high road and not mentioning it, saving that for later.
Now she's dead, and I may or may not have joked about her coming back as a revenant to get those coins. XD

[LinearPhilosopher]

Silencer, on 11 July 2020 - 01:50 PM, said:

Lost my first character to a werewolf encounter and a string of natural 20s (publicly rolled) by our GM last weekend.


One of our party was scouting out behind us because we'd picked something up but weren't sure what it was. Natural 1 on her stealth roll. Spotted, bola'd. Called for help, and our team immediately rushed towards her approximate position. I had Expeditious Retreat so cast that and made excellent time. Found her fighting two werewolves (thankfully she managed to get out of the bola that had hit her or else things might have gone very differently), but as she can fly that left me the only target in reach of the creatures. Flanked pretty quickly, I managed to hold my own for a round or two, did some decent damage thanks to a recently acquired magical weapon, but then the crits started. Went down once, got brought up immediately by the other player. The two other members of our party showed up, but I went down again at the top of the turn order and took free hits due to being unconscious, putting me on 2 failed death saves. My turn next, failed the death save roll.
Party made it out, after brutally taking out their rage on the werewolves (who didn't have much left to go), but no way to revive me.

Honestly I think my GM took it harder than I did, but still sucked to lose a character.

Loosing a character sucks man. Also getting critted ouch... no healers in the party i take it?

On my end... I almost got my character killed off the other week and i woulda been fine with it. We were fighting a giant interdimensional clam. One of the party members got hit and failed a check... and go dragged into a pocket dimension. Said characters twin tied a rope to herself and jumped in after her. The latter character, was my dude GFs. After mulling it over in my head im like fuck it... used both my action and move to jump straight into the clam dimension. It almost worked out as my character being a cleric i have access to banishment. So the plan was to just banish people in turn which would send everyone back to the mortal plane. Almost worked too... cept one player got impatient and killed the clam despite everyone else in the party backing off and saying dont hit it.

We were in a rope trick dimension so ima rationalise the DM pulling his punch because of that... But yeah... Theres scenarios where my character ends up dying because of that and... I woulda been happy with it. Sad yes obviously as this is a character i've spent over a hundred hours rping on discord outside of the weekly session, but woulda made a fine end.

In other news... out of some rping a random idea crept into mind... what if i multiclasses my grave cleric into rogue and become an investigator rogue. Was a passing thought but both the other player and my DM REALLY loved the idea... so many rps happening in the future because of that... and it honestly made total sense. We went through all the rogue archetypes and investigator rogue is actually a wisdom based rogue which... as a cleric is a your highest stat.... what started out as a crazy idea... turned into... this is pretty good. Rogues are perfect for a 1-3 lvl dip. We also just hit lvl 11... and this is honestly the last good time to start multiclassing as a cleric since the only thing i get from now on is one spell slot of a higher tier every 2nd level.

Multiclassing as a rogue, you get one extra proficiency, expertise in two skills, thieves cant, lvl 2 cunning action, lvl 3 your archetype. And DM already told me things like spiritual weapon could proc sneak attack... this is gona be pretty good. (Also i recently found out spiritual weapon allows you to get around the fact that you normally can't cast a bonus action spells and a one action spell in the same turn (excluding cantrips) as once its cast, simply using your Bonus action doesnt count as casting a spell.

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 12 July 2020 - 10:09 AM

[Abyss]

Nerd.

[Silencer]

@LP, we've got a Bard and I was a Paladin, but no revivify and sadly all the melee and going down once already, our Bard had burned their spell slots anyway.
And yeah, the crits just kept on coming, haha.

On the other hand, that sounds like a pretty crazy session. Nothing like blindly diving into a portal for a thrill. XD

[LinearPhilosopher]

Silencer, on 13 July 2020 - 01:15 PM, said:

@LP, we've got a Bard and I was a Paladin, but no revivify and sadly all the melee and going down once already, our Bard had burned their spell slots anyway.
And yeah, the crits just kept on coming, haha.

On the other hand, that sounds like a pretty crazy session. Nothing like blindly diving into a portal for a thrill. XD

well... theres the smart thing to do in combat... then theres using combat as an extension of rping and ive been trying to do more of that of late.

Well see what happens in the future...

That being said, i play a grave cleric, i can nullify enemy crits, its pretty dope.

[Malankazooie]

I figured this would happen eventually. So, the rpg game played in game, in the video game Borderlands, which was introduced with the Tiny Tina DLC in Borderlands 2, is now a thing IRL. Not sure how good it will be, I'll have to find reviews, but it looks slick.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 29 September 2020 - 07:37 PM

[Slow Ben]

Headed into the temple to take down Tiamat.

Wish us luck.

[Obdigore]

You wouldn't need luck if you were an all Cleric party named the A-men.

[Tsundoku]

Slow Ben, on 13 December 2020 - 02:56 AM, said:

Headed into the temple to take down Tiamat.

Wish us luck.

Seems like as good an epitaph as any others.